By Mary Lynne Murray
Reprinted from Contra Costa Times, March 13, 2004
“Jean”, a 60 plus-year-old
woman, called for help with her “paper problem”. As
I stepped into her 900 square foot home, papers crunched underfoot.
Progress was slow, but by the end of our appointment, amid junk
mail, mortgage papers, and photos, we uncovered money. Not the
green stuff, but uncashed checks. It would be an uphill battle
to cash in those old checks. Jean was paying dearly for her disorganization.
Uncashed checks are not the only way disorganization costs you
money. There’s the return you don’t make to the store
because the receipt is lost; late fees for not paying bills on
time; lost income from not sending an invoice for money owed to
you; interest not accrued on money sitting around; penalties for
not filing your tax return on time; not getting a promotion at
work.
Disorganization can get expensive. What’s it costing you---health,
relationships, or time? The expense is often overlooked because
it’s stretched out over time, perhaps decades. It takes
an audit of sorts to view these costs in their totality, and face
them head-on.
In Jean’s case, the trappings of clutter were literally
making her sick. Sure, she was no spring chicken anymore, but
disorganization was taking its toll. Dust—you can hardly
see it until you stir it up—was very harmful to Jean’s
breathing. She spent minimal time at home because of this. Another
detriment to health is the stress created by doing things down
to the wire. Does running to just catch the BART train really
use every minute or just add pressure, exacerbating certain health
conditions?
It can cost friendships when you overbook yourself and have to
cancel frequently, or don’t return calls because you can’t
find the phone number—or the phone buried under a pile of
clothes. Forget someone’s birthday enough times and they
feel they are unimportant to you. What about your good word? If
you tell your friend, child, spouse or business associate that
you will handle something—and don’t because your thinking
was cluttered up, you’ve let them down. So it costs you
the regard of others, and they pay the price along with you.
The C.H.A.O.S. (Can’t have anyone over) Syndrome affects
relationships too. When we’re ashamed of how our home looks,
we don’t want to reveal “our dirty laundry”,
so we isolate and get more wrapped up in ourselves. The cost of
not sharing yourself is not making room for the growth and joy
of new experiences.
This is tricky because we confuse busyness with actual productivity.
Sometimes we work too hard, run around too much, and make mistakes
from rushing. Now we spend fix-it time to make it right. Former
ER nurse Diane Sieg calls it “Living Life Like an Emergency”.
Studies say that we spend as much as an hour a day looking for
things. Do the math and that’s almost a month. Factor in
your annual salary (i.e. what is your time worth), and the cost
is astounding.
Most of us would not be too thrilled about having to spend every
Saturday for the rest of our lives “getting organized.”
Yet that is how some people are spending their weekends. Living
life with no maintenance along the way causes the need for drastic
measures.
How often do we say “I don’t have time for ….?”
My family called me on this the other day, when I said I didn’t
have enough time to exercise. Well, how much time does it take?
In my case, it’s under 45 minutes door to door (thank you
Curves). We find time for the things that we value. True, it may
mean putting something else aside for a time, but the trade off
should be worth it.
Jean had no place to sit in her living or dining room. Oh, there
was a sofa and two chairs, but they were covered in clutter. If
she wanted to watch TV, which was in the living room, Jean had
to sit on the steps leading upstairs to her bedroom and peer below.
With the dining table disabled by clutter, she ate on a lone chair
sitting next to the sink. She valued her antiques and art, yet
they were hidden by the clutter. Despite having “nice things”
Jean was surrounded by ugliness in her own home; an environment
in which she had complete control.
It’s time to add up the price you may be paying for disorganization.
Write down every cost you can think of in terms of money, relationships,
health or quality of life. As you face the truth, it may be painful,
but this is good. Without pain, you won’t have reasons to
make changes in your behavior that led to a disorganized life.
But it’s not all pain. The second part is to add up what
you will gain by changing to organized behaviors. What will you
gain in space? How will it feel to have room to breathe in your
home, office or schedule? How will it feel to not go on a massive
search for a hairbrush or a clean cereal bowl every morning? How
will family life be when you are a stronger role model for your
kids? How will it feel to free from internal nagging of “I
gotta get organized”? How will you feel knowing your loved
ones can count on you?
The purpose of adding up the costs is to see on the big screen,
in full color, how much disorganization costs you. Aren’t
you paying too much for a way of living that you have the power
to change?
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