Hi, my name is Lisa and I’m an information junkie.
I have an insatiable appetite for learning and devouring information from a broad range of topics. What in the heck was I supposed to do with all the paper piling up in my home office?
In August I reached a point of no return. I could not move forward in my business or around the boxes and papers piled up all over my office. I was stuck mentally and physically! Looking around my office brought on complete overwhelm and I knew it was keeping me from being able to move ahead or succeed. I felt like I was just spinning my wheels, not getting much done and feeling completely exhausted day after day. The toughest part is that as a home based business I am completely responsible for my own mess, no scapegoats to blame.
Over the years I made attempts to create a filing system so that everything had a place, but it always ended up being too complicated to keep things put away or find what I needed. Then I remembered a show I saw a few years back called Neat TV with Hellen Buttigieg. I have been inspired by organizing shows and books over the years, but never to the degree that I actually got down to the root of my organizing “issues”. I was trying to make my brain fit into other people’s systems instead of figuring out how my own brain likes to organize things and work with my natural tendencies instead of against them. I feel like I have dueling personalities most of the time. There is the very logical, analytical and organized persona along with free spirited, disorganized, hate feeling restricted in any way persona. They seem to be in constant battle and my office is proof of the ongoing war.
My intention became: “I am making room for success and abundance in my life.” And after a few days my brain found a solution. I pulled out old taped segments of Neat TV for inspiration (glad those had never been purged) and voila, I could walk around my office. What I love about Hellen Buttigieg’s approach to organizing is that she looks at it from an individual perspective. I noticed that the segments I taped and kept were most inspirational to me because all of those people were visual, like me, and liked to see everything or they forgot about it. Must be why the traditional ways to ‘get organized’ just don’t work for me! I integrated a ton of tips from her website like storing things in binders instead of files, being able to keep important files out but contained, and using a label maker.
The other piece to the puzzle was what to do with all the paper!! I purged quite a bit of it, but I always fell short before in figuring out what to do with the things I wanted or needed to keep. David Allen has a great process in “Getting Things Done” and my big take away was to create one A-Z filing system where everything is filed alphabetically in ONE place. Simple, Do-able and GENIUS!! I swear, I think overcomplicating tasks might be a procrastination technique of mine. While I still have a long way to go for complete office organization, the area of my office I see every day is visually clear enough for me to focus again.
If I’d known I was going to blog about this, before and after photos would have been great. Oh well, I’ll post some updates from other areas currently hidden behind closed doors as I get to them. I must say, from the first day I spent filing and I have felt more focused and productive than I have for quite some time. I did not realize the toll the disorganization was taking. I’ve now been able to tie up so many loose ends I’m almost scaring myself. J I’m chalking this up as a big success!