Welcome to my new blog post. I am excited to share with you ideas on organizing your office, time, and life. I would love your response. Let me know your thoughts and if you have any questions, just shoot me an email.
For the next few months, I will share with you some specific paradigms, how some people think and perceive their environments. Then I will define for you the paradigm shifts that they must make to get organized. The professionals say that it takes 21 days to change a thought process or habit; therefore, I am offering 21 paradigms and their shifts. Read one per week every Monday and spend the week pondering that shift. Begin applying the new shift immediately and watch how it affects your time and place.
I have been in the business of assisting corporations, government agencies, non-profit organizations, hospitals, manufacturing, small businesses, individuals, and churches to become better organized since 1982, and I have seen everything. There was the government agent in Washington, D.C., who had two drawers of napkins and the corporate manager in Virginia who had 11 glue sticks. Then there was the pastor in Maryland who had a pile of paper on his desk that was four feet tall. The only way he could work at his desk was to stand up. Finally, there was the brilliant, beautiful congressional worker who had 50 tubes of lipstick and 119 eyeliners. We have too much stuff, and it’s blocking out light and air. As I have traveled across this beautiful country and worked with every conceivable kind of person, I have noticed a pattern, a consistent paradigm, or way of thinking, that permeates the minds and hearts of many of the clients mentioned above. One of the reasons my clients struggle with disorganization is because of the way they think. True, sometimes they struggle because of their lack of training, or they just don’t take the time to organize. Mostly, though, it is how they think that gets them into trouble. When I directly affect their thinking and train them in the art of organizing, they stay organized.
Therefore, the following maxim is true: When you think properly about getting organized, you will become organized. The only prerequisite to getting organized is the willingness to change. Once you are willing to change, the training, the motivation, and the time to do it will flow your way.
It’s our thinking that needs to change, not just our training or our schedule or our children or our habits or our spouses or whatever excuse we have for why we are not organized. When we eliminate old, outdated ways of thinking and change our paradigms (perspectives) about getting organized, we will be well on the road to a new way of looking at ourselves; we will begin the process of organizing, and we will stay organized.
Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts
Nowadays we are hearing so much about paradigms. What are paradigms? Someone once said, “Why, it’s two dimes!” Actually, a paradigm is a perspective or a mindset. It is how you perceive things, or, we might say, it is the grid through which you view your world. Let me give you some paradigms and tell you who said them. Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, said, “I think there is a world market for about five computers.” Thomas Edison said, “The phonograph is not of any commercial value.” All these were paradigms; statements about how these individuals felt or perceived their products. Thank heavens they changed or made a paradigm shift. Can you imagine where we would be today if we had no computers or televisions?
In my seminar, I have before and after slides of clients whom I have worked with. One of these slides shows a client who has on his desk a small sign that says, “This clutter is my bread and butter.” I was able to help him reorganize his office, but I was not able to motivate him to change his thinking, so in a few weeks, his office slipped back into its original chaos. In order to get organized, you must look at how you are thinking. Perhaps it’s not just the fact that you need help with the organizing process or that you have never been trained in the skill of organizing. Perhaps it’s that your perspective needs adjusting; your paradigm needs to change or shift.
In the following blogs, I deal with our thinking. This is not just a blog about reorganizing our stuff; it’s a blog on reorganizing our perspectives. Once the thinking has been transformed, the reorganizing process is a snap. As one of my colleagues says, it’s organizing from the inside out. If you change your paradigm, then your home, office, kids, time, and life will forever be ordered, and you will become a more productive person. You will be more productive in work, at play, at home, and in your relationships.
Becoming organized has wonderful benefits. It brings a sense of stability and peace. Where there is order, there is peace, and real order liberates rather than confines (an actual paradigm). Becoming organized has set many of my clients free. It will set you free, too.
Watch next week for Paradigm #1- I Don’t Have Time to Organize!
Sue McMillin
Professional Organizer and Trainer
WithTimeToSpare.com
719-352-5535