Judith Kolberg, FileHeadsThe 2013 “Ask the Expert” interviews continue with a dynamic and inspiring group of people! Last month, organizer and coach, Sue West, talked with us about fresh starts. This month, I’m excited to have with us the extraordinary pioneer and innovator in chronic disorganization and the organizing industry, Judith Kolberg, to share her thoughts about change.

Judith and I met in 1995 at the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) conference in Dallas. She was running a panel called “Is This Your Client?” It was the first time I heard anyone talk about chronic disorganization, and immediately identified that most of my clients had similar challenges. Since then Judith and I have engaged in many wonderful conversations about organizing, publishing, family, and even cowboy boots. I’ve always admired her intelligence, warmth, directness, and fabulous sense of humor. I am honored to know her as a friend, mentor, and colleague. My deepest gratitude and thanks goes to Judith for taking the time to join us. Before we begin, here’s more about her.

Judith Kolberg pioneered FileHeads Professional Organizers in 1989. She founded the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization, the precursor to the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD) and is credited with launching a field of professional organizing dedicated to helping individuals challenged by chronic disorganization. She is an industry-futurist, innovator, and recipient of the industry’s highest honors including the Judith Kolberg Award. Several of the books Judith authored, such as Conquering Chronic Disorganization, are required reading for industry certification programs. Her books have sold over a quarter of million copies. She is a popular speaker and a featured organizer on the “Buried Alive” hoarding series. A native of New York, Judith lives in Atlanta, GA where she takes care of her Mom, sees clients, writes, and publishes. You can connect with Judith on Facebook, organizing or publishing websites, and blog.

Linda Samuels:  You’re a pioneer in the professional organizing industry and an expert on helping others creatively navigate change. What motivates people to change?

Judith Kolberg:  Money, sex, getting someone off our back, desperation – lots of things. In the organizing context a person changes from not-so-organized to more organized usually because they see getting organized as a means to another end. Yes, there is its own reward, but usually they make the effort to change because it will result in a living environment they enjoy being in more and that they want other people to enjoy more. Really, it is that simple.

Linda:  Change can be scary and overwhelming. What strategies can we use to help move past our fears?

Judith:  My favorite is to draw on their experience. If they are an adult, somewhere in their lifetime they’ve made a big a change and survived it. Maybe they moved, ditched a spouse, left a job and started a new career. If people can remember that it was difficult but they made it, that’s helpful to them. If I can help them identify what strengths they used that can be re-used, that’s good too. Are they persistent? Maybe they’re strong decision-makers? Perhaps they are realists? Anything can be leveraged.

Linda:  How can we identify when it’s time for change? Are there change indicators?

Judith:  Change indicators, an interesting word. At the dawn of my 60^th birthday, I realize the life I am living is just not right. It does not suit who I am well enough. I know I could be happier. Lots of changes ahead. I’m not sure if there are indicators so much as there are gaps, inconsistencies, disconnects. For my clients, changing what they are doing organizationally often is associated with other changes or transitions. What’s new that has put the change on the agenda now? I often ask.

Linda:  Do you have a philosophy about change?

Judith:  If you toss a cat gently in the air it may twist and turn slightly but it will land on its feet. That’s the closest I can come.

Linda:  What has been your biggest personal challenge around change?

Judith:  My biggest personal challenge with change is that I tend to wait too long. We do what we need to do when we’re ready, and sometimes to make a change it’s the wrong time, but you do it with your knees knocking.

Thank you, Judith for your insights about change. There are several things you said that resonated with me. I love how you talked about leveraging strengths and prior experiences as a strategy to move past our fears. Then there’s the idea about “knees knocking.” While change can certainly be exciting and energy producing, it can also scare the pants right off of us. However, being able to push past that fear in pursuit of different, as our knees are shaking and heart is palpitating, is often how change and growth is experienced.

I invite all of you to join Judith and me as the conversation continues. We’d love to hear your thoughts about change or anything else you’d like to share. What are you thinking about?

Whether you are organizationally challenged, highly organized or somewhere in between, there are times when we want to enlist help. That help can come in many forms like hiring organizational professionals, reading books about organizing, or finding the perfect storage container. Organizing resources are abundant. The sheer volume available can be overwhelming. To help you get started, I’ve narrowed down the options.

10 Best Sources for Organizing Help

1. Best Association for Finding Professional Organizers: National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professional (NAPO)

With over 4,000 professional organizers in NAPO’s easy to search database, you will surely be able to find an organizer. My post, 6 Tips for Hiring a PO can help you evaluate which one is the right fit for you.

2. Best Information on Chronic Disorganization: Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD)

This organization is the premier resource on chronic disorganization with top-notch education and strategies for the disorganized, professional organizers and related professionals. I’m looking forward to attending the annual conference this September, Overcoming Obstacles in Chicago.

3. Best How to Organize Book: Organizing Plain & Simple by Donna Smallin

This book is well organized, easy to use, and features multiple ways of approaching organizing challenges. Donna recognizes that there isn’t a one size fits all method of organizing. For each challenge, she includes multiple solutions supplied by various organizers. You can read the entire book or just the passages that apply to your particular organizing issues.

4. Best Book about Challenging Disorganization: The ICD Guide to Challenging Disorganization edited by Kate Varness, CPO-CD, MA

This newly released book is a fabulous guide for understanding some of the core issues surrounding disorganization. The collection of articles by 32 industry leaders includes topics such as learning styles, hoarding, ADHD, depression, and collaborative therapy. I’m honored to be one of the contributors.

5. Best Variety of Organizing Products:  The Container Store

This favorite store (online and in-store) is the best place to find consistently stocked, interesting, durable, and beautifully designed organizing products. The staff is well trained, knowledgeable, courteous, and helpful. It’s this organizer’s dream store.

6. Best Stylish Organizing Products:  See Jane Work

When I’m looking for unique organizing products, I love visiting this website to see what Holly Bohn, the Founder and Creative Director of See Jane Work has discovered. She has a great eye and finds wonderful new products to add fun and pizzazz to the organizing experience.

7. Best Virtual Organizing Help:  Clutter Diet

Lorie Marrero, author of The Clutter Diet and creator of ClutterDiet.com has developed an innovative program allowing anyone to get expert virtual organizing help and advice at an affordable price. Her website is filled with tips, videos, and organizing support. This past spring, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lorie about clutter for our “Ask the Expert” feature.

8. Best Organizing App:  2Do: Task Done in Style

There are hundreds of to do management apps, and new ones keep coming. I haven’t tried them all, but I do use this one on a daily basis and absolutely love it! Not only does it appeal to my visual sensibility, but also it allows me to organize projects, actions, grouped and sorted, as I like. It has reminders, alarms, and syncing capabilities. How did I live without it?

9. Best Organizing Tips Blog: Peace of Mind Organizing

My friend and colleague, Janine Adams is a wonderful writer and blogger with a fabulous sense of humor and style. Just visiting her blog leaves me feeling uplifted and calmer. She always has something interesting to say or share about organizing, products, and habit changing.

10. Best Organizing Blog Featuring Professional Organizers: Professional Organizers Blog Carnival

Janet Barclay, Founder of the Organized Assistant, has a blog with monthly themes like organizing closets, computers, email, and families. She invites professional organizer bloggers to submit posts on a particular topic. Her blog is a wonderful resource for learning about different strategies and getting to know lots of organizers. Later this month, I’m looking forward to sharing my interview with Janet about enlisting help for our “Ask the Expert” feature.

Everyone needs help now and then. If you’re ready to reach out, these “best” resources are a great place to begin. Do you have a favorite organizing resource? Do you have any thoughts about a resource mentioned above? Come join in our conversation.

Photo by Linda SamuelsYears ago I heard Dan Thurmon speak at a NAPO conference. He is a dynamic, entertaining speaker and author that juggles, flips, and rides unicycles while delivering his keynote. His book, Off Balance on Purpose, challenges the unrealistic goal that life should be balanced.

Much of my writing focuses on finding a balance that’s right for you. The idea of feeling balanced 100% of the time is unattainable. It’s not even desirable.  The search for balance is a constant negotiation between a state of unrest or chaos and that feeling of calm or flow. It’s essential to experience both calm and chaos. They each serve a purpose.

Without some tumult, we become complacent and too content. We stop searching for solutions or growth possibilities. I’m certainly an advocate for knowing how to just be, but that’s within the context of long-term growth.

With abundant chaos, we become so stressed and ineffectual that we can easily ignore our basic needs for self-care. If life becomes a constant state of activity with no time to restore, think, or just be, we lose our focus and energy.

So how does one find that right balance? The balance I’m referring to is really your particular mix of tumult and calm that fits your life, goals and needs at any given point in time. Thinking back to raising our family, life was far more hectic than it is now. The stretches of feeling like things were “out of whack,” were much longer than the calmer parts. Now being an empty nester, while life is still full, the periods of calm are longer. The mix has changed.

Balance between these extremes is not a done deal. It’s really a matter of what we choose to focus on at any given point. In this photo of the forest, the foreground is sharp and clearly delineated, while the background is foggy and hard to see. This mirrors our lives. The shift between chaos and calm comes from what we give our attention to. As our needs change, so does our focus. Pay attention to the clues, which will help you identity when it might be time for re-balancing.

When do you know it’s time to shift your balance? What are your clues?

The possibilities are tremendous when we help each other. Great accomplishments and changes can occur. Who knew that one pair of shoes could make such a difference? I am so excited to share an eco-friendly opportunity, which helps people in need and saves the environment by collecting, distributing, and recycling new or gently worn shoes. You can declutter and do some good at the same time.

Oh, So Organized! is participating in the NAPO Challenge, which is the result of a partnering effort with Soles4Souls (“S4S”), a Nashville-based charity that provides shoes to adults and children in need. Since 2005, S4S has given away over 14 million pairs of shoes to people in over 127 countries, including the United States. “With tragedies such as the earthquakes in countries like Haiti and Japan, on top of the enormous need elsewhere, we can use the estimated 1.5 billion shoes taking up space in closets of ordinary people to change the world one pair at a time,” said Wayne Elsey, Founder and CEO of Soles4Souls.

Oh, So Organized! is sponsoring a shoe drive to benefit Soles4Souls through November 11, 2011. We are collecting gently worn shoes. So far, several Oh, So Organized! clients have edited their shoe collections, increased their closet space, and felt good that they donated to this worthy cause. Tax-deductible receipts are available. Would you like to participate? There are several options below:

Shoe Donation Opportunities

• Oh, So Organized! Clients: Linda Samuels will pick-up shoes you want to donate during all organizing appointments and supply you with a tax-deductible receipt

• Westchester Residents: On Sunday, November 6, 2011 from 10am-2pm, you can drop off your shoes at 202 Cleveland Drive in Croton on Hudson, NY

• Special Arrangements: To make alternate arrangements, contact Linda Samuels at linda@ohsoorganized.com

Shoe Donation Update

• Oh, So Organized! has collected 537 pairs of shoes as of 11/11/11

Organizing Tip 101: Shoes

• Follow the link for helpful shoe organizing & decluttering tips from professional organizer, Linda Samuels

My deepest gratitude to all those that already have donated or will donate. Please join our conversation and leave a comment about shoes, donating or decluttering. What is your favorite organizing or donating story? 

Linda Samuels at shoe drive - November 6, 2011