When Organizing Isn't Enough

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Julie Morgenstern about her newest book When Organizing Isn't Enough.

If you watch Oprah or spend a lot of time in Barnes and Noble, then you have probably seen Julie! She is a top expert in the organizing industry and has several NY Times best sellers available.

If you aren't familiar with Julie's work, you can visit her website to find out more.

And without further ado, here's my interview with the lovely and gracious Julie Morgenstern...

Interview key: CC = Carmen Coker, JM = Julie Morgenstern

Interview date: October 16, 2008

When Organizing Isn't Enough: The Idea

But your newest book When Organizing Isn’t Enough is different, touching on some of the more psychological and emotional aspects of trying to get organized. What inspired you to write this type of book?

JM: ...Organizing isn’t really about getting rid of things - it’s about identifying what’s important to you and giving yourself access to it.

And that distinction is extremely liberating to people. That’s because most people think organizing means getting rid of things. And it just doesn’t. You don’t have to get rid of anything. It’s about designing a system that gives you access to what you use and love.

But after many, many years, I felt that it was time to answer the questions: “When do you get rid of things?”, “What is de-cluttering, and how is it different than organizing?”, and “When should you focus on de-cluttering?”

...[Decluttering is] a different process with a very different purpose. And I wanted to take that on. I wanted to kind of say the other half of the story.

So I wrote this book to say that de-cluttering is not something you do to get organized. It will never organize you. De-cluttering is something you do to get unstuck.

When Organizing Isn't Enough: Theme

JM: So SHEDing is a very practical, pragmatic process for de-cluttering your life. To make room for change, to get yourself unstuck when you’re in the middle of a transition and you’re not quite sure where to go from here. And so it takes a really tangible process and says - ok, look for everything that is stagnant in your physical space.

So the 4 steps [of SHED] are…

(1) [S stands for] "Separate the Treasures."

...Don’t throw everything out. I guarantee you – buried inside every pocket of clutter are a couple of true treasures that are super meaningful, super practical, need to be saved.

Some people may say, “Yeah, just get rid of it!”

I encourage you to separate the treasures.

(2) H stands for "Heave the Rest."

And I mean HEAVE it! So once you separate the treasures, you need to get the rest of it out of your life in one big swoop.

And that’s a little bit different from some. Some people will say, “Remove 2 things from your house a day.”

I don’t think that’s gonna be the large opening that gives you the opportunity to start moving forward.

You’re now going to have a giant opening and it’s going to be on one hand very exciting, but on the other it’s gonna create what I call the wall of panic. I’ve seen it in every single client, and I’ve experienced it myself when I’ve done my own SHEDing.

When you see this empty space - whether it’s in your closet or on your desktop or in your kitchen cabinets - there’s empty space. You hit this wall of panic and it’s like, “AHHHHH! Who am I without my stuff?”

You feel really lost, and it will take you by surprise! But you feel very uncomfortable. And the solution there is…

(3) [E stands for] "Embrace Your Identity."

...This is the moment where you truly separate your identity from anything you own, how much stuff you have...but you pull your identity from within.

It’s like, “I’m an interesting person without all these piles. I’m a creative person without all this stuff...I don’t need all that clutter to define me.”

CC: Right – you are not your stuff, if you will.

JM: You are not your stuff – you embrace your identity. It is the true moment of transformation. It is the most liberating moment when you realize that.

You have to recognize, know in advance it’s gonna be scary...

If you just hang in there, it generally takes a couple of hours to a couple of days for you to just go, “Ah! I’m not my stuff. I can have an empty shell. And I am still me. In fact, I can be more of who I am.”

And then, once you have the self-confidence, you’re very grounded, and it’s not about the stuff anymore, but it’s about you!

(4) And D [stands for] "Drive Yourself Forward."

And that’s where you really do very practical things to explore the direction that you’re heading in.

[For example,] so you’re thinking about a career change? Now you can start reading books on starting your own business, going to career counselors and asking them to do tests on you and advise what direction you should go.

And I even encourage people to do something completely off track as part of "Drive Yourself Forward." You have to experiment with the thing you‘re interested in, but do one thing that is so far off track for you, you can’t picture yourself doing it.

And when I went through this, I did gymnastics. I couldn’t picture myself doing gymnastics. I’m too old to do gymnastics. It’s something young people do. It was a ridiculous idea. And I ended up doing it, and I can do a one-armed cartwheel, I can do a front handspring.

...It’s not that I see myself as a gymnast, but now in the areas that I am interested in, when I hit an obstacle or challenge, and I think I can't do that, I say to myself – “Hey, if you can do a one-armed cartwheel, you can do this!”

When Organizing Isn't Enough: Applications

JM: You know, it’s interesting. I gave a presentation a little while ago to a group. And somebody raised their hand and asked – I was talking about SHEDing – and she said, “I have all of these papers, all over my kitchen counter top.”

And I asked, “Are they papers that you use?”

And she said, “Yes, they are.” This was a mom of three young kids…and these were papers of her life with her kids…school papers and artwork.

I said, “You don’t need to SHED - you need to get organized.”

There was somebody else in the workshop who was a man who was around 52, and he was thinking about a career change. He was thinking about starting his own business.

And he wasn’t sure what direction to go. Do I start my own business? Do I get a different job? So he needed to SHED, whereas the other person needed to organize.

Another way to think of this is organizing is kind of like putting down anchor. It’s setting up a system for where you are.

If where you are is where you wanna be, but you just can’t find your stuff, then you need to get organized. If where you are is not where you want be in your life, and you’re trying to figure out your next move - you don’t get organized, you SHED.

SHEDing won’t organize you, it will move you forward. It’s like lifting anchor and moving this ship, setting sail.

CC: So say I’ve heard about your book and the SHEDing process, and I think it may be for me, but I’m not really sure. What are some signs that I look for in my life that may reveal I’m ready to SHED?

JM: People who are ready to SHED, there are 3 very common characteristics:

(1) They feel that there is something more that they want to do in their lives...but they’re not quite sure what it is.

(2) They’re not sure they can do it – whatever it is. They feel like there is something more, but not sure they can pull it off.

(3) And they are feeling weighed down by something.

It can happen at any stage of life – it can happen to people in their 20s who are just leaving college and starting their own careers. They’re in a transition. An early transition from childhood and school into workplace transition - they’re at that moment.

[Also] people who on the verge of a significant life change like a big move, a big relationship, a break-up or a new relationship, people who got downsized or their company shifted, work changes.

CC: You know, one of the questions I get most from clients and even family and friends about organizing, is - Where do I start?

Now if someone has the same concern about SHED, how would that person know where to begin the process of SHEDing?

JM: That’s a great question.

So, first of all, I absolutely think that you should start with physical clutter before you move onto schedule clutter or habit clutter because it’s the most tangible. It’s harder to shed a habit than it is to shed physical stuff, as difficult as physical stuff may be.

And I recommend that people literally walk through their house room by room with a notepad and inventory and just identify everything that’s stagnant.

And stagnant is stuff that’s not moving - you’re not putting anything in, you’re not taking anything out. It’s just stagnant. Drawers, cabinet, piles, etc.

And then I recommend they do a little chart. Identify what’s stagnant – ask yourself how big a space it occupies, what percentage of what is in that stagnant area do you think is obsolete, ... and what is your emotional attachment to that stuff? And that’s a...really high emotional attachment, medium attachment, or very low.

And I always recommend you start with something you have that takes up the biggest amount of space and that you have the lowest attachment to.

And then you’ll clear out – it’ll be the easiest thing to do and give you a very big win, a big opening. And that energy is going to fuel you to then start tackling the other areas.

It kind of generates what I call a cascading effect – once you do the first big area, you start tackling other areas. And you can even be working on 2-3 areas at a time.

CC: It seems like the pace the world is getting faster and faster with every day. And most people have little time to waste. A big concern with anything these days is - how long will it take to finish something once you start it?

With SHED – how long will it take from beginning to end? Is there a set time period, or is it different for everyone that decides to start this process?

JM: First of all, let’s recognize SHED is a way of managing a transition from point A to point B...when you’re in the in between. So transitions...usually take an 18-month arc...like a year and a half. And I hate to say that…but it’s not an instant reward.

If you’re trying to make a big change in your life and you’re changing careers, you may start the process and then you figure out where you’re gonna go and then you move and then you settle in….from start to finish, until you’re fully settled into you’re new job or new career, it could be 18 months.

It’s not that you’re not busy that entire time or that nothing’s happening in that whole time, but you’re moving and evolving. So SHEDing is like that.

CC: Say I have started SHEDing, and I have been doing that for awhile now...maybe a year or so.

You mentioned transitions can take anywhere from 18 - 24 months, but what are some signs I can look for to know that SHED process is complete? Is it more of a gut instinct, or are there more concrete signs I should look for?

JM: I think that’s a really good question.

I think that in some respects when you feel fully settled in your new life, you feel like you’re ready to anchor down again...you feel like – “Yeah, this is where I wanna be.”

It’s like you’re in your new space and that’s when your really ready to organize. You don’t need SHEDing anymore, now you’re ready to set up systems and anchor down again.

...In the book [When Organizing Isn't Enough] I wrote about a bunch of clients who I had worked with through this process. There are 4 main characters in the book whose stories are kinda interwoven from beginning to end of the book.

And...one of them, she was a woman who was dealing with an empty nest. And she didn’t know, “Do I stay in my house, or do I get rid of my house, or do I move out of my house? What do I do with my career now?” Everything was sorta up for grabs.

And she was just starting the SHED process, and she ended up SHEDing her boyfriend...

CC: Wow – that’s going all the way there!

JM: She SHEDed everything! She ended up not selling her house, but she brought a roommate in…she’s got the income from it, she has companionship. But she could not have done that had she not SHED the house and really made it inviting for another adult to come in and live there.

She is so fully alive and in her new life. Now, no longer being a parent as her primary focus. But being kind of a newly single...she actually has new boyfriend who she’s madly in love with, she’s a writer and she’s been writing poetry, and she’s just so happy in her new life. She has her new identity – post empty-nest. And so she landed there.

When Organizing Isn't Enough: For Everyone?

If you have a skeptic who is in that stage where they need to get unstuck, and they think they need to start the SHEDing process but they’re not really sure. What would you say to a skeptic – does SHED work for everyone?

JM: ...I think SHED can absolutely work for everyone because the reality is that stuff, the things that we own…there a lot of attachments to them. They’re very symbolic of attachments. It’s never just about the stuff.

The messy junk drawer…could symbolize...this need for security, that you always have to be ready for anything.

The clothes hanging in your closet you haven’t worn in 20 years, but you can’t part with. Why? It’s because of what it represents to you. It may represent a part of you that you have not expressed in a long time, they may represent a time in your life that you really enjoyed and you miss...

So the process of de-cluttering is never just about getting rid of things, It’s about understanding what am I attached to that is holding me back? I’m so attached to the past that I cannot move forward.

So I would say to a skeptic – start with something really small.

...You know what I think is a great point of entry? Inside everybody’s kitchen, there’s at least one cabinet that is stuffed to the rim with appliances you haven’t used in years, plastic containers, old pots and pans that don’t have lids. Everybody has one cabinet like that that you have not gone in or taken anything out for years. Try shedding that.

First of all, recognize how hard that is to do. Find out what it is – Why? What are you attached to? What does it symbolize? And take yourself through this SHEDing process, and when you get through that…see what it feels like.

When Organizing Isn't Enough: Final Thoughts

JM: ...In the book, there are 3 chapters that precede the SHED process. It’s kind of the preparations for SHEDing. And they are critical.

...This is probably the only book out there that’s about de-cluttering. And the throwing out part is only 1/5 of the book.

There are 4/5s of the book that’s about what you do before getting rid of things and what you do after they’re gone to make this actually work. And that’s really important.

So make sure you do the preparations, or it’s not going to work. And make sure you do the stuff after it’s gone, or you’re going to start refilling your space.

There are 2 things you really need to do…

(1) Inventory what’s weighing you down.

(2) And there’s a chapter there called naming your theme. Theme is a big, important element to a successful SHEDing experience.

...If you’re not sure where your going and you know where you are isn’t it, you have a general feeling about what you want the next chapter of your life to feel like. It might feel lighter, looser, more fun, more creative, more peaceful, more personal, might feel more community – there’s some feeling and all you need to do is name the feeling.

It’s a word, it’s a phrase – something simple. And when you have that name, you suddenly feel dislodged and then you have something to SHED against.

You have that theme in your mind, that feeling, and then as you go pile by pile, you have a filter by which to make decisions on each item. How does this relate to that feeling? How does this move me toward that goal? And it makes it much easier to get rid of things.

To know what is obsolete and to know what is relevant…you have context.

CC: [Is there an] organizing community online where people can get on...and give each other support?

JM: They can go to juliemorgenstern.com and right on the home page, they’ll see the community and they can click on that and sign up. It’s free, it’s no charge, and it’s very cool.

We launched it when the book launched in June [2008] and we now have several 1000 people from, I think, over 38 countries…

I love the community because it gives me a chance to see how people respond and process the information and ideas. And they end up teaching each other.

To have such an interaction – it’s a front row seat to people who are being impacted.

I actually communicate, we’re in dialog with people on the community very often. I post and people from my staff post. It’s great. It’s a whole new world...

CC: I think that your book is a great diagnostic…because it’s very true that sometimes organizing isn’t enough…look at the whole person, and what they are going through and what their thoughts are…and look at that before [jumping in]...

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