A Perfect Mess - Professional Organizers Respond - Kathy Waddill, Monica Ricci, Jessica Duquette

I've got to make this quick because I have to go to an appt all day today...I'll be posting more on this as soon as I can.

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Here's a chapter of the book  A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder you can read free.

Here's blog posts by

Monica Ricci  http://monicaricci.typepad.com/monica_ricci_organizing_e/2006/12/the_misguided_b.html

Jessica Duquette
http://www.its-not-about-your-stuff.com/2006/12/the_new_york_ti.html

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Here's a link to NPR's audio cast of the Kathy Waddill responding to the harsh and unfair critique of her, NAPO and our whole profession by the authors on Talk of the Nation, December 28, 2006.

Guests:

Dave Freedman, co-author, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, and contributing editor and technology columnist at Inc. Magazine

Kathy Waddill, professional organizer and author of The Organizing Source Book: Nine Strategies for Simplifying Your Life  Her Website:  The Untangled Web

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6691239

I'll be chiming in soon!  : )

Comments

[Ruth Williams]

Everyone seems to have to do everything for themsevles these days. Few have a maid, a secretary, or a wife of their own. I'm a woman. I'm married. I wish I had my old Italian grandmother running my home at times. I bet we all do.

What are the problems with everyone having to do everything themselves? Well, let's imagine meeting Einstein. Do you think you could sell your services to Einstein? do you think Einstein would spend the time to keep his possessions, his belongings, his clothings and items organized? I don't think so. I heard he couldn't even match his socks. I saw his picture obviously he didn't do his hair before the photo. If he spent his time organizing I bet he never would have split the atom. Done the math. Found the calculations. Organized the team. Contributed knowledge in physics.

Oh. I get it. He had a research compound or something ? and someone there procurred his food? Maybe a wife? What?

Well, how about Picasso? how about Bill Gates? and what about-

what about the oil painting artists in Carmel who sell all those paintings of golf courses?

What about artists with day jobs. Do they spend their lives away from their work organizing mail or something? clothing or their kitchen? I don't know what they're eating or wearing or if they even cook their own food. I do know they organize their art supplies somewhere. Sometimes I hear they live among them, their lives are in a big concrete building or loft with canvases propped on the walls and they walk past their paints all night long.

I bet they care more about their art supplies than their clothes. Well I'd buy new ones if I was an Oil painter ever tried to get dried paint stains off slacks?

I appreciate American consumers not getting buried literally in their stuff anymore & I think it is all because of folks like you. & I know more people have more time for dancing, and more room to dance through. Now they can find their CD player, too. And their CDs. That's what its all about isn't it- living more life.

The way Einstein lived life, the way Picasso lived life, the way an oil painter, a sculpter lives life, may not fit into someone else's 'system' organization book.

Why don't one of you write organization: dealing with the mundane for an artist? Or how to live among your art supplies.
Also for the writers or musicians among us: how to organize guitars- when living with children where to put your musical instruments so nobody gets hurt.

I'll be the first to sign up for that one. Let me know when it's written, one that considers the creators' amongst us' needs. . .not solely the consumers of their work (us the more mundane.)

Thanks very ever so much- Ruth Williams

[Ariane Benefit]

HI Ruth! You know what? I agree with you. I don't think anyone needs to be perfectly tidy or spend lots of free time organizing (unless they own too much stuff :)

Here's the thing though, if you don't have the genius of an Einstein, or any other great mind, you have to live in today's highly judgemental society. No one will be giving you a free pass if you are late to work all the time, or don't pay your bills, etc.

While I'm writing my books, believe me, my home suffers. BUT, once I finish a creative project, clearing out accumulations of clutter and getting reasonably organized again doesn't take very long. Because I don't let it go too long. Key Word: Too Long.

Many of the people I work with are suffering serious consequences because of disorganization that has gone on for far too long and it's now overwhelming trying to restore some semblance of order. That's who I'm in this for.

As for books for the creatives, I'm working on it!! I have actually written my office book, assuming that people who buy it are likely to be creative, intelligent people who don't want to spend a lot of time organizing or follow rigid routines. I certainly don't. : )

Thanks for your note! You sound like my ideal client!

[Ruth williams]

Do you think you could write a book about organizing food/ snack packs for the modern artist and or Einstein type that works and creates projects in the flow ?

I just spoke with an employed national merit scholar who had not eaten either breakfast or lunch, nor snacked and they called at around 4 o'clock. They worked on projects all day. They work in applied sciences currently with university training in physics and geology. *latin & latin poetry / novels for entertainment. They oil paint.
Now their possessions once stowed away are aloted places with the precision of a mathematical equation & bills are paid online. ticking like a time piece.

However I drove it over to them and did not leave until a team organized it, established negotiated places for all of it-rock climbing gear, art painting, lounge area, kitchen gear, a team of friends & significant others collaborated discussing useage and allocation of resources and space.
It was NOT very domestic. It was with mathematic teamwork & a collaborative.

Do you have a chapter written on premaking snacks or snack eating? Do you have a chapter on life after Starbucks? Do you have an IDEA of a chapter called "what to procure from the grocery store for a vegetarian/" or "what a transition vegan ought to buy on Monday"?

do you have book recommendations if not your own- for the vegetarian genius guide to food procurement, on short sortees after work?

something like that.

Possibly also could you include nutrient established requirements per body weight maintenance, they might like that *it would add credibility to your recommendations. How often do you HAVE to eat to stay well? Can Starbucks REALLY keep you alive if you just drink mocha or carmel esspresso?

Then how do you carry food to work near a research station in the wild driving a 4 wheel drive rental truck?

And what about living in a cubical ascertaining research facts?

And do oil paint fumes really bond molecularly with your food? IS it safe to eat nights for an artist?

These are not REALLY sarcastic they are actual things I would like someone to generate a chapter or a book on sometime soon. Very soon.

My thanks to you now & always-
-Ruth