March 2010 Newsletter

Wind & Breath

I’ll bet you’ve never thought of taking a deep breath as an organizational technique, have you? Usually we associate conscious breathing with mindfulness. But mindfulness is an organizing tool. By slowing down and paying attention, we bring intention back to our actions. Being aware helps us to maintain focus and make clear decisions.

In fact, studies have shown that meditation practice helps people with AD/HD. One of the easiest forms of meditation is to focus on one's breath. So this windy month, be aware of the rhythm of your life's winds -- your breath.

And if you need a fresh breeze of hands-on organizing to sweep through your space, give me a call:707-268-8585.


Tip of the Month

When you find yourself starting to “spin out,” or hear yourself saying “I’ll just” or “for now,” –- stop. Take a deep breath. Exhale slowly, then take another deep breath. Keep breathing until you’ve come back to the present moment. Now, notice your surroundings and your situation, calmly choose your next action. And keep returning to your breath as needed.

Quotes of the Month

"Breathing in I calm my body and mind; breathing out I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment."
– Thich Nhat Hanh


"The sin of inadvertence, not being alert, not quite awake, is the sin of missing the moment of life — live with unremitting awareness."
– Joseph Campbell

A Whole New Mind

I recently finished reading Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. His premise is that, because of the influence of Abundance, Automation, and Asia, jobs that were traditionally mastered by left-brain people are becoming obsolete in our culture and right-brain skills are coming into demand. His opening paragraph reads:

The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.

These people, these right-brainers, sure look a lot like what gets called ADD. Which feeds into my ongoing thesis that ADD is a difference, not a disorder, and that it is an evolutionary shift toward wholeness. (For more on this thesis, see my other posts labeled ADD.) Not only is there an increase in people who are labeled ADD, but Pink shows that these people will actually be the ones most likely to prosper as our economy shifts. (He’s quick to point out, though, that romanticizing right-brain qualities as better than left brain is bogus, that what we need is an androgynous brain.)

To determine whether your career choice is a good fit for our current culture, Pink proposes three questions to ask yourself:
1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?

(Whoo-hoo! My work as a professional organizer meets the criteria!)

My brain on Insomnia

It’s 4:30 in the morning, and I’m awake – again.

What do you think about at 4:30 in the morning?

My mind was floating over snippets of a fascinating book I’ve started reading, A General Theory of Love. In it, the authors were explaining the triune brain – the reptilian (what I call lizard brain), the limbic, and the neocortical, each with its different spheres of responsibility.

The authors explain that the limbic brain “collects sensory information, filters it for emotional relevance, and sends outputs to other brain areas thousands of times a day. … Human beings are immersed in a sea of social interchange, surrounded by a subtle communications network that most do not notice. The limbic brain is our internal cryptographic device, allowing us to decipher a flood of complex messages in an instant.” They then went on to describe a young man whose limbic system was malfunctioning, noting that he “didn’t acquire social conventions naturally; even with monumental effort they persistently eluded him. … Emotional signals remained obscure hieroglyphics to him.”

As I’m reading along the description of this young man, I’m thinking: Asperger’s. And, when I turn the page, sure enough, there’s the diagnosis. Aha! I think. So, Asperger’s is related to a weak link in the limbic system.

Back to 4:30 this morning. I’m rethinking this Aha!, and recalling a conversation I had about a client scenario (the clients remained anonymous – only the situation was discussed). My colleague is setting the stage, explaining that both parents are very bright engineers, and my mind jumps ahead to: the kid has Asperger’s. Yep, sure enough, that’s where the story goes. And then I remember an article I read a few years ago (maybe from The New Yorker?) about Asperger’s, and how it’s called the geek syndrome because it’s showing up noticeably among children where both parents are engineers, and maybe the increase is somehow related to more smart women pursuing careers and meeting smart men, who wind up combining their smart genes…

And then I have a 4:30 a.m. Aha! and get up to share it with whoever is actually reading my ramblings. The engineers aspect of Asperger’s is significant. Because doesn’t engineering (and other “geek”) smarts reside in the neocortical brain – the analytical, logical, sequential, executive-function brain? So Asperger’s must be related to an imbalance in the checks and balance system of the brain – too much power in the executive branch, not enough in the emotional.

(Okay, my brain just linked to our governmental system and current politics. Would it be accurate to say that our country is out of whack because too much power has been taken by the executive branch, while the congressional and judicial – which would they be? Limbic? Reptilian? – has been weakened and isn’t functioning properly? Oy, the ramblings of insomnia…)

Anyway, back to Asperger’s and on to ADD. In her latest email, Jennifer Koretsky, author of Odd One Out: The Maverick’s Guide to Adult ADD (see the articles section of my web site for a review), listed ten great things about ADD. These included compassion, creativity, a sense of humor and comedic flair, and intuition. (Why I love my ADD clients!) Notice that these traits all belong to the limbic realm. And ADD has been shown to be a weakness in the pre-frontal cortex. So again, we have a shift in balance between two parts of the brain. (The lizard brain is staying out of the power struggle, plugging along with basic operating procedures and survival, letting the newcomers hash it out.)

I don’t have any conclusions here; I’m simply sharing my realizations as they appear. The last piece I realized while reading A General Theory of Love is that my own intelligence is strongest in the limbic area. (Coming from a family that values neocortical intelligence, I’ve historically struggled with feeling less intelligent, not valuing my intelligence.) People expect me to be logical and analytical because I’m an organizer (and hell, I’m a Virgo). But I work very intuitively and on an emotional level with my clients. I also am able to know something – to “read” a person or situation – in an instant. (This was an on-going disagreement I had with Anthony. He refused to believe that I could do this and thought I was being judgmental. But if you read Blink, you’ll learn that our brains can and do work that quickly.) Anyway, I realized that my strength is in my limbic brain.

So, I’d love to hear your thoughts… Leave a comment?

The Minds, They Are A’Changing

Our minds are changing, and I suspect that technology is contributing to the change.

A while back, I wrote a piece on television and ADD (Wait, Maybe We Shouldn’t Kill Our TVs). Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of watching a based-on-the-book lecture by David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous.

I adamantly insist that, when creating a filing system, “Miscellaneous” is verboten – it is the black hole of filing. As long as we are talking about physical items, I believe it is important for us to identify how something is being used and why we are keeping it, and then to use that information to guide where we put it.

In his talk, Weinberger explains how the concept of “a place for everything and everything in its place” makes sense as an organizing concept so long as we are dealing with physical objects. After all, physical objects occupy space, and only one object can occupy that space at one time. But with the advent of computer technology, and especially with the Internet, how we access information has changed. Information no longer needs to occupy only one space. Indeed, online, it can be accessed from many different angles, and becomes more available to us the more places it is “filed.”

I have a client who is a nonfiction author and who’s been diagnosed with ADD. She had file drawers full of clippings and notes for the book she was writing, and hired me to help organize those files. It was a fascinating process because she continually saw the relationships between the information, the connections, and wanted to file accordingly. But the connections were fluid and changeable, which makes accessing the information difficult. Instead, I encouraged her to let me set up the files based on what the information actually was, instead of what it could be. (This worked well for her, by the way, and she thanked me for insisting on this system.)

Because we were dealing with physical objects, with pieces of paper, we were limited to choosing one place for each paper. To set up a cross-reference system – let alone to maintain it! – would have been beyond tedious. BUT, if all this information had been bits of data living in the Internet ether, we could have pursued a different organizational model.

Here’s where I’m going with this: The Internet mirrors the ADD mind. Both are structured around connections and relationships, instead of being limited to linear space.

Which leads me to wonder: What is the relationship between the technological explosion (of television, and of the Internet) and the changes I’m seeing in how our minds process information?

The other piece I’m wondering about is: Why are so many more people being diagnosed with Aspergers? I now have three friends with Aspergers children. How does this fit in with the increase of folks with ADD, and with the changes in technology and how we receive and process information? Or does it?

Wait. Maybe we shouldn't kill our TVs.

What if ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is actually a good thing? What if ADD is an evolutionary shift toward reincorporating the feminine principle, the goddess?

Okay, I know that sounds far-fetched. But play with me here. The idea came to me last year as I was simultaneously studying for my ADD Specialist exam and skimming Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess.

Shlain's originating question was, "What caused the disappearance of goddesses from the ancient Western world? … What in culture changed to cause leaders in all Western religions to condemn goddess worship? Why were women forbidden to conduct a single significant sacrament in these religions? And why did property begin to pass only through the father's lines? What event in history could have been so pervasive and immense that it literally changed the sex of God?"

His answer, briefly, is that literacy emphasized the development of the left brain, which is inherently more linear, aggressive, and masculine. "When a critical mass of people within a society acquire literacy," he writes, "especially alphabet literacy, left hemispheric modes of thought are reinforced at the expense of right hemispheric ones, which manifests as a decline in the status of images, women's rights, and goddess worship." Looking at brain function, he observes that "the written word issues from linearity, sequence, reductionism, abstraction, control, central vision, and the dominant hand -- all hunter/killer attributes. … Writing made the left brain, flanked by the incisive cones of the eye and the aggressive right hand, dominant over the right. The triumphant march of literacy that began five thousand years ago conquered right-brain values, and, with them, the Goddess. Patriarchy and misogyny have been the inevitable result."

So, if Shlain is right, alphabetic literacy stressed physiological development of our left brain and a cultural preference for its attributes. Interestingly, ADD can be seen as an underdevelopment of the left brain and a dominance of the right. In Organizing for the Creative Person, the authors (Lehmkuhl and Lamping) use the left-brain/right-brain model to explain the differences between "normal" Elbies and the more creative (read: ADD) Arbies. A chart of left and right brain characteristics (source: Mary Ellen Jirak's The Gift of ADD) shows left brain as the logical mode: linear, verbal, logical, analytic, digital, symbolic, temporal, and abstract. The right brain operates in gestalt mode: holistic, nonverbal, intuitive, synthetic, spatial, concrete (operates in the present moment), nontemporal, and analogic.

In other words, the right brain is the feminine side of our brain and it is the stronger side for creative people and those who are labeled ADD.

But why are so many more people manifesting ADD behavior? A number of theories exist. One of them has to do with television. In his book, Beyond ADD, Thom Hartmann notes that the rise in ADD is concurrent with the increase in television viewing and other visual input. "So much of our information now comes to us visually. More than two decades ago, television replaced newspapers as the primary way most people obtain their news. About that time studies began to show that children spent more time watching TV than they did interacting with their family or their peers. Print media has become more visual… Advertising … is wildly more visual and less verbal. … Best-selling books are translated into movies to reach wider audiences." At the same time, he reports that "children with ADD are less likely to become excited about reading at a young age" and that "kids with ADD tend to read less well, and so recreational reading is difficult for them." Ditto for kids who watch TV: the more TV children watch, "the less likely they are to perform well academically, and the less likely they are to read recreationally."

Shlain also notices changes as a result of television. He points out that comprehending TV requires different hemispheric strategies than reading, including using pattern-recognition skills and optical rods (instead of the cones used in reading). "As people watched more and more television, the supremacy of the left hemisphere dimmed as the right's use increased."

So, what we have -- thanks to TV, advertising, visual print media, and other phenomena usually damned for the dumbing down of America -- is a de-emphasis on the written word, a return to the visual and a redirecting of our brain's development back to the right brain -- back to the creative hunter/gatherer, back to ADD, back to the feminine, back to the goddess. To quote Shlain's epilogue: "I am convinced we are entering a new Golden Age -- one in which the right-hemispheric values of tolerance, caring, and respect for nature will begin to ameliorate the conditions that have prevailed … Images … are the balm bringing about this worldwide healing."

And folks with ADD are leading the way. They are the next evolutionary step, the pendulum swing back toward balance. Some may argue that ADD is an exaggerated swing, but it's a swing in the right direction.

Anti-Authoritarian Organizing

Twice recently I've been misquoted. One woman, who was in the process of clearing out her closet, proudly insisted she was following my advice by getting rid of anything she hadn't worn in a year. Another was astounded to learn that my house, while tidy, is far from passing the white glove test; she was certain that I had a regular cleaning schedule.

Hey, folks -- pay attention. I'm an organizer, but that doesn't mean I advocate (let alone implement) rigid rules and routines. In fact, I find rigid rules and routines disturbing. (The FlyLady's advice drives me up a wall.) I realize that people -- especially people who are struggling with problems resulting from being disorganized -- long for structure, for someone to come along and tell them what to do. There are people out there who crave an authority figure.

But I'm not that figure. I have never said that, if you haven't worn (or used) something in a year, you should get rid of it. In fact, I quite clearly state that this advice is "arbitrary and externally imposed. I want you to make decisions based on your own needs, values, and goals, not on some magic number dug out of an organizer's advice bag" (page 126, The Spiritual Art of Being Organized).

As for a regular cleaning schedule -- ha! Yes, I have my daily chores, morning and evening rhythms that I've molded for myself, and just as often modify to fit my mood. I enjoy sweeping my floors in the morning, feeding the cats, feeding myself. I like the feel of soap and warm water, so washing dishes is a pleasure. And there's a calming satisfaction to hanging my laundry to dry. But I hate dusting, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing the toilet, washing windows. So these chores get done when I feel up to them, not on any schedule. Not very efficient, perhaps, but that's okay. (Besides, trying to keep surfaces clean during the wet season, when four cats are constantly painting the floors, counters, and dresser tops with dainty mud prints, is like sweeping back the sand at the beach.)

Being organized means being "at ready." It's what frees us to share our talents with the world, and what helps us to easily find our toys. The whole point of being organized is to make our lives easier, fuller, more meaningful. Organization is a supportive structure that allows us to ride life's rapids, to flow with the anarchy of existence. Constricting that anarchy with rigidity and rules stifles our life energy, which is the exact opposite of organization's goal.

My cousin David is one of the most famous anarchists in the U.S. His ceaseless work to bring justice and equality to all takes the form of teaching nonviolent protest, puppetry as political theater, and consensus as decision-making procedure. David is the youngest of his siblings, while I am the oldest of mine. At either end of the sibling spectrum, we joke about being the two organizers. Ostensibly, he is a political organizer and I a personal organizer (although I prefer the term "professional" so as to make clear that I am a consultant, not some indulgence of the privileged class). He is considered the radical, I the non-political liberal. And while it's true that David is politically active and has been arrested innumerable times for his activism, I think of my work as equally subversive and revolutionary. He takes his lessons to the street; I take them into people's homes. Together we hope to change the world for the better.

And that certainly doesn't mean dutifully following the dictates put forth by organizers -- professional or otherwise. Think for yourself, and do what you can to make the world a better place.