Why I Care So Much About How Creativity and Personality Type Affects Your Ability to Organize

Having a creative personality type myself, I was "chronically disorganized" for much of my life up until my mid-thirties. During the course of my career, I figured out that to become more organized, I had to break lots of "organizing rules" and create my own ultra-simple way of doing things. Through sheer determination, I eventually gained a reputation for being quite organized among my friends and colleagues. (p.s. I'm a big fan of Marcus Buckingham and his book "First, Break all the Rules")

I also struggled for most of my life with anxiety around trying to throw away anything I had used and loved. At work, I kept every draft of all the training guides and manuals I wrote, every free handout I ever got from any conference or training class, etc. At home, I never threw out paper, magazines, clothes, etc. I still experience some momentary anxiety over letting go of certain things, but I am happy to say that I'm well within the normal range now. : )

I'm not the only one...and you aren't either!

When I found out that millions of people share my struggle, and that there was even an entire industry called "professional organizing", within one year I completely refocused my 25 year career as a performance and productivity improvement specialist from the corporate world to working one-on-one with individuals to overcome disorganization through coaching, consulting, teaching and writing. And I have never looked back. There is nothing I love more than empowering someone to achieve their goals.

In 2005, I joined the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization and through their training, plus my own experience in working with hundreds of clients who were a lot like me, I began to understand how having a creative personality type is often a root cause of chronic disorganization. I also discovered ways to apply my consulting, coaching and facilitation skills to help clients truly triumph over disorganization within weeks and months, not years.

Trial and Error Learning can be Agonizing

There are very few things that give me more joy than helping people avoid having to learn the long, hard, painful way to overcome disorganization like I did. No matter how many books I read, or systems I tried because other people recommended them to me, NOTHING worked! I found that what worked for me was to completely design my own extremely simple and quirky ways to organize myself.

I went through many frustrating ups and downs with creating organizing systems and then not maintaining them until I figured out what the real problem was. I learned that I had to work with my own rhythms and not be bound by the "organizing rules and standards" that other people establish. Just because it's in a book, or an expert says it, doesn't mean it's universally true for everyone.

One of my pet peeves? For example, no matter how many thousands of "experts" say that "opening your mail every day is THE only way to keep up with your mail" or that "you must have a tickler file", or you "must have a hanging file system" - that doesn't make it TRUE for everyone. There is no law that says you have to open or even sort your mail every day!

I never have, and I'm sure I never will. But, I also no longer struggle with keeping my paper or mail organized! That was a major achievement for me. The secret for me was learning to let go of paper clutter. I was a serious paper addict. The first time I threw away a receipt I almost had a panic attack. But now I LOVE doing it. I feel so powerful and in control. : )

But that achievement didn't come just because someone told me I should throw them away. I had to dig deep and discover the underlying beliefs and fears that made me hold on to those papers like my life depended on it. Once the beliefs were reframed, there was no turning back. I was free of my irrational need to keep all that paper I really had no use for.

The real secret to overcoming disorganization and clutter is in the power of your mind, emotions, and beliefs. Believing that you CAN become organized and that you don't have to follow anyone else's rules or ideas about what is best for you is the first step . Once you stop trying to bend yourself into someone else's system, you can even learn to LOVE organizing!

Understanding the Root of the Problem

The more I study this phenomenom of chronic disorganization (CD), the more I find that there are hardly any resources out there that directly address the subject of how and why having a creative personality types can cause disorganization. When it is talked about, it is usually covered from the point of view of the 75 -80% of the population that are natural "maintainers" or "prioritizers".

I think this is because only a handful of people who suffer from CD have ever been willing to talk or write about it. And those who have spoken up and written books about their experience have only done so in the last few years since TV shows started focusing on it and since ADD became a recognized "disorder." Most of us have lived and suffered in shame and silence - believing something was "wrong with us". Many of us grew up being punished for our disorganization instead of being taught how to organize ourselves.

I'm just beginning to distill my own understanding of how the link between creativity and disorganization works and how the bias against the creative personality type's natural way of seeing the world causes us to feel that something is "wrong with us" if we aren't naturally good at organizing.

• Why do we assume we shouldn't have to "learn" to organize or get help with organizing?
• Why aren't we taught universal organizing principles in school when it is just as important as knowing how to read?
• Why do we assume that we should be able to use other people's organizing methods?
• What about the fact that our needs change all the time? Why aren't we taught how to create "scalable" simple systems that easily and quickly change as our lives and needs change?

Truly understanding the problem makes is infinitely easier to solve the problem. I am still learning but have started to document the methods I've found to be most universally effective in helping other people overcome their own "brand" of disorganization.

That's what started me on the path to developing the "Getting Unstuck" online coaching group. If this sounds right for you, I hope you join us!