Understanding Chronic Disorganization:
Are you Chronically Disorganized or
Situationally Disorganized?

by Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed.
Organizing Coach
Chronic Disorganization Specialist
Neat & Simple Professional Organizers
www.neatandsimple.com and
http://blog.neatandsimple.com

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We all experience situations in life when we become disorganized. During an illness, or while working on a project at work that requires a lot of travel, or during a life change like moving, getting married, having kids, or starting a new job. Professional Organizers call that
being Situationally Disorganized. This means disorganization is a very understandable and normal side effect of a life situation.

What makes chronic disorganization different is that when these life events happen to you, order is not quickly and fairly easily restored. Instead, the disorganization does not improve and may even continue to worsen over time. At a certain point, daily life becomes overwhelmingly stressful and help is needed to recover. If your quality of life is suffering, you feel stressed and overwhelmed much of the time, and you don’t feel like you can fix it yourself, you may be "chronically" disorganized.

What is Chronic Disorganization?

Chronic disorganization is a term coined by Judith Kolberg when she noticed that some of her clients had great difficulty maintaining traditional organizing methods. Seeing a lack of resources for helping people overcome chronic disorganization, she wrote the book “Conquering Chronic Disorganization.”

In 2001, she founded the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD).
With over 900 members, the NSGCD now includes psychologists, educators, coaches, and other professionals who work with people suffering from long term, severe clutter and disorganization.

The NSGCD defines chronic disorganization as having all three of the following:

1. A history of disorganization in which efforts to get organized
   have not been maintained.
2. An ongoing undermining of your current quality of life due
   to disorganization.
3. An expectation that you will continue to be disorganized.

The term “chronically disorganized” is NOT a "diagnosis" or an "illness". It is used to indicate that traditional organizing methods will probably not be maintained and will require particularly unique and simple organizing solutions to become more organized. The individual may also need: education to learn skills; coaching to change habits and sustain motivation; emotional support to increase self-confidence, and possibly long term support to maintain a reasonable organized environment, much like an executive might need a personal assistant, or someone might need a personal trainer to stay motivated to exercise regularly.

If you are chronically disorganized, the standards for “being successfully organized" are usually different from what mainstream people perceive as well-organized. For example, professional organizers may advise that most people open mail every day and process it immediately. For a chronically disorganized person, opening and processing mail once a week may be a more than “good enough” standard.

Causes of Chronic Disorganization

Chronic disorganization is NOT a disease. It is a "trait" found in all kinds of people, at every income level. Chronically disorganized people are often also highly functional, creative, intelligent, social, accomplished, energetic, enthusiastic and fun to be around. Chronic disorganization is also commonly associated with ADD, chronic pain, depression, addiction to shopping, cluttering and hoarding, bi-polar disorder, Alzheimer’s, brain injury, and autistic spectrum disorders. Chronic disorganization is sometimes triggered by situational disorganization that has not been recovered for over a period of years.

Situational Life Events and Circumstances that sometimes lead to chronic disorganization include:

• Traumatic emotional loss: divorce, death of a loved one – especially, parent, spouse, or child
• Life changes that make organizing significantly more complex: getting married, having children, home-schooling, getting promoted, moving to a larger or smaller home, starting a business
• A lifestyle with constantly changing needs such as moving frequently or having many children involved in lots of activities
• Having been raised in an environment where life skills were not taught because everything was done for you, or you grew up with parents who were chronically disorganized, or you grew up in an abusive environment
• Ongoing major chronic illness in your family

Personality Characteristics, Traits and Thinking Styles that tend to be associated with chronic disorganization include:

• High intelligence and creativity
• Right-brain dominant information processing style
• A wide range of interests
• Difficulty understanding own needs objectively
• Strong emotional attachments to things
• The energy of another person helps them feel “focused and interested”
• Tendency to lose track of time
• Ability to focus and engage so intensely that they may forget to eat and / or attend to daily life maintenance like shopping, cleaning & organizing
• Difficulty focusing on things they don't find fascinating
• Tend to get easily stressed and frustrated especially if things don't come easily or they can't do something "perfectly"
• “Global” thinking styles – tend to see everything at once
• Difficulty categorizing and making decisions because they can think of so many possibilities
• “Intuitive” and /or “Perceiving” preferences in their MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator) personality type

 

Are You Chronically Disorganized?

You may be chronically disorganized if:

• Disorganization, clutter and poor time management are regularly disrupting your marriage, relationships, work and health
• You have great difficulty letting go of things even when you no longer need them
• Clutter is preventing you from using areas of home as you would like to
• You have tried to organize many times but nothing seems to stick
• You have purchased organizing books and organizing containers but not been able to apply them to your situation
• You feel there is something wrong with you because you can’t maintain organizing systems

Chronic disorganization does not to be a life sentence for chronic pain. Even though the tendency to become disorganized will always be there, many chronically disorganized people can learn to work with and compensate for their natural tendencies. They can learn organizing skills, and beliefs and habits that empower them to maintain simple organizing systems that dramatically improve their lives.

Getting Help

If you think you might be chronically disorganized, and if you feel that you can open up and let someone into your life to be a partner in helping you find ways to organize your problem areas, I highly recommend that you consider working with a professional organizer and coach.

If the thought of having someone enter your home and help you with your issues, makes you stress out or think "I could never do that!" then working with an organizing coach over the phone, or with a psychologist, may be a better first step for you.

If you do wish to consider working with an organizing professional, please select your professional organizer carefully. Not all people who call themselves professional organizers have the education and coaching skills needed to help people create lasting change in their lives. I recommend looking for a professional who specializes in Chronic Disorganization or ADD. Start with the NSGCD www.NSGCD.org NSGCD is the only organization I know of that is devoted primarily to providing education and training specifically on helping people with Chronic Disorganization.

You might also check out these resources:

ADD

• ADD & ADHD Resource List on my blog
• Attention Deficit Disorder Association referral directory
• ADD Consults referral directory

Compulsive Hoarding

• Compulsive Hoarding Service Provider Referral Directory on my blog
• Help for Hoarders, Clutterers & Compulsive Shoppers on my blog
  
  

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© 2007 Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed.

Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed, Organizing Coach is the founder of Neat & Simple professional organizers. As an organizing coach she specializes in working with creative people, ADD and the chronically disorganized. She is the author of the home office organizing book "Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Home Office", and the popular organizing and decluttering blog, Neat & Simple Living.

 

 

 

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