Is Organizing a Waste of Time?

“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” It’s 5:00AM on a Tuesday morning. You roll over, foggy eyed and hit the snooze button. 18 minutes later your body finally negotiates with your mind and you crawl out of bed. You disconnect your smartphone from the charger and begin looking at emails and social media, when you glace at the time…6:00AM! You race to the shower, get yourself groomed, and skip breakfast, seeing you need to be on the road by 7:00AM. You glace at the kitchen clock on the way out the door. 6:55AM. Maybe you’ll have time to hit the drive-thru for a quick bite on the way to work?

Your car is in the driveway yet again. Why? It’s too big to fit into the two-car garage. How can a vehicle be too big for a two-car garage? Well, it’s not really the fault of the vehicle. It’s the endless piles of “stuff” in the garage, which has rendered this car to the outdoor elements. And last nights elements came in the form of snow, eight inches of snow. Now you need a shovel, but….it’s in the garage.

You open the side garage door under the covered porch to retrieve the shovel. As you open the door, you need to push with some force to fit your body through the entrance. Stuff is in the way. As you look around the garage, all you see is stuff, stuff and more stuff. No shovel. You remember using the shovel last year and tossing it back in the garage. So, it must be under this jungle of junk, but where? Your hands are numb from the cold, as you pull out your phone, to check the time…7:25AM. You loose your grip, and your phone crashes on a metal object, which looks to be a tire iron. The screen is cracked, but it’s still working. Phew. This isn’t the first time you’ve cracked a screen on your phone.

You should have been on the road at 7AM, but that’s not going to happen this morning. Your stress level is boiling over now. Frantically, you start sifting through the piles of stuff; worn out boxes of old sporting equipment, ripped bags of clothes that no longer fit, broken toys with missing parts, and various tool equipment in disrepair. Panic has set in. As your eye scans the piles of contents in the garage, you notice what looks like part of a red handle. THE SHOVEL!! You start climbing over the stuff until you finally reach your goal. As you reach your arm out to grab the shovel, you hear a awful sound….”SNAP!"

Sound familiar? It’s time to make room for clarity. Start by decluttering your garage. Doing so, will save you time in the long run, so you can find the things you’re looking for quickly and easily.

As a Professional Organizer, Speaker, Author, TV Personality, and Podcast Producer & Host, Rick Woods helps residents and businesses make room for clarity, by getting rid of the clutter that gets in their way.


Rick’s book “Make Room for Clarity” is a step by step guide to getting rid of the clutter that gets in your way. Available on Amazon.

Inquire about Rick's professional organizing business, "The Functional Organizer, LLC.", which focuses on decluttering, organizing, paper filing and time management by visiting www.TheFunctionalOrganizer.com

How We Can Do More with Less

Recently, I was asked to watch a Ted Talk from Yves Morieux titled, “How Too Many Rules At Work Keep You From Getting Things Done”. In this talk, Morieux shows us how cooperation from a team can create superior results. The example he uses is a women’s international relay running race made up of the world’s top runners. Based on statistics, the U.S. women’s team is predicted to finish first, while the French women’s team is predicted to finish 2^nd. The result is an upset. The French team out runs the U.S. team regardless of the stated metrics, whose historic data predicted other results.

How did they do it?

The first element, which allowed the French to win, was clarity. The team was clear on what it needed to focus on to pull off the upset. They raced their best race by focusing on their goal and breaking down the race into achievable segments. The handing off of the baton was the most important part of the race. This was done successfully through powerful vocal cues, facial intensity, and an accurate hand off in stride at the correct angle.

The second element was measurement. How fast did each runner need to pump their arms? How long of a stride did they need to take to exert the least energy, while performing at optimal efficiency? At what point was the baton hand-off the most effective? And at what position did the retrieving runner need to be at while the baton hand-off was taking place?

The third element was accountability. Each runner on the French team was accountable for the next runner. No one person was slacking, which allowed the team to be “on” their A-game.

Morieux goes on to say that Cooperation is the main component behind these three elements. In other words, with cooperation we can do less while doing more. To achieve the ultimate cooperation we need to be proficient in clarity, measurement, and accountability.

What can you do to increase the efficiency of your business?

I'll be speaking on the subject of "Clarity" on Wednesday, October 21, 2015 at 6:30pm at Canton Public Library in Canton, CT. This free talk will harness you with the motivation to Make Room for Clarity in your home and life.

As a Professional Organizer, Speaker, Author, TV Personality, and Podcast Producer & Host, Rick Woods helps residents and businesses make room for clarity, by getting rid of the clutter that gets in their way. 
Rick’s book “Make Room for Clarity” is a step by step guide to getting rid of the clutter that gets in your way. Available on Amazon. Listen to Rick's free weekly iTunes & Stitcher podcast "Make Room For Clarity", which focuses on interviewing business & health experts by visiting www.MakeRoomForClarity.com Inquire about Rick's professional organizing business, "The Functional Organizer, LLC.", which focuses on decluttering, organizing, paper filing and time management by visiting www.TheFunctionalOrganizer.com