Yay! The organizing workshop yesterday, Parents, let it be easy. Simple solutions for staying organized, was quite an experience. Mom’s and kids had a good time as well as I.

I was thinking that 1 hour would be appropriate for attention span, and that’s how long my program was designed for. We went a little over, not sure how much. The women were ready for more, the kids were about ready for a change of scenery, and I was ready to speak back in my regular vocal range (rather than speak over a group of kids having a stimulating play day!)

There were 11 parents, all moms, including our hostess, the Director of Parents Play Dawn Nichol. Most if not all brought at least one child. There was one girl who looked about 6, the rest seemed to be under 5 years old.

Evaluations were positive. Several wrote that they really liked the specific examples and real world problem solving. The only negatives mentioned were 1. noise level of the kids and 2. that it was too short!

Evaluations and realtime response indicated they liked being encouraged to find more time for Self. During the talk, there was plenty of talk of wanting (and being wistful for) more simplification. “I remember when I was living in a small apartment with one fork, one spoon, one plate, one knife… it was great!” and then from another, “When we moved to the area, we temporarily moved into a really small house, so I had packed just the things we absolutely needed and the rest went to storage. The cupboards were almost empty and we haven’t missed anything!”

I feel I could have done a little more on guidelines for visualization, primarily to go into more detail. One woman admitted to being very organized, almost to a fault. I asked her to read what she had written on the handout for “Benefits” (they were asked to answer the question, “What would you gain by being more organized”). She said something along the lines of, “empty (mind) space.” I asked, “And what will you do with this empty space? Stare at the wall? Why do you want empty space?” “For different thoughts,” she responded. I encouraged her to clarify further. “What kind of thoughts?” “Creative.” “Good! Write that down in your Benefits section. Now you have a better sense of the cost of too much organizing. You sacrifice opportunity to express your creativity. Use this when deciding whether to clean out “just one more” drawer. Keep organizing or use this time for Creativity?” (Usually we look at the cost of being disorganized, but it’s the same principles.)

One of the points I made repeatedly was to take the time to get in touch with your best Self. 1. This will help you prioritize, which translates into a schedule more conducive to supporting your best Self, and 2. make decision-making easier (should I keep it (driven by emotional reasons) or give it away? - Does it Support the Best Me?). 3. Keeps you from unthinkingly filling up time with junk time and junk stuff. Thoughts lead to actions. This is such and important motivator and enabler of organization. Really, I can tie just about any point back to this :-)

I felt that I could have been more clear on the process for taking on a big project. Ex. when you have a big project, just saying, “get clear, write up plan, and follow plan” is not helpful. I wasn’t that vague, though I did have lots of ideas coming to me that I’d like to manage better for easier assimilation.

All in all, I had a great time meeting with a wonderful group of women. The kids were charming and just added to the rush of sharing my passion with others.