Posts Tagged ‘chapter’

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Letting Go of Your High School Senior

Friday, April 29th, 2011
Grandmother & granddaughter attending our Smith College reunions together.

2002. Grandmother & granddaughter attending Smith College reunion together.

When I think of “letting go,” as an organizing coach, I think about our stuff, our habits which no longer serve us, and our internal clutter. I hadn’t thought about high school seniors !

It started about a year ago, as clients and friends moved through college applications, senior year events and prepared for a graduation celebration.  I started hearing: “I wonder what it will be like next year when he’s/she’s gone.”

Times of change are prime times to ask for additional support to make it easier to move on to your next chapter. I work mainly with people who have gone through one or more of these significant life events – some sad, some happy, many bittersweet.

Support can be in the form of brainstorming, ideas from other clients, insights, perspective and cheering on your behalf. Belief in you, even when your belief may not be as strong as it usually is.

Ideas for how you can model your life organizing skills as they prepare to leave home.

Work on these together. Teach what you know as you model it and share your words of wisdom.

Get  ready for their new home.

What day is your child returning or starting college? Create your dorm room list of what you need to buy or find at your home to send them off in August.

If you start your list now, before the emotions set in too heavily, your mind’s clearer to come up with your best list.

And, you’ll have several months to spend the time and money on things, rather than having big bills in August.

Avoid last minute purchases here or at college. You’ll pay more than what you wanted and/or won’t get quite the product you wanted.

How  does your young adult handle change and stress?

What happens during periods of high stress – like being away from home for such a long time, living with a roommate perhaps for the first time and all the other stresses of this new chapter she’s about to start. On her own. Without family to be right there with her? Discuss it. Plan for it.

How does her ADD show up day-to-day? Spend time working with your high school senior discussing how he/she will manage this aspect of life.

Has your young adult ever been away for a few weeks or more; use that experience to figure out what worked and what was most difficult. Begin the college conversation with his strengths.

Talk with friends who have older college-aged children. What is a typical day like? And a weekend? What were the challenges? How can you two figure out some of this together? Can you review a schedule together?

What does the school have for support for the young adult with ADD? With a learning disability? With a chronic medical issue? How will you continue work with the specialists at home?

A smaller version of their stuff

Your adult child will likely stubbornly refuse to believe that everything he owns cannot fit into the dorm room.

Teaching moment: How can you help your high school senior decide on a smaller version of her clothes and other belongings?

This is a great time for reflection and discussion together on what deserves space in the college dorm room.

And on what will make a dorm room feel  like “home?”

How will you organize contact with each other once she’s there?

Sunday night phone calls home? Email? Facebook contact? How often is often enough so he feels supported by the  home front but not so tied that he doesn’t quite leave the nest mentally?

My 30th year  college reunion is this year. I don’t remember how my parents handled my last summer at home, but I DO remember they wrote me a letter to take with me.

On lined,  yellow 8 1/2 x 14 paper, dad’s handwriting communicated their words of wisdom on all fronts of my new chapter ahead.

How  will you do all of this for your new college freshman?

Too much going on? Need additional support to figure out all of this? Meet with me for 1, 2 or 3 hours. Meet with me by phone or in person.

Resources/related reading:

What to bring to college.  http://www.campusgrotto.com/what-to-bring-to-college.html

Recommended by Linda Samuels, author, Professional Organizer, a book she read as her daughter left for her freshman year:   http://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-Fifth-Parents-Understanding/dp/0061665738

Heart-felt words of wisdom from mom blogger, Wendy Thomas, as her son temporarily left the roost for his High School robotics team at the FIRST National competition in St. Louis. http://simplethrift.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/lesson-305-words-for-my-little-chick-who-is-away/

The Old College Pry – from The Gypsy Nesters (life after kids blog): http://www.gypsynester.com/tk.htm

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Organize Your Way through Life’s Transitions

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Your life is in transition. You’ve had a major life event occur, or maybe a series of them over time.

While change is difficult, it’s that place in between the old chapter and the new chapter that’s even more difficult. It’s a place of limbo where you’re not quite through the changes, and you’re not quite into your new chapter.

Organizing is so helpful in dealing with these transitions in our lives.

  • Organizing is cathartic. It helps you process your emotions. As you go through your things, you’re not only thinking about “keep or give away” decisions, you’re thinking about the transition itself, the emotions, what’s next, how you’ll  manage.
  • Organizing gives you a sense of control. In the context of your life events and the transition you’re in, control is a great thing to have! Mid-crisis, we often have no control.
  • Organizing allows you to use your energy on dealing with the emotions of the transition.
  • Organizing makes you an agent of positive change in your home and with your time. You are moving past the point of a being a bystander to your life as your crises subside.
  • Organizing gives you clarity in terms of what’s truly important in your life, from the past, currently and going forward.

I coach my clients that organizing is part of your support system.

And in the words of clients, organizing your stuff, time or space helps to:

“Clear the fog.”

“Put your life back together.”

“Create your next chapter.”

“Let go more easily. You begin to notice what’s important to keep.”

“Visualize the new ‘place’ you’re heading.”

Work through it at your own pace.

You’ll be dealing with the ‘stuff,’ but also the emotions of your transition(s).

Let the  organizing be a member of your support team.

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The Spare Bedroom Quandary

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

If you have grown children, what are you making of their bedrooms, now that they aren’t living with you? Saving the room as it was ? Using it for a “miscellaneous” room — the place you put stuff you don’t know what to do with, or aren’t sure whether to keep? When do you take the room as your own? The kids’ bedrooms are filled with memories of a chapter now past, which is what makes them difficult to go through or use for a new purpose.

I once worked with a woman who made beautiful jewelry. Her crafts space had been in the basement from the time her children were born. It was a nice getaway space when needed. But now, the space was always a little cold, a little damp and the lighting was not strong enough for detailed craft work.

Her life transition was that she’d become an empty nester.  Her son had just married and she had a new daughter-in-law to get to know. She had a job she liked very much. She had several hobbies, but jewelry making was her passion. You could tell this if you talked with her just for a few minutes. Her language, her energy, her spark – it all changed  when you started talking about jewelry.

When we worked together, I listened and took in her comments about the basement as her jewelry space. I felt her conflicting  energy. She loved jewelry but I could tell she was no longer enamored with this space.

Gail Zona jewelry Carousel glamourOnce, it had been the perfect spot, away from the activity of the household, when she needed a quiet break. It had served her well for many years.

She wanted a studio, with better natural light, improved storage for the beads, her tools, and a design space. She’d done her crafting in the basement for so long that it didn’t occur to her to move  the space upstairs, now that her son was making his own home elsewhere.

*Photo from gdesign

I gradually introduced the idea of using her grown child’s bedroom as her studio. She could keep a bed there, too, for overnight guests.

Her energy changed and she quickly grabbed hold of the idea. She created a visual picture for both of us – how she’d set it up, what colors she’d paint, where she’d sit to design a new piece.

Sometimes, we don’t realize we’re holding onto what’s now a prior chapter of our lives.

An outsider’s perspective offering new  possibilities, while honoring the memories, can be just the thing.

So for grown children’s bedrooms, think about these questions:

  • How often the room is used as a bedroom? How often does it stay empty and unused?
  • Think about activities that take place somewhere else in the house. Could you make space — more space than you have today — in the bedroom instead?
  • Think about it: A small business office, a household office/bill-paying center, off-season storage, quilting space, writing/reading nook, art studio. Or perhaps you’ll decide to host some students from another country. Or maybe you are going back to school and need a study space.
  • What are the chances she’ll come back?
  • At what point do you let go of the idea that your grown children will return to stay?
  • And if they need to return home, due to a divorce, job situation, how could you make them comfortable in their family home.

And so … aren’t we using up precious space where you’ve always wanted  a sitting room, a quilting space, or a home office. How about a shared space?

So start dreaming. That may be enough inspiration to get on the phone or email your adult child and ask:  What can I do with your  things? I”m creating a xxxxxxxx. Should I ship or store or donate them? Shall I send you a  list? Or can I send you photos to help you decide?”

They want far less than what you’ve been keeping for them; I hear this time and time again.

So ask them, and let’s do something creative, for you, with that newly spare bedroom.

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Barbara Winter’s Advice on Getting Clear

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

“Whether self-employment is your well-worn path or you’re just taking your first steps toward making a living without a job, welcome to the place where you’ll find ideas for running an inspired business, one that expresses your most creative self and offers you the rewards of freedom and financial independence.”—Barbara J. Winter, champion of the self-employed.

“Joyfully Jobless™.”

The first time I read Barbara Winter’s trademarked phrase, I wasn’t quite sure how to take it. So off I went to her website, where she promises to be your tour guide on your adventure, this journey called self-employment. I’ve since followed her on social media sites, become a newsletter subscriber, taken a teleclass, ordered her book, Making a Living without a Job. And recommended her to others.

Ideas, inspiration, expression, creative self and rewards … here’s our joyfully jobless tour guide, Barbara Winter, whom I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing. Quite a privilege.

Author, speaker, writer and seminar leader, Barbara ensures you will not walk away from a conversation, seminar or written piece without being inspired and passionate, whether you are in business for yourself or are considering self-employment.

My organizing-coaching business is all about our transitions in life, and moving onto our next chapter. So when Barbara wrote online about her adventures of moving her home and office, and used phrases such as “declutter,” “simplify,” and “living in the gap,” I asked to interview her about what she’d learned. She started her move in August and, fingers crossed, has a new home this week. She’s lived in “the gap” for awhile now.

When people move, they get a very clear sense of which belongings are important to them, and are much clearer on priorities for their time. Clearer than during normal times, so I thought her advice would be useful to any of us moving through a  major life event.

Barbara’s Advice:

In the big picture, Barbara reviews her priorities on a regular basis. Each year, she reflects on this question: “What is the 2011 version of my life?” Similar to knowing your values, creating this year’s “version” of your life will drive decisions on what items are allowed to stay in your home or on your schedule.

Barbara’s 2011 version focuses on educating people about self-employment as a strong option to working for someone else:

• Presenting again at the 2011 “Unjob Fair” at Colorado Free University (link is to the 2010 site);

• Working out other locations for the Unjob Fair concept;

• Follow-Through Camp rolls out again (“If you’re ready to become the champion of your good ideas, here’s an opportunity to do just that.”)

• And a new seminar – Small Sassy & Successful

Next a reminder from Barbara that it’s “hard to be successful when your personal life is in disorder.” Whether you’re planning a move or not, you are the only one who can take care of your personal life.

So take the time you need after any major change or transition. Heal yourself first, and then refocus on your work, self-employed or not. A major change could be a career change you wanted but it’s still a major life event. Or the transition could be into caregiving for a parent who now lives with you.

Last bit of advice for today: This particular move was not one Barbara initiated. Since it was not of her own choosing, this was a rockier adventure than other moves. She had less lead time to organize for her move this time. And with this time pressure and the fact that it was not her choice to move, getting clear on where she wanted to be next in her life took longer. “Living in the gap” is an expression she used, and I believe she meant emotionally as well as being without her own home for awhile.

She discovered that going through a transition not of her choice is quite like moving through the five stages of grief. From denial all the way through to acceptance.

Think about the last time you went through a major life event, a move, a divorce, a career change, caregiving. Didn’t you move through these stages in some fashion? And think about it: how was it different for you in a self-imposed change versus one thrust upon you? So give yourself adequate time to reflect and process what’s happening. You are the only one who can insist on this; you are your champion.

There’s more on the way: Barbara, an avid reader, gives advice on deciding which books get to stay on her shelves and which get to find a new home; how to decide which of her belongings to take with her to her new home; space and how we fill it and more on setting up a new home. Stay tuned for next blog entry with more advice on getting clear.

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Organizing is about Moving On, Next Chapters.

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

In a organizer coach course a few years ago, my colleague Jill McKean made an insightful observation, which changed my perspective about my business and so about what  I have to offer.

Sometimes it’s that one person, in your life just at the  right time. Jill was that person, that practicing organizer coach.

She knew me fairly well; we’d worked in several small groups coaching together before. We shared some challenges and were both glad to reconnect in another small group for coaching practice.

We’d both come a long way since the beginning of our coaching by that point. And we each noticed it in the other, which was exciting.

I talked that day about specializing. What would be different about organizing with me. What was I passionate about. What did my life  experience mean and do for me in my business?

About 10 years ago now, I was looking and searching. In the coloring book picture of my life, the dots weren’t connected. Something was missing.

I’d already changed. I was breaking out. I ended up getting “unmarried,” as a friend calls it. I left a 20 year business career. I downsized. I moved states. I went through a divorce. I started a new business after a good deal of  thought, reflection about myself and where I was in my life, and with education, research and advice.

I changed religions, too, just to really change a lot (but I’d been searching before then). I moved in with some dogs which I never thought I’d do. I always had fish and turtles. I moved in with a housemate and on a lake. I’d always wanted to live on the water but had given up on that years prior.

Jill let out a “phew,” and commented that I’d been through a lot  of change, all in a short a period of time.

“I guess so.”

And there weren’t many people who had had so much change in their lives. She couldn’t imagine how to deal with it all.

“Really? I’d honestly never thought about it that way.”

I thought it was some sort of stereotypical l mid life crisis or something  like that. I used to be a more stereotypical kind of person :)

I knew I was passionate about giving back in my organizing business, making a difference in people’s  lives.

I realized with Jill’s coaching that I’d done something big, this moving on after all my life’s changes. And coming out happy on the other side, too.

And with less stuff. The stuff had been far more important earlier in my life because I  thought it meant something about me. Not at all.

Organizing is just that. It’s about moving on.
It’s about next chapters in life.
Shedding some of our past, but keeping the essence of who you are and who you have been.

And organizing our life, our home, our workspace and our time to reflect the person we are becoming.

And that’s the passion.

Thank you, to my organizer coach Jill.

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