by Karin Stewart

Created on: July 07, 2009   Last Updated: July 11, 2009

You have read time management and organizing books, you know what to do, you've even tried some of the solutions they offered and liked them, yet nothing seems to really work. What is going on? Why is it sometimes so hard to get and stay organized?

The clients who come to me for help are usually having trouble for one of two reasons:

1. Biology

Yes, biology, or more precisely, neuropsychology, as in the way you brain is wired. While we are born equal, we also are born different, and that is true of our brains as well as our looks. Some people are more detail-oriented, while others are more attuned to the big picture; some people are so detail-oriented that they create wonderful but time-consuming systems, such as one of my clients did his to-do list took him an hour a day to maintain! Others are wonderfully creative, but mundane, day-to-day details seem to elude them; some have excellent internal clocks, while others have an internal clock operating on a different rhythm than the watch they wear on their wrist.

Unfortunately, too many people believe that there is just one way to be organized, and desperately try to make themselves fit this solution instead of learning the correct tools for them and how to effectively apply them in their own unique situations. The same way that there are different types of brains, there are different ways to organize your life and your environment. If you try to use a system that isn't adapted to you, it will fail, since it goes against your nature.

2. Negative Associations

When people have a negative association with being organized or on time, or a positive association with being disorganized or time-challenged, getting and staying organized is very difficult.

For instance, one client had memories associated with each and every object she owned, and was afraid that, if she let go of the object, the memory would go with it. It's not until she learned to dissociate the emotion and the object that she was able to let go of the clutter in her home and office. In doing so, she was able to keep those things that were truly important to her and better yet, actually enjoy them, as they weren't hidden underneath the clutter of less meaningful items.

Another client had rebelled against his parents: they were attached to timeliness to the point of excess, so he chose to be systematically late. Twenty years later, he was still living his life as if to spite his parents, completely unconscious of this

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