It`s almost April 15; do you know where your tax information is?
Or has paper clutter taken over your life so completely you`re not sure where anything is, including the W-2 forms?
It seems that what used to be a trickle of paper has now turned into an all-out flood.
We are deluged with junk mail. Home offices generate tons of paper. Elementary school teachers obviously have a conspiracy to swamp all parents with paper projects. Magazines, newspapers, catalogs, recipes, travel articles-we save them all to read ”later” because we don`t have time now.
And for many, as the tax deadline looms, the need for carefully filed information triggers new resolve: Clean up and get organized.
Alas, as many clutterbugs can testify, it`s often easier to think about cleaning up than actually doing it.
”I had about an hour at lunch, and I made myself a sandwich and sat and watched television for a while,” says Linda Cosby, who has two children, 3 months and 4 years old, and does a lot of work from her home. ”I felt so guilty, because I kept thinking that I should be spending that hour cleaning up.”
She and her husband, John, have a home office with equipment that would be the envy of many: two computers, long computer tables and file cabinets.
But there`s hardly a clutter-free surface anywhere. Her chair is piled high with mail, mail-order catalogs, magazines and loose photographs. ”I can`t even sit down at my computer without moving stuff around,” she says.
Somewhere in all the clutter is baby David`s birth certificate. After a frenzied search, the Cosbys finally gave up and got David a new one.
It`s the kind of story that is almost funny because it`s so familiar to many of us. We don`t clean up because we`re too busy; so we end up spending even more time backtracking, hunting, then redoing. If there is a little slice of time, as Linda Cosby had that lunch hour, we feel guilty and self-indulgent when we do something perfectly normal, like eat a sandwich and watch television, instead of cleaning up.
Paper clutter has become such a problem that many people are paying big bucks for help in getting organized. The California-based National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) has grown from a handful of members five years ago to 350. Fees for professional help can range from $25 to $125 an hour, depending on what part of the country you live in (Chicago would be on the upper end). Corporate clutter-busters can charge $1,000 a day and up.
California (always in the forefront, even with clutter) even has a support group called Packrats International, based in Orange County. For those who favor 12-step programs, there`s Messies Anonymous in Miami.
”People would come into our workshops carrying huge grocery bags full of paper clutter. They just had no idea what to do with all this paper. We would show them how to file,” says Toni Pighetti of Oak Park, a clutter consultant for many years with partner Marion Biagi.
Paper security blanket
People react to paper clutter in very different ways.
Some claim they can`t function without some sort of clutter. Give them a clean desk, they say, and they can`t think, the creative juices just dry right up. But they want to be able to find things.
Others want total neatness but are overwhelmed with trying to achieve that organization. The paper keeps pouring in, faster than they can file.
Organizer Pat Dorff of Minneapolis, author of ”File . . . Don`t Pile!”
(St. Martin`s Press, $8.95), talks about the advantages of understanding one`s personality when tackling clutter and stuff.
She uses portions of the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator test to help people determine their personality type. (The test is based on personality characteristics as defined by psychiatrist Carl Jung.)
”The intuitive type (defined as those who prefer looking at relationships and possibilities rather than working with facts) is by far the higher percentage of folks (seeking help),” she said.
An intuitive clutterer is usually a restless, creative type, one who needs a deadline to clean up. Tax deadline, for example, can inspire an intuitive clutterer to really organize; similiarly, an upcoming dinner party can spur a general cleanup that would not otherwise occur.
”But I also have a lot of sensing people (those who prefer working with known facts); they are very structured, very routine, very sequential, but they`re not creative. So they don`t want to dream up the organizational system, but once it`s in place, they`ll stick with it for the rest of their life.”
Of course, not everyone is bothered by clutter. It doesn`t bother them, they say, and if it`s a problem, it`s your problem-no Valium or organization experts needed. (Of course, this can be death to a relationship, but that`s another story.)
Larre Fine, a bachelor in his 50s, lives in a 3,200-square-foot suburban house. It has three bedrooms, an office, a family room with a magnificent fireplace surrounded by huge stones, a wine cellar, a hot tub outside, Jacuzzi and sauna inside. It`s a great party house, and Fine used to give wonderful parties; he has pictures of them, large groups of people having fun.
Now there`s too much stuff around to give parties.
The kitchen counters are filled with stuff. There`s no visible surface on the dining room table because of the piles. Boxes of paper line the dining room walls. ”These are all from an old political campaign,” he says, motioning to six boxes stacked on top of each other. ”I ran for office a couple of years ago; I might need this information again for something.”
Even his spacious two-car garage is filled. One vehicle is not even visible.
An orderly mess
His office is piled high. The closets-”well, the nice thing about big closets is that the stuff slides out from the bottom when you open the door. If I lived in the city and had little closets, it would fall from the top.”
But it doesn`t bother him.
”I`m overwhelmed at what all comes in, but I can`t say it bothers me. And my two cats have never mentioned it; it doesn`t bother them,” he says.
The clutter results from lack of time, he says. His days and weeks are jammed. In addition to the three companies he owns (and partially runs from his home), he`s also a ski instructor and marathon runner.
”When you live alone, you have to do everything yourself. I just don`t have the time to process paper. But if someone came over and said, `Larre, where is such and such a magazine on the Big Sur marathon?` I could find it within 5 or 10 minutes. The piles are organized.
”If I took a month off, or if I got sick and stayed at home, I could probably get everything put away. But I don`t take time off, and I don`t get sick.”
Even with a house as large as Fine`s, the space finally runs out unless organization happens.
”You can compare it to the need to go on a diet,” organizer Dorff says. ”Your home or office keeps ingesting more and more paper. One day, it`s like the house says, `Wait a minute, there`s no more space. I need to go on a diet.` ”
Is organization, paper clean-up, possible for everyone? And what are the odds for regression once clean-up has occurred?
”Yes, anyone can get organized, to whatever degree they want,” Dorff says. ”And I don`t think everyone`s organizational style has to be what the world expects. It`s very individual.”
She hesitates.
”Maintaining is another issue. Without a doubt, it can be a real struggle. It`s important to understand yourself.”
Says Toni Pighetti, who was a massive clutterer before she cleaned up and became a professional organizer: ”I regress all the time. I`m constantly battling it. You know you`re regressing when you start not being able to find the things you need. So then you get back on track.”
