Well, here we are ready for our first work session with Fay. In preparation for this session, I had a few email exchanges with Fay discussing what area she wanted to begin with and how the process would go. Because she picked the office, which involves a lot of papers, I brought about 10 bankers boxes -- you know, those cardboard all-purpose boxes that can store papers and files -- to use for the first sort.  

When we arrived, Fay was ready to work. She had already cleared off her couch and chair in the living space which was great to see. We came up with about 8 categories for her papers: work, financial, certificates/awards, personal, recipes… and one for each of her girls. As I said before, there were a lot of papers -- everywhere in the living space, on and around her desk and on the floor. We just picked a pile and began sorting it into the boxes. Some of the papers went into the trash (we had about 4 bags of trash) some went into a box for shredding and the others went into the categories we created. After about 3 hours we did get through a lot of papers, but everyone knows how many papers we all seem to have and the visual impact of our work done didn’t do it justice. The challenging part is that Fay has to make decisions on every piece of paper -- and that is tiring. We did come up with some categories that my colleague and I could make decisions on: expired coupons, old catalogues, old school and camp information, etc. We did make progress but it is slow. The motto is “baby steps” -- slow but steady progress.

This presort will need to continue until all the papers in the living/office area have been sorted into one of the boxes. At that point each box of papers would be looked at with a more discerning eye, only keeping papers that are relevant and needed. Those would either go into active/current files or put in files to be archived.  We had particularly interesting conversations about her magazines -- of which she had many. We had to negotiate a number of magazines that she would keep and a process for letting go of them. She came up with a great idea -- to grab a few when taking her daughter to sports practices, doctor’s appointments, etc. -- read them and leave them there for others to enjoy. We also decided that any new magazines that come in would then require her to let go of that same amount.  I learned from Fay that the process of letting go of the “stuff” is difficult for her. She has had some significant challenges that have led to wanting to keep, keep, and keep. I shared with her some information that I had just listened to in one of my NSGCD teleclasses. The class topic was learning about the brain’s reaction to change. Basically we all tend to do the same things, have routines and the like. When we try making changes, especially ones that are big changes, the brain shifts into the “fight or flight” mode and that prevents our brain from being able to be rational. Our fear becomes the guiding light so to speak and as we know making decisions in a state of fear is very difficult and not reliable. So, our job and the client’s job are to recognize this and talk to the brain rationally, therefore disarming the “fight or flight” instinct. It is like taking the same path through a forest all the time -- easy to do because it is well traveled. When you decide to make a new path it is very difficult at first until you have traveled that way often and then the path becomes easy. That is what we are doing to the brain -- creating new pathways that allow the decisions to be made. And, hence, the reason for the motto “baby steps”. Going slow and making small changes will not alarm our brain and make the process easier.

Here is Fay's office space "Before"

Here is the first "baby step" -- boxes to sort papers 

The family calendar