Shame-Free Organization: Session 6 Recap
This article will provide highlights from our session on organization, the 6th session in our 9-week executive functioning skill-building group series. This group is for anyone struggling to engage in daily tasks in a sustainable and satisfying way. It’s a supportive space to show up as you are. For example, participants are encouraged to choose to have their cameras on or off, use chat or microphone, share freely or sit back and listen supportively. Our guiding principle is “no shame and no pressure.” This group is neurodiversity-affirming and supportive of people managing burnout, chronic conditions, or other factors that affect their capacity. Learn more about this engaging group and sign up here.
In our session on organization, we delve into powerful strategies and supportive tools that can transform the way we manage our spaces and tasks. From breaking down barriers to creating sustainable systems, this comprehensive guide is packed with insights to enhance your organizational skills. Let’s dive into a few shifts, tweaks, and tools that can bring more ease to your day-to-day activities.
Session Recap and Organizational Skills Overview
Our sixth session focuses on the latter half of our organization journey. Previously, we explored the challenges inherent in organizational tasks and identified the skills needed to navigate them. That session covered:
1. Understanding Barriers:
Recognize potential barriers in organizational tasks, such as skill gaps, emotional responses (e.g., anxiety), childhood experiences with cleaning and household management, sensory aversions, and task demands.
2. Breaking Down Barriers:
Implement neutral, concrete inquiries to dissect your organizing challenges without self-judgment.
Evaluate how your physical environment and daily routine might be influencing your organizational skills.
Today, we move towards actionable strategies and tools that can make a tangible difference in how we approach organization.
Capacity Check and Reflection
Before diving in, it's essential to conduct a self-assessment.
Consider your current capacity for engaging with organizational tasks.
Reflect on whether you’ve observed changes in your initiation of challenging tasks, working memory, or other executive functioning skills.
Are you coping with capacity challenges such as burnout or chronic condition flares?
Have you attempted any new strategies recently? If so, what happened?
Your insights are vital for helping you select the tools that best meet you where you are today.
Organization Support Strategies
1. Mindset Shifts and Somatic Practices:
Before cleaning or organizing, engage in practices for mindset and somatic support to shift how you perceive and interact with your space.
For example, use a simple grounding exercise, such as focusing on your feet’s sensations, to calm anxiety and create a safer emotional space.
2. Automating and Reducing Daily Demands:
Systematize and automate wherever possible to lighten your cognitive load:
Use Technology: Employ devices like Bluetooth tags to keep track of essentials, or pill organizers with automatic dispensers and reminder alarms to maintain consistent self care.
Frontloading Tasks: Batch activities, for example meal prep or pre-assemble outfits when you put laundry away to use your capacity strategically and reduce daily decision fatigue.
Manage Object Permanence Issues: Utilize visible storage solutions and frequent reminders for essential items.
3. Community and Collaboration:
Involve others in your organizing journey, using body doubling and support networks to keep tasks engaging and manageable. Whether through virtual meetups or cleaning parties, collective efforts can enhance motivational and social aspects of organization.
4. Sustaining Organizational Practices:
To increase ease long-term:
Introduce creativity into organizational tasks by gamifying them or anchoring them in personal interests (like using music or fun tools). This can increase our intrinsic motivation by embracing our interest-based nervous system.
Example: This amazing “Slay the Dragon” chore chart.
Implement activity stations for tasks, keeping necessary items stored together to reduce planning and preparation barriers.
For Example, keep everything you need to clean each room in a bin in that room.
Create simple, low pressure systems focused on priority, not perfection:
For example, René Brooks presents the “Closing Duties” strategy in Black Girl, Lost Keys. Borrowed from the restaurant industry, this is a tool for managing transitions.
The Tool: A short, 3-item checklist.
The Strategy: At the end of the day, you perform "Closing Duties" for "Tomorrow You." This isn't a deep clean; it’s things like:
Setting the coffee maker.
Clearing the "launchpad" (where your keys/bag go).
Putting one load of laundry in the dryer
Moving Forward
With this supportive approach that meets you where you are, you are equipped to infuse more intention and clarity into your tasks and spaces. Join our group to dive deeper into these and many more strategies and tools! In our group, we provide support and personalized guidance on selecting tools and strategies that fit your strengths and challenges. Let’s work together to bring more ease and flow to your day-to-day life.
Resources referenced:
René Brooks, Black Girl, Lost Keys
Rach Idowu, 10 Ridiculous ADHD Hacks
@mei.fae, Slay the Dragon Chore Chart
Dr. Megan Anna Neff, Executive Functioning Workbook
*If you plan to use clinically, buy the clinical version