Seeing a solution. It’s interesting, I have been thinking about what we really see, what we think we see and how hard it is to see with fresh eyes.  When I begin my work with a client I do literally bring fresh eyes to a situation. I also bring a lot of other skills but it’s what and how I see that separates me from my client.

And until the other day I never really gave it too much examined thought. I was with a client, in her new home. We were working on her home office. She mentioned something about needing a hook for her tea towels in her kitchen. She brought up the subject of her tea towels and the hook quite a few times. She had bought a hook but it was the wrong hook – it didn’t fit on the door beneath her sink. We went into her kitchen and she stood, dumb struck, looking at  the problem of her tea towel. I asked her why she felt she needed a hook for the tea towel? “Well in my old kitchen my hook was right here under the sink. It worked so well for me”.

I asked her why it couldn’t go on the handle of the stove? She looked at her stove as if it were the oddest place to put a tea towel. “But I always kept it on a hook under my sink – it worked well there”. She tried hanging the tea towel on the stove and it worked. And it made sense because it would also dry.

But the interaction over the tea towel really struck me. And over the next couple of days it kept coming back into my mind. What had really happened for my client is that she was “seeing” her old kitchen, relatiing to her old kitchen. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to organize she just wasn’t seeing with fresh eyes.

We all do it. Think we are seeing but really we are not. Here are some tips on “seeing”

1.  Take a photo of the area in question. Sometimes it helps to look at something through the eyes of a camera.

2.  Itemize every single item in the area. Say it’s a mantlepiece. Write down everything thing that is on it. Including match boxes, pens, bits of paper – everything. I can assure you that when you itemize everything you will realise that in fact you had not seen at least 25% of it.

3.  Don’t group things in your mind when looking. If there are candles on your mantlepiece then count how many.

Let me know how you get on! And drop me a line if you have any questions.

Yesterday I had the perfect excuse to go for my first drive in a car on my own! I was so looking forward to it. I needed to pick up some supplies for a client in north Toronto and drop them off to her home in east Toronto and following that I had a meeting not too far away. It was ideal. I got into the car and made my virgin voyage odyssey. I drove to the store, picked up the supplies and then headed east to her house. I couldn’t believe how easy everything seemed with a car. I drove up her street, saw her driveway and drove up. I thought to myself “Wow, this is so cool!” I did a flawless reverse out of the driveway when I had dropped everything off and headed to my meeting. The whole day was perfect, blue skies, hardly any traffic – couldn’t have been happier. When I returned home I dropped my client a quick note saying I had left her supplies in her back garden on the glass table.

My computer made a sound informing me a message had come in… from my client marked URGENT. “How odd? I wonder what’s up?” I read her message. “We don’t have a glass table in our back garden” Blimey!!!!! Where the +%$#@ had I left her things! I mean I distinctly remember driving into her driveway. I am sure it was her driveway. Turns out it wasn’t. I had left all her things in a complete strangers back garden. The stranger happened to be a friend and neighbour of my client so all worked out well.

But here’s why I mention this: I had only ever approached someone’s house as a passenger or pedestrian. I had never driven up a driveway. Until yesterday evening all driveways looked alike to me. Of course I didn’t realise that all driveways looked alike to me but obviously they did or I wouldn’t have driven up a complete strangers driveway, unloaded my car and made the few trips back and forth to their back garden dropping strange boxes off onto their glass table. I have no idea what they thought looking out at my happy face.

When we take on a new role, be it as a parent, a partner, or entrapreeur – we think that everything looks and is the same. But our world has changed but we are still looking at it through our old eyes – and they don’t give the true picture. Organizing your office when you are now sharing it in the same location as your home and personal life does change everything. It means seeing things from a new and completely different perspective. A lot of my work when I first start with clients is about getting them so “see” things in a new way. Not trying to fit the new life into the old perspective. Your life changes regardless of whether you see it or not. It’s all about perspective and learning to “see” in a new way. I promise I will never look at a driveway in the old way again!

It’s taboo isn’t it, to admit that you think you’re losing your memory… to admit your struggles as a new parent?

This phenomenon has been given a title - Mumnesia – and some say it is a genuine medical condition. Mumnesia is a symptom of complex life and societal situations and significant biological changes that happens to new moms.

Along with the stresses and pressures of being a new parent, there are also consumer driven messages to be a “good parent”; maintaining nutritious feedings, ideal childcare, picture perfect school schedules, extra-curricular activities, homework, friends, sleep-overs, shopping (the list goes on!) On top of the pressures to fit into the new parent role, the busy parents I meet with also balance the complexities of having and running a home, career, adult relationships and the struggle to find that work/life balance.

It doesn’t seem to me that the majority of the parents I work with have medical “Mumnesia“, but rather, are just new parents lacking the organizational tools that are essential for coping with all the new changes.

So what can you do to deal with this scary situation (on top of everything else you have to do?) First, take a moment to laugh at life’s simplest moments. Laughing helps me with stress reduction! This short video will make you smile.

Next, to cope with this worrying memory anxiety, use my tips for memory recall and task organization – these tips will not only help you to adjust to new parenting, but can help in any challenging new life situation.

1) Begin with a notebook - yes, writing it down really does help! Get one sturdy hard-cover notebook, and divide it into three sections; To-Dos, Communications (Call-backs), and Purchases; (books you want to read, courses you want to take, and the all important shopping list).

2) Log every call. Be sure to have the notebook with you each time you’re on the phone. Take notes – the phone number, what you discussed, the date of the conversation, and who you spoke to.

3) Cross it off! Note every action item, call or letter in your To-Do section. Review your list often, and cross off items as you go (even the littlest of tasks) – it will help!

4) Take it with you! The last section of your notebook should contain the names of books, classes or special interest purchases that you might want to make in the near future (kind of like a wish-list shopping list!). Having your action items, call list and shopping items in one book ensures that you’re not digging through scraps of paper, searching for that little post-it note, or forgetting the shopping list on the fridge. This hard-cover notebook contains everything you need to keep you on track.

5) A place for everything … and everything in its place. Yep. That’s right – your mother said it to you growing up but, in this case she did know best! File away important documents (couldn’t help it I had to mention filing!), and reduce those ‘Now where did I put that?’ moments by establishing designated places for keys, agendas, umbrellas….

6) Hydrate. One of the main symptoms of memory loss is dehydration. A lot of moms forget to drink throughout the day, so up you intake of water, herbal teas or fruit juices – now that was easy eh?