Getting It Together Organizing » seeing in a new way

STEVE JOBS – DREAM WEAVER – HIS LEGACY IN MY LIFE

Isolde — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:55:00 +0000

In 1980 or there abouts when I was a teenager in Dublin, Ireland, my eldest sister, Jennifer, wanted to go to the University of London in England to do a Masters degree in ergonomics. There was nowhere in Ireland to study this and our only choice was London. But we could not afford it. So, together as family, we researched all the big company’s in Ireland who had money and drafted a letter to them asking to help send my sister to university. Because I had learnt to type by that point, I was elected to type the many letters to send to every successful company working in Ireland. Believe me it was a lot of letters to type. There were a lot of no replies, a lot of rejections but a few companies did reply offering to help. One of those companies was Apple – they had a factory in Ireland. I think this was in the early 80′s.

I addressed the letter to Steve Jobs. He replied and said he would help. Not only did he help but he also gave us our first computer, our first printer. We named our dog after him – Ula – which means apple in Gaelic. He had a huge impact on my life to do with following one’s dreams and the generosity of spirit that is necessary in fulfilling them.

I heard today that he was just 56 years old when he passed. My sister is now 53 years old. Steve was in his mid twenties when he said “Sure, what do you need?” to my family. He was in his twenties!!!! He was not a multi-millionaire – he just believed in following dreams. He was following his dream and also helping others follow theirs. There was no ego in it, no pay off for him. There was nothing my sister had to do, nothing we had to prove.

I have only ever had a Mac computer since then but more importantly I promised myself I would follow my dreams and support others in following their dreams.

He had a huge impact on me then but realising that he was just a few years older than my sister when he helped us… well I am blown away. It’s seems so surprising to me not that he was so successful, rich, creative or visionary but that consistently, from an early age, he was so generous of spirit and deed.

Deep bow.

“SEEING” THE SOLUTION… not so easy – or is it?

Isolde — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:34:29 +0000

With all the best of intentions, even buying the latest “organizing” gadget… You even purge everything you no longer want. And there you stand looking at your desk and no matter where you position the new paper tray … well it just doesn’t fit nicely and your desk looks even worse. It doesn’t even make it look organized! So you rearrange your lamp, move the pen, paper clip, and business card holders and stack the books and put them under the paper tray.

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.

Perspective

Isolde — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:33:57 +0000

Really it’s all about perspective; how we see or experience something is not necessarily the only way or even, at times (like for me yesterday), vaguely realistic. It can be very frustrating not to mention alarmingly confusing when we find ourselves not being able to figure out how to organize our home when we seem to be able to have a perfectly organized office. Or when we were single somehow everything found a place but now that we are sharing our life with someone we find it almost impossible to even find a place for our tooth brush! It’s very common.

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!