From Clutter to Clarity

An organization expert offers tips to help busy moms stay organized

I have one New Year's resolution for 2007: Get myself organized. The breaking point came late last year: Sitting on my living room floor, I dumped the contents of my purse in search of a prescription for my son's asthma medicine. I found it balled up and stuck to a half-opened tube of lip-gloss, which had also adopted a few stray Post-It notes and a $100 USB pocket drive that'd been missing for two weeks.

It's more than a little depressing to realize that a junky handbag pretty much mirrors my life. Yeah, I always seem to have the necessary stuff to get me through any given day, but the swirling disorganization shines a light on how uncomfortably close I am to total craziness. Managing my "to do" lists, social and work schedules, keeping track of email, cell phone voicemail messages, remembering appointments -- it often threatens to take over my life. Then there's the tendency to cram more into an over-stuffed schedule, which usually means that I do a little of everything, just not very well. To top it off, I like to whine about all of it. Wow, ineffectual AND dull. Not very cool mom, is it?

Having hit bottom, I called Julie Morgenstern, the time management and organizing expert whose best-selling books, "Organizing From the Inside Out" and "Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work," provide effective strategies for created more balance in a life crammed full. Last year, she partnered with Franklin Covey to produce "The Julie Morgenstern Organizing System," a collection of paper planners, binders and well-designed leather tote bags for those in need of a time management verhaul. Her goal: to help free the disorganized from their self-imposed misery.

 We spoke recently by phone from her office in New York City.

I always thought being super-organized left you with no room for spontaneity.

It's the exact opposite! I had a client who was having trouble adjusting from being a single woman to one who was married with kids. Before she had children, she was able to structure her day or week for herself, and she carved out specific times to do whatever she liked. After kids, that was a real challenge, and for this woman, it seemed so confining. She kind of resented feeling like her life had been taken away. Having some structure was really her ticket out. It was the solution to buy her life back.

Does being super-organized make you a better mom?

Absolutely. My Aunt Thelma was the epitome of organization, the kind of person who made labels for everything. I always thought, "Doesn't she have anything better to do?" That seemed so petty when there were so many more exciting things to do with your life. Now I understand that the organization freed her to do other things.

I was a very disorganized person when I was growing up. As a creative person, I thought being organized might squelch that creativity. When my daughter, Jessi, was born (she's 21 now), I realized that if I didn't get my act together, she might never see the light of day. I had to be organized enough to have the freedom to enjoy being a mom.

Being organized allows you to feel ready for everything, including the surprises and criseses, which is really part of being a mom. There's a great sense of calm and readiness that frees you to hone in on that frantic moment without so much anxiety. Feeling prepared as a mom made me feel confident and more fully present.

It seems almost counter-intuitive, in a way, to be kind of anal about organizing yourself and also being free to be spontaneous.

Well, you want to make sure you're organized enough, but not obsessively so. If you implement a low-labor system that's simple, intuitive and easy to maintain, you'll be fine.