Understanding Chronic / Challenging Disorganization: Are you Chronically Disorganized or Situationally Disorganized?
Link to This Article by Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed.
NOTE: This Article has been updated on October 19, 2011 and has moved to my new webhome at
ORIGINAL VERSION
Although I prefer the term "Lifelong Disorganization", the established industry term is "chronic disorganization" - this is not intended to imply a medical condition, nor an "incurable" condition.
The intention is to distinguish an "ongoing pattern of disorganization" from the "short term situational disorganization" and clutter that is the normal result of grief, illness, having children, and other life changes.
That said, it is quite common for what started as "stituational disorganization" to evolve into "chronic" or "challenging disorganization". (9/2010: NSGCD has changed its name to Institute for Challenging Disorganization Read about it here.)
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What is Situationally Disorganized?
When life throws you a curveball, most of us tend to accumulate clutter and become rather disorganized for a while. It's happens to the best of us. We become ill, a family member becomes ill, we are assigned a project at work that requires a lot of travel, or has a ridiculous deadline. Our lives change. We move, get married, have kids, or start a new job. During times of transition, a certain amount of chaos, clutter and disorganization is natural. This is what we call "Situationally Disorganized": Disorganization that is a normal side effect of a life situation.
What makes "Chronic Disorganization" different?
Chronic Disorganization is different because when life transitions happen to you, instead of "recovering" and "restoring order" after a few months or so, the disorganization does not improve and may even continue to worsen over time. The clutter continues to accumulate. At a certain point, daily life becomes overwhelmingly stressful. The clutter itself is now affecting your emotional state so strongly, you are no longer able to dig out alone. Help is needed to recover. And, in many cases, it may be that you will need ongoing help to maintain a reasonable level of organization. If your quality of life is suffering, you feel stressed and overwhelmed much of the time, and you don’t feel like you can fix it yourself, you are likely to be "stuck" in a pattern of being "chronically" disorganized. If you find that you tend to YO-YO between extremes of getting organized and then becoming overwhelmed with clutter, this "pattern" may also be considered "chronically disorganized."
What is Chronic Disorganization?
Chronic disorganization is a term coined by Judith Kolberg when she noticed that some of her clients had great difficulty maintaining traditional organizing methods. Seeing a lack of resources for helping people overcome chronic disorganization, she wrote the book “Conquering Chronic Disorganization.”
In 2001, she founded the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD). With over 900 members, the NSGCD now includes psychologists, educators, coaches, and other professionals who work with people suffering from long term, severe clutter and disorganization.
The NSGCD defines chronic disorganization as having all three of the following:
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- A history of disorganization in which efforts to get organized
have not been maintained. - An ongoing undermining of your current quality of life due
to disorganization. - An expectation that you will continue to be disorganized.
- A history of disorganization in which efforts to get organized
The term “chronically disorganized” is NOT a "diagnosis" or an "illness". It is used to indicate that traditional organizing methods will probably not be maintained and will require particularly unique and simple organizing solutions to become more organized. The individual may also need:
- education to learn skills;
- coaching to change habits and sustain motivation;
- emotional support to increase self-confidence, and possibly
- long term support to maintain a reasonable organized environment, much like an executive might need a personal assistant, or someone might need a personal trainer to stay motivated to exercise regularly.
If you are chronically disorganized, the standards for “being successfully organized" are usually different from what mainstream people perceive as well-organized. For example, professional organizers may advise that most people open mail every day and process it immediately. For a chronically disorganized person, opening and processing mail once a week may be a more than “good enough” standard.
Causes of Chronic Disorganization
Chronic disorganization is NOT a disease. It is a "trait" found in all kinds of people, at every income level. Chronically disorganized people are often also highly functional, creative, intelligent, social, accomplished, energetic, enthusiastic and fun to be around. Chronic disorganization is also commonly associated with ADD, chronic pain, depression, addiction to shopping, cluttering and hoarding, bi-polar disorder, Alzheimer’s, brain injury, and autistic spectrum disorders. Chronic disorganization is sometimes triggered by situational disorganization that has not been recovered for over a period of years.
Situational Life Events and Circumstances that sometimes lead to chronic disorganization include:
- Traumatic emotional loss: divorce, death of a loved one – especially, parent, spouse, or child
- Life changes that make organizing significantly more complex: getting married, having children, home-schooling, getting promoted, moving to a larger or smaller home, starting a business
- A lifestyle with constantly changing needs such as moving frequently or having many children involved in lots of activities
- Having been raised in an environment where life skills were not taught because everything was done for you, or you grew up with parents who were chronically disorganized, or you grew up in an abusive environment
- Ongoing major chronic illness in your family
Personality Characteristics, Traits and Thinking Styles that tend to be associated with chronic disorganization include:
- High intelligence / giftedness
- High creativity / creative personality type
- Right-brain dominant information processing style
- A wide range of interests
- Difficulty understanding own needs objectively
- Strong emotional attachments to things
- The energy of another person helps them feel “focused and interested”
- Tendency to lose track of time
- Ability to focus and engage so intensely that they may forget to eat and / or attend to daily life maintenance like shopping, cleaning & organizing
- Difficulty focusing on things they don't find fascinating
- Tend to get easily stressed and frustrated especially if things don't come easily or they can't do something "perfectly"
- “Global” thinking styles – tend to see everything at once
- Difficulty categorizing and making decisions because they can think of so many possibilities
- “Intuitive” and /or “Perceiving” preferences in their MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator) personality type
Are You Chronically Disorganized?
You may be chronically disorganized if:
- Disorganization, clutter and poor time management are regularly disrupting your marriage, relationships, work and health
- You have great difficulty letting go of things even when you no longer need them
- Clutter is preventing you from using areas of home as you would like to
- You have tried to organize many times but nothing seems to stick
- You have purchased organizing books and organizing containers but not been able to apply them to your situation
- You feel there is something wrong with you because you can’t maintain organizing systems
Chronic disorganization does not have to be a life sentence for chronic pain. Even though the tendency to become disorganized will always be there, many chronically disorganized people can learn to work with and compensate for their natural tendencies. They can learn organizing skills, and beliefs and habits that empower them to maintain simple organizing systems that dramatically improve their lives.
Getting Help
If you think you might be chronically disorganized, and if you feel that you can open up and let someone into your life to be a partner in helping you find ways to organize your problem areas, I highly recommend that you consider working with a professional organizer and/or coach who specializes in chronic disorganization.
If the thought of having someone enter your home and help you with your issues, stresses you out then working with an organizing coach over the phone, or with a psychologist, may be a better first step for you.
You may also want to consider working with an online support group. Working with a group can save you a lot of time and money.
If you do wish to consider working with an organizing professional, please select your professional organizer carefully. Not all people who call themselves professional organizers have the education and coaching skills needed to help people create lasting change in their lives. I recommend looking for a professional who specializes in Chronic Disorganization or ADD. Start with the NSGCD www.NSGCD.org NSGCD is the only organization I know of that is devoted primarily to providing education and training specifically on helping people with Chronic Disorganization.
You might also check out these resources:
ADD
- Attention Deficit Disorder Association referral directory
- ADD Consults referral directory
Compulsive Hoarding
- Compulsive Hoarding Service Provider Referral Directory on my blog
- Help for Hoarders, Clutterers & Compulsive Shoppers on my blog
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© 2009 Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed.
Ariane Benefit, M.S.Ed, Agile Life Design Coach, ADHD Coach, Author and Speaker. She is the founder of the Agile Productivity program which provides resources to help people overcome lifelong issues with chronic disorganization, time management issues and more. Ariane is dedicated to helping people with ADHD, highly creative personality types, and other neurodiversities design more success into their lives.
Reader Comments (3)
I do not read this complete at first, and i already found this:
YES High intelligence and creativity
I DONT KNOW Right-brain dominant information processing style
YES A wide range of interests
NO PROBLEM Difficulty understanding own needs objectively
NO PROBLEM Strong emotional attachments to things
MAYBE The energy of another person helps them feel “focused and interested”
YES Tendency to lose track of time
YES Ability to focus and engage so intensely that they may forget to eat and / or attend to daily life maintenance like shopping, cleaning & organizing
YES Difficulty focusing on things they don't find fascinating
NO Tend to get easily stressed and frustrated especially if things don't come easily or they can't do something "perfectly"
YES “Global” thinking styles – tend to see everything at once
YES Difficulty categorizing and making decisions because they can think of so many possibilities
DEFINITELY IM INTP “Intuitive” and /or “Perceiving” preferences in their MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator) personality type
I recogtnize that I am very organized and never leave dishes in the sink. I'm almost anal about having my counters clean and washing dishes after every meal. I like my home picked up after what I consider a reasonable amount of time. So maybe this bothers me more than it should. We spent Christmas with them and every room was filled with clutter. I felt overwhelmed and energyless due to the surroundings. Yet my precious daughter-in-law spent a tremendous amount of time organizing gift-giving to 12 families.
I 've never said anything to them about this. My question is should I talk to them about it--I fear interfering where I should not.
I just see how their lives are affected negatively by all of this. Hope you can give me some advice. Jackie Smith
Having a diagnosis is great but now what?