There Must Be a Desk in Here Somewhere My desk was piled high with papers, empty coffee cups, and unopened mail. Perhaps there was even an outdated check lurking in there somewhere. I couldn''t tell. The floor served as my filing cabinet. I didn''t put papers into files because I was afraid I wouldn''t find them again. I still couldn''t find them easily, but at least I thought I knew their general whereabouts. I was a management consultant at a demanding firm. My clients and colleagues counted on me to deliver excellent, timely work.

I did deliver, most of the time, but at great cost-recurring late-night work sessions; anguished preparation time; and frequent, frantic searches for missing information, my hair standing on end because I couldn''t find the folder with the critical data. Some of the intensity stemmed from the very nature of my work, but much of the pressure came from me. Even though I tried to focus and to feel balanced and self-confident-I had practiced meditation for years-my life and work grew ever more stressful because I was usually running late. Rushing to the airport for business trips, I''d skid into the jetway, my heart pounding, just before the crew closed the door. Sometimes it was a high, sometimes I hated it. Running late for meetings, forgetting something yet again, submitting invoices way past deadline, I was creating havoc around me. I valued integrity, but I often broke agreements because I double-booked myself. In addition, I had several years of unfiled taxes.

I would lie there, sleepless, worrying about the size of the debt ($1,000? $50,000?), but I still couldn''t get my tax returns in the mail. And despite my M.B.A., I had noclue what I owed on my credit cards, because I couldn''t find the last set of bills (or any set of bills, for that matter). My personal space was also very messy. When I invited people over, I would swoop through my apartment and throw the clutter into a closet or stash extra belongings under the bed or in the tub, and hope that people didn''t peek behind the shower curtain. Things would stay in the closet, only to be buried by the next sweep through.

I rarely hung up my clothes. My sink was piled with dirty dishes. I would often lose phone messages. I longed to live in a peaceful, beautiful space. I wanted a sanctuary, but I created chaos. Embarrassing? Very. Could I tell anyone what my life was like? No. I wanted to change, but I got little help from the many books on organizing.

To organized people, and in most of the organizing books, the obvious answer is: Pull yourself together, create a plan, and "just do it" or "do it now." Put the keys in one place. File or throw out the mess on the desk and the clutter on the floor. Get rid of the excess stuff in the closets. Put everything in its place. Decide to be on time. That made sense to me, too, so I would try to "do it now." I''d sort the papers on my desk, finally get the dishes done, and then frustratingly I''d be disorganized all over again.

What was my problem? How could I fix it? I had accomplished a lot in life. How come I couldn''t master the ordinary tasks of every day? What is challenging is that chronic disorganization-like a chronic weight problem-feels as if it has a life of its own. I truly wanted to be different; I wanted to live without chaos and lateness. I just couldn''t seem to do it. I would get completely fed up with the mess, the frenzy, and the panic. I would say, "Okay. This is it. This weekend I am throwing everything away.

I''m clearing off the desk and the floor, hanging up all the clothes and doing all the dishes. I am creating some peace in this place. And, from now on, I''m arriving on time." But that declaration never worked. After many, many wasted weekends of failing to clean up and failing to have any fun or relaxation, I hired a professional organizer-I''ll call her Jane. We sat at my desk in my home office and after several painstaking hours, we had cleared it off. She even gave me a system to stay on top of things. I put everything in a logical place.

What a relief! Success! I was organized! Or was I? By the end of the next day, there was a fine spray of clutter on the desk. By the end of the week, the desk looked as if we hadn''t touched it. With dismay, I called Jane back. She arrived with a little scowl (such a mess? so soon?) and we cleared the desk again. After another week, not surprisingly, the mess was back once again. How did the desk and papers do that? I wondered. Where was the clutter coming from? I was too mortified to call her back once again, and realized that I was on my own with a mountain of papers. These papers were not just on my desk, though-they littered my office floor, filled my closets, and spilled across the kitchen counters.

I had a chaotic office, a disorganized kitchen, a messy car, an unlivable home. Since I had been meditating for a long time, I had developed a small capacity to observe myself with compassion. As I mulled over this discouraging situation, I came to a key realization: I (me?, not me!) was the one creating the mess. I began to see that I created my own mess through the choices I made and my unconscious habits. Becoming aware of this was hard for me, but the more I looked, the more I could see that I was taking actions that led to chaos. A simple example was my very messy car. At the end of the day, I could bring everything in, or leave things in the car. If I left things in the car, it became an ugly, unpleasant mobile storage unit.

I was the agent of this mess. I was the source of this chaos. I was very effective at creating it. I was taking actions every day that amplified my inner and outer disorder. It followed that if I created it, I could uncreate it. It was not so easy, though. It took a while to find a way out. Step by step, I discovered a new approach.

I decided to apply my extensive experience in change management to this profound challenge and change myself. I established my purpose for organizing, created my vision for where I wanted to go, took stock of my current situation, got good support, and put into practice a few simple strategies. I worked through frightening feelings. Incredibly, I began to experience changes in myself and my life. The frantic, chaotic messy life I was living became less frantic, less chaotic, and much more satisfying. I discovered that order was possible and valuable and didn''t ruin my creativity. Oddly enough, some order helped me be more creative. It was clear to me that simply deciding to change doesn''t produce change by itself.

Deep personal change requires fundamentally shifting how we think about things. It asks us for the courage to face our difficult feelings. It demands a more profound understanding of what motivates us. We then must use every tool available to help us shift our typical ways of behaving. Habits are strong, but they can be altered. The method described in this book takes the focus off the external chaos and gives us a chance to look at our contribution to it. The principle is that when we change our thinking, process our feelings, and build new habits, our environment will change. In the end, and you may not believe this now, you may come to see your disorganization as a great gift, because it has launched you on a path to deeper personal discovery.

This is a very human, practical path. Your healing will be very tangible. You''ll not only discover a deeper love for yourself, but you''ll also be able to find your keys in the morning. The nightmare will start receding. The terror of lost checks or lost jobs will decrease. The panic attacks will be less frequent. And why? Because your healing is holistic. Your inner healing will be matched by your outer healing.

Your inner fragmentation will lessen and so will your outer fragmentation. Your greater inner coherence will be matched by your outer coherence. Using the approach described in this book, I have changed the way I live my life. Today my taxes are paid, my closets are free of clutter, and my kitchen sink is free of the accumulation of dishes. I can get to meetings on time, and the general level of havoc has died down. I deepened my relationships (and finally found my husband). Along with that, I have moved farther toward the goals that I had been trying to accomplish through meditation. I have more peace of mind, less frenzy, and a much deeper awareness of the power of spirituality in my life.

Other people who have undertaken this journey also have altered their lives dramatically. Mary is a highly successful training director at a large pharmaceutical company. Her success derives from her enthusiasm, her command of her work, and her creative approach to problem-solving. She wanted composure, yet often came into meetings with "folders flying." When she came to see me, she was working late at the office most nights-catching up from the day''s work, sorting through the piles of paper on her desk and trying to get some of the reading material off her office floor. She genuinely wanted to create some order, yet she felt exhausted, and ineffective. She couldn''t think straight. She was fed up with being disorganized because it was eating up precious time with her family.

She could barely stand the rush in the mornings, looking for socks and boots, making lunch at the last minute, getting the kids out the door late again. She also knew that her stress was taking a profound toll on her body, soul, and marriage. As a training director, she had taken several courses on professional effectiveness and stress management. They hadn''t helped her much, however, because she couldn''t implement the many tips: "I get lots of good ideas from these courses, and I do try them out, but I often slip right back into my old ways of doing things." She had reached a point where she was open to deeper change.