Sherlock Holmes knows a thing or two about resourcefulness. But, you don’t have to be Watson to learn how to put the clues together to overcome your organization obstacles. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Watch this video for tips to learn how to make your organizing projects seem elementary.
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Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of The Clutter Diet Book and on-line program, and today we’re going to talk about how to get the information and results that you want. I got a question from one of our members of our on-line program, and it was a really good one. She said, “How do I shred all of these enormous piles of paper that I have accumulated when I live in a rural area away from a large city? I have a little shredder like this,” she says, “How do I even begin to start shredding everything with a household-grade shredder?” She knows she needs a bigger type of service and doesn’t know how to figure that out. So, she asked me, and I think, “Okay, well I know how to solve this, but let me take you through my process, because being resourceful is an amazing skill.” And I thought, you know, we could really learn a lot together on our video this week about how to think through your problems and be more resourceful. So this is a perfect example.
Let’s think through it. Number 1, is there another way to get what I want? So, she’s already thinking this way: “I can’t really use my little household shredder for this; is there another way to do it? I know I probably need a shred truck.” Let me explain what a shred truck is. I have a client I have managed a very large filing system for – about 13 years now I think we’ve been doing this – and we recently did a purge of her system and we had to bring a shredding truck out. This is what it looks like; I’m showing you while I’m talking here. It’s pretty fun to actually witness the shredding with these giant Dudley Do-Right blades spinning around and sucking down all of that paper and making it into tiny little bits. So, you can see how that works. This is kind of what this person needs. It’s a large volume of stuff. So she’s already thinking, “Yes, there’s another way to do this besides my shredder, so what is that?”
Let’s go to question #2 then, “Is the desired result really the best result?” So, she’s thinking she needs this shred truck to come to her house, but maybe there is another way to do it. “Is that what I want? Is it really the best way to do it?” So maybe instead of the truck coming to her, she can flip it and she can take the stuff to the truck. Maybe she can take all of this stuff somewhere else, where there is a truck. So looking at it, flipping it around, trying to reverse it and think about it a different way is another way that I try to be more resourceful in my life.
We can go now to the 3 rd question, “Who else has information that might help me?” So what I’m thinking is, okay, there’s somebody in this smaller town where she lives who also has the same problem; someone who has to do this regularly. Probably a business, maybe like a doctor’s office. They have to shred things regularly. There may be other businesses like that who require large volumes of shredding. So she can call up her local doctor’s office and ask them what they do.
So that is similar to the #4 question, “What is something very similar to what I need that might also work?” Again, this truck coming to her house or her bringing it to the truck. Maybe it’s not a truck. Maybe there is a dump bin that one of these doctor’s offices has where she’s got enough that will fit into their bin and she can bring several loads over several periods of time to fit into their bin and she can pay them for that or something. Maybe that’s another way to do it where, you know, their bin gets collected, and maybe it’s not a shred truck, maybe it’s a regular truck that picks up the bins. We’ll find out, right?
The 5 th question that she and I and you can use and ask is, “Who is the expert in this area?” Well, this member of our program did a great job. She needed a problem solved, so she asked me, because I’m the expert that she knows. So, when I am the expert and I don’t know, I go to these questions to try to figure it out.
Number 6, “What is one more thing I can try?” So, if she calls this doctor’s office and she hits a dead end with that, what else can she do? Can she call another doctor’s office; can she call a different kind of company that has a lot of shredding that she knows about in that town? Can she call the shredding company directly in a large major city nearby? What else can she do? Not giving up is part of the secret of resourcefulness. You have to keep going.
So the last question, #7, what would someone I admire do in this same situation? So I grew up in an era of television where MacGyver was a really popular show and the character of MacGyver was the poster boy for resourcefulness. He could disarm a bomb with a rubber band and a bobby pin or something. So, I have often asked myself, “What would MacGyver do in this situation? What’s the MacGyver way?” So think about someone you admire and how they would handle it.
Overall, I have a formula for resourcefulness that might make a lot of sense to you. Necessity + Creativity + Persistence. So think about it. Necessity is the motivational engine for solving a problem. You must solve it. There is no choice. You have to do it. If you’re not getting something solved, you might figure out how to make it less of an option, how to create more urgency and necessity around the problem to make this formula work. Creativity is asking these questions that we just talked about. These seven questions will get you started really well and that helps you look for alternatives and other ways of finding your answer. Then Persistence. Like we said, “Is there one more thing I can try?” You’ve got to keep going if you’re going to solve it. So hopefully you can get better results, better information for a better life by being more resourceful. I hope this has served you.
If you need help and you need experts to ask, that’s why we are here. We’ve been here almost 10 years now with our on-line program. At clutterdiet.com/learnmore, you can find out more about how we help people every single day. You can upload photos and show us what’s going on with your space. We will hold your hand as much as you need us to until you get the results and information that you need.
We’ll see you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
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