I was pleased. It actually gave me a better starting point of view, more
realistic. And, apologies to all for the length of this reponse ............

The first and most important bit of info for me was that the point of the
organizing is not how pretty or colorful the folders, labels, storage and
containers, but how EFFICIENT the system is, for we are talking about how
easily and quickly "it" can be acccessed/found. I have been wondering what I
needed to own in order to do it.

Then, she explained, that we should start by organizing current things so
that we are immediately up-to-date. That sure helped me as it was
overwhelming to a) figure out where to start, and b) to feel that with all
there was to do I could never get it done. She suggests to next go to the
stuff which is lying around and last go to your filing cabinet. For paper
stuff it sounds like the organizing starts with what is delivered that day,
then on to the desk top and then to the stuff around the room and lastly to
the filing cabinet ............ that may mean to have to utilize temporary
storage bins.

For the papers, reinforced manilla folders were recommended; Monica said that
the couple of extra dollars are worth it for the durability. It starts with
creating temporary files and using post-its as labels until a system is
refined and ready for permanent labels. It seems we all wonder what to label
each folder and that is a very personal thing ......... use the words, names,
labels that call up for us what is inside; she doesn't think that she or
anyone else should be naming our folders. At the early stages post-its are
used to assists with the sorting until we can seem to know what actually will
go into a folder .......... early on it may start with more than what will
finally be there; that early on categories are large and begin to break down
into subcategories as we work with our stuff. Meanwhile the temp labels are
allowing us to locate.

That was the generic advice for beginning with anything anywhere in house,
office, life ........

She used statistics I cannot recall to tell how much time we do spend on
finding -- something like 6 weeks per year for most people -- the purpose of
organization is to create time to do more pleasant things.

She also pointed out that it takes 30, THIRTY, repetitions to create a habit.
That is a way of telling how tedious it is to truly get this in place and I
wonder if it takes more for ADHDers.

Briefly she then touched upon organizing office, kids, time management
(including PDAs, to do lists and phone logs .......

kids: the point is to train them, to teach them and to work with them ....
look at an early childhood classroom as an example of how to setup (as an
early childhood teacher I would say look at a really good classroom as an
example) -- clear containers so as to easily see what is inside, one
container or place for each thing -- then to be specific with the help by not
just sending a kid to put away but by being there to say "what's this?" ...
"where does it belong?' that guidance is needed .......... remember those 30
repetitions to create a habit?...........

Time management: she prefers paper and pencil rather than PDAs ..... but that
is a personal choice ......... there are programs which are helpful, such as
daytimer.com and palm.com (I think)

to-do lists: her recommendation is to just create an ongoing list crossing
off when something is completed rather than many shards of paper

phone log: all the calls she takes and makes are in one place

I didn't think I'd be writing a term paper from this .... hope it helps
...........