From Knowing To Doing In Getting Organized

By Pamela Kristan

How often have we lamented, “I KNOW what to do, I just don’t DO it!” The gap between knowing and doing is a yawning chasm. There’s a line from an early poem by Heather McHugh – “Nothing stands in my way and I can’t get over it.” How true! We know we should get organized. We sincerely believe that getting organized would make a big difference. We’ve read books, gone to classes, and hired consultants. But nothing seems to change.

When we experience the discontinuity between what we think and what we do, all kinds of uncomfortable feelings arise – shame, anger, frustration, sadness, despair. These powerful feelings make us vulnerable, touchy, and tender. We construct reasons and justifications to take away the feelings, but that doesn’t work. So we forcibly damp down our feelings, muffle the conflicting voices, and hide the anguish from ourselves and others.

How do we do what needs to be done? By accepting the feelings, and, at the same time, developing our capacity to bear them. This is a both/and situation, not either/or. We are both afraid and courageous at the same time; we are both clear and confused. The key to moving from knowing to doing is to accept the feelings, acknowledge their power … and take steps anyway.

Knowing what to do, yet not doing it has value we can hardly imagine. In the midst of the dilemma we approach what philosopher Jacob Needleman in Time and the Soul calls “the gateway to consciousness of our true nature” where we stand in “the opposition between the inner movement toward the deep self and the outer movement toward the external world.” Through this gateway, we come to understand, deeply in our bones, our nature as beings of much more than rational knowing.

We are as much feeling and intuiting beings as thinking beings. We live in a world that is far more than the mental. Neither reasons, nor justifications, nor thoughts come near to explaining what’s happening. When we stand in the uncomfortable experience of knowing yet not doing, we come closer to this reality. If stay with the discomfort, we find a depth in ourselves, a complexity that is more like who we really are.

Yet we think all the time. We mull over past events, rehearse future ones, and mentally fiddle with the present. All this mental activity appears to “do” something, but in fact, it does very little, and lets us avoid actually dealing with our stuff. To make something happen, we need to pull back from thinking and give more weight to doing.

Organizing builds the bridge between the internal, thinking self and the outer, doing self, and so is a particularly powerful practice for righting the balance. Ideas, images, and insights give form to thoughts about organizing. They provide guidance, trigger understanding, and give the thinking self something to do so that, soothed and occupied, it can get out of the way. Techniques, tools, and practice can then help the doing self make the changes.

So, we’re ready. We can bear our uncomfortable feelings well enough. Our thinking mind is soothed enough. Poised on the brink of actually doing something, not just thinking about it, resistance shows up. It may come in the form of a balky “you can’t make me!” attitude, or scattered anxiety that wants to bolt in wide-eyed panic. Or a “if I can’t do this perfectly, why do it at all” judgment. Or shame at our lack of discipline. Or waves of apathetic fatigue.

When these powerful feelings come up we suddenly find more important (or less important!) things to do. Confronting our resistance is just too much. Resistance, however, is a sign that we are wrestling with an angel … or a formidable demon. It shows us that what we’re about to attempt has the potential to make a real change in how we live our lives. No wonder we resist!

When it comes right down to it, we do want to be effective; we do want meaningful lives. And for that, we wrestle with our resistance, learn its lessons, and make peace with it. We will encounter resistance again and again. Best to honor it as an important messenger, get to know its particular forms, listen to what it has to say … and proceed anyway.

Adapted from The Spirit of Getting Organized: 12 Skills to Find Meaning & Power In Your Stuff, Pamela Kristan, Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003

Pamela Kristan's talks, seminars, keynotes, and consultations on time & stuff management have been helping individuals and organizations worldwide since 1985. Visit her Website, http://www.pamelakristan.com or read her book, The Spirit of Getting Organized: 12 Skills to Find Meaning & Power in Your Stuff (Red Wheel/Weiser 2003). Pam has helped individuals from all walks of life and organizations from AmEx to Zumix become more effective, engaged, and aware.

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