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"Are you reading this in the car because you locked yourself out \u2014 again? Did you plan to invite the Smiths over once the house looked decent \u2014 and that was six months ago? Take a breath. To get organized, you first need to identify the emotional barriers that stand in your way.  Learn how to break through them, and you can tackle any mess, says Deborah Kinney of Task Masters, in New York City, whose organizing savvy you&amp;#039;ll find on these pages. And, oh yes, call the Smiths. Which Organizer Are You? Find your type below. Then click the links for strategies tailored just for you. 1.  Ideally, you&amp;#039;d like to see even the soup cans lined up. But there&amp;#039;s no time for that \u2014 so why bother doing anything at all?  2.  Housework? You have more creative things to do (as soon as you find something clean to wear!).  3.  Sentimental? Oh, yeah. Your house overflows with old ticket stubs, photos, and kids&amp;#039; artwork. 4.  You organize your husband&amp;#039;s and children&amp;#039;s stuff \u2014 but your own closet and bureau are a mess.  5.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d better look at this pile of mail...yikes, the Visa bill! Maybe I&amp;#039;ll start dinner....&amp;quot; 6.  House a wreck? Guests due in ten minutes? No problem...but will you remember which papers you tossed behind the sofa? The level of organization to which you aspire is so high, you can&amp;#039;t even get started. Someday, you believe, you&amp;#039;ll really set things straight. Meanwhile, your desk remains a disaster \u2014 pens and scissors buried under junk mail \u2014 while you dream of revarnishing the wood and filing the papers in 27 color-coded folders.  Breakthrough Dream smaller. Ask yourself what one little thing about your house most irritates you. Always having to search for your keys? Plop a bright &amp;quot;key&amp;quot; bowl on the kitchen counter. Then tackle the jammed pots-and-pans cabinet \u2014 maybe it&amp;#039;s finally time to give away the wok you never use? Every small victory will spur you on to another. Next, walk around the house and rank each room \u2014 from one to five \u2014 in terms of how much you would like that space to look great. Fix up the fours and fives, and you may find that you can live comfortably with the rest.  Though you&amp;#039;re a people person who aims to please, you&amp;#039;re driving your loved ones crazy. Under your regime, closets become black holes that &amp;quot;disappear&amp;quot; kids&amp;#039; soccer cleats and your husband&amp;#039;s raincoat. Being this casual can also be costly: Even if you explain to the phone company that a free spirit like you can&amp;#039;t keep track of every single bill, they&amp;#039;ll still charge you a late fee.  Breakthrough Make your sociability an asset. Ask one of the many friends who adore you for help reorganizing the closet. Postpone your daily telephone call to your sister until you&amp;#039;ve earned it by sorting through the bills. Tackle just one mess (shoes under the bed?) and see how much time you gain when it doesn&amp;#039;t take half an hour to unearth your black slides.  Your nurturing instincts are expressed in stuff. But it&amp;#039;s more than you can manage: You find yourself running to the store to replace the flour, lightbulbs, or shampoo you know you have... but can&amp;#039;t find amid the clutter. And while your goal is to create a loving, warm home, it&amp;#039;s so messy, no one feels comfortable. Breakthrough Extend your caretaking beyond your family. Set up a giveaway box in each room; if you have trouble putting things in (or are tempted to run out to the garage and retrieve them once they&amp;#039;re packed), remind yourself that you&amp;#039;re passing on the items to people who will actually use them. For things you&amp;#039;re not ready to part with, create a transition box. Put all your &amp;quot;maybe&amp;quot; items in, label it with the date, and tuck away. Check again in six months \u2014 and peel off a few more items.  You are actually an excellent organizer \u2014 for the rest of the family. But somehow you never have the time and energy for your own stuff and spaces. Your clothes are bunched in the closet, your exercise videos buried somewhere, your makeup overflowing its small bag.  Breakthrough You feel guilty tending to your own needs rather than to other people&amp;#039;s, so start small \u2014 maybe with the makeup bag. Once you begin sorting, refuse to be distracted by every breathless request that comes in. Your husband needs last year&amp;#039;s tax information? Your daughter wants Barbie&amp;#039;s swimming pool filled? Say, &amp;quot;Glad to help \u2014 in 15 minutes, when I finish this job.&amp;quot; The payoff: Once your own act is together, you&amp;#039;ll have even more time for your loved ones.  For you, every organizing task is fraught with tension. You dread sitting down at your desk, because you&amp;#039;ll discover the insurance forms you should have filed last week and the invitation you meant to answer last month. Open the storage closet and you&amp;#039;ll have to confront the expensive but unflattering suit that you never found time to return.  Breakthrough The best way to handle such procrastination is to set up a schedule for dealing with the musts of life. Plan to do desk work at the same time each week. Note the date on your calendar so you can&amp;#039;t &amp;quot;forget.&amp;quot; Or do these chores when a favorite weekly TV show comes on. That way, you&amp;#039;ll always know when to sit down, and the work will seem more pleasant. Keep supplies at hand so you won&amp;#039;t have an excuse to get up before you&amp;#039;re done.  You&amp;#039;re the James Bond of the domestic set, finishing every mission with mere nanoseconds to spare. You love the sense of accomplishment \u2014 &amp;quot;Mommy&amp;#039;s pulled it off again.&amp;quot; But this high-wire act creates even more mess, as you sweep everything off the shelves in a mad search for the overdue video. When guests are coming, you dump all the clutter into shopping bags that you toss into the closet, to be sorted (sort of) when you absolutely must find that prescription that needs filling or your kid&amp;#039;s trip permission slip.  Breakthrough Since you thrive on having lots to do, put your energy into systematizing daily life. Shop for the perfect files, closet organizers, magazine basket. Then, instead of living through last-minute frenzies, you can use the time that you save for interesting projects \u2014 and genuine emergencies. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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