Name: Marilyn Paul
City: Berkeley
Position: Speaker, consultant, coach, author
Website: www.marilynpaul.com
J.: You wrote a 2003 book called “It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys.” That’s such a relatable title. Why is it that keys are one thing that so many people seem to lose?
Marilyn Paul: It’s easy to lose something that’s not attached to anything and is small. But the other reason they’re easy to lose is that we’re usually in motion when we come into our homes or workplaces, and we’re not conscious when we’re in motion. We often put them down or in a pocket and don’t remember where, because we’re trying to do so much. We also lose track of what’s important to us, and key to us, so the title refers to the fact that it’s hard to make a difference when you can’t remember what’s essential.
What’s the general theme of the book, and how did it come about?
It’s an organizing book and time-management book, but it’s unusual in that it’s not a fix-it book. I see getting organized or managing time better as a way to growth, and our chaos is related to patterns of thought and behavior. If we slowly alter those patterns, our lives improve significantly. I was chronically disorganized and couldn’t see a way out. I hired an organizer who came and helped me organize my desk, and I thought, “This is fabulous, I’m organized,” and of course, I wasn’t at all. My habits, which were very deeply ingrained, led me to leave stuff on my desk again, and not long after, it was a mess again. The really hard part was when she came back and said “Such a mess, and so soon?” I had to shift a lot of ways of acting, like leaving time for finishing up the day and leaving time for transitions, and leaving time for all the things I didn’t do in my helter-skelter life.
It seems that disorganization is in our veins, that some of us are just naturally more organized than others. How easy is it to change this behavior?
You don’t become the other. I didn’t become an organized person, I don’t love sorting or putting things back. I have no innate values for tidiness, but I love what it gets me. I have really come to appreciate the feeling of spaciousness and calm that tidying up brings. We’re all different, and some people can be completely disorganized and it doesn’t bother them, but my disorganization was getting in my way and hampering me from enjoying my life.
What is your Ph.D. in from Yale?
It’s in organizational behavior, which has nothing to do with getting organized. It’s the study of how organizations work. It’s a fabulous field, I love it.
You are fairly new to the Bay Area. Where did you come from and what brought you here?
We’re from Boston, and it was a confluence of events. We love the Bay Area and were always those people who would visit and say we’d love to live here. We were deeply ensconced in Boston, but we have a lot of family here, and the weather there was getting harder to take. My son is an avid mountain biker, and he can [bike] here within 15 minutes of our house, so he’s pretty happy. We’ve been here over a year now.
Shabbat observance is a big part of what you promote to stay focused and organized. Why is that?
I didn’t observe Shabbat at all growing up. We had Passover with my grandparents and lit candles at Hanukkah. In graduate school, I was living such a hectic life and got very sick with an immunodeficiency disease. A friend invited me to a Shabbos meal and I didn’t know anything. It was lovely — the songs, the warmth, the connection, being with people. I started going back, and then I learned that this is one of the Ten Commandments. I’m still not a halachic Jew, but Shabbat has changed my life. I’m actually writing a book called “An Oasis in Time: Drawing on Sabbath Wisdom to Create Your Weekly Rest and Renewal.” I just love the spaciousness that it offers in my life. I love that feeling of nothing to do on Shabbat morning. While we go to Netivot Shalom, I also love when we have family reading time. We’d never just lie around reading as a family if we didn’t have Shabbat.
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