Daley Ponderings

Here is a brief review of Organizing for your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone.  This is a neat book that gives some explanation about why some people have trouble keeping things organized and why some have trouble understanding those others.

She puts people in four different groups, which are more intricate than my descriptions below, but they give a clue into them. 

Maintainer: the naturally organized type.

Harmonizer: the people are more important than things, but I just can't part with the things people give me style.

Innovator: the artist, least traditionally organized type.

Prioritizer: the logical leader, spartan-desk-look type.

There is a quiz at the beginning to determine which brain type you are.  When taking this quiz, I recommend giving the answer that is closest to what you would do or wish you could do if there was no external pressure on you to do it a certain way.  I think because of our society's traditional organization, the answers can be skewed toward the Maintaining type.

Then make sure you read the detailed descriptions of all the brain types just in case your quiz put you in the wrong category.

I was convinced that I was an Innovator, despite some serious differences with some of the description.  Then Jon read it and was sure I was not.  Once we both read Harmonizer, we knew that is really what I am.   Because of the complexity of the brain, some things overlap, and some of the overlap with Innovator really resonated with me.  But it is the vast majority of Harmonizer that I identify with.

She gives organizing tips for the home and the office for each type.  The idea of the whole book is that you need to organize in a way that resonates with how you think.  You expend too much energy trying to use a system that doesn't align with your type of thinking, and so you end up not doing it.

There's also a chapter on how to get along with people of the other types.  Some of this works best in office settings ("Never go into his office if you can help it.") A warning to Maintainers and Innovators: she admits these two are the most opposite from each other.  However, my Maintainer husband did not like her solution for getting along.  In his reading of it, the Maintainer needs to do all the compromise so that the Innovator can create in his mess.

There's also a section on sensory preference (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) with its own quiz.  Any of the brain types can have any of the sensory preferences, and she says it's helpful to know this when you are organizing your home and office.  It was exceedingly obvious from the quiz that I'm a kinesthetic, which I already knew.

I think this is a great book for non-Maintainers to understand themselves and get some practical ideas.  I think it is an ok book for helping Maintainers understand the other types, but by definition they have a hard time understanding why their way isn't always the right way.