{"id":635,"date":"2011-09-07T19:03:32","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T00:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=635"},"modified":"2011-09-07T13:27:45","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T18:27:45","slug":"book-review-buried-in-treasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/book-review-buried-in-treasures\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Buried in Treasures"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are 3 names that come up again and again when it comes to the topic of hoarding \u2013 from their independent work to their collaborative work: psychologists David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, and Gail Steketee.\u00a0 All three wrote, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding<\/a> and although it was not the first book I read on the topic, it was the book I was always intending on reading \u2013 it\u2019s \u201cthat big\u201d a book on the topic.\u00a0 I read it more than a year ago now, and happily made notes (and have the book to refer to) for both this review and how it can apply to those I work with.<\/p>\n

First, let me share that I was almost shocked when I found a copy of the book \u2013 it was quite a bit smaller than I\u2019d imagined, coming in under 200 pages long.\u00a0 It\u2019s also very much a workbook of sorts for people wanting to tackle their struggles.\u00a0 Similar to many books on organizing and hoarding, it tries to make it clear that unless you are ready to make changes, they will be hard to come by.\u00a0 It is discouraging to hear that the success of \u201crecovery\u201d is minimal; that it takes continued efforts and mindfulness.<\/p>\n

This is the case though for all of us \u2013 and applies to any changes we want to make.\u00a0 As they say in the book, \u201cPeople start to work on their hoarding problem when the reasons for change outweigh the reasons for not changing, and not a minute sooner.\u201d\u00a0 Now if you take out the word hoarding, it applies to changes in general.\u00a0 Changes are difficult to make, whatever they are, and we need to be ready and truly motivated.<\/p>\n

They spend some time talking about reinforcement, positive and negative, and how these are critical to self-control and exert powerful influences over our actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all tend to be motivated most strongly by immediate rather than delayed consequences.\u00a0 This is a big part of the problem: instead of being able to step back and appreciate the long-term consequences of our actions, we become slaves to the here and now.\u00a0 \u2026long-term consequences, unpleasant as they may be, simply are not very powerful motivators compared to the immediate\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Buried in Treasures<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I see this in myself sometimes, and this does seem to be universal \u2013 we struggle with what impact our decisions will make down the road.\u00a0 Or even struggle to make decisions in general, though not making a decision is ultimately still making a decision.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve talked before about how I dislike the term \u201choarding\u201d and I will even talk to clients about how I myself have some \u201choarding\u201d tendencies.\u00a0 On some level, we all do.\u00a0 I do have close to 2,500 books.\u00a0 My husband teases me sometimes about the number of containers I have.\u00a0 I can resonate with the desire of collecting.\u00a0 The authors were sharing a story and although the level of my stuff does not compare, it hit home for me: \u201c\u2026defining himself not by what he did<\/strong>, but rather by what he had<\/strong> and what he hoped to do<\/strong>. \u2026 Now ask yourself: is the amount I have<\/strong> proportional to the amount I do<\/strong>?\u201d\u00a0 I, like some many others, have big dreams \u2013 many ideas and hopes \u2013 and collecting items for that one possible day translates too often into having excess clutter.\u00a0 Now, I evaluate whether the things are relevant for me currently or are more for a dream.\u00a0 I can always find those again if it becomes more than a dream.<\/p>\n

The authors spend time talking about some of the common struggles people face \u2013 the idea of \u201chow did this happen to me?\u201d There are many tips and techniques they share.\u00a0 Two of them stood for me. One is the idea of the OHIO principle<\/a>, which I talked about in a previous post \u2013 where you move pieces along in your system and aren\u2019t worrying about loose ends because it\u2019s been \u201chandled.\u201d\u00a0 The other was \u201celaborative processing\u201d where people have \u201cthe tendency to think of more and more uses for an object.\u201d I played with this for myself, how creative could I get \u2013 and at what point do I not care anymore what it\u2019s potential is.<\/p>\n

In closing, another quote \u2013 a goal we all share, to find balance in our lives:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026for most of us, successfully navigating life means striking the right balance between that feels<\/strong> good and what is<\/strong> good. \u2026 There isn\u2019t necessarily a right or wrong answer; it depends on the person and situation.\u00a0 But living a balanced and successful life does involve, at least some of the time, inhibiting things that are immediately reinforcing and instead choosing things that will pay off in the long run.\u00a0 Another way of saying this is that we run into trouble when we become too dependent on immediate rewards, and lose focus on long-term goals.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three big names write books on hoarding \u2013 all psychologists searching to understand and help people with compulsive acquiring, saving, and hoarding. In Buried with Treasures, they come together to create a guide and workbook. There\u2019s more than help for hoarders here, as some of the ideas apply to all of us, and how we approach our stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[10,8,18,19,5,9,25,15,17],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-hoarding","tag-household","tag-motivation","tag-postaweek2011","tag-resources","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-af","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}