Introduction

The process of organizing information involves a wide variety of cognitive skills: sequencing, categorization, decision making, distinguishing among similarities and differences in ideas or concepts, etc. A major part of organizing is grouping and regrouping information and/or things into relevant and logical categories. One mistake that people make is thinking that there is only one way to organize things. In fact, there may be several ways to organize information. The challenge is in finding the best way for you to organize information given a specific scenario.

We discussed the idea that, after a brain injury, things may not always "work" the way they did before the injury. This includes organizational strategies. One problem many individuals living with brain injury have is when a well-intentioned person tries to impose his own specific organizational strategy because it works for him, not realizing that it may not be effective for the person with the brain injury. The individual suggesting a new strategy probably believes that "his" strategy is the one that will really help. Another potentional problem involves someone trying to "help" by re-organizing things. For instance, a mother might be visiting and decide that the kitchen should be re-organized so it isn't so hard to find things. Or a wife might decide that the garage should be cleaned out and tidied up so the husband can work more easily with his tools. Unfortunately, the outcome of many of these situations is simply frustration and anger on the part of everyone involved.

As mentioned at the beginning of the workshop, our approach includes three steps:

• Strategy development -- identify strategies that may work for a particular issue
• Strategy evaluation -- evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy as it relates to a particular issue
• Strategy modification -- learn to modify a strategy based on the results of its evaluation

It is essential to ask, "How can I organize this information?" Don't jump to a quick conclusion. Instead, think about the information you need to organize and think about what you already know about strategies that work and/or don't work for you. Try to find an appropriate strategy for each situation. The same strategy may work in several different scenarios, but always take a few minutes to think about it before you choose an organizational strategy.

Organization plays a very important role in various cognitive routines we engage in on a daily basis. It is a skill that requires careful integration of attention, memory, and several aspects of executive function. Ylvisaker & Feeney (1998) suggest that "the foundational reality is that information that is organized effectively and in a way that fits the organizational schemes of the learner is easier to attend, to comprehend, encode in memory, store over time, and retrieve when desired."

The most important lesson to learn is that when dealing with symptoms of brain injury, you may have to start from the ground up and slowly discover the organizational strategy that works for you in each situation. For example, some people say that Post-It notes are the best invention ever made, while others say that the Post-It note strategy is useless because they are always losing the note.

Examples of Organization in Everyday Life

You might be thinking, "Okay, I get it, but how does this organization thing apply to me?" If you have had to do any of the following things, then becoming a better organizer may make a difference in how you feel and ultimately react when you do tasks that require organization.

• Clean up your office or work space
• File medical information away so you can find it at a later date
• Find certain tools in the garage
• Take and file notes from a class
• Save and find computer files
• Pay bills

Organizational Strategies

There are a ton of organizational strategies. It is important to match the strategy to the task at hand. As you have probably gathered from the discussion so far, we tend to encourage people to use baby steps and to "modify" the strategy until it works. You will be presented with a variety of cognitive strategies throughout this workshop series. The key is to identify a repertoire of organizational strategies that you can use and then learn to modify them to better meet your specific needs.

Let's take a few organizational challenges and apply our process of strategy, evaluation, and modification: