I'm digging the desktop writeboard
At the Container Store the other day, I discovered the Cocoa Desktop Writeboard a rewritable surface that sits on your desk, allowing you to jot notes. I was intrigued. I balked at the $24.99 price tag, but went ahead and purchased it. (It helped that I used the 10 percent discount I’m offered as a NAPO member.) I’ve since discovered it’s available via Amazon
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: container store, organizing products, productivity, time management, to-do list
Yet another new task-management system from Mark Forster
Mark Forster is my time management guru. As I’ve blogged about before, I loved his book, Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: autofocus, balance, control, desk, empowerment, focus, goals, mark forster, priorities, productivity, time management, to-do list
Salvaging the day
My standard poodle, Pip, is out of sorts today. She keeps coming up to me to ask for something. I feed her and she doesn’t eat. I let her out and she doesn’t want to come in (which is unusual, since it’s a very blustery day). It appears she wants something, but doesn’t know what. And she’s having a little trouble getting comfortable.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: productivity, time management
I wrote a novel!
I finished my novel on Friday, November 27, three days early. I wrote a few hundred words past the 50,000-word goal. And my book had an actual plot that came to a graceful conclusion.
Filed under: Ranting-and-Raving Living || Tagged with: goals, nanowrimo, productivity, time management
I've hung up the car phone
I got into a minor traffic accident on Interstate 44 at the end of September. I had passed someone on the left just as another person passed that car on the right, and we merged into the center lane, in front of the slow-moving car, at the same time. There were no injuries and my car wasn’t even damaged (though the other driver’s car was, slightly).
Filed under: Living Organizing || Tagged with: ipod, productivity
Getting back on task
Over the past ten months I’ve written here about my love of the task-management system Autofocus a lot. I do love it. I’ll let you click on the links and learn about it, but, in a nutshell, it involves one long, bound to-do list upon which you dump all your tasks, in no order, and work through it in a particular fashion. There’s no prioritizing, no rewriting the list.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: autofocus, mark forster, productivity, time management, to-do list
Baby Steps: The Best-Kept Secret to Accomplishing Anything
The true secret to getting anything done — particularly something that can feel overwhelming like decluttering — is to break it down into small bites and to keep working on it. When I received this article from performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane in my email yesterday, I knew I had to share it with you. It comes from her newsletter, Live Creative, and I’m reprinting it with permission.
Filed under: Living Organizing || Tagged with: christine kane, decluttering, productivity
Getting things done with Autofocus
I’ve written quite a bit about Autofocus, the task-management system invented by my favorite time-management guru, Mark Forster. The original Autofocus debuted on January 5, 2009. I was an eager beta tester and became an enthusiastic user.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: autofocus, mark forster, productivity, time management
The down side to international travel
I’ve been home from Australia for six days now. Apart from the very first night home, when I slept long and hard after 24 consecutive hours of travel, I haven’t been sleeping properly. I’m a good sleeper (my mom’s narcoleptic…it’s in my genes) but I’ve experienced what it must be like to be an insomniac. Most nights, I’ve just not been getting sleepy at bedtime.
Filed under: Living Sharing || Tagged with: margaret lukens, productivity, routines, travel, wendy davie
My role model in persistence
I adore my orange tabby cat, Joe, of course. But he does a great job of annoying me on a regular basis. But when I pause to reflect on it, he’s also teaching me stuff.
Filed under: Living Sharing || Tagged with: cats, joe, persistence, productivity
Great advice on having it all
This fabulous blog post from Unclutterer really resonated with me. Its writer, Unclutterer Editor-in-Chief Erin Doland, is one of those folks who really seems to have it together. It shines through in her writing. And it feels very apparent when you spend time with her in person.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: control, erin doland, order, productivity
Another 30-minute miracle
Okay, “miracle” is completely overstating it. But I was amazed at my office’s transformation the other day when I set my timer and got to work for 30 minutes
Filed under: Organizing Sharing || Tagged with: declutter happy hour, decluttering, productivity
Paper or plastic?
No, this isn’t a post about green organizing (though I am doing a free talk on that topic next month…you might consider coming if you live in St. Louis). Today I’m thinking about keeping track of things using a paper planner/notebook versus an electronic device.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: autofocus, balance, nick cernis, productivity, simplicty, time management, to-do list, todoodlist
It should be easy
In working with my life coach, Shannon Wilkinson, I’ve discovered that my driving force is ease. I like things to be easy. That’s why I love living in St. Louis, where the living is easy (recent highway closures notwithstanding) and didn’t like living in New York City, where the hassle factor is high. Ease trumps excitement in my book.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: declutter happy hour, michael neill, productivity, shannon wilkinson
The vanishing day
I’m writing this at 6 p.m. Six flippin’ p.m! I usually blog in the morning and when I mess up my routine, things tend to fall through the cracks.
Filed under: Living Sharing || Tagged with: declutter happy hour, exercise, productivity, shannon wilkinson
Just do it
Every now and then I read a message on a forum or somewhere from someone who’s lost all their data in a computer crash. That person is kindly reminding people to back up their computers, to avoid the heartbreak of everything vanishing into thin air.
I’m happy to say this isn’t one of those messages. I haven’t suffered a computer crash. In fact, I’ve had no computer problems to speak of since I bought my MacBook in July of 2007.
Filed under: Living Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: decisions, empowerment, obstacles, procrastination, productivity
The weekend work/rest balance
On Friday I wrote that I was overwhelmed with tasks and clutter and that I really wanted to put my feet up this weekend, but had so much to do that I feared that wouldn’t be prudent. So I decided to create short task lists for each weekend day and relax only after I’d completed all the tasks on them.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: clutter, empowerment, priorities, productivity, relaxation, self-care, time management
Excited about my to-do list
Last week was one of those weeks I wasn’t at my desk much and when I was I had to be focused on urgent items. I’m not sure I actually looked at my to-do list all week, except to add to it.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: autofocus, mark forster, procrastination, productivity, time management
9 Simple Solutions for Procrastinators
This is a guest post of sorts, from the fabulous Christine Kane, who helps people achieve their dreams. I’m reprinting it, with permission, from her newsletter. It arrived in my mailbox today and I thought it was so great I’d share it immediately. Incidentally, I wish I’d thought of the acronym CRAP for Clutter Removal Action Process!
Filed under: Organizing Sharing || Tagged with: christine kane, goals, procrastination, productivity
Little and often
We organizers like to talk about breaking big projects down into small steps in order to make them feel less overwhelming. That’s solid advice.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: autofocus, mark forster, productivity, time management
Autofocus
As I mentioned last month, time-management guru Mark Forster has developed a brand-new task management system. It’s called Autofocus.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: autofocus, mark forster, productivity
Why I love my iPod Touch
I bought an iPod Touch (second generation) in October, as I’ve mentioned before. I thought today I’d share nine ways it’s enhanced my life in less than two months:
Filed under: Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: iphone, ipod, productivity, technology
Taking a day for myself
Yesterday I had what we call around our a home a Lazy Day. We had that extra hour, due to the end of Daylight Saving Time and, as I said I would on Friday, I used that time to knit and watch TV. It sure didn’t stop at an hour, though. I knit so much yesterday that my shoulders started hurting by the evening (so I stopped)
Filed under: Living Knitting || Tagged with: knitting, productivity, relaxation, self-care
Declare a backlog
One of the many strategies offered by Mark Forster in his time-management book Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management (link at right) is the concept of declaring a backlog. (I wrote about some of his other strategies last June in the blog posts, Getting started and Keeping going.)
Filed under: Organizing Sharing || Tagged with: backlog, mark forster, productivity, time management
The R word
Sometimes I feel like a broken record when I write here (or in my newsletter) about the importance of routines. It’s just that I’m reminded very frequently about how much of an impact they can have on order, productivity and overall peace of mind.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: don't break the chain, joe's goals, jott, productivity, routines, travel
My latest toy
I know that new technology is supposed to enhance productivity. That’s usually why I buy it. But if you’ve ever purchased a new computer, you know that setting up and getting used to the new technology can really eat up time.
Filed under: Ranting-and-Raving Living || Tagged with: apple, ipod, productivity, technology, time management
Fluent Self: Blog of the Week
This week’s blog of the week can help you get unstuck. I first learned about habits guru Havi Brooks from my friend and life coach, Shannon Wilkinson, who is taking the Self Promotion for Wimps course taught by Havi and Naomi Dunford.
Filed under: Ranting-and-Raving Living || Tagged with: blog of the week, habits, havi brooks, productivity
The value of the to-do list
Yesterday I blogged about how I couldn’t get anything done. The basic culprit was fatigue from attending back-to-back conferences and sleep deprivation from a needy poodle. But after a good night’s sleep and a little reflection, I identified another reason for yesterday’s lack of focus: I didn’t have a to-do list.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: mark forster, productivity, time management, to-do list
All talked out
My back-to-back conference hopping in the past 10 days has plum worn me out.
Filed under: Living Organizing || Tagged with: gwa, nsgcd, productivity, self-care
Check out these productivity tips
This morning I read this interview with Gina Trapani, the lead editor of Lifehacker on Zen Habits. It’s an interesting interview. In addition to the many posts a day Trapani writes for Lifehacker, she’s the author of a paper version. Her book, which is now in a second edition called Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better is a compendium from the best hacks from Lifehacker.com. I haven’t read it yet, but I do believe I’ll be purchasing it.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: email, lifehacker, mark forster, productivity, time management, zen habits
Regaining control
I wrote on Friday about how my house had become cluttered and messy over the past couple of weeks of whirlwind activity and how I had feet of lead when I thought about doing anything about it. I ended that post with “I hope to report on Monday that my life and business are back in order and that I’m feeling clutter-free and empowered!”
Filed under: Living Organizing || Tagged with: clutter, disorder, empowerment, gwa, mark forster, productivity
Jott: Free no more
One of my favorite free services, Jott, is now out of beta and is no longer available as is free of charge. Jott allows you to dictate messages via your cell phone that are then emailed to you. I first blogged about it last January and posted a somewhat amusing cautionary note in March.
Filed under: Ranting-and-Raving Organizing || Tagged with: jott, productivity, time management
What's stopping you?
Most of my clients have a to-do list for organizing tasks. (Some clients can’t figure out where to start, but we take care of that in the first session.) At the end of a hands-on organizing session, we talk about what they plan to do between sessions to further their goals.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: goals, mark forster, obstacles, productivity
Lace knitting: Not unlike organizing
Last night, as I worked on the Estonian Garden Wrap, a seemingly complicated and sort of overwhelming (for this novice lace knitter) knitting pattern, I realized that broken down to its simplest elements, it’s really pretty easy. And that’s not unlike any overwhelming project, like getting organized. Let me explain.
Filed under: Organizing Knitting || Tagged with: decluttering, empowerment, knitting, lace, motivation, perfectionism, productivity
Just a few minutes
Some days I look around my home or office and say to myself, “I really need to xxxxx” and it’s a general task like, “get organized” or “reorganize my closet.” Sometimes it’s just “create some order around here” when things have gotten out of hand.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: 15 minutes, order, procrastination, productivity, time management, unclutterer
Creating a vision
Whenever I start working with a client, we talk about the vision they have for the space. I’m not talking about specifics like furniture placement. I want to know what the client is hoping to experience in the room, the feeling that she wants to get from the space. I ask the client to close her eyes and really feel it.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: decluttering, focus, motivation, productivity
You know it's time to focus on organizing...
...when you can’t find stuff. The universe is putting me squarely in the shoes of my clients today. I’ve spend much of the day trying to find things. And so far, I’m having no luck!
Filed under: Living Organizing || Tagged with: clutter, decluttering, productivity
Here's quite a list of blogs
If you’re a blogophile and love reading about productivity and organizing, have I got a list for you. It’s The Top 100 Productivity and Lifehack Blogs from College Degree.com which offers online college degrees.
Filed under: Organizing Sharing || Tagged with: blogs, productivity
Lifehacker: Blog of the Week
This week I have to extoll the virtues of Lifehacker. It’s a fabulous combination of high- and low-tech tips on enhancing productivity and customizing things to make them a little more to your liking.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: blog of the week, blogs, lifehacker, productivity
Keeping going
Yesterday I blogged about overcoming the reluctance to get started on a task, citing Mark Forster’s tip on fooling your reactive mind. Today, I’d like to share some of Forster’s advice about keeping going on tasks once you’ve started.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: 15 minutes, mark forster, productivity, time management
Getting started
Do you ever have items on your to-do list that just loom there? You know you need to do them, you think about doing them, but you just can’t get going on it?
Sometimes, you just need to get started and once you overcome the resistance and do the task, it turns out that it’s not so bad. This happens to me all the time. I build up tasks in my mind, thinking they’re going to take forever, then they take no time at all.
Filed under: Living Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: 15 minutes, mark forster, procrastination, productivity, time management
A couple more free services for your cell phone
I love David Pogue, the technology columnist for the New York Times. Sometimes what he writes is over my head, but often I get great nuggets of information. I share his love of the MacBook, so I feel warm and fuzzy toward him.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: david pogue, jott, productivity, technology, time management
Just fifteen minutes
I’m constantly amazed at what can be accomplished in just 15 minutes. I often advise my clients (and I do this myself) to set a timer for 15 minutes and focus on one task: decluttering, filing, sorting, etc. As long as they keep going until that timer dings, they’ll get a good amount done. It’s astounding what can get done in such a small amount of time. (As an aside, that’s one of the ways I use my beloved Time Timer.)
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: 15 minutes, big picture, focus, mark forster, productivity, time management, time timer
How are those New Year's resolutions coming?
Back at the beginning of 2008, I blogged about my constant craving for order as reflected in my January 1 journal entries year after year
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: clean desk, don't break the chain, goals, habits, new year, productivity
Don't forget -- postage rates go up today
It’s come: The day for which I’ve been stockpiling Forever stamps. First-class postage goes up to 42 cents today. The rate for an additional ounce stays the same at 17 cents, so a two-ounce letter will cost 59 cents to mail. In addition, the rate for a postcard goes up by a penny, to 27 cent
Filed under: Living Organizing || Tagged with: belt-tightening, postage, productivity
The Time Timer
Are you familiar with the Time Timer? It’s a tool, often recommended for people with ADD, that gives a visual representation of the passage of time.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: geralin thomas, productivity, time management, time timer, tools
How do you eat an elephant?
I’m going through one of those periods again where I completely empathize with my clients. I had a very busy March and April (I was out of town half the month of April) and now that I have a little time to breathe, I look around my house and think, “I need a professional organizer!” There are no shortage of wonderful organizers here in St. Louis I could hire for help, but I’m going to try to economize and do the work myself.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: 15 minutes, accountability, backsliding, decluttering, productivity, time management
Back to reality
After a glorious time at the NAPO conference in Reno (best part: interacting with fabulous organizers, worst part: staying in a hotel and casino full of smoke!), I’m home. I arrived home about midnight on Saturday night.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: napo, productivity, time management
Meet Joe, the biggest challenge to my morning productivity
Each morning when I’m writing my blog post one of the biggest impediments to my actually accomplishing that task is Joe, my orange tabby cat.
Filed under: Living Sharing || Tagged with: cats, joe, productivity
Oldies but goodies
I like sharing new websites and shortcuts for making life a little easier. But there are some older sites that you may not know about that I’d like to share. These are sites I use regularly to make my life easier and more enjoyable. I hope you will too.
Filed under: Resources Living || Tagged with: knitting, productivity, ravelry, time management, websites
Beware Jott playing cupid!
As I’ve written here before, I’m a big fan of Jott.com. It’s a service that allows you to send emails from your telephone while you’re on the go. You register on the Jott site, give them your cell-phone number, input a list of people you’d want to email via Jott (including yourself). Then you program Jott’s phone number into your cell-phone autodial.
Filed under: Sharing Resources || Tagged with: jott, productivity, time management
A habit is born
As I’ve endlessly documented in this blog, I vowed this year to form the habit of clearing my desk at the end of each work day. The idea was that I would start work each morning with a clear desk, a clear mind, and major productivity. It’s something that I’ve strived for for decades and never been able to achieve.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: accountability, clean desk, desk, don't break the chain, motivation, productivity
Have you tried Hulu yet?
The world of online entertainment took a giant step forward, in my opinion, when Hulu.com launched a couple of weeks ago.
Filed under: Sharing Organizing || Tagged with: productivity, rewards, television
My must-read blogs
In 2008, as part of my new dedication to getting a handle on my time, I’ve been trying to read more blogs. That may sound counterintuitive…blog reading can be a huge time suck.
Filed under: Sharing Organizing || Tagged with: blogs, productivity
Priority management
Time management isn’t about managing time. It’s about managing priorities. We all have the same amount of time in a day to deal with. How we use it is an indication of our priorities.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: balance, mark forster, michael neill, priorities, productivity, time management
Do It Tomorrow really works
As I’ve written here before, I decided on January 1 that 2008 would be the year that I take control of my time-management issues. That day, I selected probably a half dozen time management books from my shelf, each one espousing a different philosophy. I thought I’d make a commitment to a single system and really try to adhere to it for a month or so.
Filed under: Organizing Ranting-and-Raving || Tagged with: balance, control, desk, empowerment, focus, goals, mark forster, priorities, productivity, time management
A couple of time (and money) savers
This year I’m a quest to save time and be more productive. It’s going well. Thanks to the techniques found in Mark Forster book, Do It Tomorrow (link in the Links section at right) and Don’t Break the Chain I’m more productive than I’ve been in a long time.
Filed under: Sharing Resources || Tagged with: don't break the chain, jott, mark forster, productivity, time management
The amazing power of a clean desktop
The habit I’ve been trying to instill with the Don’t Break the Chain method that I wrote about in a recent post is clearing my desktop at the end of the workday.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: accountability, clean desk, decluttering, desk, don't break the chain, goals, habits, motivation, productivity, time management, workspace
Clutter can be such a barrier
It’s amazing to me what a barrier to productivity, to progress, to peace of mind clutter can be. I see it in my clients all the time. And I know from personal experience.
Filed under: Organizing Living || Tagged with: clutter, decluttering, empowerment, feng shui, focus, priorities, procrastination, productivity
