Peace of Mind Organizing

Step out of your comfort zone

19 November 2008

I have two standard poodles. Kirby is what people in the dog biz call “reactive.” He barks like a mad man at other dogs and sometimes people. He’s afraid and feels that the best defense is a good offense. Pip’s not afraid and doesn’t tend to bark at other dogs (except for a few enemies).

I took this photo of the sweet Kirby yesterday. It’s hard to imagine he can turn into a lunging, barking fool on walks.

What a sweet boy!

I used to walk the dogs together. But I discovered that when Kirby went nuts, Pip did too. If I walked her alone, she would be calm. But if Kirby was barking, Pip supported him with even more vociferous barking. So I’d have two barking, lunging standard poodles at the end of their leashes. Together they outweigh me. I lacked a certain amount of control.

About four years ago, I decided I would walk them separately. That decision came when Kirby lunged at an elderly woman walking by us on the sidewalk and Pip grabbed her coat. After that incident, it seemed irresponsible of me to walk them together.

For four years I was taking three to four walks a day. (In the evening, often the poodles and I will walk with my husband.) Walking so much was an investment of time, even if it was good exercise for me. I would loved to have walked them together and save time, but I was afraid.

Then, last month, our pet sitter, who isn’t a whole lot larger than me, started walking them together and I decided to give it a try.

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to control them. I was afraid something horrible would happen. You know what? Nothing did. We do run into other dogs on occasion, but my dogs are older now and I’m able to control them.

Phew.

Why am I bringing this up? Because, for me, it’s a great lesson in facing fears, leaving our comfort zones, and taking risks. It can be uncomfortable, but it can also be successful. And if you don’t try it, you’ll be stuck doing the same things, day after day, that might not be optimal for your success.

Are there things that you’re afraid to try? These are scary times economically. But I believe the people who will get through this patch most easily are the ones who are taking risks. I think it’s doubly important for self-employed people like myself not to be paralyzed by fear.

It’s hard to go ahead and invest in training that will allow you to help your clients better and give you more credentials. It’s hard to risk failure by offering a new service if you don’t know it will fly. It’s hard to spend money on marketing if you don’t feel you have money to spend. And, yes, it’s hard to invest in organizing services even when you know that getting more organized will make you more productive.

But here’s the thing: life in these times is hard. Let go of the fear. Live, risk and prosper.

Got something you’d like to do but are afraid to try? Think of me spending twice as much time every day walking my dogs for four years. That’s ridiculous. Put your toe into the water. Try that thing you’ve been wanting to try. Now’s the time. Go for it!

Keeping the clutter out of holiday gift giving

17 November 2008

If you haven’t already purchased your holidays gifts this year, I encourage you to consider giving gifts that won’t contribute any clutter to the recipient’s home. I wrote about this in the November 2007 issue of my newsletter. My readership was smaller then, so I’m going to repost it here for those who may not have seen it. (If you like it and would like to subscribe to my free monthly newsletter, which comes out on the 15th of every month, please subscribe.)

Clutter-Free Gift Giving

So many of my clients develop attachments to inanimate objects. Those attachments make it really hard for the client to part with the objects. And what happens? Clutter happens. I’ve found that clients who tend to get sentimental about stuff find it particularly difficult to part with gifts that have been given them.

This has certainly changed the way I think about gift giving. I personally believe that once I’ve given a gift, the recipient is free to do whatever he or she wants with it. My feelings won’t be hurt if the gift is given away or even thrown away. But I don’t want to clutter up anybody’s life. So I try to give gifts that won’t add to clutter. And I encourage you to think in the same way about gift giving, particularly if anyone on your gift list has a problem with clutter.

Here are some of my favorite ideas for clutter-free giving:

Fresh flowers. A beautiful arrangement of cut flowers livens up any room. After the flowers have died, they can be tossed guilt-free. I try to avoid including a vase with the gift—I’ve seen many a home cluttered by florists’ vases! An easy website for ordering flowers is 1-800-flowers. I’ve also used Proflowers with success. Sometimes I’ll call a local florist in the recipient’s town, if I know of a good one.

Pampering. If you have a friend who would enjoy a little pampering, consider a gift certificate for spa services. Many cities and even towns have day spas. A massage or facial (even for men!) might be something your gift recipient wouldn’t do for him or herself. To find a spa in your gift recipient’s community, try Spafinder.

Services. Give someone the gift of time by offering to perform some needed services for him or her. You could offer a few hours of babysitting, offer to shovel snow, rake leaves, walk dogs or even clean house. If you’re a gardener, offer to do some landscaping. If you’re good with computers, offer to set up a wireless network or make their computer more secure. These gifts are clutter-free and really very special. You can also give a gift certificate for organizing services if you’re sure that the recipient would love to work with a professional organizer.

Clutter-free subscriptions. Giving a magazine subscription is a nice year-long gift, but many people let magazines pile up. Instead, consider giving a subscription to a services like Netflix or Blockbuster Total Access, which send rental DVDs right to your recipient’s home. If your gift recipient likes to listen to the spoken word, a subscription to Audible might be just right.

Edibles. Give something perishable to eat and you know it won’t linger in your gift recipient’s home. You can make homemade goodies, or send a gift package from a place like Wolferman’s, which sells English muffins and specialty breads, or Harry & David for fruit or other editbles. In 2006 Food and Wine published a terrific article on giving edible gifts.

A side benefit to giving an intangible gift is that you don’t have to go out shopping! Let your fingers do the shopping online. And give yourself (and your gift recipient) the peace of mind of not adding clutter to a cluttered world.

Streamlining the holidays

6 November 2008

The election’s behind us and now it’s time to focus on the next big thing: the holidays.

Personally, I’m minimalist when it comes to the December holidays. No decorating. Very little gift buying. Yet I still feel a bit of stress, primarily over my holiday cards. As I’ve posted about before, I send out several hundred cards, each with a personalized note. So it takes awhile. And I’d better get started. There are a number of steps to this project:

• Decide what card to send (I usually do two: one business, one personal)
• Finalize the recipient list
• Consolidate the addresses into Mac Address Book (a one-time, if time-consuming project)
• Order cards
• Print out labels
• Inventory stamps to see if more need to be purchased
• Purchase stamps if necessary
• Write a newsletter for personal cards
• Order paper to print newsletter on
• Print newsletter
• Put labels on envelopes
• Write notes in each card
• Mail cards

This little project is a great example of breaking down projects into tasks. Putting “work on holiday cards” on my to-do list isn’t as effective as writing down a specific task. What I need to do is sit down with my calendar and write a deadline for each task (I’m all about the deadlines). I’ll do that by working backwards: selecting a deadline by which I must mail all the cards. Something tells me that the deadline for the first task of deciding about cards will be just around the corner!

One thing I might consider is ways to streamline the project. The steps above are very familiar; I do them every year. But maybe I need to do something completely different. Perhaps I’ll use only one card, rather than two. Perhaps I’ll consider sending electronic greetings instead (I seriously doubt that). Maybe I’ll make a decision to cut back on the number of cards I send and set some sort of criteria for staying on my card list. By doing that, I would save money and effort. But I’d also reach out to fewer people.

My point is this: it’s always a good idea to think about doing things differently. In these tough economic times, streamlining what we do for the holidays might a lot of sense. And anything that reduces stress is a plus. So, based on this little exploration, I’m adding a new task to the very top of my task list for the holiday card project:

• Explore other options/alternatives for holiday cards.

Tomorrow I’ll write more about organizing for the holidays.

Vote!

4 November 2008

November 4 is finally here. It feels like it’s been a long time coming. The top thing on my to-do list today is to vote. I expect there will be a line (Missouri doesn’t have early voting), and I don’t care how long the line is. As long “Vote” is checked off my list I don’t care what else gets done today.

No matter who you’re voting for, this presidential election feels critical. Voter turnout is expected to be the highest since 1908, when 66 percent of the eligible population voted. Here’s an interesting article from National Geographic’s website on the history of voter turnout in the last century.

You can be a part of making history. If you haven’t already, please go out there and participate in the process.

If you don’t know where you’re supposed to vote, you can find out here. It will also tell you what you need to bring to the polls.

Taking a day for myself

3 November 2008

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). Incidentally, here’s the pattern I’m working on, taken from Kim Hargreave’s website:

Valiant, by Kim Hargreaves

I’m making mine in a beautiful light blue, called Cloud. The yarn, Rowan Cocoon is 80 percent merino and 20 percent kid mohair, and it’s a delight to touch and knit with. So working on this sweater is relaxing and enjoyable. (Some patterns and yarns feel more like work.)

My point here is this. I did little yesterday except knit and watch TV. (I watched The Queen again, caught up on the shows on my DVR, and watched a lot of political coverage.) I finished reading a novel and took a nap as well.

Part of me was feeling guilty about doing nothing productive. But the sensible side of me squashed that. I know how hard I’ve been working. I know that I needed a break. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a day to relax. No, there was no laundry done. No cleaning done. No organizing or decluttering. No administrative for my business. And that’s just fine.

I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to have the opportunity to take a day completely for myself. My battery is recharged. I have a long to-do list for the week. And, thanks to my relaxing Sunday, I’m able to hit the ground running.

Mixed feelings about this season

24 October 2008

I’m an unabashed warm-weather person. I get cold easily and, according to my husband, I complain a lot in the winter about being cold. So why don’t I move somewhere that’s warm year-round? My husband is a cold-weather person. He hates summer. So we’re equally miserable in four-season St. Louis. Equality is a good thing in a marriage.

Here it is October 24 and it feels as though autumn has arrived and, to my way of thinking, winter is just around the corner. This makes me a little sad (have I mentioned I hate winter?). I think it’s self-evident, but here’s a short list of some of the things I hate about winter:

• Getting up in the morning when it’s dark out
• Having it get dark at 5 p.m. (though that has its benefits, see below)
• The necessity of dressing in layers
• Paying high gas bills to stay warm
• Being cold!
• My husband’s disdain for my corduroy pants (the swishing sound drives him nuts)

But, over the years, I’m come up with ways to compensate. I’m a glass half-full kind of person, so I’ve identified some advantages that winter has for me. For example:

• Being cozy under a down comforter
• Wearing my hand-knitted items
• A shorter work day (I have a policy of not working after dark)
• Getting to wear corduroys outside of the house (I love corduroys!)
• Getting to wear my cozy, super-soft bathrobe
• Having a hobby (knitting) that keeps me warm
• Not feeling guilty about staying inside on a beautiful day (because, if you ask me, there aren’t any in the winter)

My policy about not working after dark evolved because of my dogs. I prefer walking them before dark, so in the winter, they’re by necessity walked early. Then they need to be fed and then I need to be fed and, bam, the workday is over. So the shorter winter work day forces me to work more efficiently. And I do realize that I could impose an earlier stop time in the summer. I just let Mother Nature do it for me.

So this winter when I’m inevitably tempted to complain being cold, perhaps I’ll just wrap my cashmere shawl around me and think of this list. And maybe knit yet another item to keep me warm.

Gift wrap: Keep it simple

23 October 2008

Lately I’ve been having conversations with clients about storing their gift wrap. Personally, I bought a couple of organizers from the Container Store that hang from the rod of a spare closet. One is for rolls of gift wrap and the other for flat wraps and gift bags.

They’re working great and accommodate pretty much all the wrap I’ve accumulated.

However, today I was inspired when I read a post on Unclutterer (part of a “one year ago on Unclutterer” entry) which talked about keeping gift wrap simple. In his book, It’s All Too Much, according to the Unclutterer post, Peter Walsh recommends using brown kraft paper to wrap all packages, and keeping just a few colors of ribbon around to fancy up the packages. I remember his recommending that on Clean Sweep. The idea fascinated me then and it’s fascinating me now.

There were some great comments in that Unclutterer entry, including the suggestion of using white or any other solid-colored paper instead of kraft paper, and wrapping packages with old road maps or the comics section from the Sunday paper. (I remember when I was a kid wrapping gifts with aluminum foil.) One reader said that she keeps a roll of paper on an IKEA easel and after her kids have drawn or painted on it, she uses the art as gift wrap.

One commenter suggested the site Paper Mart, where you can buy 100-foot rolls of solid gift wrap very economically (as low as $18 for a two-foot wide roll). They sell printed gift wrap as well, along with 1625-foot rolls of kraft paper (two-feet wide for about $35).

I love these ideas and I think they boil down to a principle that’s easy to remember. When it comes to gift wrap, keep it simple. It will pay dividends in easy storage as well as in time it takes to wrap a gift. Just think—you could be free of the decision of which wrap to use when it comes time to wrapping!

I’m seriously tempted, after I finish using the paper I’ve already purchased, to buy a single large roll of wrap and use it for my default wrapping paper. I’ll probably buy a wrapping paper roll dispenser, once I figure out where I can store it for easy use. And I’m also going to keep my eyes out for ways to wrap with attractive paper (like maps) that might otherwise be thrown away.