Peace of Mind Organizing

Christine Kane's Blog: Blog of the Week

6 August 2008

This week’s Blog of the Week isn’t an organizing blog per se, but it’s full of fabulous, inspiring information that can certainly be applied to organizing (and professional organizers).

Christine Kane is a singer/songwriter whose blog encourages living creatively and consciously. She took a leap of faith when she decided to pursue her music career. In the process, the things she learned about herself, the shifts, the revelations, all became fodder for helping others. So, in addition to creating music, she writes and speaks about personal development, encouraging people to act in spite of their fears.

Today’s post, “Expand When You’re Tempted to Shrink,” about expanding your business (or your life) in the face of contracting economic times (in other words, taking risks in the face of constant doom-and-gloom from the media), really spoke to me.

In addition, her recent post, How to be an Extreme Encourager is very powerful. (And don’t miss her follow-up post, The Anatomy of Extreme Encouragement). As a professional organizer, I know how important encouraging my clients is and I really enjoyed her guidance on how to encourage effectively. Personally, I’ve been the lucky recipient of some extreme encouragement as well.

I’ve just started reading Christine’s blog but plan to make it a daily visit. I’ve started digging into the archives a bit and especially enjoyed this post on creating a vision board, something I’ve been meaning to do.)

By the way, if you visit the blog, be sure to download her free song, The Real World, which I’m listening to as I write this. It’s lovely.

I'm melting!

5 August 2008

It’s hot and humid here in St. Louis. Yesterday’s high was like 98 with a heat index of 112, according to the local paper. We have central air, but our a/c is having a hard time keeping up with this heat.

Today’s supposed to be just as bad. In fact, there’s a heat advisory in effect until 7 pm.

The result? After spending the morning with a client whose air conditioning is even spottier than mine, my brain’s a bit scrambled. I thought of going to a movie to cool off, but I think I’m going to try for a nap.

So that’s my explanation for this poor excuse for a blog post. I’m off to vote (we have a primary here) and then, if I’m lucky, I’ll take a siesta.

With any luck, I’ll have something more meaningful to write tomorrow!

Who needs to check a bag?

4 August 2008

Over at Unclutterer today, professional organizer Monica Ricci has written a guest column about travelling light. She offers some great tips on packing so that you don’t have to check a bag and incur extra charges.

I have one little tip to add to hers. Monica recommends not carrying liquid toiletries like shampoo and conditioner and rather using those provided by the hotel. I know that I can’t always count on my hair looking great if I use another shampoo, so I like to carry my own. I purchased at Bed, Bath and Beyond this great carry-on bottle kit. It’s a quart-size zippered vinyl cosmetics bag that holds 15 small (all under 3 ounces, of course) containers for various lotions and potions. It even includes three small spray bottles. My favorite part is that it contains 36 pre-printed labels so you can easily label the contents of the clear containers. All this for only ten bucks (or less if you use the ubiquitous BBB 20 percent off coupon).

If you have any travel in your near future, do check out Monica’s Unclutterer article. I’ve always been one to check a bag because I don’t like hoisting my carry-on into the overhead bin (I’m petite), but armed with this info from Monica, I think I’ll give it a try on my next tripl

The uncluttered car

24 July 2008

I have to admit that my car usually looks pretty messy. That’s not surprising, since I’m a messy person, in general. But I did clean it out prior to my big trip to IKEA and it was very nice to have the clutter removed. Unfortunately, it’s encroaching again.

I was inspired today when I read the Unclutterer entry, Cleaning out your cluttered car and its comments.

You’d think I’d have been spurred into action by a comment a client once made—that her husband discouraged her from hiring a different organizer (one who worked for her neighbor) because that organizer’s car was cluttered. Gulp. I was thanking my lucky stars that the husband hadn’t seen my car.

What struck me about the comments made in the Unclutterer article is the notion that the my car is a place where I have total control. And it’s not large—it’s very manageable, in fact. (I drive a Honda Civic.) A tiny bit of effort to remove food wrappers, Google Map printouts, stray bits of paper, stubs from paid parking lots and my commuter mug on a regular basis will pay off in big dividends. And I’ll be able to apply that lesson to other aspects of my life.

When I first bought this car, I went to The Container Store and bought car-organizing gear. But I haven’t found that stuff to be terribly helpful. As Flylady says, “You can’t organize clutter.” I think the key to success will be getting a larger trash receptacle and putting it in a more accessible spot. I tend to toss stuff toward the little one I have and rarely hit it.

If I have the nerve, I’ll take some before-and-after pictures and post them. I’d also like to get my car detailed, but for the sake of economy I think I’ll settle for a good home vacuuming and cleaning of the dashboard. And I’ll try to build a routine of regular vacuuming and cleaning. I have a strong suspicion that keeping this up with help me feel more in control as I make my way around the world and give me peace of mind. And you know how into peace of mind I am!

Just a few minutes

21 July 2008

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.

Often, though, when faced with a general task it takes on larger-than-life proportions and I feel as though if I don’t have a whole day or afternoon to deal with it, there’s no point in even getting started.

This morning I was perusing Unclutterer, which I do on a regular basis. As I scanned their a year ago on Unclutterer feature, one of the items, Ten things to do in 10 minutes caught my eye. It really speaks to power of focusing your efforts for just a few minutes.

According to the article, among the 10 things you can accomplish in 10 minutes are organizing your sock drawer, gathering up your pet’s toys, and cleaning out your cupboard under your kitchen sink (talk about a high-impact 10 minutes).

I have some big rocks I need to accomplish this week, but I think I’m going to make a list of these 10- to 15-minute tasks that I can treat as small pebbles throughout the week and really get things whipped into shape around here.

Thank you Unclutterer!

Self-care

15 July 2008

I’m always struck how clutter gets in the way of life. I have many clients who constantly feel an obligation to deal with their clutter. They plan to devote a weekend to decluttering, then they start to feel overwhelmed, so they don’t actually deal with it. (Until they call me.)

So for weeks, months, even years, they decline invitations to do fun stuff on their off hours because they should stay home and “get organized.” They don’t treat themselves to a movie, a vacation, or a bike ride because they feel an obligation to stay home and tackle what’s become for them a giant burden.

It breaks my heart.

I’m a big believer in self-care. Maybe because I don’t have kids and therefore have more free time than many women, I have no qualms about taking time away from the “shoulds” and enjoying myself. It happens that I’m easy to amuse—I’m thrilled to sit in front of a DVD of a favorite TV series and knit. That’s my idea of a great time. And I consider that self-care.

Last Sunday I spent the afternoon with some great women, chatting, laughing and doing crafts. Does my bathroom closet need sorting and purging? Oh yeah. It’ll get done some day. But I don’t let it get in the way of the very important hours in the day where I relax and enjoy myself. Getting together with my “craft sisters” nurtures me. And that’s really important.

If you’re reading organizing blogs because you’re feeling disorganized or frustrated by clutter, please don’t let it take over your life. If necessary, seek help (you can find a great organizer via NAPO’s website), and set aside time to work on your organizing project. The key is to actually do the work, rather than intending to do the work and being paralyzed in the process.

And then, please, find time to take care of yourself, rejuvenate your spirits and do something fun. Your idea of fun might be climb a mountain, like my amazing friend Shannon Wilkinson or it might be to take a bubble bath. Maybe you can make a list of things you’d love to do if you only finished getting organized. Then use the items on your list for rewards for the progress you make.

Don’t let clutter get in the way of life. Chip away at it, 15 minutes at a time. Then focus on some self-care. You’re worth it!

Easy furniture transformation

14 July 2008

About 15 years ago, my husband and I became a two-computer household, so we bought a computer stand at Office Depot or somewhere. At the time it didn’t seem too ugly (or maybe there was no such thing as pretty computer furniture back then).

We expanded our space and our furniture through a couple of moves and now both computers are on desks. (My husband has two computers on his desk, actually.) We still have that ugly computer stand, which currently houses a laser printer, an inkjet printer, a fax machine and a three-tray inbox for stationery.

When we moved back to St. Louis from New York in 2001, I just couldn’t stand looking at it any more. But is truly a functional piece of furniture. So even though I’m not so crafty (except with yarn), I went to the fabric store with my creative friend, Sally, and picked out some fabric to cover for the stand.

When I repainted the office a couple of years ago, I made a new cover. But the way I’d decided to piece together the cover didn’t work well with my new laser printer. So in the Great Home Office Makeover of June 2008, I fashioned a new cover for it.

I’m inordinately proud of it. We do own a sewing machine, but it’s still in its box. I made the whole thing using Steam-A-Seam fusible tape and a steam iron.

I have to show off some pictures. The new cover comes over the top and reaches to the floor.

If it weren’t for the cover, the contents of the printer stand would be revealed for everyone to see:

Before making this new cover, I had a similar (but different) fabric that covered the sides and top (up one side, across the top, and down the other), like a runner. The front panel was attached with velcro along the front edge. The problem was that when I pulled out the printer paper tray, it would catch on the edge of the top runner. So brilliant Sally suggested I drape the whole top with this new fabric.

The result is that I have two complementary fabrics working together on one piece of furniture, which is way more stylin’ than I usually am. Here’s a photo of a corner, where the two fabrics meet:

If someone as uncrafty as me can fashion something out of fabric to make an ugly but functional piece of furniture usable and even sort of pretty, then anyone can. Next time you’re tempted to toss something because of its looks, think about ways you might be able to gussy it up and enjoy its functionality again.