Peace of Mind Organizing

Life can get in the way of productivity

8 May 2007

Do you ever feel like you could really get some stuff done if only you didn’t have to deal with life? I got home from my organizers’ conferences all revved up with big plans of implementing big ideas.

Then I had to deal with life. Happily, it’s not unpleasant, just time-consuming. We decided to refinance our house, which requires some deliberations, decision making and what feels like lots of phone calls.

On top of that, I decided to sell my car. In an effort to see where we could tighten our belts, my husband and I talked about the fact we have a lovely Honda Accord in the garage not getting driven except on weekends, since he works from home. So I’m going to sell my wonderful Honda CR-V and buy a fuel-efficient older car for the weekends. And then I won’t have a car payment!

(If you have any interest in a fabulous 2005 Honda CR-V with only 27,000 miles on it, check out my craigslist ad.)

Dealing with the financial details of my life may be keeping me from being innovative in my work life, but it’s not stopping me from knitting. Here’s a preview of my current knitting project. In very short order, I’ll be posting a photo of it in completed form. It’s the Wobbly Circles Tote from Interweave Knits, spring 2006 issue. When that issue arrived more than a year ago, I knew I wanted to make this intarsia bag. And, at last, it’s almost finished. I’m weaving in the ends, then I’ll sew up the seams and felt it.

Can’t wait to post a picture!

Scary pet food

5 April 2007

The current pet food recall has dog and cat owners scrambling to find something safe to feed their pets. It’s tragic. But it may have a silver lining. I’m hoping it will shine a light on the pet food industry and the fact that it’s virtually self-regulated, by the Association of American Feed Control Officials, the trade group that has established the industry standards. And I’m hoping that will change. Already, through this recall, we’ve learned that many pet foods are made in the same factory. And I bet I’m not the only one a little surprised to learn that some of the ingredients come from China.

I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to worry much about it. I started feeding my dogs home-prepared food back in 1999, when my now-departed standard poodle, Kramer, was very ill. You can read my thoughts on that in my now-defunct column over at thepoop.com.

But just last year we started including some kibble in the poodles’ diet, mostly because my husband felt that they wanted it for the texture. Sure enough they do like it and it’s so easy that they do get it every now and again. We feed Innova EVO, a human-grade, grain-free kibble whose ingredients are surely a cut above what was available in the late 90s. Our kitty, Joe, is ape over the feline version (he used to eat the dog EVO out of the dog bowl, so we bought him his own.)

My poodles do get commercial treats (Milkbones and Greenies), so I’m keeping a close eye on the ever-growing recall list at Menu Foods website, as well as the pet-food recall page at the website of the Food and Drug Administration.

Back to that silver lining. This scare might well shake people’s confidence in the pet food industry. Pet owners had somehow been convinced that commercial pet food was safe, that “complete and balanced nutrition” was available in any bag or can. It’s time that pet owners took an active role in their pet’s health by scrutinizing labels and applying a little critical thinking about what’s inside that bag or can.

Common sense tells us that a food whose first four ingredients are grains is not a natural diet for a dog. I encourage you to educate yourself about your pets’ diet. You don’t have to prepare the food yourself, if you don’t want to. But take this scare as an opportunity to be shaken out of your complacency. Your animals will thank you.

How do knitters get anything done?

2 April 2007

I swear I could spend entire days weeks months reading knitting blogs and patterns, shopping for yarn, organizing my stash and needles and, oh yes, knitting. When I win the lottery, I might just do that.

It’s amazing how much I think about knitting when I’m not doing it. Typically, except on weekends, I don’t knit during the day. I wait until after the poodles’ p.m. walk. I’ve never been one to do actual work after dark, so knitting fits perfectly into my evening activities (which also involve watching television or movies).

Right now I’m working on the Wobbly Circles Tote, an intarsia felted bag from Interweave Knits.

But during the day, when I’m at my desk, it’s the knitting blogs that sometimes divert me from work that might actually result in being paid. Favorite knitting blogs include:

Mason Dixon Knitting

Crazy Aunt Purl

Yarn Harlot

Knitty

And I subscribe to the high-traffic Knitlist email list, which I skim/read daily.

That’s not a ton of reading, but it takes time, albeit enjoyable time.

So it seems that, for me, the answer to guilt-free knitting is to start making money from knitting. Then I can call it work! Unfortunately, I’m not a good enough knitter for that. But who knows, if I knit and read about knitting enough, maybe some day I will!

Accountability

22 March 2007

I earned my living as a freelance writer for ten years before starting my organizing business. Writing comes easy for me. So you’d think that having a blog would be a piece of cake. After all, I get to write whatever I want, whenever I want. So why haven’t I posted an entry in over two weeks?

I know exactly why. It’s the absence of a deadline. As a writer, I was terribly deadline oriented. It was the kiss of death if an editor told me turn a story in whenever I wanted (thankfully, that didn’t happen often). I needed a deadline to get started and to complete a story.

Apparently I still do. There are no deadlines with blogs, unless I impose one. There’s no urgency to write. And I’m not writing very frequently. Obviously, my blog will do me no good—from either a business or personal perspective—if I don’t write in it.

So right here, right now, I’m making a commitment. I will post an entry on this blog twice a week. If I’m so inclined, I’ll do it more often. But at the very least I’ll post twice a week. Starting with this entry, today. Which means that on or before March 29, a week from today, there will be another entry, in addition to this one.

In the fabulous Coach Approach for Organizers class that I’m taking (taught by Denslow Brown and Cam Gott), we talk about holding our clients accountable for the actions they promise to take toward their goals. By declaring my blog-posting goals here, I’m hereby making myself accountable.

Watch this space.

When good things happen to good people

13 February 2007

Last Thursday I spent about 15 hours in the car for a very good reason. I drove to Morrison, Tennessee, about an hour past Nashville, with my dear friend, Sally. We went there to pick up her dream dog, an eight-week-old puppy named Seamus Clarence Amos . The little darling’s father was a Great Pyrenees and his mother a Border Collie. He’s not some designer dog (a Border Pyr? a Great Collie?). He’s the very happy result of a guy who has two dogs he’s not brainy enough to neuter.

In any case, Sally’s been looking for this very cross since her beloved Otis died almost a year ago. (Otis, too, was a Great Pyr/Border Collie cross, the result of an accidental breeding). Sally found out about Seamus Clarence Amos on Petfinder.com, where I found my Pip.

Just look at this little guy, with Sally at his foster parents’ house:

Notice Amos's adorable littermate on the far left.

And here he is in his new home:

Living in the lap of luxury

Sally is as ga-ga over dogs as anyone I know. (Perhaps more than anyone I know.) She’s been pining for a puppy every since she lost her beloved Hildy in October. She’s managed to be patient, waiting until the right dog came along. And boy did he. The woman is over-the-moon in love with this puppy, and for good reason. He’s sweet, smart, cute as all get out. Just wonderful.

It’s so nice when good things happen to good people. I can’t wait to watch this little guy grow up.

The cobbler’s children…

25 January 2007

I’m having a very busy month, between client appointments and travel. I had two four-day weekends away in a row (one to Phoenix for the P.F. Chang’s Rock & Roll Half-Marathon, the next to New York City for Michael Neill ’s Coaching Mastery workshop) and the days before and after each trip were filled by client sessions.

I’ve been spending my days helping my clients create order, which I love doing. Meanwhile, my own house seems to be devolving into chaos. Between the rapidly piling up mail (I can’t seem to get caught up), and the laundry that’s not getting done, my home looks like it could use the help of a professional organizer.

I think one of the perils of this profession is the feeling that I need to have a perfect home—one that I’d welcome a client into at the drop of a hat—or else I’m some sort of fraud. I know that’s not true. I tell my clients that they shouldn’t set up overly high standards for themselves and their homes. I also know that one of the things I bring to my clients is a vast well of experience in dealing with organizational issues in my own life.

But that doesn’t necessarily keep me from feeling some despair when I look around here. Until I went to the coaching seminar last weekend, I was kicking myself for not being motivated to do something about it. I’d come home tired from helping people in their homes and not want to dig into my own stuff (big surprise). But now I recognize it’s a simple question of time management and self care. At the coaching seminar, I had the opportunity to be coached by a variety of people and work on some of these issues. In the two days since I’ve been home, I’ve tackled the dirty clothes and made a big dent in the accumulated paperwork (and worked two full days of client appointments). I still have a messy desk to deal with, but I hope and trust that will be taken care of today.

I know that I can’t work all my waking hours. I need relaxation time in the evenings (I like to knit and watch TV and all of a sudden there’s great TV on again!). So I’m going to allow myself to work in 15-minute blocks of time until things are under control. I have Sunday off, so I can finish what remains. Then I’ll remind myself that 15 minutes at a time is all I need to maintain that control.

In other words, instead of beating myself up, I’m going to take the advice I give to my clients: do a little at a time, be kind to myself, and don’t strive for perfection. As an organizer, I don’t need to set an example by having a home that’s company-ready at any given moment. Instead, I just need do the best I can and focus on achieving my organizing goals while taking care of myself. That’s an example I’m happy to set.

The perfect purse

10 January 2007

I don’t know how men do without a purse. How can they possibly take everything they need along with them? You never hear them complaining about it, though. Perhaps they have a different perception of what they need to have with them at all times. Hmmm. Maybe I should take a page from their book and try just carrying a wallet and cell phone.

I could try that. But I’m not going to. Because I’ve found The Perfect Purse. The Perfect Purse is different for every woman. My requirements for the perfect purse change fairly often. But right now I need a purse that will hold my wallet, Palm, cell phone, iPod, and keys handily and readily. It needs to be big enough to hold my task diary (thank you Mark Forster). And it can’t be a black hole that things get lost in—built-in organizational pockets are a must. It has to stay on my shoulder. And, finally, it has to do all this without being bulky. Oh, it should look really good too.

I thought I found it in a Tommy Hilfiger “suede” purse I saw at TJMaxx. I didn’t buy it because it was damaged and regretted that decision so as I got home when my friend, Sally, who can do anything, suggested how I could repair it. When I went back the next day, the purse was gone. So I went on a fruitless quest to all the TJMaxx stores in the area. I ended up buying it on eBay. And guess what? It was too bulky. And, frankly, it had sort of an odd smell.

Then I found The Perfect Purse at J.Jill. It was even on sale. To sweeten the deal further, I bought it with a gift card given to me by my wonderful friends John and Rich. It’s real suede (Tommy’s was ultraseude), a dark moss color, sort of a hobo bag with pockets on either end. This picture doesn’t do it justice:

It’s beautiful. It fits all my requirements. It has just enough interior pockets (on one side: a pocket for my Palm and one for my iPod; on the other side, a zipper pocket). It has those fabulous exterior pockets, perfect for my cell phone and keys. And I like the image it projects: casual, comfortable, but with some elegance. People compliment it wherever I go. How close to perfection is that?