Peace of Mind Organizing

Reigning in the charging cables

14 March 2014

One challenge that the modern gadget-using family must contend with is the abundance of charging cables necessary to keep those devices up and running. There’s a sad lack of standardization and you may have as many different kinds of cables as you have different kinds of devices.

I deal with this in my house—I have an iPhone 4S, iPad Air, and Kindle Paperwhite that all need frequent recharging. Each of those devices uses a different cable. (When I replace my iPhone soon, I’ll be able to reduce the necessary charging cables by one.) Happily for me, my husband deals with his charging needs in his home office, so I don’t have to factor in his devices.

We have a wine refrigerator in our dining room that sits next to an outlet and has served as my charging area. Originally, I had a 10-watt USB charger plugged into the outlet and I would switch out the charging cable plugged into the USB port. I kept the cables that weren’t in use in a bowl, using labeled binder clips to keep them neat and easy to identify.

But having to bend down to switch out the USB cable in the wall charger was a drag, so I purchased a four-port USB charger so I could keep my cables plugged in and just switch them out without bending over.

But then I had to figure out how to neatly store the cables that were plugged into the wall, waiting to be used. Luckily for me, the makers of MOS a new, stylish cable solution, offered to send me one to try out. Perfect timing—it’s proven to be a great solution to my problem.

The MOS (which stands for Magnetic Organization System) uses strong magnets, coupled with included magnetic cable ties, to hold your loose cables in place. It has a real Apple aesthetic (which of course pleases me). In fact, the company brags that it is the only cable organizer that Apple will sell in its North American stores.

The base (which contains a strong magnet) is very secure atop my metal wine fridge. If I wanted to mount it on a non-metal surface, the bottom is covered in micro suction cups to hold it in place. An adhesive mounting circle is included for use on a wall.

Here’s a company photo of the product in use.

Isn’t that elegant? In my house, it’s somehow not quite as gorgeous, but I think it’s working out very well.

At $20 (on Amazon), the MOS isn’t cheap. But it does serve a real need. I’m contemplating buying a second one to use next to my computer. And perhaps the upcoming MOS Menos mini version for use in my car.

Make charity write-offs easy with iDonatedIt

12 March 2014

If you itemize your taxes, taking a deduction for items you’ve donated to charities makes good financial sense. You reduce your tax burden and you don’t have to go through the trouble of trying to sell your unwanted stuff.

The challenge for me has been that the IRS requires me to have itemized list of each individual item donated and its value, in order to substantiate the deduction. (I remember a decade ago, I could just donate a bag of clothes and guess that it was worth $100. Those days are over.)

It’s not that hard to make a list as I fill a bag, but then I had to go to the trouble to figure out the value. Enter iDonatedIt, a $3 iPhone/iPad app that makes the process a lot easier.

Last weekend, I cleaned out my closet and selected 24 articles of clothing that I no longer wear. I decided to donate them to the NCJW Resale Shop here in St. Louis. They only accept items of high quality, so I chose barely worn items to donate.

I opened IDonatedIt on my iPad and entered each article, telling the app the quality level (Good/Better/Best) and it created a list, complete with value. Here’s a screenshot:

The app gives you the opportunity add a photograph to each entry, but since a photo isn’t required by the IRS, I didn’t go to the trouble.

When I was finished, I emailed it to myself, then printed out the list and attached it to the receipt I’d been given by the Resale Shop staff. I put it in my even-year tax file where it will be waiting for me at the beginning of 2015 when I do my taxes.

This was so much easier than keeping a pen-and-paper list and later assigning a value. I have to say this makes the prospect of getting together a donation seem less daunting!

Solving my business-card problem once and for all

7 March 2014

Keeping track of business cards is a challenge for me, and, I’ve observed, for many of my clients. I’ve been accumulating them for awhile in a business-card file box (sorted into rough categories) and then when I outgrew the box, the whole bunch went into in a larger bin that sat on a shelf in my office closet.

I blogged about this in May of last year and even went so far as to create an action plan to deal with the cards. But I never followed through on it.

A winter storm blew through St. Louis on Sunday, putting on hold my plans for going out. So I decided it was time to deal with those darn business cards.

Here’s how they looked when I moved them to my desk to deal with them. My plan was to organize them into a larger See Jane Work business-card file box I’d purchased some time back.

There was no way all these cards would fit in this box.

Before getting started, I thought about why I hang on to business cards. I realized that it’s because I want to be a great resource for my clients. And I’m afraid that I won’t remember the names on the cards I’d collected if I put them in my phone. So my thought was that I would organize the cards into categories for easy access if I have a client who needs a name.

That seemed reasonable until I started thinking about the fact that I like to be able to give my clients the resource immediately, not wait until I get home (and risk forgetting to do it). I’m not going to carry a business-card file box around with me (nor would I if I had a business card book or any other more portable way to carry around business cards.). What I do carry around with me to all client appointments is my phone.

So I decided to use my phone like I would use the file box: I’d enter the contact info by category. But first, I would narrow the cards down to as few as possible, to make the job easier.

I went through the accumulated business cards, being very selective about what I kept. I created categories for the ones I wanted to keep and filed them in the smaller business-card file box.

I threw away a big pile of cards.

My discard pile was huge!

The next step was to go through the keepers and make sure the ones I really want to refer to clients are in the contacts list on my computer and phone, filed into groups for easy access. I created groups that match the categories in my physical business-card file.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long to enter the names and contact info. Less than an hour. I tried to see if I could use my Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M scanner to take of that task for me, but the business-processing card software that came with the scanner was out of date and I didn’t want to go down the rabbit hole of updating things. So I just entered the names that weren’t already in my computer.

After I was finished with that task, I had a big decision to make: should I keep the physical cards or toss them all? Part of me wanted to keep them, since I had a place to store them. But reason prevailed and I decided to let go of all those resource cards. I kept a few of the cards related to me personally, but tossed a giant pile of cards. Knowing that they’re in my database, backed up regularly, gave me the courage to do that.

And I’m here to tell you it felt good!!

Now, when I pick up a business card, I’ll decide then and there whether to put it in my database. And then I’ll take the 60 seconds or so necessary to add it. And I’ll toss it.

I did keep a few categories of cards. I kept those of some friends, just because they make me feel good when I look at them. I kept a category of cards related to professionals in my home town, who might be of help if problems come up with my aging family. And I kept a category of genealogy-related cards (mostly picked up at the RootsTech conference I attended last month.

This is all the the cards that were left when I finished:

Now my box has more index cards than business cards.

Hooray! It’s a thrill to come up with a solution that works for me for a problem I’ve been grappling with for awhile.

And the giveaway winner is...

3 March 2014

On February 21, I posted a review of Clutterfree with Kids by Joshua Becker. Joshua had sent me an autographed copy of the book to give away to a lucky reader.

And that lucky reader is Thadeus! He posted the second comment on the review + giveaway blog post. I found his comment poignant:

My daughter and I need this book pretty bad. My wife may kick us out if we don’t learn to declutter soon! (We are both sentimentalists!)

The fact that I found his comment poignant had nothing to do with his winning, though. I assigned a number to each of the comments, as well as to each of the Twitter and Facebook mentions of the contest, then used the Random Number Generator to pick the number of the winning entry.

Thanks so much to those of you who entered. Even if you didn’t win, I urge you to read the book. It’s really thought provoking and, possibly, behavior altering. I hope it helps Thadeus!

Taking taxes one bit at a time

28 February 2014

It’s that time of the year! I’ve had one client appointment where we pulled together tax information for the accountant, and I’ve started on my own taxes.

I do our taxes with Turbo Tax and have for six years now. Like many people, I don’t enjoy doing taxes. I think the fear of the unknown (Will I have all the information I need? Did I pay enough estimated taxes?) plays a part. Plus, it can be brain-bending work.

This year I have a few things going for me before starting the process of doing taxes:

• I had a designated spot for all my tax documents as they came in, so I didn’t have to search for anything
• I’m caught up in my business and personal bookkeeping (to give credit where it’s due, my husband keeps track of our personal finances in Quicken)
• I’d ordered Turbo Tax 2014 already and just needed to install it

So last weekend, I decided to start and I didn’t pressure myself to finish. I told myself that any effort was good effort and just getting over the barrier of starting would be a victory.

I didn’t start until late afternoon on Saturday, but I put in an hour or so. On Sunday, I was actually anxious to get going on it. (I think it’s the brain craves completion thing.) I also dangled a reward in front of myself. After working on my taxes for several hours, I went to the movie theater to see not one but two Best Picture nominees, followed by dinner out with my husband.

So now it’s February 28. I’ve made headway on my taxes, but am by no means finished—I’m still figuring out my business’s taxes and haven’t even started entering our personal financial info. I’m going to follow the same pattern this weekend; I’ll put in a little effort each day. If I don’t finish (which I don’t expect to), I’ll carve out some time during the week this week, so that I can finish by the end of next weekend. (We anticipate a refund, so it’s in our best interest to file as soon as possible.)

How about you? Have you started your taxes? If not, I urge you to start soon and avoid the stress of facing down the April 15 deadline.

Photo by PT Money via Flickr.

How I'm using Springpad

24 February 2014

For the last three months, I’ve been using (and enjoying) Springpad, the personal-organizer app. I’ve accessed it daily, either from my desktop, iPad or iPhone (often all three in the course of day). I wanted to share here how I’m using it and why I like it so much.

Task management
I’ve long wanted to use an electronic task-managment system, but was never able to stick with one—until Springpad. I started out using their built-in Tasks notebook, but switched over the the Ninja Task Manager notebook in January. (That’s it pictured above.) Ninja Task Manager is one of the custom notebooks that they launched in January, in partnership with a dozen or so organizing experts, including me.

What I love about the Ninja Task Manager is the ability to mark any task with a heart so that it appears on the Today tab. That means I can scan a master list and segregate those tasks I want to focus on today. Love it. (This custom notebook actually comes with a $1.99 price tag. It’s so worth it, in my opinion.)

Shopping lists
I have a Shopping Lists notebook that allows me to keep a running list of regularly purchased items, by store. I can enter the items as specific products, if I want, and see pictures of the items. (I can even scan the UPC code of an item in my pantry to make adding it to my list really easy.) If my husband were on board, we could share the notebook and add to it separately, so whoever’s at the store has an up-to-date list.

Keeping track of books
Last year I started keeping a list of the books I read. I read mostly fiction, and my Kindle has made it convenient for me to read a whole lot of books. With Springpad, I enter a book I want to read and it draws the description (including cover photo) from Amazon. I can mark it “Want” or “Read” and I can see all my books, just the ones I want, or just the ones I’ve read. I tag the read ones with the year, so I can easily keep track of how many books I’ve read in a year. (So far, I’ve read eight in 2014.) I can go right from a book entry in the My Books notebook on Springpad to Amazon to purchase it with just a touch (or click).

Keeping track of movies
When I hear about a movie I want to watch, I add it to my My Movies notebook. When the movie becomes available on DVD or at Netflix, I’m notified, within Springpad. How cool is that?

• Keeping track of all sorts of other stuff*
  I have notebooks for individual clients so I can keep track of time and tasks, for blog posts ideas, for apps to check out, for recipes and for wines I like, among many others. The wine notebook is cool, because it shows the label of the wine (which is how I remember wine) and gives info about the wine.

Family history research
One of the two custom notebooks I created with Springpad is the Family History Organizer. Within that notebook is a simple Research Tracker that I have found immensely helpful. I also keep track of research tasks in that notebook.

Connecting with people
I have a few public notebooks that any Springpad user can see and follow that allow me to share information that I find valuable. Right now, those notebooks are on topics I get a lot of questions about, like professional organizer training and working with a professional organizer.

I always have my phone with me, so I always have Springpad with me. I am really benefitting from it and I suspect the benefits will grow as I get to know it better.

If you’re intrigued, I encourage you to check it out!

Less stuff, more living: A review of Clutterfree with Kids (+ giveaway!)

21 February 2014

Joshua Becker, the founder and editor of the popular Becoming Minimalist website, sent me a copy of his new book, Clutterfree with Kids for a review and giveaway. Here’s the review. At the end you’ll see how to enter to win an autographed copy of the book.

I’ve long extolled the virtues of living with less. I tell my clients and various audiences that less is more. Owning less stuff makes life easier. I sincerely believe that.

Reading Clutterfree with Kids, though, has given me even more perspective on it. I define clutter has having more items than you can comfortably store. Until now, I’ve always thought about excess in terms of whether or not stuff can be stored.

But Joshua Becker has me thinking about minimalism. That is, living with a fundamental philosophy of not just avoiding having too much, but rather embracing having as little as possible. That’s actually a pretty big shift. And it was an wow moment for me.

While this is a book focused on children’s possessions, the first third of it is about the concept of minimalism. And even if you (like me) don’t have kids, you might find it really interesting and, possibly, mind blowing.

Before he even gets into talking about kids’ stuff, Becker outlines his four steps for living in a clutterfree home.

• Believe it is possible
• Remove the excess
• Implement habits to manage your clutter
• Slow the accumulation of possessions

If you have kids, and you find the notion of teaching your kids the value of living with less intriguing, this book will give you many reasons to do it and will give you a way to go about it. The discussion isn’t limited to toys. It also includes chapters on clothing, artwork, sentimental items, collections, tv and video games, photos, gifts, packing, schedules, and preparing for baby.

I was especially delighted to read the chapter, “Clutterfree with a reluctant partner.” Minimalism is a huge lifestyle changed for many. What if your partner is not on board? Becker is full of sound advice, like “Refuse to let stuff separate you.” And “Realize you can’t change someone else. You can only change yourself (and your attitude).” He recommends leading by example, purging your own items first then looking for common items you can together agree to part with. And he recommends patience. Sounds spot on to me.

This book is well written, with lots of gentle humor. And it has what I believe is a profound message. If you’re at all enticed by the subject, I encourage you to read it.

The giveaway

Here’s how you can get a free copy of Clutterfree with Kids, autographed by the author. Just leave a comment below and/or tweet about the giveaway and/or post on your Facebook timeline or page about the giveaway. You’ll get extra entries for doing tweets and Facebook posts in addition to the comment. (Be sure and put my twitter handle, @janinea, in the tweet or, when you’re posting on Facebook, tag my Facebook page Peace of Mind Organizing so I’ll count your extra entries.)

Last day to enter is Friday, February 28. I’ll select the winner at random and announce the winner on my blog on Monday, March 3. (And I’ll contact you directly if you’re the lucky person.)