Peace of Mind Organizing

Creating resolutions that work

31 December 2013

Where are you on the New Year’s Resolution Continuum?

(statistics from 2008 survey by Opinion Corporation of Princeton, NJ)

If you fall in that big middle group (or have drifted into the no resolutions group due to disappointment) this could be the year for something different.

A few years ago, Shannon Wilkinson and I teamed up to teach a teleclass on how to actually do the stuff you set out to do every year. We shared the reasons resolutions don’t work, and more importantly, we talked about how to change that. We gave tips and strategies and guided participants through helpful exercises so they experienced a new way of approaching their resolutions and goals.

It was pretty darn awesome. And we don’t want you to miss out on it. (Or on the special bonus we’ll be offering next month!)

The audio of the class and a companion 24-page workbook are available for download right now, on the cusp of 2014. The workbook will take you through the process outlined in the teleclass and includes worksheets so you can keep track of your goals and resolutions and how you’ll go about achieving them.

Maybe your resolution (once again) is to declutter and get organized this year. Or maybe you want to make changes for your health, creativity or finances. Our approach is terrific for whatever set your sights on.

And this year, we’re upping the game by offering a little something extra. Anybody who purchases (or has purchased) the audio + download will be invited to a special, private group call with Shannon and me where we’ll answer your resolution-related questions—anything you want to ask—for an hour. This will happen on January 20. Shannon lives in Portland and I live in St. Louis, but we’ll actually be together in the same room during the call. (So we know it will be a good time.)

Why Resolutions Don’t Work (and How to Get What You Want Anyway)

The recording is great to listen to any time you want to re-vamp a resolution that isn’t working, create a new habit or establish a goal that really works for you. The workbook can stand alone (if you’d rather read than listen) or can help you get more out of the audio.

Details:

• In the audio, we talk for about an hour and then open it up for questions.

• The course covers the common reasons that setting resolutions doesn’t work, and takes you through exercises that help you get what you want.

• The 24-page workbook is based on the content of the audio, but isn’t a mere transcript. (The Q&A is transcribed, however.) It includes worksheets to make the most of Shannon’s meditations.

• This is for anyone who has been frustrated by resolutions or goals, and wants to learn a new way to approach it.

• The cost? Just 19 bucks.

Get this: The price is ordinarily (a very reasonable) $19. But between now and January 15, you can get $5 off using the coupon code SAVE5 at checkout. That makes this resource just $14. And it includes time on the phone with Shannon and me.

Are you in? Yes? Just click the “Add to Cart” button:

Here’s to getting what you really want in 2014!

I heart West Elm's dip bowls

26 December 2013

While on a trip, I wandered into a West Elm store and was immediately entranced by these beautiful little Textured Dip Bowls. I don’t serve a lot of dip, but I immediately saw the potential for using them to store little stuff. (My friend Aby Garvey is rubbing off on me after all these years.)

So I bought one. At first I thought I might use it for office supplies. Wouldn’t it be nice on a desk holding paper clips?

But then I saw an immediate need in my medicine cabinet. I had several different sizes of fingernail and toenail clippers rattling around in there and now they’re beautifully contained.

Soon, I bought two more for my other medicine cabinet (for clippers and our collection of dental floss).

Then I decided I needed some for use at clients’ homes, so I went online and bought the rainbow of bowls pictured above.

The potential seems endless. Right now all five of my extra are sitting on my window sill, in the sun, making me happy every time I look at them.

A task manager I can take with me

23 December 2013

I tend to struggle a bit with task management. I know that managing tasks electronically makes a lot of sense for me. I’ve had an electronic calendar for years and love that I always have the means to make an appointment (in the form of my iPhone and before that iPod Touch and before that Palm) in my purse or pocket.

But to-do lists have always difficult for me to succeed in doing electronically. I’ve tried a few different apps and tend to come back to paper task lists.

Until now.

About a month ago, I was contacted by the folks at Springpad about partnering with them on a project. I was intrigued so of course I had to give the site a try.

According to its website, Springpad is free app (web and mobile) that helps “simplify and organize your life and work anytime, anywhere.” For me, Springpad lives up to that hype.

There are many aspects to it (for example its web clipper and the links and information it provides for many of the items you add to your notebooks), and as I explore it more I’ll be talking about those aspects, but for the moment I’m gaga over the Task Notebook.. With the Task Notebook (everything in Springpad is organized by notebooks), I can easily enter tasks, tag them, assign deadlines and view the tasks in a variety of ways (by tag, by deadline, etc). And, of course, I get the satisfaction of crossing items off. The web app and mobile app work the same way and sync seamlessly, so I can easily enter tasks (or consult my task list) on the go.

Since I started using Springpad a few weeks ago, I’ve been really pleased to have information at my fingertips. Since I discovered the Task Notebook, I’ve felt more in control and I’ve been accomplishing things like crazy. This despite a fairly heavy client schedule.

Springpad has an attractive interface that feels to me like a combination of Evernote and Pinterest. I find it so, so much easier to get my arms around than Evernote. (Incidentally, it’s been around since 2008, so it’s no flash in the pan.)

That partnership that I was approached about? Using Springpad for a little while was enough to convince me to say yes. You’ll be hearing more from me about it in January. So keep an eye out! In the meantime, you might try creating a free Springpad account and it taking it out for a spin.

New year, new habits

20 December 2013

For me, the start of a new year is a great time to take stock and figure out which new habits I’d like to create. For the last couple of years, I’ve written blog posts this time of year detailing the habits I want to create. (I like thinking in terms of habits, rather than resolutions.)

These are the habits I set about creating for 2013. I detailed them in blog post I wrote a year ago called Help for your resolutions. Let’s see how I did.

2013’s goals

• Putting away my clothes properly at night
• Exercising at least three times a week
• Eating more fruits and vegetables
• Establishing a sustainable housecleaning schedule
• Entertaining more often (the fifth goal will support the fourth)

I did much better about putting away clothes every night in the latter half of 2013. In July, I cleared off my bureau (pictures here) and it made a huge difference. I’d say I’m 80 percent there in terms of having an ingrained habit.

I also did pretty well with my exercise habit, though I have to admit I don’t make it the priority that I might. So if work gets in the way, I excuse myself from having to exercise. I’d like to change that up and make it more of a priority.

I completely failed to intentionally eat more fruits and vegetables. Basically it just slipped my mind.

As far as housecleaning goes, I absolutely succeeded in that we hired a wonderful housecleaner to come in every two weeks. (Score!) So the house is totally under control.

We are entertaining a bit more, but not as much as I might like. Having a clean house, certainly makes that more viable.

So when I look at 2014, I think I’m going to have to keep some of the goals on my list. Here’s what I’m hoping to create for 2014.

2014’s goals

• Putting away my clothes properly every night
• Exercising three times every week
• Eating several daily servings fruits and vegetables
• Getting out more
• Taking more time to craft

I’m a natural home body, but I think I’d benefit from accepting (and initiating) more invitations to do stuff on the outside, with my husband and with friends. Or even on my own.

I love knitting, but it fell a little by the wayside in 2013. I want to amp it up again, challenge myself more with my knitting (great for my brain!) and also spend a little time filling up the Smash Book I bought a couple of years ago.

How about you? Do you have some habits you’d like to create in the new year? I’d love to hear about them.

Worth repeating: Small irritations

18 December 2013

I wrote this blog post in 2011 and when I re-read it today, I really liked the message, so thought I’d share it again. The bag is finished (I was having trouble uploading a photo of my bag, so that’s someone else’s there), but I’ve experienced the same thing (inside and outside of knitting) on more than one occasion since!

Sometimes the tiniest things keep us from doing things we want to do or think we should be doing. If we can identify those things and modify them, we can get more done.

I was thinking about this as I contemplated my knitting. One of the projects I’m working on is this cool bag, the Garter Stripe Square Bag. (The pattern is in Japanese, but you can find it in English on Ravelry.)

This bag was created (and photographed) by LKolarik on Ravelry.

To make this bag, you knit 22 striped squares, seam them together in a particular way, sew the sides of the bag, create handles and throw the whole thing into the washing machine to felt it. The knitting part is easy, the construction perhaps a tiny bit complicated. But overall, it’s a very cool result for minimal effort. Good, mindless knitting.

I started knitting the striped squares on my favorite knitting needles, Harmony interchangeable circular needles from Knit Picks. I love the Harmony needles because they’re smooth and light and just feel great. (I’m not crazy about the way they look, but I’ve gotten past that.)

But as I researched this project more on Ravelry, I saw that other people had knit it on double-pointed needles (DPNs), picking up stitches on the side of finished squares to minimize the seaming. (If you’re not a knitter, the takeaway is that I thought I’d try different needles.)

So I bought some bamboo DPNs at my local yarn shop. They’re perfectly serviceable needles, but they don’t have the smooth finish of the Harmony. (I could have purchased Harmony DPNs, but they’re only available mail order and I didn’t want to wait.)

When I started to knit a square with these new needles, it was less pleasant. There was a certain drag to the needles, making the knitting more laborious. There was some friction in the combination of the wool and the bamboo that felt yucky. I would do just a couple of rows before putting the square down.

Eventually I decided to give up on the DPNs and go back to the Harmony needles. Now I’m buzzing along on my squares.

The lesson here? It took me awhile to figure out the reason I was resisting knitting that bag was that I hated the way the needles felt. They transformed the knitting experience from something enjoyable into something irritating.

This happens all the time in life. Maybe you’d be more inclined to put a certain item away if it were stored in a more accessible place. Maybe you’d handle your mail every day if you had a clear, designated space in which to do it. Maybe you’d put your laundry away promptly if the drawers weren’t so full of clothes.

Think about an order-related task you’re resisting. Is there some small change you could make that would make doing it easier? Some little irritation you can identify that you could remove or modify? One little change can make a big difference.

Getting past the barrier to getting started

16 December 2013

I’m always amazed at how powerful it can be to start on a project I’ve been putting off. Even the tiniest bit of effort is like a dam breaking; the resistance vanishes and then I can get going on it.

I’d fallen behind on my Quickbooks data entry for my business. Now that the end of the year is approaching, I’m wanting to create some reports and see how things stand. I can’t do that if I haven’t entered data since October 15!

I don’t mind dealing with Quickbooks, but getting started can be really tough for me. I seem to be trapped in a mindset that I need to block out some time, spread out receipts, and really get into the zone. It’s one of those tasks that I have trouble chipping away at a little at a time. As a result, it’s been on my to-do list for weeks and weeks.

So I was bound and determined to at least do some Quickbooks data entry this weekend. But I found many other things to do instead. As 5:00 on Sunday approached, I realized that if I didn’t do something on Quickbooks—anything—I would really kick myself. Trouble was, I didn’t feel like going down to my office (my laptop was on the dining room table) and spreading everything out.

So I decided that I had to just do something to preserve my self esteem. If I did one little category of items—something as small as entering the receipts I had in my purse, which was near the dining room—it would be enough. So I entered those receipts. And then I reconciled my PayPal account with the October and November statements that I could access on my computer. And I called it done for the day.

Here’s the great thing about it: Since I managed to get started, I’m now anxious to resume. I’m not going to have a chance until later today (because of client and other obligations), but I’m confident that I’ll spend some time with Quickbooks late in the day because I’ve gotten over the hump. It felt good. Plus, I want to create those reports!

If you’ve been reading my blog awhile, you know this is a pretty constant refrain in my life. If you haven’t already, you might want to check out the blog posts Just do something and Getting started, which has a nifty technique for tricking yourself into getting started.

How not to label a photo

13 December 2013

I blogged over at Organize Your Family History about the importance of labeling photos while the information is fresh in your mind. It’s also important to make the labels meaningful.

While I was going through a box of old (very old) family photos with my mother on my recent visit to Walla Walla, we came across this one, whose label made me laugh.

In the absence of a date, that’s a meaningless label. Well, virtually meaningless. At the very least, we know this photo is about 95 years old, since my mother inherited it after her mother died in 1999. And let’s not even talk about the fact that the label doesn’t mention who is in the photo!

Now that we’re printing out fewer and fewer photos, remember that you can label digital photos as well, using metadata. That’s a little easier said than done as this blog post from the Library of Congress discusses, but worth the effort.

When it comes to archiving your own photos, I urge you to think of the next generations who will be looking at them. That means consider getting rid of duplicates and bad shots and labeling those that you deem worth keeping and passing on! Great labels include the names of the people in the photos and where and when it was shot. If it’s a special occasion, that’s nice to mention too!