Peace of Mind Organizing

Hydration solution

3 June 2013

I started working at at Smart Studio a fitness studio near my house back in October. Ever since, I’ve been faced with challenges surrounding staying hydrated during the workout. There are water coolers and plastic cups, but I wanted to bring my own bottle to fill from the cooler, since the cups are small and I didn’t want to create that waste.

I was using my Life Factory 22-ounce glass water bottle, but I found opening it and drinking from its wide mouth while on the elliptical machine to be a real challenge that frequently ended up with me spilling water on myself. I bought a flip-top cap for it, but that didn’t really help. The flip top just kept annoying me by hitting me in the nose.

Then in my daily email from The Grommet a few weeks ago I saw Cuppow. It’s a plastic cover that turns a wide-mouth mason jar into a sippy cup. Now I love a sippy cup, so this makes me very happy. (The Cuppow folks call it a “to go lid” rather than using the term “sippy cup,” for what it’s worth.)

Here’s a picture of my Cuppow on a mason jar I happened to own.

This is a pint-sized jar, but I’m going to get my hands on a quart jar so I don’t have refill it as often during a workout. It will also be easier to grab in the machines’ cup holders.

For me, it’s a simple solution. It may not terribly chic, but I’m certainly not chic when I’m at the gym. Thank you Cuppow and The Grommet!

P.S. I now see that Cuppow is available on Amazon sized for both wide and regular mouthed jars.

A little focused attention

31 May 2013

Our old house has two full baths and there’s one that’s primarily my domain. I shower there and get ready for my day. My husband rarely steps foot in it.

So I have no one to blame but myself that the bathroom closet was a nightmare. For something like ten years, items went in and seldom came out.

I look in that closet pretty much daily. And each time I’d wince a little and say to myself, “I need to deal with that closet.” I think part of the problem is that I open that bathroom closet primarily when I’m getting ready to go and can’t act on the impulse.

But last weekend, finally, I decided to do something about it. I think the fact that were having a houseguest (the fabulous Margaret Lukens) helped motivate me to take action.

The first step was to take a few embarrassing before pictures (please don’t judge):

Then I started with the floor, throwing away obvious trash as I came to it and putting the other stuff on a 6-foot folding table to sort. I sorted items from one shelf at a time and within a couple of quite painless hours, the job was done. I threw away a whole lot of expired, unloved, and unused stuff. (I found some collars of now-departed dogs and put those in a marked bin in the basement.) And I organized what I kept, using Itso bins from Target primarily and, of course, my handy labelmaker.

It is amazing what a big difference a little focused attention can make! Here are the after pictures.

I now smile when I open that closet and I have no problem finding anything I need. Why did I turn a blind eye for so long?

I’m now ready to tackle another space in my house. I just need to decide which of the many options I’ll pursue!

Pinterest angst

25 May 2013

I blogged on Monday about what I felt was an overly complicated system for storing extra buttons—and my easier solution. I know that for me, simpler is much better.

While I’m a fan of Pinterest, it got me thinking about how so many of the DIY things on Pinterest I find out of reach. They’re just too complicated. Or too beautiful. Or require more steps than I ever would consider taking. Does that ever happen to you? My friend Shannon calls this Pinterest angst.

The great thing about Pinterest is that you can create pinboards that reflect your taste and things you’d like to do. To avoid Pinterest angst, I try to pin things are simple enough for me to realistically do. Otherwise, when I look at my boards on Pinterest, I start to feel inadequate. Kind of like I used to feel when reading Martha Stewart Living magazine.

I sense a bit of a Pinterest backlash afoot. A quick google searched revealed WTF, Pinterest?, which is a pretty enjoyable read. It doesn’t seem quite as snarky as Regretsy which reproduces (and mocks) some awful things found for sale on Etsy. There’s also a blog called Pinterest Fail where people post photos of their failed projects they found on Pinterest (along with the Pinterest photo that provided Pinterest inspiration).

How about you? Do you ever feel Pinterest angst? And do you know of any other blogs or websites capitalizing on that?

Getting and staying on task

22 May 2013

For the last two days, I have had such a difficult staying focused and productive at my desk! My day yesterday was completely unstructured, which is sometimes a recipe for disaster for me. Without an appointment looming, it can be really hard for me to get started.

Today, I’m just trying to get a few hours of work in after my client appointment.

It’s not that I don’t know what to do: I have a four-item list I created this morning. (I usually create that the night before; that’s how unproductive I was yesterday.) A couple of those items will be very easy to accomplish. So why aren’t I starting?

I think I feel, for whatever reason, just really unfocused. Usually my to-do list is enough to focus me. Today, it’s going to take more. I’m pulling out the big guns: a timer + a reward.

One of the easy items on my task list is doing 15 minutes of Quickbooks entry. That’s right, just 15 minutes and I can check that off my list and feel accomplished. I often feel such resistance to even opening the Quickbooks program, though. It’s inexplicable. I actually rather enjoy accounting and my cash flow is positive, so it should feel good. But sometimes getting started on it is like pulling teeth. Thus the low threshold for success (15 minutes).

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to spend 15 minutes on Quickbooks. And when I finish that, I’m going to give myself a reward: 15 minutes watching the mini-series The Pillars of the Earth which I have on DVD from the library. (I just finished reading the book again, so I’m going to enjoy it, I’m sure.)

I’ll layer 15 minutes of TV watching in after I finish each of the four items on my list.

Another good idea: I’m going to keep away from Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. They’ve been such a distraction these last couple of days.

There. I have a plan. I’m starting to feel productive!

If you hit a productivity rough patch, you might try the one-two punch of a timed burst of activity coupled with a reward. It can be pretty powerful!

ETA: It worked! I got all the things on my list done, as well as some other stuff. That timer really got me going.

Those pesky extra buttons

20 May 2013

While I was perusing Facebook this morning, I stumbled onto a link to a post on organizing extra buttons on the Organize and Decorate Everything blog.

You know what I’m talking about, right? Those extra buttons that come (usually in some sort of envelope) with new clothes.

In that blog post, Leanne, the writer, details her beautifully organized and very labor-intensive method of dealing with these buttons: she either uses the original packaging or puts the button in a tiny clear-plastic envelope. She writes a description of the garment on the envelope. She does the same with the extra thread that comes with the garment.

Then she files these tiny envelopes in small accordion file, organized by color. Once a year, she goes through the accordion file and weeds out the buttons that belong to garments she no longer has.

Wow. Just wow. To me, that is a whole lot of work that, in my life anyway, would pay very few dividends. I can’t remember the last time I needed one of the extra buttons that came with a garment.

Let’s contrast Leanne’s method with my own. I have a mason jar that I put buttons in. When I buy a garment that has extra buttons (which these days is pretty rare, since I buy so many of my clothes at resale shops), I take the buttons out of the envelope and put them in the jar. And I throw away any extra thread.

In the rare event that I need one of these buttons, I just pour the buttons out of the jar and and find it. I have the matching buttons on the garment, so I can identify it.

That’s it. It takes no time.

Here’s a photo of my button jar:

These contrasting methods do a marvelous job of illustrating an overriding principle I live by:

Organizing systems should be as complex as they need to be and not one bit more.

I found myself admiring how beautifully organized the buttons in that blog post were, and the beauty of accordion file of buttons sorted by color, and then I realized that for me, anyway, that would be a complete waste of time. And if I aspired to a system like that, I’d probably just have a big pile of buttons waiting to be processed. In the case of extra buttons, simple is best.

Kindle + Audible = Synching bliss

17 May 2013

Not to be too much of an Amazon fangirl, but I just have to report how happy their Whispersync for Voice technology is making me. For some books, it’s possible to purchase a Kindle book and also purchase (at a discounted price) the Audible audio version of the book.

Here’s the great part: When wifi is on, the technology keeps track of your place, so that when you open your Kindle book after listening to the audio version (or vice versa), it takes you to where you left off. I love it!

I recently took an impromptu trip to Walla Walla, Washington, to visit my parents. That entailed not only a plane ride half way across the country, but a 4.5-hour car ride (each way) to and from Portland, Oregon. My preference is to read, not listen to, books, but when I’m driving, of course, audio is the way to go.

Thanks to Whispersync, I could easily transition from reading to listening and back. (I listen on my iPhone, via the Audible app.) While I ordinarily check my Kindle books out from the library, I purchased the wonderful and engrossing The Pillars of the Earth (I think this is my third time reading it), so that I could also listen to it and become fully immersed on this trip.

This is yet another reason why I love my Kindle. If you have a Kindle and you do a lot of driving, you might check out Whispersync!

Here’s something fabulous I just discovered: Amazon is offering FREE Kindle versions of over 100 classic books, with Whispersync audio narration for just 99 cents more.

Worth repeating: Don't forget labels!

15 May 2013

Almost a year ago, I wrote this post on the importance of labels. I just read it again and think it’s a message worth repeating. Plus, the photo always makes me smile!

Labels are really important. When I work with clients to set up organizing systems, I suggest labeling as much as humanly possible. This helps the client—and the client’s family—not only find things, but them away in the proper place. That really helps in forming the habit of putting things away in a new place.

I love my Brother P-Touch labeler. (I’ve had a few…my current one is the semi-fancy PT-2030. which is right now on sale for only $20 at Staples!)

Don’t feel like you can’t make labels just because you don’t have a fancy label maker. Post-It® Notes make great temporary labels. (And they now full adhesive notes, rather than just a strip across the top.) Simple address labels, printed on your computer or by hand, can make terrific, inexpensive labels. Martha Stewart has created a line of lovely labels and tags, available from Staples. On the other end of the spectrum, masking tape and a Sharpie will work great as well!

It doesn’t matter how you label, just that you do it. And you should also pay attention to the labels. A few years back, I was waiting in my veterinarian’s exam room and my brain scrambled as I looked at these canisters.

What the?

One thing to think about is that a label isn’t just a physical thing. An oral label can be very powerful as well. If you have a cluttered catch-all room that you’d like to turn back into a guest room, stop calling it the “junk room” and start calling it the “guest room.” That can be a powerful shift.

The label is the cherry on top of the organizing sundae. Don’t forget it—it might play a powerful role in helping you maintain your newly established systems.