Peace of Mind Organizing

Check out these beautiful, organized spaces

1 May 2013

Last week, iVillage.com had an article, Clutter-Free and Awesome: 12 Pretty Organized Spaces, in which the writer solicited photos of favorite spaces in the homes of organizing professionals. I found it highly enjoyable to gaze at the photos and read the explanations.

I was delighted to be included in the article and even more delighted that the photo of my office-supply closet didn’t stick out like a sore thumb!

Here’s the photo of my office closet that appears in the story. Please go check out the article and see some more beautiful, organized spaces.

Wrangling business cards

30 April 2013

I wish I had the answer to the age-old question of how to organize business cards. I manage my contacts electronically. I keep my contacts on my Mac in the Address Book program, which syncs to the Contacts app on my iPhone. Yet those little business cards still hang around and make me nuts.

I very rarely look at my large collection of business cards.I know I don’t want to enter all those people into my contact-management system, because I don’t want to clutter up my Contacts list. Plus, I don’t want to go to the effort.

Here’s a picture of my collection. I bought that box many years ago (in the 90s, I think) and formerly organized the cards alphabetically by last name. Of course, that was before electronic contact management systems.

My overflowing collection of business cards

Five years ago, I remember talking with my friend and organizer extraordinaire Aby Garvey about wrangling business cards and was inspired by her blog post about organizing her collection of business cards. I went so far as to weed mine out and put them into groups, but I never made the index dividers. (I sound like some of my clients!) Of course, I’ve added more in the last five years.

I could just ignore them. Heck, I could probably just toss them in the recycling bin with little fallout. But that collection of business cards feels like unfinished business to me. It also feels like a problem that, as an organizer, I ought to be able to solve.

So I’m creating a plan of action to get this little monkey off my back. In the month of May, I will:

• Go through the cards and enter contact info for people I actually contact into my Address Book if they’re not already there
• Throw away business cards of people I know are no longer in business or that I wouldn’t do business with
• Winnow my collection of cards down to people I truly think I might want to consult or refer. My goal will be for them all to fit in my red business-card box.
• Group the cards by how I think of them
• Create labels for those groups
• Stop collecting so many business cards
• Set up a routine to either file the business cards I do collect or enter them into my Address Book right away

This is a project I could work on ten minutes a day. Or while I’m on hold (at least the weeding part). I vow here and now to report back at the end of the month. I hope I’ll have a photo of a nicely organized (and not full) box of business cards to show you.

My new tech toy: The Livescribe pen

25 April 2013

In anticipation of attending the national conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers last week, I indulged in the purchase of an item I’d been eyeing for a couple of years: the Livescribe smartpen. (That’s a referral link; I’ll get a small commission if you buy from it.)

How smart is this pen? As you take notes on its special paper, it records the audio of what you’re listening to and links it with your notes. So, in replay mode, when you touch the paper with the pen, you hear what was being said when you made that note.

You can also upload the recording and images of your notes to your computer (or the cloud, depending on which version of the pen you buy). When you click on your handwriting in the uploaded images, you hear what was being said as you were writing.

For a 50-year-old like me whose memory isn’t what it used to be? This is all sorts of awesome.

Here’s a video of how the Livescribe Echo, the version I have, works:

I’m a bit of a pen snob and the pen is a little clunky, but nevertheless I am in love. I found the pen very helpful at the conference. I’m finding the prospect of reporting on my favorite session at our next chapter meeting much less daunting because I know I’ll be able to figure out what my notes actually mean.

Its application for me isn’t limited to conferences. I’ve already taken it with me when visiting a client to do an estimate for a team organizing session. Again, I don’t have to rely on my memory to figure out what my notes mean when I look at them later.

I can’t wait to find other situations in which to use it!

I bought the Livescribe Echo, which is the older version of the pen. It requires plugging in a cable to get the data off the pen and onto the computer. The newer version, the Sky, has wifi and uploads directly to Evernote. I chose the Echo because I wanted to make a smaller investment and don’t mind plugging in the cable.

On the advice of a Livescribe-loving friend, I also purchased the 3D recording headset, which produced really clear recordings, even in a noisy conference setting.

With Livescribe, I feel like the future is here. I had a referral discount from my friend and there was a sale going on, so I paid about $100 for the pen and the headset. I already feel like it’s been a great investment!

Time to clean out the medicine cabinet!

23 April 2013

Getting rid of old medications isn’t as easy as I’d like it to be. Flushing them down the toilet (which is what my family did when I was a kid) isn’t environmentally sound. Throwing them in the trash, where others can get them and use or sell them, obviously isn’t a good idea either. And hanging on to them creates clutter and is potentially dangerous, since some drugs can become toxic with age.

From 10 am to 2 pm this Saturday, April 27, the US government will help you dispose of all those pill bottles collecting dust in your bathroom. Saturday is the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s sixth National Drug Take-Back Day. (Over 2 million pounds—1018 tons—of pills were collected during the last five such events.)

Collection sites for unwanted or unused prescription drugs have been set up all around the country, in cooperation with local and state law enforcement agencies. Go the the National Take-Back Initiative’s website to search for a collection site near you. When I entered my zip code, 17 sites within 10 miles were listed. Couldn’t be easier.

You have four days to clean out your medicine cabinet, which will probably take just a few minutes. I urge you to take advantage of this opportunity!

New Orleans, here I come!

15 April 2013

I leave in the morning to fly to New Orleans to attend the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers. This is the eighth year in a row I’ve attended this conference and it’s hard for me to imagine missing it.

Here’s why I go:

• The outstanding educational sessions, all aimed at professional organizers
• Seeing old friends
• Making new friends
• Learning about new organizing-related products and meet the people who market them
• The casual conversations in the hall or at the trade show—I learn so much from them
• Getting away from the pressures of everyday details and focusing on the big picture of my business

This conference is an investment of both time and money. I’m so glad I can afford to spend both on it!

I hope I’ll be able to blog while I’m there, but if I’m absent here, you’ll know why!

Help for organizing your genealogy

12 April 2013

Ten months ago, on June 14, 2012, I started a second blog, Organize Your Family History. It emerged from my interest in genealogy research and my desire to find a way to integrate my passion for this hobby with my organizing business. (One way I’ve done that is to introduce The Heirloom Explorer package

I don’t take starting a blog lightly. I think if you’re going to have a blog, you have to commit to writing posts. (I’ve written 737 posts on this blog, counting this one, since 2006.) So when I established Organize Your Family History I committed to blogging at least weekly. (I actually shoot for twice weekly, but don’t always get there.) One big benefit: Knowing that I need to blog helps me make time to do the actual family history research that fuels the blog.

In the blog, I write about dealing with the overwhelmed feelings that I have experienced with family history research. I write about ways to organize family history records. And I write about the challenges and triumphs of my own research. As with this blog, I just try to be authentic and write about what interests me, in hoping it will interest others.

If you are interested in family history research, I urge you to check it out. I also have a Facebook page for the blog and I’d love for you to like it!

Worth repeating: Self-care

10 April 2013

I’m passionate about asking people to be kind to themselves and not let guilt about clutter (or anything else) get in the way of living their lives. It’s been almost six years since I wrote this post, called Self-Care, but it remains one of my very favorite posts. I thought I’d share it again today.

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!