Peace of Mind Organizing

Highlight Reel for 2012

31 December 2012

It’s the last day of the year and I’m putting the finishing touches on my goals for 2013. A big part of the goal-setting process for me is reviewing accomplishments of the past year. It can be easy to focus on what one didn’t accomplish last year (a side effect of setting high goals), but it’s smart to take into account the good things.

There were a number of highlights of 2012 for me and for my business. Here are some of the highlights:

An abundance of time. 2012 was so much easier on me, mentally and physically, than 2011 because my schedule became much lighter. I retired from two boards I’d served on (the Institute for Challenging Disorganization and the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers) and I no longer had the part-time job I’d held in 2010 and 2011. In short, I had breathing space in 2012. That was huge for me.

My rebooted genealogy research and a new blog. Because my schedule was so much less cluttered, I had time in 2012 to pursue a hobby I enjoy a great deal, family history research. In June, I started a blog that I’d been itching to do for some time, one that ties together two of my passions, genealogy and organizing. It’s called Organize Your Family History. This blog acknowledges how it easy it is to get overwhelmed by family history research and recounts how I get past that overwhelmed feeling. It also discusses how I organize my family research, my discoveries along the way and anything else that I feel like talking about. If you haven’t already, please check it out!

Leading organizing teams. I love leading organizing teams to create large-scale change for my clients. In 2012, I set out to do more of those and I succeeded (mostly by rewriting my website to emphasize this service). I hope to do even more in 2013. (If this interests you, please check out the Team Organizing page on my website.)

My intern. I was approached by an enterprising Saint Louis University student, Kate Koberna, to consider letting her be my intern. I’d never had an intern and was a little wary. But Kate, an entrepreneurship major who plans to start an organizing business after she graduates, was fabulous. She has crazy mad organizing skills and was very helpful in client sessions. And she helped me with social media and research projects. Getting to know her was a definite highlight of the year!

My involvement in Rubbermaid’s Professional Organizer Squad. I was so honored to be one of five professional organizers invited by Rubbermaid to blog regularly for them and answer questions from consumers. And I love the superhero logo that represents us!

Working on two hoarding TV shows. In 2012, I had the good fortune to be invited to work on episodes of both A&E’s Hoarders and TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive. These shows have allowed me to meet people would have otherwise never known, people who have enriched my life. It is a privilege to get to know them and to help them.

My iPhone. When I finally got an iPhone, I figured I’d like it. I didn’t realize I’d want to marry it. This little device has been so productivity enhancing, I can hardly imagine living without it. (I have an iPhone 4S with no plans to upgrade until this baby bites the dust.)

A real vacation. I never take true vacations. But this year I went to Barbados with my college buddies to celebrate our 50th birthdays. Finally, I see what the fuss is about, with regard to vacations, the Caribbean, beaches, you name it. I plan to take at least one real vacation in 2013.

Enjoying down time. After working so hard the past couple of years, I let myself take days off on occasion this year. Usually at least one day off per week, sometimes two. That opportunity to recharge my batteries, guilt-free, was very valuable. And it’s something I intend to keep doing.

I am so grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given and for the great freedom I have in my life. As I look at the promise of a new year unfolding ahead of me, I intend to make 2012’s accomplishments a springboard for more accomplishments in the coming year. I hope you do the same!

Your moment of cuteness

28 December 2012

I was working on a longish post today, but I’ve decided to work on it a little longer and post it on Monday. Instead, I’m going to post this photo of a little teddy bear that I knit last weekend (while watching the excellent sci fi series Firefly).

It just makes me smile to look at it and I wanted to put a smile on your face too.

(My friend, the talented Sally Brown of Roll Over Rover Threads embroidered the little face for me.)

What's your word for 2013?

26 December 2012

I receive coach Christine Kane’s weekly e-zine and from time to time I read an article that I think is so good I reprint it here (with permission, of course). I read the article I’m reprinting today early this morning and it proved to be really thought provoking. I downloaded the Word of the Year Discovery Tool and quickly honed in on a word that I think will be my driving force in 2013. (More on that in a future post.) I hope you have as much fun with this tool as I have!

— Janine

Resolutions? Yawn! Here’s a Better Way to Start Your Year…

Written by Christine Kane

The regulars at the gym are already joking about it.

“Have a good workout now,” they say. “Cuz next week, it’ll be lame in here.”

That’s because all the folks who have – yet again – made their New Year’s Resolutions will show up. They’ll stick around for a while. Then, around Valentine’s Day, the regulars get to have their old gym back.

I happened to catch a radio talk show a few years ago where the hosts were discussing the most common New Year’s Resolutions and the average success rate. Among the most common were Get Organized, Be More Spiritual, Lose Weight, Quit Smoking, and Spend More time with the Family.

(Yawn.)

I don’t know about you, but this kind of To-Do List approach to life transformation does little to inspire me. And it doesn’t surprise me at all that the success rates were pretty depressing.

Why Resolutions Don’t Work

The reason most resolutions don’t work is that they address only one level of your life. The DO level. It’s the DO-HAVE-BE model.

“I will DO this thing.” (i.e., Lose weight)

“…so I can HAVE this other thing” (Self-Esteem)

“…and I can BE this thing.” (Confident.)

The average New Year’s Resolution doesn’t address the core of the issue – the “BE” level.

The best order for creating positive changes in your life is the BE-DO-HAVE model. This means you start from the BE level. When you begin changing on the BE level of your life, then the DO level and the HAVE level follow more easily.

When you start only on the DO level, then all the blocks on the BE level will often become the obstacles you can’t overcome.

A Better New Year’s Ritual

Many years ago, I decided that, instead of making resolutions, I would pick a word that would guide me throughout the year. It would be my touchstone. It would remind me of living my life at the BE level.

This didn’t mean that I didn’t take action. It meant that our actions were inspired from the BE level. In fact, I took more action than ever with this new approach! (My words have even led me to hit the million-dollar mark in my business!) I share all about that in my Word-of-the-Year Discovery Tool.)

How to Choose Your Word-of-the-Year for 2013

If you want to get some serious clarity around your word to really accelerate your 2013… click here to download my free Word-of-the-Year Discovery Tool. It will walk you through my complete ritual and guide you into a higher level of intention for creating your year.

Here’s the gist of it:

Get quiet over the next few days. And pick a word for the year.

Then, hold that word in your mind throughout the year, and let your word guide you to take action.

For instance, let’s say you are one of the many people who would normally choose Get Organized as a resolution. You look around to see clutter and crap all over your life. You’re tired of the chaos. So, you think, “I need to get organized. That should be my Resolution this year.”

But then you read this article. You decide to try it.

You sit with your clutter. You spend a few days pondering words that will inspire you. You realize in an “Ah-Ha!” moment that you tend to cling to lots of things. You’re scared to let go. So you choose the word “Release” because it inspires you in a bigger way than “Get organized.”

So, every time you approach your clutter you remind yourself of that word. “Release,” you say softly. You start to let the clutter go.

Eventually, you realize that you’re still holding on to lots more than just physical clutter. You realize that you hold onto resentment at old relationships. “Release,” you remind yourself.

You realize that holding on is affecting your diet and health. “Release” applies to some of the extra weight you’ve gained as well.

Throughout the year, you can see clearly how much you hold on. “Release” is your touchstone. It grows you throughout the year. It becomes your guiding force, not your harsh standard.

Your clutter became your teacher simply because you shifted your intent towards it. This wouldn’t have happened if you’d opted only to “Get Organized.”

What word to choose?

Many people know immediately which word resonates with them. For others, a little contemplation is required.

My Word-of-the-Year Discovery Tool contains a complete list of words to inspire you. You can download it here.

My biggest advice is to sit with it. When a word is the right word, it will keep showing up in your mind until you nod and say, “Ah. That’s the one.”

Download my Word-of-the-Year Discovery Tool. It’s free (and it’s cool!)

Happy New Year everybody!

Christine Kane is the Mentor to People Who are Changing the World. She helps women and men Uplevel their lives, their businesses and their success. Her weekly Uplevel You eZine goes out to over 20,000 subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can sign up for a FREE subscription at http://christinekane.com.

Executive Function Deficit Disorder

20 December 2012

Last Friday, I listened to a recording of a great talk from Ari Tuckman, a psychologist who specializes in working with folks with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The talk, called Organizing the ADHD Brain Using Executive Functions, was presented at this year’s National Association of Professional Organizers conference.

In the talk, Dr. Tuckman said that ADHD could more appropriately be called Executive Function Deficit Disorder, because that’s what it boils down to. (He also said that this name change would never happen, since advocates fought hard to get people with ADHD accommodated through the Americans with Disabilities Act.)

According to the website of the National Center for Learning Disabilities:

Executive Function is a set of mental processes that helps connect past experience with present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space.

Or, as Dr. Tuckman puts it, “Our highest- level brain processes that enable us to make good decisions in a complex world.”

Dr. Tuckman is the author of the book More Attention, Less Deficit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD, which provides lots of great information on executive function. In fact, he made the first chapter of his book about executive function because it is so fundamental to any discussion of ADHD. That chapter available as a free sample download.

In that chapter he discusses eight executive functions and the implications of their deficit for those with ADHD.

• Response inhibition: Taking a pause to weigh options before making a decision
• Working memory: The part of the memory that holds information about what we’re doing in the present moment
• Sense of time: The ability to have a good sense of the passage of time
• Remembering to remember: The capacity to remind yourself to do the right thing at the right time
• Emotional self-control: Being able to objectively assess feelings and dilute them as appropriate.
• Self-activation: Using internal pressure to get the ball rolling on tasks
• Persistence of effort: Keeping going once you get going
• Hindsight and forethought: Using the past and future to guide the present

Thinking about people with ADHD not so much as distractible or fidgety but rather lacking the eight executive functions described above is very helpful to me.

If this interests you, I urge you to download the first chapter of More Attention, Less Deficit (and buy and read the rest of the book!). If you’re a professional organizer, you may benefit from listening to the talk, Organizing the ADHD Brain Using Executive Functions, which is available for download here at VW Tapes.

Dr. Tuckman also offers a free 10-minute podcast, available through iTunes, in which he discusses many of these principles.

Help for your resolutions

18 December 2012

I’m all about goal setting. And I love doing it this time of year. This week and next, I’m working on taking stock of the year, seeing how well I did with the goals I set last year, and setting new ones for the coming year. I create measurable business-related goals.

But what about goals for those little behavioral changes we tend to call new year’s resolutions? Last year, in a blog post called, Goals, not resolutions, I blogged about some habits I was hoping to reinforce in 2012:

2012’s goals

• Putting away my clothes properly every night
• Exercising every morning
• Clearing my email inbox every workday
• Telling my gratitude buddy, Aby Garvey what I’m grateful for each day
• Taking multivitamins, calcium supplements, and fish oil capsules every morning

I’m happy to report that I’ve done really well on the last three. And while I’m not exercising every morning, I joined a gym at the beginning of October and am consistently working out there three times a week.

Putting away my clothes properly every night is still an elusive goal for me. I thought about it this morning when I was getting up. I think a clean sweep of the bureau—taking off everything on it and putting back only the essential items—will be a big help. When the bureau looks junky (as it tends to now with various random things taking up not-so-temporary residence there), putting away my clothes isn’t as rewarding, because there isn’t a broad expanse of clear surface.

I think the key to my success in creating successful habits is that I tend to be really clear about what I’m after. I try to be realistic. And, when I’m most successful, I link a new habit with an established one to create a routine. That makes it become more automatic, which is so helpful.

I’ve given some though to my behavioral goals for 2013 and here’s what I’m going to shoot for.

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)

My email inbox, gratitude and vitamin habits are pretty well established, so I’m going to let those drop off the list (though I fully intend to continue doing them).

Having stated these goals out loud by writing them here will help me remember them (which is a big deal when it comes to resolutions) and it will also motivate me to do them. For me, accountability is really powerful. I’ll check in later to see how it’s going!

If you’d like some advice and guidance on getting what you want in the new year, I have a great resource to offer (and a chance to save $5 on it). A few years ago, my friend and life coach Shannon Wilkinson and I created a teleclass called Why Resolutions Don’t Work—and How to Get What You Want Anyway. A year later, we added a workbook to it. It sells for only $19 for both the audio recording of the teleclass and the 24-page workbook based on the content of the audio. But between now and January 15, if you use the coupon code SAVE5, you’ll save $5. So you can get this great resource for only $14. Click here to purchase yours. It could be just what you need to help you create realistic goals for the new year.

Cutting myself some slack

14 December 2012

I drove over an hour to work with a client today and on my way listened to a great talk about executive function. On the way back, I plotted a blog post about executive function, with the plan to write that post this afternoon upon my return.

But I stopped for lunch on the way home and learned about today’s tragic school shooting in Connecticut. And when I got home I learned about a shooting just a block away from my home and about the knife attack at a primary school in China.

And, somehow, writing about executive function doesn’t seem that important this afternoon.

So I’ve decided to cut myself a little slack and forego the post on executive function (look for that next week). Instead, I just want to say that my heart and thoughts are with the victims (those who survived and those who did not) of today’s senseless violence.

Keep it simple and give clutter-free gifts

12 December 2012

I’m all about letting the holidays be easy. And I’m also very keen on not giving gifts that might weigh the recipient down. I see in my clients a tendency to hang onto items that were given as gifts, even if the items aren’t used or loved.

So every holiday season, I bang my drum for clutter-free gift giving. Here are some ideas on things you can give that won’t risk turning into clutter:

• Electronic subscriptions or gift cards. Every year my brother and I renew our parents’ subscriptions to a digital photo frame and an email service. (They don’t have—or want—a computer.) Another great option is a Netflix or Hulu Plus gift subscription. (Personally, I love receiving iTunes gift certificates.)

• Give the gift of time together. Instead of exchanging gifts, why not go out to lunch and a movie with a friend? Or, if you have friends or family a distance away, give the gift of regular phone calls. Or a plane ticket to come visit. It’s about your relationship, not the stuff.

• Offer a service. Do you have a friend who could use some help around the house? Either offer to do it yourself, or hire someone who can help. That can work well for housekeeping, errand running, babysitting, all sorts of services.

• Give edibles. Cook or bake something and deliver it yourself. Or, if your gift recipients live out of town, order them something consumable. I always like Wolferman’s but there are lots of wonderful options out there.

• Share your special skill. Is there something you do well that others don’t like or know how to do? Share it! For example, you could help a friend clean out her files. (I love other people’s paper!) Maybe you could give someone a lesson on how to use Pinterest. Or teach them to knit. Or organize their music on their cell phone.

• Make a donation. If you and your gift recipient share a passion for a cause, consider giving a donation to that charity in your friend’s name. It doesn’t create clutter and it makes you both feel good.

One of the things I love about clutter-free gift giving is that it’s much easier on the shopper. Some of these ideas take very little time. And many don’t cost much money. Everybody wins.

Last December, I appeared on the local morning program Great Day St. Louis, talking about clutter-free gift giving. Here’s the video, if you’re interested: