Peace of Mind Organizing

App of the week: Flashlight

5 October 2012

I think the first app I downloaded onto my first iPod Touch four years ago was Flashlight. And you know what? I used it the very first night I had that iPod.

It occurred to me that I haven’t included one of my favorite apps in my App of the Week series.
A flashlight doesn’t have to be fancy (those this app does have special effects like a strobe). I just want it to provide light when I need it.

That first version I downloaded for my iPod Touch simply created a backlit white screen. That provided more light than just turning on device to try to see something in the dark. But the version I have now uses the LED light on the back of the phone to create a beam of bright light. It’s a terrific flashlight for finding things in a dark bedroom, a movie theater (briefly), when I’m a passenger in a dark car, you name it.

Now that I’ve dropped my landline, my iPhone is with me almost all the time. That means I have a handy flashlight with me all the time.

Have I mentioned that I love my iPhone 4S?

Great (knitting) discoveries while decluttering

3 October 2012

One of the most fun parts of helping clients declutter is finding great stuff. My favorite thing to hear is, “I’ve been looking for that!” I also love finding money, which happens with surprising frequency.

When I worked with Aby last week on one of my home offices, I didn’t find any cash. But I did uncover some knitting projects that I had completely forgotten about. That’s almost like finding gold.

There were a couple of little felted bags, one finished down to the button, the other waiting to be felted. Who knew?

There was a nearly finished scarf, made from a fun thick-and-thin super bulky yarn that my friend Sally had given me years ago. I finished that one right up within a day or two of finding it. (It was knit on US17 needles. If you’re a knitter, you know that sucker knit up quickly.)

There were a couple of projects I’d abandoned because they were miserable to knit. With Aby’s encouragement, I just ripped them out, right then and there and put the yarn back into circulation.

And there was an almost-finished baby afghan that’s to die for pretty. (It’s a mitered-square blanket similar to this one only slightly brighter.) I just have two long seams to do and it will be finished. And, guess what? A friend is having a baby, so now I’m motivated to get seaming. I promise to post a photo before I give it away because, if you ask me, it’s pretty spectacular.

I’d run out of knitting projects (or at least I thought I had) and was just about to buy some yarn to start a new one. Instead, I finished the bulky scarf and now I’m working on the second of a pair of arm warmers, made out leftover silk-and-baby-llama yarn. I’d knit one and even started the second (the starting is the hard part when you’re using double-pointed needles for small-circumference items). I don’t know why I started that project, or why I stopped, but winter’s coming and my arms get cold, so I’m glad to start knitting it again.

Just exploring my yarn stash has reinvigorated my yen for knitting. (Cooler temperatures have a hand in that too.) I store my yarn in a bank of Elfa drawers and I’m really delighted that the organizational system I set up for my yarn stash and knitting needles has held up over the last four years.

One of my favorite drawers of the dozen or so in my yarn unit is the one that’s full of nothing but yarn ball bands (which provide information about the yarn), with a few swatches thrown in:

It may look a little messy, but it makes me very happy just to paw through the contents of that drawer.

How working with an organizer jump starts things

1 October 2012

As I’ve written here before, I love swapping services with professional organizers. In theory, I shouldn’t need organizing help in my home, since I know what I’m doing. But in fact, bringing in a PO yields amazing results. And it’s loads of fun!

On Thursday last week, I had the distinct pleasure of having Aby Garvey, organizer extraordinaire, help me in my home. Aby had helped me organize my pantry back in 2009 and then since then has helped me in my bathroom closet. This time, she helped me declutter and organize one of my home offices.

I have two home offices. There’s the one I use to run the administrative side of my business. (I’m in it now, writing this blog post.) The other, in an adjacent room, is where I store items that go out of the house, into clients’ homes.

I first established it in 2008. (I blogged about it then.) I had a decent organizational infrastructure, but things had gotten out of control, as can happen over the course of a few years. I store more and more plastic bins, now that I’m doing more team jobs, for instance. And I just sort of dropped them in the room, rather than figuring out a better way to store them. So they just sat around looking ugly.

Here’s a before photo:

When Aby came, we started the decluttering process, which was fun and easy. Here’s the remarkable thing. Simply by her presence—without her really even saying anything—I started letting go of things that I’d been reluctant to let go of on my own. I see this with my own clients and it was really great to experience it first hand.

Aby never really had to challenge me on any of the things I wanted to keep, because there I was, willy nilly letting go of the stuff that wasn’t contributing to my life or business. With her helping me focus on this process, magical things happened.

Once the decluttering was finished, Aby helped me reorganize what was left. Aby, of course, made everything look better (Aby does everything beautifully), which I appreciate. But also I love that she really fine tuned the organizing and got me back to my organizational infrastructure.

Here’s the after photo:

I’m proud to tell clients that I use the services of professional organizers. I really think POs provide an amazing, life changing service.

App of the week: Over

28 September 2012

On Facebook, I frequently see photos with captions right on the picture and I wonder how the caption got there. (I also wonder how people upload clips of TV shows onto You Tube, but that’s another question.)

I recently downloaded an app called Over designed to do just that. You open the app, take photo (or use one from your photo library, double tap the photo, and type the caption. You can choose from a limited selection of fonts, adjust the size and alignment and put it anywhere you want on the picture. Then you can email it or send it out via social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Here are a couple of examples. First, a picture of my dog, Kirby, being his adorable self.

Then, a photo of a sign I saw while walking Kirby the other day, captioned with the thought that went through my head when I saw it.

My parents have a Ceiva digital photo frame. I think Over will come in handy if I want to send a photo to it that requires a little explanation.

But more to the point, one of these days I’m going to take a photo, caption it using Over, put it on Facebook and watch it go viral. Okay, that may never happen. But at least that’s not because I don’t know how to put the caption on a photo!

Lighten the load this weekend

26 September 2012

If you have expired or unwanted medications cluttering up your bathroom or kitchen, this Saturday, September 29 from 10 am to 2 pm is the semi-annual National Take Back Initiative, organized by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Between those hours you can drop off medications at a law-enforcement for proper disposal. Just click on the link to find disposal sites near you. The event is taking place nationwide.

If you’re in St. Louis, there’s a shredding and recycling event called Shred it to Fix It, also on September 29 from 10 to 2. Bring your paper for shredding and appliances for recycling to the parking log at Chesterfield Mall (near Jared the Galleria of Jewelry). Paper and cardboard will be shredded and recycled for a $5 donation per box. Computers, cell phones, monitors, etc. will be accepted at no charge. Shredding is provided by American Document Destruction

Funds raised will benefit Rebuilding Together St. Louis." This organization helps elderly, disabled and veteran St. Louisans rebuild their home at no cost.

Gratitude, compassion and forgiveness

24 September 2012

At the ICD conference last week, I heard many great speakers. One of them was Fred Luskin, who spoke about forgiveness. A Stanford University instructor and a researcher on the effect of forgiveness on physical and emotional well-being (it helps both), Dr. Luskin teaches about happiness and forgiveness, among other topics. I enjoyed his book, Forgive for Good, is very interesting.

In his ICD lecture, Dr. Luskin made a couple of statements that have been running though my mind since I heard them, so I thought I’d share them with you.

Humility leads to kindness which leads to happiness.

He went on to say that money and attainment don’t lead to happiness. It’s generosity that brings happiness.

The other big statement that resonated with me is this:

The three co-qualities leading to a happier life are gratitude, compassion and forgiveness.

I have a daily gratitude practice and I try to be compassionate and forgiving. This talk has really brought this top of mind for me.

I searched around YouTube and found some short videos in which Dr. Luskin talks about these topics. Here’s one you might enjoy.

In this video, he describes forgiveness as “Making peace when you don’t get what you want.” Such a simple concept. The video is four minutes long and I found it inspiring and thought provoking. (The two-hour lecture was even more so.)

Some ADHD humor

21 September 2012

I’m at the annual conference of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, soaking in the knowledge and having a wonderful time interacting with fellow organizers. Lots of old and new friends here.

I’ll write more about what I’ve learned—I’m a little brain dead at the moment to put anything really cogent together—but so far, we’ve terrific presentations on procrastination, ADHD, brain injury, and sensitivity training about the aging process.

One of the presenters, Dale Davison, gave a presentation called, ADHD: What the Science Says. In it, she showed this video, which amused me so much I had to share it here.

Hope you enjoyed that.

Incidentally, if you’re on Twitter, follow the hashtag #ICD12 to see some great content-related tweets on the conference session. Lots of great nuggets of wisdom are being shared!