Peace of Mind Organizing

Create habits with DailyFeats

28 June 2012

I’ve been enjoying DailyFeats, a website that helps with habit creation. You select the habits you want to create from a whole bunch of options (there are 463 feats to choose from and the list is always growing). The individual feats are then put in your list. Every day you go to the website and click off the feats you’ve accomplished.

And here’s where it gets fun: You get points for accomplishing feats. After those points add up, you can redeem for charitable donations, for deals at participating vendors, or for gift cards.

So far, I’ve redeemed points for a free subscription to O Magazine and for a buy-one-get-one-free deal on Elements custom protein bars. I love that I get credit for things I’m already doing, like flossing my teeth, taking my calcium supplements, and attaining inbox zero. It also reminds me of other daily feats I aspire to—and it motivates me to do them.

There are feats in a variety of categories, like Home Care, Work, Health, Money, Learning, Family Relationships, and Community. The list is a bit eclectic. It includes feats such as “clean bathroom” and “include someone who’s left out” and “find money” and “listen to a kid” and “eat tofu” and “create art.” I think there’s probably something there for everyone.

There’s also an iPhone app that makes it easy to check in your feats.

I’m adding DailyFeats to my toolbox of habit-creation tools that have worked for me. (Others include Don’t Break the Chain and my Bingo board.)

Come back to my blog on Monday for a special announcement regarding DailyFeats. Hint: It involves Peace of Mind Organizing!

Giveaway winner!

27 June 2012

As usual, I used the Random Number Generator to select the winner of that fantastic resource, The ICD Guide to Challenging Disorganization: For Professional Organizers, which I reviewed last week.

And the winner is…

Linda Samuels, CPO-CD of Oh So Organized!

I’m delighted to send this book to Linda. She’s actually one of the contributors to the book and a fantastic organizer. I know she’ll put the book to good use.

Somehow this seems really appropriate because Linda was my predecessor as the Marketing Director of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization and my two-year term as Marketing Director ends on Saturday.

Congratulations, Linda! And a hearty thank you to everyone who entered. (I urge you to click the above link and purchase the book.)

Great shower caddy

26 June 2012

Sometimes I start using an organizing product that makes my life better. And when that happens, I like to tell you about it, in case it will make your life better too.

A couple of months ago, I purchased the “OXO three-tier shower caddy”: http://www.oxo.com/p-755-3-tier-shower-caddy.aspx at Bed, Bath and Beyond. My metal shower caddy had become rusty and full of soap scum.

We have an old-fashioned claw-footed tub in our 100+-year-old home and so we have to use a caddy to hold soaps and shampoos—there are no corners or ledges to place things on.

The great thing about this caddy is that it has removable plastic trays, so you can wash them. It is designed so that any liquid drains out of the soap dish. And there are holes in it so that you can place bottles in cap down when you’re running low on shampoo in a bottle. It’s such a smart design.

Here’s a photo of mine. The top shelf is usually empty, but the day I took this I had a houseguest, so there was room for her to put her shampoo and stuff. Isn’t that great?

Since I purchased it, every time I take a shower it makes me smile. Thirty dollars felt a little spendy at first glance, but I found this product to be well worth the money. (And, since I bought it at Bed, Bath and Beyond, I was able to use a 20 percent off coupon.)

Just had to share!

Going with the flow - part 2

25 June 2012

On May 2, life through me a little loop when I fell and sprained my ankle quite badly. That day I blogged about how such experiences make you go with the flow. I was out of commission for quite a few days and was just getting back to enjoying having natural-looking feet. (The foot swelled badly and turned purple.)

On Saturday, I had another foot injury. I was buying wine and stupidly put a bottle in the child seat area of the shopping cart. The wine bottle fell through the leg hole and landed squarely on my foot. The good news was that the bottle didn’t break. But it hurt as much as you probably imagine it would.

The toes turned quite purple almost immediately and today I had to take time out of my day to go to the doctor to have it checked. We decided not to x-ray it, because treatment of fractured toes is no different from non-fractured toes (unless the big toe is involved, which mine wasn’t). So I don’t know if they’re broken, but it doesn’t really matter.

I’d post a picture of my foot, but it might not be in good taste. If you want a peek, you can look at this twitter post. It features a photo that I took while I was waiting at the doctor’s office.

The point of this post? That it’s a good idea to build some buffer time in your life so that when you’re thrown a curveball like an injury, you can adapt. When every minute of your day is scheduled, this kind of thing can be disastrous. I know I feel more relaxed when I know I can be flexible. That kind of buffer can help make a painful situation turn into a majorly stressful one.

App of the week: Wunderlist

22 June 2012

Getting back to my weekly gushing about my iPhone, here’s another app that I use regularly.

Wunderlist is a website app with a free iPhone app that sync together nicely. It allows me to keep simple lists (there’s not much in the way of bells and whistles). It’s easy to add items to lists. It’s easy to add new lists.

You can click press the star next to any item to send it to the top of the list (which is particularly helpful for Final Version, Mark Forster’s latest task-management system, which I’m trying out…more on that in another post).

I love Wunderkind because it’s easy to use on my computer and easy to use on my phone. It allows me to capture tasks or ideas as they occur to me.

I keep lists for (among other things):

• tasks (in random order, as they occur to me)
• blog post ideas
• books I want to get at the library
• things I might ask my intern to do when she starts in fall
• clothes I want to look for

I’d say the majority of the items are entered from my keyboard at my computer. But I’m happy to be able to access them easily on my phone. I no longer have to carry a task notebook, as I did for years.

There are other apps like Wunderlist out there. For me, this one wins points for its simplicity and for its easy prioritization.

New pleated purse!

21 June 2012

I try to knit every day. It’s how I relax while watching TV and I love that I’m creating something as I relax. Sometimes I blog here about what I’m working on (or have completed), but it’s been awhile.

That’s partly because I have been working on the same shawl forever. It’s the Stripe Study Shawl and I think it’s going to be amazing when I’m through with it. It’s just been taking awhile because it’s boring knitting and I can only do so much at a time. I’m on the last inch of the border, though. Once it’s finished and blocked (shaped), I’ll post a photo.

I did sneak in a quick felted bag that I finished this week. It’s the Pleats Purse I, knitted version from Josephine Woo. It’s a small felted bag that uses an innovative technique to create pleats. And it also uses a cast on I’d never tried, so it was a nice learning experience. Here’s a photo:

I used Cascade 220 yarn (less than two skeins) and leather Asian Trends handles (15.7 inches), which I stitched on after the felting using two strands of embroidery thread.

I think it’s a little hard to tell from the picture, but the bag’s pretty small. In particular, the opening’s pretty small. I think it would make a nice knitting bag for a small project, like socks. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I think it’s pretty and I enjoyed making it!

This summer, I’m hoping to finish seaming the mitered square baby blanket I started ages ago and also make some progress on the i-cord edging of the big Learn to Knit Afghan I started in (gulp) 2005. I seamed it in 2009 and it’s been awaiting this edging ever since.

Organizing your craft space: Guest post on Unclutterer!

20 June 2012

Unclutterer is one of my favorite organizing blogs. I’ve gotten to know Erin Doland, Unclutterer’s editor, over the years (love that woman!) and am always thrilled when she accepts a blog post from me.

On Monday, Unclutterer posted my guest post on organizing your craft space

I’m pleased as punch to be included and wanted to share here. The reader comments are terrific—there are some really creative ideas there!