Peace of Mind Organizing

An easy (and touching) way to help those in need

13 June 2012

At the 2011 NAPO conference, I was among the many who shed tears watching the video about Soles4Souls a non-profit group that collects shoes to deliver to shoeless people in Haiti and elsewhere. That year, NAPO honored Soles4Souls with its Organizing Excellence Award, for the incredible organizational effort behind the shoe collection and distribution.

At that conference, NAPO also announced its partnership with Soles4Souls to collect unwanted shoes for the group. Organizers from around the country stepped up and collected over 100,000 pairs of shoes in just eight months.

The partnership continues, which is how I learned about this video and song, The Choice, created by Billy Gillman and 18 top country artists (including Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers and LeAnn Rimes), to benefit Soles 4 Souls.

I’m not a big fan of modern country music, but I am a big fan of charity group songs (We Are the World, anyone?) and once again I choked up watching a Soles 4 Souls video.

Here it is:

The best part? If you download the song at iTunes for $1.29, you’ll donate a pair of shoes for someone who needs it.

Incidentally, if you’re in St. Louis, NAPO St. Louis has taken on an alternative shoe collection effort. Locally, we have The Shoe Man Water Projects, which collects shoes that are sold to an overseas reseller, with the proceeds going to fund water-well drilling in Africa and elsewhere. We’ve set a goal of collecting 5,000 pairs of shoes by October. If you have any shoes to donate, feel free to contact me and I can give you details or figure out an easy way for you to do so.

Two dozen product reviews!

12 June 2012

Getting organized is not about buying products. It’s about letting go of excess, setting up systems, creating new habits and routines. Organizing products can help. Like most organizers, I recommend purchasing products after the decluttering process, when you know what you need.

With that disclaimer out of the way, don’t you just love organizing products? I do! I’m in heaven strolling through the aisles of The Container Store, and I’m not ashamed that some of the employees of the local Container Store know me by name.

Every month, Janice Barclay of Organized Assistant publishes a Professional Organizers Blog Carnival. She solicits entries from POs who blog, organized around a monthly theme.

This month’s theme is Product Reviews. (I’m included, with my review of the Travel Jewelry Organizer from Clos-Ette Too.) I am eagerly looking forward to reading all 24 (two dozen!) product reviews included in the blog carnival. I’m quite confident I’ll learn about some cool stuff!

If you like products as much as I do, you might want to check it out yourself.

The organized purse

11 June 2012

I love my purse, which I purchased at Franklin Covey. I love that I can find what I want in it without searching. Everything has a place, due in large part to the Purse Perfector, the purse organizer that sits in the bottom of my purse and keeps everything close at hand.

This morning, I did a segment on purse organizing on Great Day St. Louis, a live morning talk show here in St. Louis. I got there nice and early to set up the props for the segment. As I chatted with fellow guests before the show (all women), each one of them—along with some of the female show production staff—oohed and ached over my Purse Perfector. It was a hit!

Here’s the video of the segment.

(My part ends at the 3:25 mark.)

I love being interviewed by Carol Daniel. She is so much fun. And she could probably use a Purse Perfector!

App of the Week: The iPhone's camera

8 June 2012

So I don’t know that this qualifies as an app, but it certainly is a feature of my iPhone that I use frequently!

Have you noticed that there are a lot more photos on my blog in the last couple of months? That’s because the camera in my iPhone makes it so easy to take pictures and get them on my blog. In the past, I’d have to find my camera, take the picture, then plug my camera into my computer, import the photo into iPhoto and go from there.

Now, I just take a picture with my phone (which is pretty much always with me) and it automatically is added to my computer, in the Photostream in iPhoto, thanks to iCloud. It’s kinda like magic.

I use my camera on a daily basis. Besides taking pictures for my blog, I use it for lots of other purposes. For example, the other day I left hand-written homework for a client, so I just shot a photo of the piece of paper so I wouldn’t have to make a copy for myself. When I sprained my ankle last month, my whole foot gradually turned purple. I documented that with my phone’s camera and when I saw the doctor for a follow-up, two weeks after the fall when my foot was looking better, I was able to show her the extent of the injury.

The functionality of the camera allows me to use all sorts of apps, like bar code readers to find better deals on items I’m looking at in the store, or QR code readers to take me to websites without having to type the URL. If I wanted to, I could take photos of receipts and send them to a service like Shoeboxed who will put them into a spreadsheet for me.

Not only is the camera handy and easy to use, it’s actually a great little camera. With 8 megapixels, it takes great pictures and it even has a flash. I can edit photos in the camera (cropping, red-eye removal). And I can easily email, text or tweet the photo right from the camera app. And, of course, it takes video as well as still photos.

The camera in my iPhone 4S is yet another in a long list of reasons I absolutely love my iPhone.

How I use Rubbermaid's Bento boxes

7 June 2012

Rubbermaid has created a new kind of storage bin, the Bento Box. Named after the divided Japanese lunch boxes, these storage containers have flexible dividers that fold flat against the interior wall of the box, if desired, or pop out to divide the box.

The boxes are covered in cloth over some sort of very sturdy paperboard. They have a nice, substantial feel. They also have these terrific lids that can act as a tray.

Here’s a photo, from Rubbermaid’s website

When I first saw Bento (they previewed it at the 2011 NAPO conference), I went ga-ga. I was thrilled when I was sent a sample set. (I love having a special relationship with Rubbermaid!)

I wanted to share a couple of the ways I use my Bento boxes.

It took me a little while to decide how to use the extra large Bento box (it’s about 19” x 12”). But when I figured it out, I was thrilled:

Room for five projects!

I use this box to store my knitting works-in-progress. I used to have a messy pile of bags containing various projects sitting on the floor next to my spot on the couch. I replaced that with this attractive bin. When the lid is on, I use it as an easy-to-reach-for tray for my current project. If company’s coming, I can tuck it right back inside.

I love this.

I use the small bento box (about 5” x 5”) to hold my remote controls for the TV. It’s easy to stick them in and take them out and my days of searching for the remote are (for the most part) over.

Check it out:

Keeps my remotes handy.

I really think the Rubbermaid product developers outdid themselves when they developed this attractive and flexible set of containers! If you’re interested, you can order Bento from Rubbermaid’s website. It’s also available at Target stores.

Meet my office assistants

6 June 2012

I’m a solo entrepreneur with no employees (though occasionally I work with great subcontractors when I lead team projects), but I don’t work alone. Every day, my home office is also occupied by my standard poodle, Kirby and orange tabby cat, Joe.

I took pictures of Joe and Kirby just a few minutes ago. Here’s Kirby, curled up in his chair in my office, doing what he does best: sleeping. He’s not all that helpful, generally speaking (except for his company, of course), but he’s easy to be around.

Kirb's a very easy office mate.

And here’s Joe, doing what he does best: taking up space on my desk and getting in my face. You’ll notice he’s right where my keyboard should be…I had to move it to my lap because my unhelpful cat was lying on it. Joe (who, incidentally, drank out of the glass of water—intended for me—that’s behind him in the picture) is a regular impediment to my productivity but he’s also a great (and frequent) reminder of the need to take breaks and take time to accept a little loving.

Joe's actually not very helpful.

I thought you might want a little peek at the furry folks who alternate between annoying me and keeping me sane as I work on my business.

Bingo update

5 June 2012

Last year, I created a bingo board that turned out to be a powerful motivator for me to accomplish tasks that are important to do regularly, but aren’t urgent (so weren’t getting done regularly). For me, that’s stuff like social media posts, blogging, following up with clients, past and present, tending to my website, stuff like that. You might have an entirely different set of tasks you want to accomplish regularly.

The reason that my bingo board works for well for me is that if I get close to getting a bingo, I’m completely motivated to do the extra task or two to get me there. So I tend to mark my bingo board as the day’s end nears and usually spend a few minutes doing that extra thing or two. It works great for me!

In fact, I was so enamored of the notion that I created an Organizing Guide, called Making tasks fun with to-do list Bingo on how to create your own. I’ve also blogged the heck out of the topic..

Since it’s been about ten months since I first created it, and four months since I last wrote about it, I just wanted to report back about how it’s still working for me and tell you about a little improvement that I made the other day.

I’ve found that my bingo board is most effective when I have full days at my desk. When I’m sandwiching desk time between client appointments, I find that only urgent stuff gets my done. But when I have lots of time, I tend to flounder a bit and even though I have plenty of time to work on stuff, not so much gets done. The bingo board reminds me of these important tasks and gives me a little bit of structure. And it’s fun!

This week, I’ve set a goal of getting a bingo every day (Monday through Friday). I started off by getting a triple bingo yesterday! And after I finish this blog post, I’ll have today’s bingo!

I love the way I set my bingo board up, with pretty squares attached by magnets on a square magnetic board. But there was little irritation: I was using small Post-It® notes to cover the tasks I’d finished and they kept falling off. And littering the area when I tried to reuse them. Plus, I ran out of the pretty pale pink ones I started with and kept forgetting to buy more. So I was using the standard yellow ones and, to my eye, they clashed.

I improved that situation last week when I was participating in a Secret Play Date from Kindergarten Mind. During a Play Date, you’re encouraged to do something creative while simultaneously working (internally) on something else.

I got out my 2011 Wall Art Calendar from Paper Source. This beautiful calendar is meant to be cut up (there are even templates on the back of each calendar page for that purpose). I found a page with a sewing theme and cut out the drawings of buttons on the page. I used glue dots to adhere the buttons to magnets. And now I have lovely magnets to cover the tasks I’ve accomplished!

Here’s a photo I took to share with my fellow play daters:

My button magnets make me happy.