Peace of Mind Organizing

Professional Organizers Blog Carnival - I'm a star!

15 March 2012

Janet Barclay is a former professional organizer who now works as a virtual assistant, helping professional organizers. One of the many wonderful things she does is organize a Professional Organizers Blog Carnival where bloggers submit a post that fit a pre-selected theme.

In honor of National Procrastination Week, this month’s POBC theme is procrastination. I submitted a post I’d written Facing down the fears lurking in the clutter.

As it turn that was my tenth entry into the blog carnival over the years, so I’ve been added to the list of the Professional Organizers Blog Carnival Star Bloggers!.

If you like to read organizing blogs (and I’m guessing you might, since you’re reading this one), the blog carnival is a fantastic way to get exposed to bloggers you might not be familiar with.

Janet’s doing a real service to organizing bloggers by creating and administering the blog carnival. Thank you, Janet. I’m proud to be one of your stars!

Too many choices

12 March 2012

I’m buying an iPhone this week. Yay! I’m a fan of Apple products and love my iPod Touch (which is a now a senior citizen) almost as much as I love my iPad. I adore my MacBook. And I hate my cheap little Android phone. So this week I’m going to invest in an iPhone and I’m really excited about it.

The problem is that I’m spending an inordinate amount of time deciding which carrier to go with. If I’d decided to buy an iPhone just two years ago, I would have had no choice. It was only offered by AT&T. That’s how it was when I bought my iPad and so I didn’t have to even think about options, once I’d decided to make the purchase. Buying an iPad meant just deciding on Wifi + 3g versus Wifi only (I went with the 3G option) and what storage capacity to get (16 gigabytes).

Now, with the iPhone, I have to decide which carrier, which plan, what storage capacity and what color (black or white). I’m having such a hard time with the carrier question that I’m tempted to delay the purchase.

That made me think about the fascinating article last August in the New York Times Magazine called Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue, which talked about how difficult it is for consumers who are offered a wide variety of options.

My husband is in the market for a new personal computer. He’s a Windows guy. He was going to buy a computer almost three months ago but was paralyzed by all the options. I contrasted that to when I bought my most recent MacBook last fall and all I had to choose from was size (I went with 13”), Pro vs. Air (I went with Pro) and upper or lower tier of speed and capacity (I went with upper).

I purchased my MacBook with maybe a total of 30 minutes of contemplation. My husband spent hours on his PC purchase and still hasn’t bought one. (And at least one of those mind-numbing hours I was trying to help him. It was agony.)

My point here? Even a purchase like a new iPhone (which for me is extremely exciting) is turning into a bit of an exercise in frustration, with feelings of anxiety and insecurity arising, simply because there are so many options to consider.

It’s a good point to remember when I work with clients, many of whom spend much of their time with me making decisions. I need to keep the options clear and try not to throw too many options at them at once.

So excited for the NAPO conference!

5 March 2012

I admit it. I’m a conference junkie. Since I became an organizer in 2005, I’ve attended every conference of the my two main professional groups, the National Association of Professional Organizers and the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (now Institute for Challenging Disorganization), plus three NAPO regional conferences, the Professional Organizers in Canada conference in Toronto last year and the Australasian Association of Professional Organisers conference in Brisbane, Australia, in 2009 (where I spoke).

For me, it never gets old. In two weeks, I’ll be attending the 2012 NAPO conference in Baltimore and I’m as excited as ever. Here are some of things I’m looking forward to:

• I’ll be part of the prestigious Ask the Organizers panel (Part II) on Thursday morning, which is very exciting. I can hardly believe it.

• I’ll get to see the many friends I’ve made over the years of going to these conferences. It’s a little like what I imagine summer camp was like for kids (never really went myself).

• I’ll inevitably meet some fantastic organizers I haven’t met before and make some new friends.

• At the Expo, I’ll get the inside scoop on the newest organizing products and trends and I’ll get to hang out with my friends at the Rubbermaid booth and at the ICD booth.

• I’m taking the pre-conference session, Wardrobe Styling for Every Woman, For Every Day & Every Way, with Scott Roewer and Geralin Thomas. These fashionable folks will be chock full of amazing info, I just know it. I’ve been fortunate enough to have Geralin advise me on wardrobe for several years now (if you see me and think I look good, it’s because of her) and I can’t wait for this session. They’ll be bringing it. If you’re going to the conference and haven’t signed up for it, I encourage you to give it some serious thought. Here’s the promo video.

If you’re going to be at the NAPO conference, please leave a comment!

Watch me this weekend on Hoarding: Buried Alive

2 March 2012

I had the privilege to work as the lead organizer on an episode of the TLC cable documentary series, Hoarding: Buried Alive. The episode I worked on, whose title is “Unbelievable” will air this Sunday, March 4, at 9 pm eastern/8 pm central. (It’ll air again two hours later.)

The way Hoarding: Buried Alive differentiates itself from its competitor, A&E’s Hoarders is that it allows the client to work with a professional organizer for a month or so after the before shots and interviews are filmed. There’s one clean out day to give the process a jump start (that is filmed). And then work progresses without cameras for a month. After that time, the film crew comes back for the after shots.

Three fabulous St. Louis organizers, Karel Worley, Shannon Tamme and Diana Luetkemeyer volunteered to help. They were there for the initial clean out and filming and each one came back with me once during the intervening month. They were incredibly helpful and professional.

I’m excited to watch the episode because the client, Brad, was a delight to work with. I’m interested to see how the process will be portrayed. I wish Brad every happiness in the world.

Seize the (extra) day

29 February 2012

There’s something special about February 29, isn’t there?

I like to think of it as a bonus day. Depending on what’s going on with my life, I might take the day off or I might spend the day getting extra stuff done.

I wish I could take the day off. (I am treating myself to lunch with a friend.) But my plan is to spend this Leap Day at my desk, tackling a couple of those important-but-not-urgent business-related tasks that I haven’t been able to get to in the last couple of weeks. That pleases me to no end.

Here’s today’s Google Doodle (the graphic on their search home page) in honor of Leap Day. It’s in honor of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, who was born on February 29, 1792:

How about you? What are you doing on this very special day?

Handy tool for organizing your taxes

22 February 2012

The good folks at Smead sent me their Tax Organizer a six-pock letter’-sized file that helps you assemble your tax information.

I didn’t have a use for it myself, since I use Freedom Filer odd year/even year tax files to gather my taxes year-round and then I do my own taxes with Turbo Tax.

But yesterday I helped a client assemble her tax documentation for her accountant. I’d set her up with a Freedom Filer system, so her documents were all in one place (hooray!), but I brought along Smead’s Tax Organizer in case it might be helpful.

As we went through the workbook her accountant provided and gathered documents into the categories he designated, we used the Tax Organizer to hold everything. It comes with pre-printed labels (which I supplemented with hand-written removable labels as necessary) and we were able to compile a very organized, portable packet of information.

My client was pleased and she’s sure her tax preparer will be pleased as well. When she gets the organizer back, she’ll store it for the same use next year (because the Freedom Filer hanging file folders are working so well for her for year-round filing of tax documents and receipts).

If your taxes are simple, you could use the Tax Organizer go gather your documents as they come in throughout the year. Even if they’re more complex the Tax Organizer might help you, like it helped my client and me, in terms of creating portable document storage to hand off to your accountant.

Getting places on time

20 February 2012

I’m punctuality challenged. I admit it. But I’m working on it. For me, the big shift is in reframing my thinking, moving away from having a fear of being late toward considering being early a gift I can give myself.

I recently wrote a guest blog post for Gimundo on Five secrets to getting places on time. It appeared on January 23.

Then, today, I appeared on Great Day St. Louis, a morning program on local television in St. Louis, focusing on the very same topic.

Here’s the video. This is my fourth appearance on Great Day and, once again, I had a great time (they’re awfully nice down at KMOV).

(My part starts about two minutes into the clip.)

If you’re punctuality challenged like me, I hope you find this information useful!