Peace of Mind Organizing

Breathing space

3 January 2012

I’ve been given an amazing gift. The gift of time.

From January 2010 to December 2011, I worked 20 hours a week (two 10-hour days) at the International Institute of St. Louis. I had a great administrative job, one that allowed me to pay off all my business debt. At the same time, I was running my business full time and serving on two boards of directors of professional groups. I felt like I was on a treadmill, under constant time pressure.

Last week, my job at the Institute came to an end. I will miss the people with whom I worked and the vibrant, international nature of the workplace. I’ll miss being involved with an organization that serves a vital role in the community and tangibly helps people in need. (But I’ll volunteer at the Institute’s annual Festival of Nations! If you’re in St. Louis, I encourage you join me.)

But oh my goodness, am I glad to reclaim those twenty hours a week! I feel like I now have a little breathing space in which I can not only see more clients but can work on the non-urgent but oh-so-important areas of business, like marketing and social media. The treadmill is slowing down and might even be turned off on the weekends.

Behind the thrill, though, I find myself feeling strangely untethered without all the time pressure and without the structure of those days away from my desk. Part of that is that the end of the year was so (mercifully) quiet. But now that things are starting to get more busy, I can work on creating the structure that I need in my day to make sure that things get done.

I’m sure I’ll chronicle that journey here!

Goals, not resolutions

30 December 2011

I’m not so keen on New Year’s Resolutions. I think we tend to make them when we get caught up in the hopeful feelings that a fresh, new year brings. But I think they’re frequently not realistic. And we don’t give them enough time. And when one goes by the wayside, we give up hope on all of them.

Instead, I love setting goals. And, for me, often those goals are my hopes for new routines and habits to keep my life running more smoothly. 2011 was a big year for habits and routines in my life. I successfully created one rather life-changing habit: I clear my email inbox every work day. (Next week, I’m going to blog about how I do that.) I also created and backslid on some new ones, like daily exercise and clearing off my bureau every night. An important, ingrained habit, my clean desk temporarily fell by the wayside in 2011. Since life has slowed down a bit over the holidays, I’m actually back on the clean desk bandwagon.

So now I turn my attention to 2012. For me, I don’t so much want to create new habits as I want to reinstate and reinforce the excellent habits I created in the last year. Those include:

• 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

Speaking of Aby, she wrote a terrific newsletter article today on Simple ways to turn your resolutions into realities. She always has such sage advice.

If you’d like even more advice on getting what you want in the new year, I have something else for you. A couple of 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. Last year we added a workbook to it. So now, for $19, you can get an audio recording of the teleclass, plus a 24-page workbook based on the content of the audio. It might be just what you need to help you create realistic goals for the new year. Click here to download yours.

This is my last post of 2011. Thank you for reading my blog. I wish you peace and order in 2012!!

The annual Elfa sale is here!

28 December 2011

Every year just after Christmas, the Container Store has its annual Elfa sale. And every year I’m excited. It’s on now.

I recommend Elfa to lots of clients. Sure, Elfa is an easy-to-install closet shelving system, but it’s more than that. There are also great Elfa drawers, freestanding Elfa furniture that can certainly exist outside the closet, and Elfa systems for the garage. I have a client who transformed a wide hall into a fabulous home office with Elfa.

During the Elfa sale, which usually lasts until about Valentine’s Day, all Elfa products and (optional) Elfa installation are 30 percent off.

If you have a Container Store in your community, you can go in with the dimensions of the space you’re looking to outfit and they’ll design it for you. If you don’t have a Container Store handy, they offer the same service online (as well as an online design-it-yourself service). Or you can buy one of their kits. I did that with Office in a Closet earlier this year.

I blogged about my office closet makeover back in February when I did it, with the help of my friend Sally. That Elfa office in a closet is still making me very happy.

I’ve also blogged more than once about the fabulous bank of Elfa mesh drawers and how I organize them to store my somewhat sizable yarn collection. My love affair with those drawers continues.

If Elfa tickles your fancy, now’s a great time to give it a try!

My favorite blog posts of 2011

26 December 2011

I wrote 130 blog posts in 2011. I thought that today, in honor of the end of the year, I’d post links to my favorite half dozen.

Inspiration from the Cardinals. Game 6 of this year’s World Series was one of the best ever. Besides being very exciting to watch (particularly if you, like me, were rooting for the Cards), I thought there were some great lessons to be found.

Bingo! This summer I made a bingo board that has helped improve my productivity. It really jazzed me up. I’ve been on TV talking about it. I wrote an Organizing Guide about it. This is the blog post that started it.

Being happy with less than perfect. Harold Taylor’s insights on perfectionism (which he shared during a workshop sponsored by NAPO St. Louis in September 2011) really resonated with me. In this post, I share the highlights.

Are you interested in becoming a professional organizer? This post started out as a response to the frequent emails I receive from aspiring POs asking how I got started (and, by extension, how they can get started) as a PO. It became much more useful when my colleagues added great info to it in the comments.

Working with a professional organizer This post provides some general guidelines for people who are planning to work with a professional organizer. Like the “becoming a professional organizer” post, it was enhanced by comments from my colleagues.

The magic of linking new routines to old. In January 2010, I came up with a poop-scooping routine that changed my life. And I’m not even exaggerating.

Blogging is such a fun exercise and I’d so glad that I started this blog five years ago. It’s nice to look over the articles find the few that jump out at me. I hope you enjoy perusing them.

Life without cable TV

23 December 2011

I’m a huge fan of quality television. I watch a lot of TV and always have. I think it’s one reason I love knitting so much. I can knit while watching TV and feel productive. (And I find the combo really relaxing and fun.)

About two months ago, we canceled our cable TV. I never would have guessed that I would do that. We’ve always subscribed to all the premium channels and it’s hard for me to imagine I’d do without. But here I am, cable-free. Why did my husband and I cut the cord?

• Charter jacked up our bill (again) and they were going to have us pay $135 a month for television alone (we’re satisfied getting our landlines and DSL through AT&T).

• It’s no longer necessary to have cable or a satellite dish to have ample access to quality television.

I’m watching as much TV as ever. But now the internet is my TV provider. We replaced the cable box with a little Roku box, which allows us to easily access streaming video from Hulu Plus and Netflix, as well as Amazon Instant Video. We paid $99 for the Roku box and we pay $7.99 a month each for the Hulu Plus and Netflix Watch Instantly (we were already paying $7.99 a month for Netflix before we cut out cable) and we pay $79.00 a year for Amazon Prime, which, among other benefits, allows us to stream certain content free of charge.

We can watch web-only content (like CBS shows) by hooking up a laptop to the TV. We spent $30 on an HDMI adapter to allow us to do that.

We can also watch live programming on the five major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS) over the air, free of charge. (We bought an indoor antenna to make that happen.)

So let’s add it up:

$7.99 a month for Hulu Plus
$7.99 a month for Netflix (which we were paying anyway)
$6.58 a month for Amazon Prime (and we also get free second-day shipping and Kindle book sharing)

That’s a total of $22.56 a month. Plus there were the one-time charges:

$99 for the Roku box
$30 for the laptop adapter
$50 for the indoor antenna

That’s $179 in up-front, one-time costs.

In the first year, counting those one-time expenses, we will have spent just under $450 on television viewing. If we’d stuck with Charter, that same year would have cost us $1,715 (counting the Netflix we were already paying for). A savings of 75 percent! Not counting the one-time charges, the savings is 85 percent.

That’s huge. And I’m never short of things to watch, because I’m the kind of gal who loves to watch multiple episodes of a TV series in a row. So right now I’m alternating between Parenthood and Sports Night. (Love that Peter Krause!)

I’ll occasionally pay for episodes of certain shows, via Amazon or iTunes, I expect. But that’s okay when I compare it with the money we’re saving.

The one thing I miss is a DVR for the live programming. If I had it to do over again, I might consider spending $99 on a Tivo, rather than Roku, which I now know offers the same streaming services, plus it’s a DVR. But I’d have to pay $20 a month for the DVR service. I’m looking into ways to make the laptop we have connected to the TV serve as a DVR.

Going without cable has been surprisingly pain-free. And I know we’re going to enjoy the savings!

Rubbermaid Professional Organizer Squad

20 December 2011

I’m so pleased to announce that I’m one of five professional organizers asked by Rubbermaid to be part of their Professional Organizer Squad!

The other members of the PO Squad are Allison Carter, Krista Colvin, Deb Lee and Beth Zeigler. We’ll be answering questions from readers, as well as blogging on Rubbermaid.com monthly. We’ll occasionally participate in twitter chats or Facebook parties.

What does this mean for this blog? Nothing, really. I’ll be continuing to blog here about three times a week. I’m proud to be involved with Rubbermaid, and I felt you should know that while I do have a relationship with the company, I am under no obligation to write about them here. Through the years, Rubbermaid has sent me product samples that I’ve written about (and some that I haven’t) and that won’t change.

I’ve used Rubbermaid products all my life. I’ve had the opportunity to guest blog on Rubbermaid’s site in the past. And I’m delighted to have a more formal relationship with them.

I love that the logo for the Professional Organizer Squad is a superhero!!

Is there a teacher in your life? Here's a gift idea.

16 December 2011

Just in case you haven’t already purchased a gift for the teacher in your life, I have a suggestion. It’s the book Less Stress for Teachers: More Time & An Organized Classroom, by my friend and colleague Helene Segura, M.A. Ed., CPO®.

Before becoming an organizer, Helene was an award-winning teacher. She knows what she’s talking about. This book provides teachers with the tools to be more efficient and less stressed. Who doesn’t want that?

I’ve known Helene, who is the owner of Living Order San Antonio, for several years and always look forward to seeing her at NAPO conferences. She exudes talent and warmth. While I haven’t held in the book in my hands, I don’t hesitate to recommend it based on my confidence in her skills and her background.

Go to Helene’s website for more information on the book. I’d be willing to bet that this gift is one of the most valuable things you could give a teacher!