Peace of Mind Organizing

Traveling to Australia with just a carry on

10 July 2023

I’m on my way to Australia to visit family and participate in my niece and her new husband’s wedding celebration. Lucky me! I’ll be gone ten days, though of two of them will be spent in the air. I’m going to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, which are temperate, even in the winter.

I’m traveling alone (my husband was not up for such a long airplane ride) and wanted to make sure I could navigate the trip as easily as possible, so I worked hard to pack light. The last time I bought a suitcase was about 2011, so I treated myself to a new, lighter carry-on roller bag with spinny wheels that roll smoothly. (I bought this Calpack Hue suitcase at The Container Store!) I also bought some Calpack compression packing cubes so I was able fit all my clothes (including pajamas and robe) into the two cubes on one side of the suitcase. My shoes and toiletries went on the other side. (The suitcase has two equal-sized compartments.)

I wear merino wool 365 days a year, which is great for travel. Every garment I packed was merino wool, which is lightweight, warm, breathable and odor resistant. For the long flights, I’m wearing wool joggers and t-shirt and sweatshirt and I packed three dresses, a cardigan, leggings, boots and a couple of scarves. (I packed a non-wool sun hat too.) This is probably actually more than I need, but it will give me a little variety.

I started by making a list of what I wanted to bring and then I started crossing off those things that weren’t absolutely necessary. After I started packing, I realized I needed to cut back more. Using the carry-on suitcase as my space limit made it easy to edit down what I took.

I’m writing this in Los Angeles, where I arrived last night. I’ll be leaving for Australia close to midnight tonight. I’ll report back on whether I wore everything I brought or if there were things I’d edited from my suitcase that I wish I had packed. I’m excited that I was able to get everything into a carry-on!

Freedom from the burden of stuff

4 July 2023

Happy Independence Day to my U.S. readers!

18 years ago this month, I started Peace of Mind Organizing®. My team and I have worked with hundreds of clients. And this simple truth continues to be reinforced with each one of them. Less stuff really does equal more freedom.

Photo by Leon Wu on Unsplash

Worth repeating (once again): Working with a professional organizer

26 June 2023

Way back in 2011, I wrote a post aimed at helping readers make the most of working with a professional organizer. I asked other professional organizers to comment, which made the post even more valuable. I just re-read it and I’m thrilled that a dozen years later it’s still valuable. So I’m running it once again. To get the maximum benefit, I encourage you to go back to the original post and read those comments—my colleagues added some great insight. And please feel free to add to the comments on that original post!

If you’re reading an organizing blog, chances are pretty good that you fall into one of three camps:

• You’re a professional organizer (or an aspiring one)
• You’d like to work with a professional organizer
• You’re a fairly organized DIYer looking for ideas

This post is for those of you who fall into the second category. If you’d like to work with a professional organizer, I’d love to provide you with some advice to optimize that experience, should it come to pass.

Choosing an organizer

• Check out your choices thoroughly. You can find professional organizers at the website of National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and the Institute for Challenging Disorganization. If you’re in St. Louis, you can go to the NAPO-St. Louis website to see all the chapter members. (If you’re not in St. Louis, you can check here to see a list of NAPO chapters and their websites.) Choose some local organizers and read websites, look at testimonials and before and after pictures. Call any organizers you’re interested in who don’t have websites.
• Ask around. If you know folks who have worked with organizers, quiz them on their experience
• Know what you’re looking for. Do you want an organizer who tells you what to do (some people do)? Or one who involves you in the process of coming up with solutions?
• Trust your gut. If an organizer’s website or telephone manner resonates with you, that’s a good reason to pick her (or him).
• Don’t bargain shop. This is a field where fees are usually commensurate with training and experience. If you’re challenged by chronic disorganization, for example, you’d be wise to select an organizer with training and experience in working with chronically disorganized clients. And you may well pay more for that.

Working with an organizer

• Resist the temptation to clean up for your organizer. If your home is messy, you may feel embarrassed. Try to set that aside so that the organizer can see the natural state of your home in order to help you best. Mess and piles can provide clues.
• Be honest. Try not to anticipate what the organizer wants to hear. Instead, just answer all questions honestly, even if you’re a little embarrassed. Your organizer can help you best if you’re honest in everything you tell her.
• Be realistic. How long have you been dealing with disorder in your life? Probably quite some time. Unfortunately, organizers don’t have magic wands, so we can’t fix things instantly. Recognize that this is a process that might take awhile.
• Be prepared to learn new behaviors. If you’re dealing with a lot of clutter, the first step might be decluttering. But after that, you’re more than likely going to need to change your habits and create new routines to ensure that the clutter doesn’t come back. If you don’t change your behavior, the order that you and your organizer create might be temporary.
• Do your homework. If you and your organizer agree that you’ll do homework, try to accomplish it. If you don’t, it may not be a big deal. But being honest and realistic about the prospect of what you can accomplish between appointments can help your organizer better plan the next session.
• Trust your gut (again). If you’re not clicking with your organizer, don’t be afraid to talk with her about it. This is intimate work and it’s essential that you have a trusting relationship and work well together. If you don’t feel it’s working with the organizer, perhaps the two of you can come up with a solution. If no solution is in sight, perhaps you can ask her for a referral.
• Keep your appointments. If you book an appointment with an organizer, try to keep that commitment. She’s set aside time for you and scheduled around that appointment. Last-minute cancellations can be costly for the organizer. And they’re costly for you, too, since you can’t get help if you don’t keep appointments.
• Expect backsliding. Most clients experience some backsliding, when life gets in the way and newly learned behaviors fall by the wayside. If you backslide, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed or your organizer isn’t effective. It just means you need to renew your efforts. Or perhaps tweak our systems.
• Be brave. It can be scary to let someone into your house for the first time in ages. It can also be scary to admit to your organizer that you haven’t done your homework or that you’ve not been able to maintain the order you created together. But organizers, by and large, are compassionate and non-judgmental people. Getting past the fear can help put you on the path to an orderly life.

When you hire a professional organizer, you’re making a time and financial commitment to getting organized. Often, you’re making an emotional commitment as well. That can be very powerful! Together, you and your organizer can make a huge impact in your life.

I'm on a list of 50 Best Decluttering Blogs

22 June 2023

I was delighted to receive an email telling me that this blog made the list of 50 Best Decluttering Websites and Blogs as identified by the website Feedspot. Imagine my delight when I clicked on the link and saw that I’m listed as #4 on the list! I did a little looking around on Feedspot and saw that the Peace of Mind Organizing blog is also on their list of 100 Best Organizing Blogs and Websites. I’m #17 there.

If you love reading organizing and decluttering blogs—and I’m guessing you do because you read this blog—I urge you to check out both these lists. Maybe you’ll find some new-to-you blogs to explore. Or, if you’re like me, your memory will be refreshed by seeing some blogs that fell off your radar.

I’ve been writing this blog since 2006 and it’s fun to receive this recognition!

Announcing the Peace of Mind Budgeting website and blog!

15 June 2023

I’ve been working on building a website for my new YNAB Budgeting Coaching business for the last couple of months. Today I’m calling it done! I’m sure it’s not perfect, but it’s definitely good enough to meet the world.

Here’s the link: Peace of Mind Budgeting. On the website, you can read my new blog, learn about my own rags-to-riches YNAB story and sign up for free Discovery Call (or skip right to booking a paid service).

I started Peace of Mind Organizing so long ago (18 years next month!) that there weren’t automatic schedulers or other automations to help with client management side of things. So I did everything (and still do) manually, so to speak. For my budgeting coaching practice, I decided to use Paperbell, a platform specifically designed for coaches, to make the workflow easier. (That’s an affiliate link.) Clients can schedule sessions and pay without my direct involvement. Fingers crossed I’ll work out the kinks easily!

I’m very excited about this new venture. Please understand, though, that it will not affect Peace of Mind Organizing in any way. We’re busy helping clients create order in their homes! For the last year or so, I’ve been managing the company and letting my amazing employees and contractors do the client work. (I still do some of the consults, though.) My budgeting coaching will be done on specific days of the week (right now now it’s Sunday afternoons, Tuesdays, and Wednesday afternoons) over Zoom.

If you have any interest in budgeting coaching, please do check out the website and schedule a free Discovery Call!

Worth repeating (once again): Making a move easy(er)

5 June 2023

It’s moving season again! Moving is one of the more stressful things we do, but careful planning can go a long way toward making it less stressful. I think the tips in this post, which I wrote in 2014, are still helpful, so I’m running it again. If you’re in St. Louis and planning a move, check out Operation: Relocation. We’d love to help!

A supply drawer we created while unpacking a client

Moving is stressful. There’s pretty much no way around it. Even if an employer is paying for the move and you have the movers pack you, there are a lot of details with which to contend and it’s a hassle. Working with a professional organizer can help, but even so, the process is stressful.

I’ve recently helped several clients settle into their new homes by bringing in teams to unpack and organize their belongings. All of them were packed by the movers. Observing how the unpacking and organizing process went, I’ve identified a few ways to make the move easier:

• Start early. It’s easy to procrastinate on decluttering, packing, and making logistical arrangements. But the more time you can give yourself, the less stressful the process will be—and the more likely you are to avoid last-minute crises.

• Declutter before the move. If an employer is paying for the move, you might be inclined to delay decisions about letting go of stuff until after you see how it might fit into your new home. But believe me, by the time you’re in the unpacking phase of the move you’re going to be tired. And the fewer decisions you have to make when you unpack, the happier you’ll be. Less stuff = easier move.

• Go through the unopened boxes from the last move. If you’ve been in your home awhile and there are still unopened boxes in your storage area, don’t just move them. Open up those boxes and find out whether the items inside merit the space you’re giving them and the effort and money involved in moving them.

• Categorize before packing. If each box contains a category of items, unpacking is much more streamlined, and less frustrating. It can also make it easier to find an individual item before you’ve finished unpacking. If you don’t organize before you pack, you’ll end up with a hodge podge of items in each box, which can create headaches when you’re unpacking.

• Mark the boxes for the destination room. If the layout of your new home is different from the old one, try to mark the boxes for delivery to the appropriate room in the new home, rather than the room it came from. That way you’ll be able to stay in the room that you’re unpacking.

• Try to unpack as much as possible as soon as you move in. I’m typically a big fan of little and often, and if you need to break down unpacking into tiny chunks in order to get it done on your own, so be it. But if you can power through the unpacking process so that you get rid of boxes and get settled, the transition will be easier.

• Unpack the kitchen first. I think it’s hard to get a semblance of normalcy until your kitchen is unpacked. When you can make coffee in the morning and fix yourself a snack, life is better. Eating off of real plates rather than paper plates will make you feel like you’re home.

• Let go of perfection. Don’t get bogged down in the unpacking process trying to decide the perfect place to store items. You can always improve on it later. Just choose a location and see how it works.

• Enlist help. Unpacking a home on your own can be overwhelming. Enlist the help of friends, family or a professional organizer (or organizing team). In the last two unpacking jobs we did, we were able to get the entire homes unpacked in two days. It felt like a miraculous transformation—from a sea of boxes to a comfy home in two days. The clients still had tweaking to do, certainly, but they were able to get in with their daily routines.

Yes, moving is stressful. But it doesn’t have to be a nightmare. With a little planning and forethought, you can make it relatively easy.

Worth repeating: Putting Profit First

24 May 2023

I wrote this post in 2017, after I’d been using the Profit First methodology for 18 months or so. Now, six years later, I’m as enthusiastic as ever about the method. A couple of things have changed for me since 2017: I now use YNAB (that’s an affiliate link) rather than separate bank accounts for the various allocations and I make those allocations with each deposit, rather than twice monthly. Also, my percentages are have been updated to 5 percent for profit, 20 percent for taxes, 40 percent for owner’s pay and 35 percent for operating expenses. I have built a profitable, sustainable business and I have Profit First (and YNAB) to thank for that.

In the spring of 2016, I read the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. I had heard a talk about the Profit First concept from Cathy Sexton of The Productivity Experts who gave a presentation about it to the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. I was intrigued so I bought the book. After I read the book, I decided to implement the system. It’s been wonderful for my business and for my financial security.

The basic premise of the system is to pay yourself first and also put away money for taxes and profit, before paying operating expenses. Most people pay operating expenses first and risk running out of money for taxes or for paying themselves. Michalowicz calls it “reverse engineering your profitability.”

I set up a spreadsheet in which I enter each payment I receive from a client. In the spreadsheet I designate how much of that deposit was paid out in wages and materials. The difference is my Real Revenue. In the spreadsheet I allocate 15 percent of Real Revenue for taxes, 5 percent for profit and 50 percent for owner’s pay. The remaining 30 percent is for operating expenses. According to Michaelowicz, if I can’t afford to pay my operating expenses from that 30 percent, then I need to cut my operating expenses.

Twice a month, I tally up my taxes, profit and owner’s pay amounts and transfer them from default Operating Expenses bank account into the appropriate bank accounts. This means that I have four bank accounts (Operating Expenses, Owner’s Pay, Tax and Profit), rather than the two I formerly had for my business (Checking and Savings). Once the tiny bit of work to set up those accounts was done, it became very easy.

This shift in thinking has been revolutionary for me. My revenue, like that of many professional organizers and small business owners, fluctuates. By consistently transferring 50 percent of my Real Revenue into my Owner’s Pay account and then transferring a set amount from the Owner’s Pay account into the joint account shared by my husband and me, I avoid suffering because of that fluctuation. During flush times, the balance of the Owner’s Pay account grows, creating a reserve for the lean times.

When it’s time to pay my quarterly estimated taxes, the money is waiting for me in my Tax account. Watching my Profit account grow is a real joy. Even more enjoyable is the quarterly bonus I give myself. Profit First mandates that you take one-half of the amount you transferred into your Profit account each quarter as a quarterly bonus. (The rest stays in the Profit account as a reserve.) You’re not supposed to use the bonus for your business. It’s supposed to be used for something fun, like a vacation.

In my case, I purchased tickets to see Hamilton, my favorite musical, in Chicago with my bonuses. I’ve now seen it twice! I can spend a hefty amount for this pleasure without guilt because of Profit First. That feels amazing.

If you’re a small business owner, I heartily recommend reading this book and giving serious thought to implementing the program. There are detailed instructions, including what the appropriate percentages for your business are. A second edition came out earlier this year, which I purchased I read. It’s so worthwhile!