Peace of Mind Organizing

Some stylish over-the-door storage

20 June 2011

I love over-the-door clear vinyl shoe pockets. I use them at home for shoes and have recommended them to clients for the inside of the coat closet for hats, scarves and mittens. (They’re great for families with kids, since the little ones can use the lowest pockets.) I’ve had clients who’ve used them in craft rooms and bathrooms as well.

At the NAPO Conference I attended in April, one of the exhibitors was Simply Stashed Stashed. The folks at Simply Stashed also apparently love these shoe pockets, and they made even more useful. And attractive.

The Simply Stashed organizers come in two sizes, three different pocket configurations, and eight colors/patterns that serve as a backdrop. The pockets themselves are clear vinyl . And here’s the part I loved: Each pocket has a little sleeve for a slide-in label. Isn’t that great? Labeling is so important, even when the container is clear. And this makes labeling very easy.

Check it out. Here’s one that’s storing Legos:

And one with laundry-room supplies:

And here’s a bathroom version:

Of course, you can do whatever you want with yours.

Simply Stashed organizers are available online, at the Simply Stashed website. If you use the coupon code PEACEOFMIND you’ll receive a ten percent discount (and I’ll receive a 10 percent commission…but I’d be telling you about it even if I weren’t a Simply Stashed affiliate).

I liked what I saw and plan to buy one to show clients. I love it when people turn a good idea into a great one and take things to the next level!

If it stops working, change it up!

17 June 2011

Organization systems, as well as habits and routines, are usually set up with current circumstances in mind. When circumstances change, the systems or routines might fall apart. In other words, life takes zigs and zags and if systems keep going straight, they’re not going to work.

I tell this to my clients all the time. I recently had an experience that reminded me how true it is.

I had an exercise routine that was pretty steady. I’d exercise using Wii Fit in the evenings, after I was finished with work. But I’m been very busy lately and my work days seem to be getting longer and longer. When I’d finally finish working, I just didn’t feel like exercising. What I felt like was a drinking a glass of wine or eating dinner.

So exercise fell by the wayside and that started stressing me out. Not because I live to exercise (I certainly don’t) but because I felt sort of slovenly and I’d put on a couple of pounds.

I started considering joining a gym, but had a hard time imagining that I’d find time to go out to exercise when I couldn’t do it at home.

Then I paused to think about it and I realized that I’ve been most successful in creating morning routines. So I decided to try getting up earlier and doing my Wii Fit before coffee.

Guess what? It’s really working for me! The big side benefit I didn’t anticipate is that if I exercise in the morning, I don’t worry about it the rest of the day. For several years now, I’d think throughout the day, “Oh, I gotta exercise.” Now, that nagging thought is gone. Let’s hear it for getting rid of nagging thoughts!

What really surprised me is that I’m actually excited about exercising again. On Thursday morning, I woke up 15 minutes late and had to be out of the house by 8 a.m. But I just couldn’t skip the exercise. Instead, I did it for a shorter period of time. But I did it. Amazing.

So the lesson here for me is that when things stop working, I need to change them up. When I take the time to think about the successful habits and routines I’ve managed to establish, I get clues and ideas about new ways to get them back on track.

If you have something you’d like to improve (be it an organizational system or a habit or routine), try thinking about what you’re doing well and see whether that can be applied to this situation.

Taming the pile of active papers

15 June 2011

I have this clean desk policy that I’ve been blogging about since 2008. Basically, I make sure I clean my desk off at the end of every business day. It’s glorious and it helps me hit the ground running when I arrive at my desk in the morning.

But I’ll let you in on a secret. Sometimes I have papers that aren’t easy to put away or that are so current I don’t want to let them out of my sight. So I put them in a leather inbox I have resting on the radiator next to my desk. Not on my desk (that would violate my policy), next to my desk.

Yesterday I switched it all up. Pendaflex had sent me a bunch of products to consider blogging about and I was instantly drawn to the PileSmart Organizer Tray. This clear Lucite® tray comes with rigid, colorful dividers with tabs on both the short and long sides.

The idea is you can easily categorize piles of paper under the rigid dividers. It’s great for temporary storage and I could see it as a more sightly and organized landing space for my active papers.

So here’s how my inbox looked yesterday morning.

Pretty ugly!

I went through the papers, filed some of them, acted upon and threw out a few others and then put the rest in the PileSmart tray.

That feels better.

The tabs are supposed to be write and erase, but I couldn’t figure out what kind of pen to use that I could erase. No worries. I just used a Avery return address label to hand-write my labels. If I want to relabel, I’ll remove and replace the label (or put one over it).

There are six dividers and therefore six categories. The ones I created are:

• First Thing, for any papers associated with what I consider tomorrow’s most urgent task
• ICD 1 through 3, for my three most current projects relating to the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (I’m their Marketing Director)
• Quickbooks, for receipts waiting to be entered
• Pending

I like that the tray is lower profile than my last one. And I like that it’s slightly slanted to the back to keep papers in.

I think this will make cleaning up my desk at day’s end even easier. I also think that it will make me more mindful of dealing with the loose papers on my desk during the daily desk-cleaning process.

I know that that the challenge will be to stay on top of the papers there and make sure they’re all active and deserve to be there. If they’re not, I’ll file or toss them.

It’s always fun to try something new and I look forward to seeing how well this works for me.

The adhesive properties of routines

14 June 2011

I forgot to blog yesterday. I’ve been blogging every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since December 27. Then, last week, I made a conscious decision to skip Wednesday’s and Friday’s posts and just do one post on Thursday (about that conscious decision).

I don’t know if it was because I didn’t blog Friday, but I just plain forgot to blog yesterday. Sure, it was a hectic day at my desk and blogging crossed my mind occasionally. But when it was time to close up shop for the day (sadly, at 8:45 p.m.) I didn’t even think about blogging.

That surprised the heck out of me and it really impressed upon me how important routines are. I call it Automating Your Life. When you’ve got a good routine going, you don’t even think about doing the thing. You just do it. Of course, I do think about blogging. In fact, before I even get out of bed, I think, “Do I have to blog today?” And I try to blog before I leave the house on those days. But I didn’t think that thought yesterday morning.

Because of my weird week last week (all-day retreat on Friday and a houseguest), I gave myself permission not to worry about whittling my inbox down to zero, another routine I have. Instead, I enjoyed a lovely evening with my guest.

But that meant that I was facing down some email ugliness Monday morning. And because of the hectic nature of yesterday and my weariness at day’s end, I left six messages in my inbox. I think because I’d already broken the chain of inbox zero on workdays (something I’ve done only twice since January 2) it became easier for me to leave those six there.

But I’m bound and determined to get back into the swing of things this week. I’m blogging now and will blog tomorrow and Friday. I will get my inbox down to zero today, come hell or high water. I won’t have much time at my desk the rest of the week, so today’s the day.

Routines. When you’re in the groove, they’re so sticky. But break that adhesive bond and you can find yourself floating in space. Bring on the tape!

Giving myself a tiny break

9 June 2011

At the end of last year, I set a goal of blogging every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ve been very proud of the fact that I’ve kept that up each and every week since December 27, 2010.

Yesterday, I jumped off the carousel temporarily. I’d had a 13-hour day, it was 8:30 p.m. and I just wanted to stop working for the night. (I did get my inbox down to zero, though!)

So I gave myself permission not to blog. It felt okay. It was mildly anxiety-producing to break my chain, but I really wanted to just relax and I knew the ramifications of not blogging were next to nil.

Tonight, my friend and colleague, Margaret Lukens arrives in St. Louis to stay with me for two nights. She’s here to facilitate the NAPO St. Louis board retreat tomorrow. So I won’t be posting tomorrow, either. I’ll get back into the M/W/F groove on Monday.

I think habits and routines are very important and I’m delighted that I’ve been able to create this habit. But I also recognize that flexibility and self-care are also important.

When a habit is entrenched, I always worry about backsliding when it’s broken, even once. I think consciously breaking it, for a good reason, and knowing how I’ll get back to it will stop that from happening.

What are you going to do to be kind to yourself today?

New felted bag

6 June 2011

I haven’t written much about my knitting lately. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting! I have a terrible time getting around to photographing my finished projects. (My Ravelry notebook is pretty pathetic.)

But I love this simple garter-stripe square felted bag that I knit earlier this year (or prhaps it was late last year) so much that I took some pictures of it. I saw the project on Ravelry (the social networking site for knitters and crocheters), clicked on the pattern and saw that it was in Japanese. Luckily, the pattern is simple and fully illustrated, so English wasn’t necessary.

It’s a simple bag made of garter-stich squares, with an i-cord edging and handles. Its genius is in the assembly. I think it looks hot.

The bag isn't as big as this photo makes it look!

I use it for carrying current knitting projects and it’s very sturdy. (It’s knit from Cascade 220 worsted weight wool.)

It's now one of my favorite knitting bags!

I love felted projects (wool knitting that’s shrunk in the washing machine) because there’s something so substantial about them. Plus, all my mistakes are magically swept away in the washing machine, so it takes the pressure off the knitting.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you’re a knitter and you’re not on Ravelry, you’re missing out. I have found so many cool projects there. It helps me save money. Some folks (you know who you are) will say that Ravelry is too much of a time suck. But if you have a little discipline, it can be an amazing resource.

A peek into style (and closets)

3 June 2011

Thanks to my colleague Jeri Dansky’s fabulous blog, Jeri’s Organizing & Decluttering News, I discovered Closet Visit, a blog from artist Jeana Sohn. She photographs stylish women interacting with their clothing and shoes, and in their closets, with beautiful close ups of things like garments and jewelry.

I’m by no means a fashionista, but I do like looking at beautiful clothes. And I love looking at people’s closets. So this blog, full of beautiful photographs of beautiful women and beautiful clothes, is a fun (and inspiring) way to spend a few minutes. Check it out!