Peace of Mind Organizing

A great resource for organizers

25 May 2011

Last night, the teleclass from the Institute for Challenging Disorganization was on children who hoard. Kim Anker-Paddon and Leslie Josel, who taught the class, gave us some great case studies as well as a review of the (limited) research on the topic. Fascinating stuff.

I am so grateful the consistently excellent education offered by ICD. I’ve been a member for six years and they’re still offering classes I’m dying to take. That amazes me. (Much credit goes to Kim Anker-Paddon, ICD’s teleclass director, and her volunteers.)

If you’re a professional organizer or related professional, and you haven’t joined ICD yet, take a look at this quarter’s teleclasses. You might find them seriously tempting.

Another great learning opportunity comes in September in the form of ICD’s annual conference. This year, the conference will be held September 15-17 in Raleigh, N.C. The tantalizing theme is Acquiring Minds: How We Think, Act and Feel About Possessions The lineup of speakers is tremendous.

Following the conference is a one-day workshop on Motivational Interviewing. At only $125, I think this workshop is a steal. I signed up for it. It’s limited to 30 participants (and at least 15 spots are already taken), so if you’re tempted to go, you’d be wise to sign up.

If you’re not a professional organizer or related professional but are interested in learning more about challenging disorganization (and you’re in the Raleigh area), for the first time ICD will be offering a program for the public the evening before the conference starts. It will be at the conference hotel (the Hilton Raleigh Midtown) on Wednesday, September 14. Complete details will be posted to the ICD website soon and I’ll also blog about it.

I serve on the board of the ICD as its Marketing Director, so it’s my (unpaid) job to be publicly enthusiastic about ICD. But I’ve been benefitting from (and singing the praises of) ICD long before I was on the board, back when it was called the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. I’m really proud to be associated with such a stellar group.

Just do something

23 May 2011

Some effort is better than no effort. That’s the philosophy I’m embracing at the moment when it comes to exercise. For some reason, I’ve fallen off the exercise bandwagon, despite the fact that I’ve put on a few pounds and so am reminded of the need to exercise on a very regular basis.

I think the monster known as perfectionism has reared its head in this instance. I was sort of getting tired of my Wii Fit Plus exercises and I purchased Just Dance 2. I enjoy Just Dance 2, but didn’t feel like it was giving me much of a workout.

So then I started thinking about joining a gym and started doing a little research on that. No problem there, except that I had stopped exercising as I sought just the right exercise for me. Part of that was because I’ve been so busy. But mostly I was being lazy. And I fell out of my routine, so I would actually forget.

Yesterday I decided to embrace the “Just do something” philosophy. I don’t have to have a perfectly amazing workout. I just have to do something. Because moving my body a little is better than not moving it at all.

This applies to other aspects of life, of course. I’m going to embrace the “do something” philosophy when it comes to my genealogy research, which had gone dormant for way too long. But I’ve gotten started again and want to try to do just a little on a regular basis (several times a week) rather than wait until that block of time that never comes.

Yesterday after my “just do something” epiphany, I advised a client who is trying to work through a paper backlog to set a goal of working on the backlog 30 minutes a day. Then I interjected my new philosophy by suggesting that even if he doesn’t have 30 minutes to work on it he should do it for 10, or even five. Keeping that momentum of daily activity going will help him create the habit and get past the barrier to getting started.

Last night was the moment of truth when it came to my exercising. While I was waiting for dinner to finish cooking, I remembered to exercise. (Remembering was an achievement unto itself.) I decided to ease my way in. I did just two dances on Just Dance 2 and nothing else. (In case you’re wondering, the two dances were to Crazy in Love and Proud Mary. Love those.) Tonight, maybe I’ll do something more strenuous. Or maybe not. It’s okay as long as I do something.

Inbox zero: My email sanity saver

20 May 2011

On January 2, I cleared my inbox down to zero email messages. And since then i’ve done it every work day except two, when I was out of town without my computer. That’s nearly five months of inbox zero at least five days a week. (I usually do it on the weekends as well.)

I know that even six months ago I’d have scoffed at the idea that inbox zero was attainable or (perhaps) even desirable. But I’ve found that achieving inbox zero once makes it easy to maintain. Here’s why:

• When I end the day with zero messages in my inbox, I don’t wake up to many
• Since I’m dealing with only one day’s worth of email, it feels much less overwhelming
• It forces action and decisions. No longer do I let an email languish in my inbox while I figure out how to reply.
• Items no longer get lost (or forgotten) in my inbox. It used to be that potentially important emails would scroll out of sight. I look at every email message every day now. And I do something with each.
• I no longer have annoying “I’ve got to respond to that email” reminders floating around in my head. By the day’s end, I respond. It’s fabulous.

I think a big part of my ability to do this is that it’s become an established habit. And I have an email accountability partner, Aby Garvey, so I have the thrill every day of reporting that I’ve achieved inbox zero. I have a certain sense of pride in the accomplishment and I don’t want to break my inbox zero winning streak. I blogged about how having this streak going makes breaking it hard (though I try to let go of it when I travel).

Another unbroken chain that I have going is regular blogging (as I mentioned in the blog post referenced above). Since December 27, I’ve posted on my blog each and every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, even when traveling. I’m writing this on Friday at 6 pm, having just returned from an overnight trip without my computer. I’d meant to write a Friday blog post before I left, but ran out of time. So I decided to cut myself some slack about and skip this Friday.

But when I sat down at my computer upon my return to get my email inbox back down to zero, I realized I couldn’t bear to break my M/W/F chain, so here I am blogging.

Behold the power of the chain.

The family meeting

18 May 2011

I’ve been thinking about mail a lot, because of the Make Peace with Your Mail contest, which ended last week. As I read the entries in order to determine the winners (whose entries you can read here), a theme emerged.

One of the challenges that many of the entrants expressed is that it’s hard to keep track of the mail when it needs to be discussed with other people in the household (or when family members mess with it). It’s a challenge I see in my clients as well.

So I’d like to propose a solution that has worked for some of my clients. It’s the weekly family meeting. Establish a regularly scheduled meeting with folks in the household (like a spouse) for whom mail sparks discussion. Sunday evenings are often good for this. Then, when that mail comes in, put it in a file labeled “Family Meeting,” rather than putting that mail aside to show the other person (or people) right away. Then when it’s time for the weekly family meeting, all your documents will be in the file, ready for you to discuss.

I advocate having an Action Box, a desktop file box to temporarily store the mail that requires action. (The concept is explained fully in my organizing guide, How to Fall in Love with the Mail Carrier All Over Again, available for purchase.) Adding a Family Meeting file to your Action Box, and an actual family meeting to your calendar, can help you with some of your more challenging mail.

Trying out Flylady's cleaning tools

16 May 2011

Like legions of others, I’m a big fan of Flylady. I’ve been reading her advice since the late 90s and think she offers some tremendous, common-sense advice. (Back in 2008, I blogged about her advice that really resonated with me.)

In recent years, Flylady has been offering branded products that she thinks helps make cleaning chores easier. She is such a trusted soul that a Flylady seal of approval goes a long way.

I recently read some of the testimonials about her cleaning tools and decided to give them a try. I purchased the following (fair warning: Flylady is all about cute names):

• Rags in a Bag, the purple microfiber cloths that Flylady’s fans have been raving about
• The Rubba Scrubba rubber brush/scrubber
• The Rubba Sweepa kind of a Rubba Scrubba on a stick
• The Rubba Swisha rubber toilet bowl brush
• The Detail Duster dusting mit

I hate cleaning house, but sometimes I have to, and yesterday was one of those days. I have to tell you that Flylady’s tools made it easier. One of my favorites so far is the Rubba Sweepa. I have a lot of hardwood floors, as well as a cat who sheds a lot of hair, and the Rubba Sweepa does a great job picking up cat hair on wood floors. It’s working so much better (for me) than a Swiffer-type mop did. I’m less sure about its utility on carpeted floors, but I figure that’s what vacuums are for.

My other favorite are the microfiber cleaning cloths (“Rags in a Bag”). They really are fairly miraculous in terms of cleaning. One wet rag did an amazing job in my bathroom and dry one was great with dust, especially on cloth lampshades. And unlike other microfiber cloths I’ve tried, they don’t stick to my dry hands. They feel very nice, in fact.

These tools haven’t made me love housecleaning, but they have made it a bit more pleasant, so they’re worth their weight in gold as far as I’m concerned!

(Double) standards of clutter

11 May 2011

There’s an interesting conversation going on over at Unclutterer, one of my favorite blogs at organizing and clutter. Unclutterer editor, Erin Dolan, wrote a fascinating post about societal pressures women face to keep house.

She asserts that there’s a double standard at play in our society, that women are expected to have neat, clutter-free homes and men are expected not to.

Here’s a snippet:

Personally, unless a home is filthy or is a danger to the person who lives there or a burden to others, I don’t care about the clutter. I just hope the person is happy and the clutter doesn’t interfere with her ability to pursue the life she desires or anyone else’s. Not only do I think gender is irrelevant to this topic, I believe we need to stop cluttering up our thoughts and time by concerning ourselves with how other people have chosen to live. If someone chooses to be an unclutterer, I think that is an amazing decision. However, I don’t think everyone should or needs to be an unclutterer to pursue a remarkable life.

I love this. I’ve blogged about how everyone has their own standards of clutter and that we should try to live up to our own and no one else’s. I think professional organizers sometimes feel they have to live up to a higher standard of non-clutter (and I blogged about that on Unclutterer a couple of years ago.) As a woman and a PO whose standards of tidiness are somewhat lax, I completely agree with Erin that regardless of gender how someone keeps his or her home is no business of mine (or anyone else’s).

I read this Unclutterer blog post two days after it was originally posted and there were already 96 comments. It’s an interesting discussion. Once you read the post, be sure and click on the comments.

I knew I really made it when...

9 May 2011

Today I have the distinct honor of being on a panel of veteran organizers (along with Aby Garvey and Tiffany Engler) answering questions about our businesses for the program of today’s monthly NAPO St. Louis meeting.

We were given a list of questions to be prepared to answer and one of them has been tickling my brain ever since I read it. It is:

I knew I really made it when….

First off, it made me wish I kept a journal, because the little triumphs tend to fade in my memory. But a variety of possibilities come to mind. (I’m not sure which one will come out of my mouth if the question is asked of the panel.)

First, I thought of the more obvious stuff:

• When I was asked to speak at the Australasian Association of Professional Organizers conference in 2009. (To be more precise, when my proposal to speak was accepted.)

• When I became president of NAPO St. Louis

• When I was asked to be on the national board of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD)

• When I earned my CPO-CD® (Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization®) from the NSGCD (now ICD), the credential I’m most proud of

• When my client had such faith in the help I could give her that she flew me to Hawaii to help her move in to her new home

But then I started reflecting on the smaller moments:

• The first time a client told me that our work together changed her life

• When a client I hadn’t seen in a two years or more called me for more help (she likes me, she really likes me!)

• When I realized I was no longer nervous before a first appointment with a new client

• When I could confidently lead a team of skilled, enthusiastic organizers who in a single day or week can make a huge difference for a client—without losing sleep the night before the first team appointment

• When people actually signed up for the first teleclass I offered (Declutter Happy Hour, presented with life coach Shannon Wilkinson)

• When it stopped bothering me if a prospective client balked at my rates

How about you? When did you know that you’d made it?