Peace of Mind Organizing

The clean slate

17 January 2011

So far this year I’ve established a couple of new habits that benefited greatly by starting with a clean slate.

One is the backyard poop scooping that I blogged about last week. Starting by cleaning the entire yard and then establishing a daily routine of scooping has made that activity practically painless.

The other is Inbox Zero. On January 2, I got my email inbox down to zero messages, not by declaring email bankruptcy, but by actually dealing with each email, so that there were none left in my box.

Since January 2, I’ve reached Inbox Zero every day. The reward of an empty inbox is so enticing that I’m taking action on emails I would ordinarily have let languish for at least a day (or month). That’s improving my productivity and it also has an extra bonus: the peace of mind of knowing that no emails have slipped through the cracks or scrolled out of sight. My email inbox doesn’t nag at me. It’s wonderful.

This principle of clearing the backlog and creating a daily habit can be applied to many things, like filing (I still have a “to file” pile that needs to be cleared and then I’ll try to follow my own advice and file immediately), shredding, and cleaning the bathroom or kitchen.

I’m thisclose to having cleared another giant backlog. Yesterday I completed inputting my Quickbooks data for my business for 2010. Back on December 21, 2009, I blogged that I was going to try to create the habit of entering Quickbooks data as each transaction came in and I failed miserably. On Sunday of last week I started entering my backlog, which went all the way back to February.

But now I’m caught up with 2010. All I have to do is enter the receipts and deposits that have come in in the last two weeks and my backlog will be cleared. And then I’ll really try to create the habit of very frequent data entry — at least weekly.

Part of me says that if I can enter a whole month’s receipts in an hour or two at the end of the year, why bother keeping up? I find that this year I crave the knowledge and control of staying on top of my finances. I think paying attention to my books on daily or weekly basis will help me get past some of my weird money issues and will reap great rewards.

I hope a year from now to have a much better report about staying abreast of my finances than I did for 2010!

Help for that scary pile on your desk

14 January 2011

I go on and on here about the value of clearing off your desktop at the end of the work day. I’ve been doing it daily for three years and it’s really enhanced my productivity. It’s now such a habit that I’d kind of forgotten about the scary, teetering pile of paper that can pollute your desktop. (Though I do sometimes let the paper in my inbox — which is not on my desk — pile up.)

If you have a big pile of paper on your desk, I’d like to share with you a terrific blog post, Purge that Pile: 10 Steps to a Clean Desk from Jennifer Hull’s MidAge Mom blog. Jennifer is a writer I know through an online writing community I’ve belonged to for years, Freelance Success.

I love Jennifer’s fresh take on the process of getting your desktop cleared off. My favorite nuggets:

I wanted to feel lighter, not heavier. So … I cleaned out the big pile on my desk.

My first realization: it wasn’t a pile of papers. It was a pile of decisions.

It’s one thing to purge the playroom. But when you clean your desk, you give a gift to yourself. Since eliminating the pile, I feel squeaky clean, like I’d taken a ritual bath. I still have a lot to do. But now I know what it is.

Go read it for yourself. I bet you’ll be inspired to clear off your desk and feel liberated!

Help for catching up on your shredding

12 January 2011

One of the things I did during that glorious week between Christmas and New Year’s was clean out my files. My recycling box is full but I also have a large pile on top of my shredder.

I find shredding sort of unpleasant. It’s loud. And it’s messy when I empty the shredder. So, like many people, I tend to let it pile up. I really need to create a habit of regularly emptying the shredder to eliminate the barrier to shredding at the time I come across a document that needs to be shredded.

So I have this backlog of shredding. I’ve learned that sometimes the best way to start a new habit is to clear the slates and start from zero. When I decided to start the clean desk habit on January 5, 2008, I totally cleared off my desk, decluttered it, and replaced it with only those items that needed to be there. Then, every day, I cleared it off when I finished work. Easy.

Thanks to the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers, of which I’m a proud board member, I’ll have an opportunity to clear my shredding slates at little or no cost.

NAPO St. Louis and Shred and Protect Document Services are pairing up to sponsor a Shred Event on Saturday, February 19 from 9 to 1. If you live in St. Louis, you can bring a banker’s box full of documents that need to be shredded (about 25 pounds) to Shred and Protect, which is located in Hanley Industrial Court in Brentwood and get it securely shredded free of charge. Additional boxes are $5 each. Such a deal. (I’m basing the pricing on last year’s event; keep your eye on my blog as we get closer to the event, in case the pricing’s changed. Or feel free to shoot me an email.) Shred and Protect is located in Hanley Industrial Court.

Of course, you don’t have to wait until February 19 to let Shred and Protect help you catch up with your shredding. They’re happy to help you any time for a fee (call ahead for drop off) and they’ll even come pick it up for you, if you’d like. I’ve been using them all year for my clients and am a very satisfied customer.

Maybe the Shred Event can motivate you to clean out your files. You have a month and a week. See if you can fill up a box and bring it in. There are so many benefits: Your file cabinet will be less full, your documents will be securely destroyed, the shreds will be recycled, and you don’t have to do the shredding yourself.

If you don’t live in St. Louis, Google around and see if you can find a similar event in your community. If you don’t find one, perhaps there’s a service you can pay. I think it’s well worth the small fee most commercial shredders charge to get all your shredding done in one fell swoop.

How are those resolutions coming along?

10 January 2011

It’s funny how the turn of the calendar page to a new year makes people want to change their ways and resolve to behave differently. It’s certainly true of me. While I haven’t set any resolutions, per se, I do set goals and I do try to create new habits.

So far, I’ve been very successful in putting away my clothes properly at night and at scooping the yard, which I wrote about just this past Friday. (Still going strong…today is Day 10.)

I’m a little shakier on one other resolution, to exercise daily. I missed a day on Thursday, when I felt a little under the weather. I had said to my husband, “I don’t feel like exercising today.” His response, “Then don’t” was all I needed to slack off. But I did jump back on the horse (or in this case, the Wii Fit Balance Board) on Friday. With this daily exercise goal, I’m trying to start small and tell myself that any exercise counts toward my goal. It doesn’t have to be a full 30 minutes; 15 (or even 5) is better than nothing. The idea is to engrain the habit. (Toward that end, I’ve purchased the Just Dance 2 Wii game, which is loads of fun and gets my heart pounding.)

This is a technique we discuss in the Why Resolutions Don’t Work—And How to Get What You Want Anyway teleclass recording + workbook that life coach Shannon Wilkinson and I created last year and updated this year. It goes over several reasons that resolutions tend to fail and offers solutions for overcoming each of those challenges.

It’s January 10, not too late to start a resolution (it’s never too late, of course) and also a little too early to give up any new ones. I’m going to persevere with the exercise goal. If you have a resolution that’s not working out so well, don’t give up. Hop right back on the horse. Our resolutions class might give you just the support you need.

The magic of linking new routines to old

7 January 2011

On New Year’s Eve day, the weather was unseasonably warm here in St. Louis (so warm we had a tornado!). At the risk of being indelicate, I’ll share that I spent some pre-storm time picking up the dog poop in our back yard. The snow had melted, revealing many piles.

As I performed this unsavory task, I vowed not to let so much time elapse between clean-up sessions. This is truly the kind of task made worse by volume. My problem was that I would be reminded to do it when I was walking to the garage to get in the car. I never seemed to think of doing it when I actually had time for the task.

But then inspiration hit. I thought about the other tasks I do daily that have made my life easier. I empty the dishwasher each morning as I’m making coffee. I wipe down the fixtures in the bathroom after I finish flossing daily. Maybe I could link poop scooping with another daily task. Then I wouldn’t forget to do it.

I came up with a brilliant plan (if I do say so myself). I walk my dog, Kirby, every morning. And I take poop bags with me. So I decided to link the daily walk with the yard clean up. Now, we come home from a walk and while I still have my coat on, I go right to the back yard and scoop. It’s just one days worth of waste so it takes almost no time. I go out the back gate to the dumpster in the alley, throw away the bag, and I’m done.

I upped the ante a little by adding scooping the litter box to the mix. On my way through the house to the back yard, I stop at the Joe’s litter box and empty the compartment into a poop bag (we have a Littermaid litter box that automatically rakes itself into a compartment that should be emptied daily). I proceed with the cat waste to the back yard, add dog waste and throw it away.

It takes less than five minutes. Today is Day Six and I haven’t forgotten yet. If I keep it up I’ll never have to face the nasty task I faced on December 31.

I think this technique of linking a new routine to something you’re already doing daily can be really effective. Add accountability (I created a habitforge chain for this task, for extra satisfaction), and it can be very powerful.

If you have a New Year’s Resolution that involves daily activity, perhaps you can see if you can link it something you do every day anyway. Let me know if it works!

The debut of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization

5 January 2011

As of January 1, 2011, the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD) is now officially the Institute for Challenging Disorganization! The NSGCD board voted on the name change in July. The tagline Education. Research. Strategies. was approved in September and the new logo in November. Here it is:

We also have new website to go with the new name.

The new name represents new opportunities for growth for this important organization. I’m proud to serve on its board of directors and even more proud to have received really valuable much education through it.

As marketing director, I’ve been working on implementing the name change for the last few months, so I’m used to the new name. Believe me, ICD is much easier to say (and remember) than NSGCD! I’m very excited for this new chapter in our growth.

Starting the year with a clean inbox

3 January 2011

Last night, I reached the elusive Inbox Zero. That’s right, I emptied my email inbox. This isn’t to say I don’t have any email messages. It’s just that they’re filed away in folders (or “mailboxes” in Mac Mail parlance).

For the last couple of years I’ve been working on creating the habit of having no more than 15 emails in my inbox at the end of the work day. These are emails that either require some action or, sometimes, just remind me of action I need to take. Keeping them pared to 15 (an effort supremely enhanced by my accountability buddy, Aby Garvey, who is working on the same goal) is hugely helpful. It keeps me on task and keeps things from falling through the cracks.

I had more time at my desk this past, so I pared my email inbox down below 10 on New Year’s Day. Then yesterday, I decided to go for zero. There were a few emails that had been lingering in my inbox for months. These were non-urgent things that I wasn’t ready to let go of the idea of doing. But guess what? Yesterday I did ‘em.

It’s a great feeling to be at zero. Once things start heating up again, I imagine the inbox will creep toward 15. But perhaps in 2011 I’ll work toward keeping my inbox to 10, rather than 15. I don’t think zero is a realistic daily deadline.