Peace of Mind Organizing

Highlight reel for 2010

31 December 2010

On this day last year, I posted my highlight reel for 2009. For me, it’s a fun way to reflect on the past year (and remind me a year later what went down), so I’m trying it again for 2010.

Here are some the highlights of my 2010:

I created products! In August, I debuted my Organizing Guides as well as my Make Peace with Your Mail e-course. In addition to creating the content for these products, these projects required me to flex my brain and learn the technology side of e-commerce, so it feels like a real accomplishment. Now I’m all set to create more products.

I gave meaningful talks. I love talking with audiences about decluttering, organizing, and letting go of stuff. I had the chance to speak at some great places this year, including Thomas Dunn Memorials. After that class on letting go of stuff, the executive director, Kathy Bangert, sent me an email that made my heart sing. She wrote, “I hope you feel as fulfilled as I feel about today’s class. You (we) really made a difference in these people’s lives!”

I became marketing director of an organization that’s very important to me. The National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization has given me invaluable education and networking opportunities. I was honored to be asked to join the board of directors. I started in July and got to jump in with both feet as a new name for the organization was selected, then implemented. As of tomorrow, NSGCD will be the Institute for Challenging Disorganization!

I passed the reins of NAPO St. Louis to a great president. I was president of the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers for almost three years. In May of 2010, I became immediate past president as Tiffany Engler, CPO® took over as president. She’s done an amazing job and is a fantastic leader.

I received my Hoarding Specialist certificate. Working with people who hoard is tough, but fascinating. I loved learning more about hoarding on my way to earning the new Hoarding Specialist Certificate from the NSGCD (soon to be ICD). I took classes, read books and passed a test and am proud to be among the first group of organizers with that credential.

I led some terrific teams. I love working with other organizers and this year I was able to lead teams of organizers who did some wonderful transformations. That is so much fun.

I found a steady paycheck. At the end of 2009, I felt that my income was too unpredictable. I was able to quickly find a terrific part-time job to make things more steady. Since January 21, I’ve worked two days a week for the International Institute of St. Louis, a wonderful non-profit that helps newly arrived refugees and immigrants. The Institute also puts on the terrific Festival of Nations every summer. Believe me, the Festival is an organizational feat. Helping with it was one of my primary duties. I feel really fortunate to have found a job I enjoy with a terrific organization that does so much good.

Here’s to a fabulous 2011.

habitforge: another tool for creating habits

29 December 2010

I’m a big fan of accountability and I love trying out tools to help me stay accountable to goals or establish new routines. I’m crazy about Don’t Break the Chain, which I’ve blogged about repeatedly.

I was less crazy about StickK.com, a website that uses a stick (rather than a carrot) to get you to do what you’ve set out to do.

For the last ten days, I’ve been using habitforge to help me create the routine of putting my clothes away properly at the end of the day (something I’ve had trouble with for years). I’ve found it very motivating.

With habitforge, you set a goal or commitment and for 21 days (the amount of time that conventional wisdom says it takes to build a habit, though I quibble with that), habitforge sends you an email asking whether you were successful the day before. In the email you click Yes or No. When you click Yes, your’e taken to this screen:

My habitforge screen today

If the answer is No, you start back at Day One. (I’m assuming the screen looks similar, though I haven’t yet clicked No.)

I have to say that over the last ten days, knowing I’m going to be receiving this email has motivated me to throw my clothes down the laundry chute or put away ones that I can wear again. (The default behavior has been to leave the clothes on top of my bureau in a messy pile.) I like that habitforge comes to me—I don’t have to remember to go to a website like I do with similar services, like Joe’s Goals. Whether the habit will be ingrained in 11 more days remains to be seen. If it’s not, I can always set up another 21 days of emails.

Habitforge is great for daily habits. Obviously, it won’t work well for something you want to do, say, three days a week. But if you have something you’d like to do daily in the new year, I encourage you to give it a try!

A study in contrasts

27 December 2010

I had a couple of customer-service experiences in December that have given me food for thought.

First the good:

I purchased my holiday cards from Paper Source, the fabulous online store. I needed more cards and placed a second order in early December. I received a shipping notification, but left town to visit my parents a few days later and didn’t notice the cards hadn’t arrived.

When I returned and discovered no cards, I checked the UPS tracking site and saw that they’d been left on the porch. It was apparent that the package was stolen from my urban porch (the first time that’s happened in 19 years of living here).

So I called Paper Source, explained the package had been stolen and asked what could be done. The kind customer service agent offered to send them to me again, overnight, at no charge.

I was blown away. The company was at no fault, yet they were willing to invest about fifty dollars in creating an extremely happy customer. The box arrived the next day as promised, with a hand written note inside saying how sorry they were that the package had gone missing.

Contrast that story with this one:

I ordered a wireless headset for my landline from 101phones.com. It arrived a week later with a part missing that rendered it unusable. I called the company and was told I’d have to return it for exchange, which meant it would be another week before I’d have a working headset. The kicker: I would have to pay for shipping to return it. They messed up, I’m paying for shipping. I argued. They insisted. I was angry. So I asked for a refund, rather than an exchange. I’ll never shop there again.

Paper Source invested fifty dollars and got a raving fan in return. 101phones.com wasn’t willing to invest five dollars to pay for shipping the return and therefore lost the sale and the customer. They’ll never get an order from me (or probably anyone who reads this).

For my business, I want to be Paper Source.

I have policies for my business that provide important boundaries and accountability for my clients. But I do make exceptions on occasion and this customer-service experience will help inform those exceptions.

I’ve never been one to nickel and dime clients, and Paper Source has taught me what an impact that can have.

So there’s a business lesson here, but mostly I just wanted to tell you how much Paper Source rocks. If you need beautiful paper products, by all means shop there.

Change

22 December 2010

Change is hard. But it’s not necessarily bad.

I was reflecting on this in light of the passing of my 12-year-old standard poodle, Pip, on October 27. Her death, from cancer, was swift. She died just two weeks after a tumor was discovered. Within a week of that discovery, we knew how extensive the cancer was and that there was nothing we could do. She didn’t seem to suffer much and she didn’t leave us any question that it was her time.

When you have an ill or aging dog, you can’t help but think about what life will be like without her. Sometimes it’s unbearable to even think about it. (And, indeed, probably the worst thing about having dogs is the near-inevitability that you’ll experience life without them.)

Learning Pip’s diagnosis, watching her decline, and then letting her go was really difficult. In that time, I fretted over what life would be like without her, particularly for Kirby, our seven-year-old standard poodle who is somewhat insecure and who had never known life in our home without Pip.

But here it is almost two months later and I’ve begun reflecting on the fact that there have been some positives about this change. First, Kirby is doing amazingly well. He seemed to say his goodbyes to Pip a couple of days before she died. He was there at the time of her passing (our wonderful vet, Patrick Tate of Webster Groves Animal Hospital came to our house to do the euthanasia) and he carried on well afterward.

As our grief subsided, the positives started to emerge. With our senior citizen dog gone, our walks with Kirby have become faster and longer. I’m able to work on training him during walks, now that I have an extra hand. (And we both love that.) Pip was very sound sensitive and would bark at the sound of a car door slamming. Kirby would react to her bark and carry on as well. Now Kirby sleeps through some of those little triggers, so our house isn’t as noisy. Taking one dog along on errands, like trips to the airport, is easy. With two, it was a hassle and usually didn’t happen. And, of course, one dog is much less expensive than two. (The food, treats, and grooming add up.)

Please don’t take this to mean I’m not sorry Pip is gone. I miss her terribly. But it’s caused me to reflect on an important aspect of change. It’s something we often dread, but there can be good aspects to it, when we pause to consider them.

If you’re facing some change and find the prospect unsettling, perhaps you can consider the up side to the change that’s about to happen.

I’d like to close this with a picture of Pip (she’s the grey one) and Kirby (who’s white) playing with my friend, Sally’s border collie-great pyrenees cross, Amos, at the dog park a few years ago. We miss you, Pip!

Why resolutions don't work (now with a workbook!)

15 December 2010

Where are you on the New Year’s Resolution Continuum?

(statistics from 2008 survey by Opinion Corporation of Princeton, NJ)

If you fall in that big middle group (or have drifted into the no resolutions group due to disappointment) this could be the year for something different.

Last January, Shannon Wilkinson and I teamed up again (we co-created the Declutter Happy Hour course) to teach a teleclass on how to actually do the stuff you set out to do every year. We shared the reasons resolutions don’t work, and more importantly, we talked about how to change that. We gave tips and strategies and guided participants through helpful exercises so they experienced a new way of approaching their resolutions and goals.

Did you miss the class? Not to worry! It’s available as a downloadable audio—and Shannon and I just put the finishing touches on an accompanying workbook that will take you through the process outlined in the teleclass. There are even worksheets so you can keep track of your goals and resolutions and how you’ll go about achieving them.

Maybe your resolution (once again) is to declutter and get organized this year. Or maybe you want to make changes for your health, creativity or finances. Our approach is terrific for whatever set your sights on.

This year is going to be different.

Why Resolutions Don’t Work (and How to Get What You Want Anyway)

The recording is great to listen to any time you want to re-vamp a resolution that isn’t working, create a new habit or establish a goal that really works for you. The workbook can stand alone (if you’d rather read than listen) or can help you get more out of the audio.

Details:

• In the audio, we talk for about an hour and then open it up for questions.

• The course covers the common reasons that setting resolutions doesn’t work, and takes you through exercises that help you get what you want.

• The 24-page workbook is based on the content of the audio, but isn’t a mere transcript. (The Q&A is transcribed, however.) It includes worksheets to make the most of Shannon’s meditations.

• This is for anyone who has been frustrated by resolutions or goals, and wants to learn a new way to approach it.

• The cost? Just 19 bucks.

That’s right. Just $19. Are you in? Yes? Just click the “Add to Cart” button:

Here’s to getting what you really want!

Wisdom from "Modern Family"

9 December 2010

I love the ABC sitcom Modern Family. I think it’s smartly written, well-acted and laugh-out-loud funny.

On an episode last season (the one where the family vacationed in Hawaii), hapless dad Phil Dunphy said something to his family that resonated with me so much that I repeat it to myself probably once a day.

He had just set the house alarm and the family had only 15 seconds to exit the house with their luggage before the alarm would go off. As he was urging his family to quickly file out the door, he repeated,

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

Isn’t that so true? When I’m in a hurry I often make mistakes in my haste. When I’m rushing to do something, I now consciously try to slow down and repeat Phil’s mantra.

I knew that all those hours of TV watching would pay off one day!

Mark Forster helps me keep my sanity

7 December 2010

I’ve been a follower of time-management expert Mark Forster for years now. When he develops a new time-management system, I sit up and take notice.

And I usually try it out. And I usually tell you about it. Mark’s task-management innovation, Autofocus, has gone through a number of iterations. I’d tried out the various versions of it, but in recent months strayed from Autofocus in favor of personal kanban, which I also blogged about.

Personal kanban was working for me, until I got crazy busy. In the last 30 days or so, my task list has been very long, due to a busy client load plus my duties as marketing director of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization, which is in the process of changing its name to the Institute for Challenging Disorganizaton. With my task list so long, I didn’t have room on my personal kanban whiteboard and it stopped being effective.

For a couple of weeks I floundered with regular old to-do lists. Then I tuned back into Mark Forster and discovered, via the Lifehacker blog, that Mark had tweaked Autofocus once again. And I really like this newest version.

It’s simple: Start with a ruled notebook. Mark three successive pages with the following headers: New, Recurring, Unfinished. Then do a brain dump onto the New page with 10 to 20 tasks that you need to do. Draw a line under them. These become your Old tasks. Any New tasks you think of after that go under the line.

Read through the Old tasks, and do any that appeal to you. If you finish the task, cross it off. If you don’t, add it to the Unfinished page. If it’s a Recurring task (like “scoop the litterbox”), add it to the Recurring page. Keep circulating through the Old tasks (ignoring the others) until no more stand out to you to be done. The move on to the New tasks. When you’ve done all those in the New list that appeal to you at the moment, move on to Recurring and Unfinished. Then go back to Old.

The one big rule that is if you read through the Old list (that is, those tasks above the line) and don’t do any of those tasks, you must dismiss them all. That’s right, highlight them and just accept that you’re not going to do them. Later you can add them to the new list if you want to. The effect of this dismissal rule is that you get your old stuff done, rather than letting them languish on a list. Or you don’t, but you stop nagging yourself about those tasks and just accept that you’re not going to do them.

Once all the Old tasks are crossed off or dismissed, draw a line underneath the last New task. The tasks between the lines now become the Old tasks. Simple. Elegant. Beautiful.

I’ve been using this system for just a few days now, but I’m loving it. Separating out the Recurring and Unfinished tasks really helps me make sure the older stuff doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. It keeps my list shorter, since I’m not constantly crossing out and re-adding recurring tasks. And, as in other Autofocus system, it gives my brain a break because I have an easy place to write everything down and I don’t have to worry about remembering tasks. I don’t have to categorize or prioritize. I just add new tasks to the end of the list.

This is a clean and simple version of the method that’s not only easy to try but very effective. I think this new Autofocus is going to allow me to get through December with my sanity intact!