Peace of Mind Organizing

Happy birthday, blog!

10 November 2010

Today is the 4th anniversary of this blog. My first entry, on November 10, 2006, titled What is organized? was about everyone having personal standards for what they consider organized.

In four years of blogging, I’ve created 486 entries. I really enjoy blogging, and occasionally surprise myself when I look back at old entries. I’m actually pretty good at it most days! In honor of the anniversary I decided to come up with a favorite post from each year of this blog and post the first paragraph and a link. I hope if you have a minute you’ll click on the links and take a trip back in time with me.

2006
Backsliding (November 16, 2006). In the organizing field, particularly for organizers who work with chronically disorganized people, backsliding is all too common. You leave a client with systems in place, skills transferred, attitudes and motivation high, and then you stop hearing from her. You try to contact the client and when you finally reach her she admits that she’s lost control again. She’s ashamed of this and rather than reaching out to get more help, she just doesn’t call. What she probably doesn’t realize is that this happens all the time and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Continue reading

2007
For me, this is what it is all about (July 16, 2007). I just got back from an intense five days working with a client in another state. I know from her feedback and from what we accomplished that I really made a difference in her life. That’s what I love about this work! Continue reading....

2008
Self care (July 15, 2008). I’m always struck how clutter gets in the way of life. I have many clients who constantly feel an obligation to deal with their clutter. They plan to devote a weekend to decluttering, then they start to feel overwhelmed, so they don’t actually deal with it. (Until they call me.) Continue reading....

2009
It’s a tie. I just have to include both posts I wrote about working with professional organizers. I love them both.

My adventure with a professional organizer (June 12, 2009). As I blogged about the other day, I hired professional organizer Karel Worley, of Clearing Your Path, to come to my house and help my husband, Barry, and me declutter our basement. Continue reading....

I’m officially hooked on working with POs (July 6, 2009). Last month I blogged about working with professional organizer Karel Worley in my basement. With my husband’s help, we tackled a dirty decluttering job in only four hours. It was one that I’d been dreading for months. It was amazing how much we got done and how painless it was. Well, I’m at it again. My friend, Aby Garvey, of simplify101, and I have been talking about swapping services for awhile. We thought it would be more fun (and a lot faster) to work together on some of our projects at home. Continue reading....

2010
Fear of the Unknown (July 12, 2010). I’ve had to learn a new skill set. And I didn’t make it easy on myself. Continue reading....

It’s interesting to me that all my favorite blog posts were written in June or July. (Except 2006, but the blog wasn’t begun until November.) I wonder what’s up with that?

It took me several hours to skim all my blog posts, but what a fun exercise. It’s really a great way to be reminded of the milestones of the last four years.

Just do it

9 November 2010

I had a Nike moment this weekend. My husband and I had a small dinner party on Saturday. He’s the cook (he’s even been to culinary school) and when he puts his mind to it, great things happen in the kitchen. My job when it comes to dinner parties (in addition to providing sparkling conversation) is to get the house in order and do the table.

I’ve been very busy lately and am a naturally messy person, so some clutter had accumulated in some hot spots. I was thrilled that we were having people over, because it gave me a reason to clean up. Naturally, I put off cleaning house until Saturday. With guests arriving that day, I was finally motivated to put my nose to the grindstone and put everything away (well, there was some stuff that needed to be thrown away). And then I actually cleaned the house.

I hate cleaning house, especially for the sake of cleaning. I’d much rather do it for a fun reason, like the impending arrival of dinner guests.

So what was my Nike, “just do it” moment? It was down to crunch time, guests were going to arrive that evening and the house needed some focused attention. And it got it. I was really struck by how piles that had lingered on a desk in a common room (not my work desk) for months disappeared when I put my focus on clearing it. A lot of that stuff ended up in my office—I put it all away the day after the party.

I see this in my clients all the time. They have clutter (or non-functioning system) that’s been bugging them for ages, but they haven’t done anything about it. They just put up with it. Then they bring me in, focus their energy on it, and in a short space of time, it’s dealt with.

I know I’m guilty of thinking about doing stuff, fussing at myself for not doing it, and just generally wasting time and energy over clutter or problems without actually taking action. That is so ineffective and, often, counterproductive.

Instead of worrying about how I’m going to do something, or where I’m going to find the time to do it, I should just do it. Focused energy is amazing.

I’m thoroughly enjoying my clean house. (And fabulous leftovers.) I’m happy to report that that desktop is still clear!

Linda Samuels' Ultimate Organizing Giveaway

3 November 2010

Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, author of The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection is a marketing genius. She’s my predecessor as marketing director of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization and she left very large shoes to fill.

I featured a Q&A with Linda just two weeks ago here on my blog. I’m bringing her up again so soon because she’s created a great giveaway to help promote her book and I wanted to tell you about it.

All the details are here on her website. But let me show you the prize.

Doesn’t it look inviting?

Linda’s giving away a basket of her favorite organizing books and products, including a $50 gift card from The Container Store. There are many ways to enter the giveaway, all detailed very clearly on her website.

Now Linda knows and I know that organizing isn’t all about products. But a hand-selected basket of excellent organizing resources is a great thing. The contest runs through November 11. Go enter!

Need more room to label your file folders?

27 October 2010

Do you have trouble getting all the information you want onto file folder labels? Whether you use a label maker, labels printed on your computer, or handwritten labels, it can be tough to fit everything you want on the label to make it meaningful.

The good folks at Smead offered to send me a couple of their newer file-folder products to review on my blog. I jumped at the chance, because I like learning about new products and I hadn’t had a chance to test these. (Also, they offered me a $20 Target gift card for posting a review, though I would have said yes without that extra incentive.)

I’d seen the SuperTab interior file folder labels at the Expo at last year’s NAPO conference. I was intrigued. These folders manage to have 90 percent more visible labeling space, despite being the standard 1/3 cut. They accomplish this by cutting the sides of the folder a little lower so the exposed area of the tab is larger (according to my tape measure, the exposed SuperTab area is a smidge under 2 cm while the standard size is 1 cm). In addition, they cut the front area of the file folder beneath the tab deeper, so that you can fit more information on the label itself (even if all that info isn’t exposed when there’s paper in the file).

Here’s a picture from their website, to give you an idea:

I think it’s a great idea to hand write file folder labels, because it makes it easier to create them. You don’t have to worry about having access to a label maker or a computer; just grab a pen. These extra-large tabs allow me to use a broader pen (like my beloved fine-point Sharpie) without worrying so much about running out of room.

The other product that Smead sent me is their new TUFF® hanging file folders with Easy Slide tab. These are extra-sturdy hanging folders with reinforced bar and heavier construction. What’s cool about them is the sliding tab. Rather than the tab’s plastic ends being stuck into slots as is customary, these slide on and are easily movable.

The Easy Slide tabs are 1/3 cut, so they’re larger than the standard 1/5 cut, which makes the tabs easier to read, since you can write larger or print in a larger font. The folders have the standard notches that you see in all hanging file folder labels, so you can use standard tabs in them, if you’d like. The Easy Slide tabs have little bumps in them that align with those slots, so it’s easy to make sure that the tabs line up with one another.

I usually recommend the straight-line method of aligning file folder tabs—selecting a position and putting all tabs in that same position so you don’t have the hassle of moving the tabs if you add a folder to a staggered line of tabs. With the Easy Slide tabs, it wouldn’t be hard to move the tabs if you did decide to stagger them.

I wish the Easy Slide tabs came in the more standard 1/5 cut size, because I love the Freedom Filer filing system (that’s an affiliate link), which comes with pre-printed labels that are the 1/5 cut size. But if you’re hand writing or creating your own labels, the 1/3 cut size gives you ample room.

P.S. I visited Smead’s Facebook page recently and saw that they’ve been in business since 1906. Impressive!

Declutter your inbox

22 October 2010

Lately, I’ve been taking a moment to unsubscribe from promotional emails I receive on a regular basis that I usually delete. Just a moment ago, I unsubscribed from promo emails from a major electronics retailer. When I thought about the last couple of times I shopped there, it was when I had something specific in mind. It had nothing to do with these promotional emails, which come almost on a daily basis.

I also unsubscribed from daily emails from a women’s clothing retailer. I used to shop there and loved the coupons that came via email. But they changed their clothing’s look and I haven’t purchased anything there in over a year. So I unsubbed. And it felt good.

An alternative would have been for me to create a rule in my Mac’s Mail program to automatically send those emails to a Coupons folder. But they would have just accumulated there. If I’m going to shop at one of these stores, I’m confident I could find those coupons through a Google search.

Do you have emails you receive on a regular basis that were once of interest and no longer are? Go ahead and click that Unsubscribe button on the bottom of the email. The law requires it to be there for a reason. You probably won’t miss the emails and if you do, you can always resubscribe.

If you do want to receive these emails but don’t want them in your face, consider having them automatically filter out of your line of sight into a special folder. But don’t forget to clean that folder out from time to time.

If decluttering your email inbox appeals to you, you can do the same thing for your physical mailbox by opting out of junk mail. The Federal Trade Commission offers advice on doing just that on its website.

Q&A with author Linda Samuels

18 October 2010

Back in February, I reviewed professional organizer Linda Samuels’ terrific book, The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection.

Linda is a friend of mine, a lovely person and my predecessor as Marketing Director of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (soon to be the Institute for Challenging Disorganization). Recently, I was given the opportunity to do a Q&A with her for my blog, and I jumped at the chance.

When I thought about what questions to email her, I came up with a few that interested me, mostly about the book-writing process. In my previous life, I was a book author and I know how grueling it can be. But I was a full-time writer. And Linda wrote (and published!) this book while working full time as a professional organizer, volunteering many hours for the NSGCD (and, probably, other groups), and being a wife and mother. So I wanted to hear from her how she managed that.

Here are my questions (in italics) and her answers. Enjoy! And when you’re through reading, please consider clicking on over to her website and buying, The Other Side of Organized. It really is a terrific book.

If you had to pick one thing that your clients most often want or need your help with (even if they don’t know it yet), what would it be?

Clients are overwhelmed by their thoughts, physical possessions and schedules. They don’t always know where to begin to make things better. So while I’m hired to help them with many different types of organizing projects, the most common thread is to help them get past the overwhelmed phase and figure out where and how to start.

What is your favorite piece of organizing advice?

Be patient with yourself. Getting organized is not a destination, but rather a process that takes time. There will be ups, downs and adjustments needed along the way.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I wanted to share a message of hope for those that struggle with or know someone that is challenged by disorganization. While there are many wonderful “how-to” organizing books available, I wanted to write a book that focused mostly on philosophical ideas about organizing and life balance. Why do we want to get organized? When are we organized enough? What are we passionate about? How can organization provide a base so that we can focus on what’s most important to us?

I know how busy you are, but you managed to wedge in writing and publishing this book. Do you have any time management advice you’d like to share?

I took a long time (as in years) to write part of the book. That made it easy to fit it into my full life. However, at the point I decided to complete the writing and publishing of the book within a nine month period, I set aside very specific blocks of time to do that. Sometimes that translated into 30-minute chunks. Other times I scheduled an entire day to focus. It also helped that I hired a book coach who helped me establish a timeline and delineate what needed to be done by when. It was useful to have structure and deadlines, even if they were self-imposed.

What did you learn about yourself in writing your book?

I discovered that I truly loved writing and working on a large scale, self-driven, creative project.

What has been your biggest surprise in the process of writing and publishing the book?

My biggest surprise came once I held the first printed copy in my hand. My goal that kept getting rewritten year after year on my long-term to do list was “Write Book.” So once I did that, I thought, “Now what?” I realized that the writing and publishing of the book was only the first phase. The next phase was marketing, which required a completely different set of skills. I am still learning.

Do you have any plans for writing another book?

I am sure there is another book in my future. For now, though, I’m concentrating on The Other Side of Organized.

Do you have a mantra?

I don’t know if I have a mantra, but there are thoughts that I think about often. Be grateful. Find the joy in each moment. Stop to appreciate the beauty around you. Let those you love know it.

Good intentions

14 October 2010

The other day I cleaned out my t-shirt drawer. One of the benefits of having a friend who runs a t-shirt company and creates fabulous new t-shirts designs on a regular basis is that I’m frequently given new t-shirts. I don’t want to say no to them, because they’re wonderful. But I wasn’t employing any kind of “one in/one out” policy.

So it had become difficult to put away my t-shirts because the drawer was so full.

Weeding out the drawer was actually more challenging than I expected, because some of the shirts had some sort of sentimental value. (Commemorative t-shirts from family reunions or half marathons I’d walked, for instance.) So to make it easier on myself, I decided that rather than donate the shirts, I’d cut them into tubes, loops the tubes together and knit with them.

I created quite a large stack of shirts that I was going to turn into a big craft project. I put them in a large shopping bag from the Container Store and left them on the bedroom floor. I thought about the next steps to transform these shirts into something functional (I thought I’d make a bathmat):

1. Buy a rotary cutter to cut the shirts into tubes (which meant I’d want to find a coupon first for the fabric store, to get a good deal on the rotary cutter).
2. Loop all the tubes together into a giant ball of “yarn”
3. Find a pattern or just decide how big I wanted the bathmat and how many stitches to cast on.
4. Take the project I currently have on giant needles off, so I could use those needles, or buy a set of US#35 circular needles.
5. Knit the thing. I knew from past experience that knitting with giant needles is actually kind of painful. (I once knit a really ugly rug out of potholder loops.)

The whole project didn’t sound like a ton of fun, but I was game.

Then, a day later, I came home to find the bag moved from the bedroom to the hall. My husband told me that the American Kidney Fund had called and asked if we had anything to donate. He remembered the bag of shirts (but forgot I was planning to knit with them) and scheduled a pick up. He apologized when I reminded him of my plans for that shirt.

I thought about finding other things to donate so I could keep the shirts to knit with. Then I thought about all the steps to getting my shirts ready to turn into a bathmat. Then I thought about whether I needed a bathmat made of t-shirts. Or whether I really wanted to knit one.

Then I decided to give away the shirts. I put that bag on the porch. And I felt liberated.

With my clients, I often see that they’d rather do something complicated with an item they’re ready to let go of. They strive for the perfect way to discard. Instead of just donating it to Goodwill, they’re going to take it to their kids’ school. Or mail it to a charity that has a special need for it. Or send it to a relative. And often that unwanted item sits in limbo—still clutter— because they don’t get around to doing that action.

That’s probably what would have happened with my t-shirts. They’d have sat in that bag on my bedroom floor, or perhaps moved to the room where I store my knitting supplies. After awhile they’d become invisible. Or I would have actually started cutting them into tubes and maybe even knit with them, but they’d have taken a bunch of time that I could have spent knitting something beautiful.

So once again I learned to take the easy road.Do the thing that takes fewer steps. It was very easy for me to just let the charity pick up that bag. And I can assure you that I don’t miss those shirts one bit. Nor am I itching to make a bathmat.