Peace of Mind Organizing

Don't squander the holiday

28 May 2010

It’s a long weekend in the U.S. Memorial Day weekend typically marks the beginning of summer. It’s been feeling like summer here in St. Louis for the past week or two, so it feels like it’s about time.

As a self-employed person, I get to decide whether to take Monday off. (Since I’m not the mother of small — or any — children, I really get to control my time.) The boss side of me suggests that I use the day to work. I have a long to-do list (including working on the technical side of launching a new products section of my website; not exactly fun, but indeed important, stuff). That to-do list isn’t going to get any shorter unless I pay it focused attention.

The employee side of me says I should take the day off. If I worked for a regular employer (assuming I wasn’t working in retail or food service), I’d get the day off. And I’d get paid for it. Holidays are important for rejuvenating and re-energizing.

So what do I do? Invest in my business by treating it like a work day? Or invest in my well-being by giving myself the day off?

I’m not exactly sure the answer to this question. But here’s one thing I do know. The worst thing I can do is waffle on it. In the past, I’ve taken a day like this, told myself I needed to work, then spent the day dragging my feet about it. The result: I got neither the benefit of a day off nor the benefit of a day of work.

I see this in my clients who feel like they can’t have any fun until they get their homes organized. But that task is too overwhelming, so they don’t actually work on it. Instead, they spend all their free time sitting in their homes feeling guilty about the clutter. I blogged about this in one of my favorite blog posts, called Self-care.

So this weekend, I’m going to vow to go one way or the other: On Memorial Day I’ll either focus on getting some real work done or give myself a good break and have some fun. I could do a hybrid: work part of the day, then take the rest of the day off. What I won’t do is waste the holiday by piddling around pretending to work and not getting anything done!

Punishment versus rewards

26 May 2010

Back in the days I was a pet writer and wrote about dog training, I wrote repeatedly on the effectiveness of rewards over punishment.

Why, then, am I a little surprised that my recent experiment in using the threat of punishment to get me to do something wasn’t a resounding success?

I’m talking about my 12-week trial of stickK.com to get me to exercise regularly. As I blogged before, stickK has you make a commitment and give them a credit card number. If you don’t keep your commitment, they send the amount of money you pledged to either a charity or anti-charity (an organization you don’t want to receive your money) of your choice.

I opted for an anti-charity. According to my stickK pledge, an organization I do not support would get five of my hard-earned dollars each week that I didn’t exercise at least four times.

It was effective in that I did exercise four times each week during the 12-week trial and the organization didn’t get a dollar from me. But something surprising happened inside of me. The threat of the punishment meant that I achieved the goal, but I never exceeded it (except one week, when I exercised five times). I’d find myself deciding whether or not to exercise on a given day based on whether I needed to in order to meet my goal. Furthermore, the quality of the exercise declined. I’d do just enough to be able to say I’d met the goal. I didn’t think about doing the most beneficial exercise. Before this experiment, I was exercising an average of five times a week, I’d say. And I was mixing hard with easy.

What does it mean? I think it means that I respond much better to a carrot than a stick. After the 12 weeks were over, I took a bit of a hiatus from exercising. I think I’ve done it just once in the past week.

But this morning it hit me: My 30th high school reunion is coming up in July. I want to look my best. Now that’s incentive for exercising. With the specter of punishment gone and the prospect of reward dangling in front of me, I think I’ll be hopping on the Wii Fit tonight.

Next time you’re faced with doing something that you’re not crazy about, think about how you might reward yourself for doing it. Avoid punishments or penalties (including beating yourself up) for not doing it. Make it a meaningful reward. And don’t forget to actually follow through with it!

The doctor's exam room

21 May 2010

I had my annual mole check at the dermatologist’s office recently (all is well) and while I waited for the doctor in the exam room, I took note of how satisfyingly organized the room was.

Doctors and nurses don’t have time to look for stuff. It’s vitally important that they don’t grab the wrong implement or item. So an exam room is a paradigm of organization. Here’s what I noticed:

• Everything (syringes, needles, cotton balls, gauze pads, packets of things) was contained.

• Unwrapped things that needed to be kept clean were stored in clear containers with lids.

• Sealed things were stord in open bins to allow easy access.

• Every container was labeled.

• The outside of drawers were labeled as well. I didn’t open them and look, but I fantasize that the interiors of the drawers were neatly organized as well.

In a situation where time is money and cleanliness and professional appearance are critical, proper labeling and storage are critical. This superior level of organization illustrates the principles I teach my clients:

• Sort things into categories

• Use an appropriate sized container

• Use open bins whenever possible

• Label the heck out of everything

• Put things things away

My own office isn’t as tidy as my doctor’s exam room. Not today, anyway. But at least I’m not seeing clients in it. (Though there are occasional exceptions.) But I found the level of organization in that exam room so enjoyable. Next time I clean and organize my office (maybe this weekend?), I’ll have to try to channel my inner physician.

Closet issues

17 May 2010

Cleaning out the clothes closet is difficult for many people. Clothes can represent so much — like music, they can do a great job of capturing a feeling about an occasion or part of life. They also can represent hopes. You hope to wear that size again. Or you hope to have an occasion to wear that evening gown.

The trouble with hanging on to clothes that you don’t or can’t wear is that an overcrowded closet makes it so difficult to care for the clothes you do wear. It’s hard to put clothes away if they’re packed in too tight. They also get wrinkled. And it’s much harder to see what you have.

I was just perusing the March 2010 issue of O Magazine, whose theme is “De-Clutter Your Life!” In one of the articles, Oprah Winfrey goes through her closet trying to decide what to keep and what to let go of, with the help of the magazine’s creative director, Adam Glassman. What struck me about the article was that even Oprah, who has an almost unimaginable about of money, had difficult letting go of stuff. At one point in her life she had a very limited wardrobe because of budget. “Even now, wasting money on clothes makes me crazy,” she admits in the article.

After insisting on saving some beautiful items (she calls a pair of boots she’s never worn “closet jewelry”), Oprah agrees to let go of trendy items she doesn’t wear. It appears that Adam’s suggestion that the discarded clothing be auctioned off on Ebay to raise funds for OWLA, Oprah’s leadership academy for South African girls, makes it easier for her to let go.

I see this in my clients; if they know the article of clothing will be loved by someone else, they’re more able to let it go. They’d like to give stuff to me, but my policy is not to accept items that my clients are letting go of. (It prevents the appearance of conflict of interest and helps keep my home clutter-free.)

So next time you’re trying to weed out your closet, remember that Oprah found it difficult. You can imagine how beautiful the clothes she was discarding were, but she did it.

As an aside, my friend, the organizer extraordinaire Geralin Thomas helped me weed and organize my closet on a visit in 2009. She convinced me to arrange my clothes by color, something I resisted. I felt it was hyper-organized and would be too complicated for me. Boy, was I wrong. I love having my clothes sorted by color. (I organize them by category first, then by color. All blouses are together, in color order, all jackets, pants, etc.) Not only is it beautiful, but it makes it very easy to find what I need and to put individual items away.

And the less densely populated the rods, the more I enjoy my color-coded closet.

Cool uses for things hanging around your house

12 May 2010

I get Real Simple’s daily emails of cool finds. Today they had a link to their wonderful slideshow of 15 New Uses for Your Odds and Ends.

I love this stuff! Among the great ideas:

• Use a singleton earring as a push pin on a bulletin board
• Hang a skateboard on a kid’s room wall to act as a shelf
• Turn old coffee cans into a wine rack.

I hope you enjoy these neat ideas (some of them are reader-submitted) as much as I did. If you’re interested in subscribing to their daily email, scroll to the bottom of the page, look for “Real Simple Newsletters” at the bottom and check the newsletter(s) you’re interested in. The one I get is “Daily Finds.”

That stuck feeling

10 May 2010

I’ve had a difficult time coming up with insightful blog posts lately. I think about what to write and nothing comes to me.

I pondered the why of that this morning and it hit me that I’m probably feeling a little stuck because my surroundings are getting clogged up. I do clear off my desk every night, but I don’t clear my floor every night. I’m such a messy person that when I’m busy I drop stuff on the floor, rather than taking the time to put it away. Even if the stuff on the floor is at the perimeter of the room so it’s not underfoot, it still makes the room feel clogged. And it makes my mind feel clogged.

So why don’t I clean it up? It’s about priorities, isn’t it? I had stuff I had to do yesterday to get ready for today’s NAPO St. Louis meeting. And it was my husband’s birthday so I couldn’t spend the whole day working. (I’m not a mom, so I didn’t have any Mother’s Day festivities, beyond an hour-long phone call to my mom.) It occurred to me yesterday that I should take the time to clean my office, but instead, I spent the time taking care of my meeting preparations.

This morning when I walked into my office and sat down to write, nothing came. I’m thinking that if I had taken the time to clean my office yesterday, the words might have flowed today.

I have 15 minutes before I need to get in the shower to start getting ready to leave for the day. I’m going to see what order I can create in that time. I’d take a before picture, except my camera is upstairs.

I love snatching bits of decluttering time. Let’s see if this helps. I’ll let you know.

Edited to add: It’s 17 minutes later. I have cleared off the floor, working in fast motion, and even took my recycling out to my car. When I entered the room after my trip to the car, I looked around and let out a sigh of relief. I feel like I can breathe again.

It took me 17 minutes to go from stuck to breathing more freely. 17 minutes! I don’t know why I always have to be reminded of the power of a quarter hour in creating order.

Reflections on the 2010 NAPO Conference

7 May 2010

I’ve been very busy since I returned from the 2010 NAPO conference and never posted anything here about the conference itself, which was wonderful.

Well, I’m still busy, so instead I’m going to post a link to a wonderful blog post by Chattanooga organizer and NAPO conference veteran, Julie Bestry who’s written a wonderful blog post called NAPO through the Eyes of a Seasoned Conference Goer for Janet Barclay’s blog at Organized Assistant, with her reflections on the conference. It’s chock full of photos (I even pop up in one) and really gives you a sense of the conference experience.

If you’ve ever wanted to attend a NAPO conference and wondered what it was like, Julie will fill you in with this post! If you like Julie’s writing, you can read her blog Paper Doll, Tackling The Stacks And Piles at Online Organizing.com.