Peace of Mind Organizing

I wrote a novel!

30 November 2009

I finished my novel on Friday, November 27, three days early. I wrote a few hundred words past the 50,000-word goal. And my book had an actual plot that came to a graceful conclusion.

Will I do anything with it? That remains to be seen. I’m not sure I’m interested in putting in the kind of work that it would require in order to make it marketable to a publisher. The point of this exercise was to see if I could do it. And I did it!

It took me about an hour a day, first thing in the morning. A few days I had to get up extra early in order to get my words in before I had to leave for a client. But, mostly, it wasn’t a hardship. Here’s the best part: each day between November 1 and 27, I started the day with an achievement. That’s an excellent way to start the day, believe me!

I think I’m going to designate the first hour of each work day a “power hour.” This month-long-novel-writing exercise has demonstrated that the first hour of the morning is a very productive time of day for me. If each month I work toward a goal during my power hour, I think I’ll achieve a whole lot.

After all, if I can write an entire novel in a month — a novel that was completely unplanned in terms of its plot or characters — I think I can pretty much do anything I put my mind to.

How will you challenge yourself in the new year?

The big thing I'm thankful for

25 November 2009

I started to write a blog post like those I’ve written on Thanksgivings past about the things I’m grateful for. Gratitude is so important, and I absolutely love that we have a national holiday devoted to it.

But this year, I’d just like to highlight one thing that I am so humbly thankful for: the opportunity I have as an organizer to have a positive impact on the life of my clients.

The other day I received a thank-you note from the just-married daughter of a long-term client. I’d sent a wedding gift and she wrote me a great thank you. It said, in part,

“Just so you know, all the time I spent watching you help my mom has rubbed off on me and I am happier and feel freer to live the life I want. What a great way to start a marriage!”

That completely made my day. It made me realize that I not only help individuals, I help their family members. And I make a living at it. It’s amazing.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Help for the holidays

24 November 2009

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m really lucky because we never host Thanksgiving dinner, so Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday I have to get ready for. My husband even does the cooking for our contribution to dinner. But I know I’m unusual. Many people are looking around the house this week, thinking of what they have to do to whip it into shape for guests.

If you’re one of those folks, I implore you resist the urge to gather up your stuff and stash it away. That’s a short-term solution with long-term consequences. Rather, I urge you to take the time to actually do a little decluttering in the process of getting your house ready. And I’m even offering some help: the Quick Clutter Fix. It’s a free eight-minute audio from me and my Declutter Happy Hour partner, Shannon Wilkinson. It also includes a free pdf of the seven-step process I introduce to handle your clutter emergency without hiding stuff from yourself.

So that’s Thanksgiving. What about Christmas? There’s so much to do for Christmas, and, for most folks, decluttering is among the least enjoyable of the many tasks. That’s why Shannon and I are offering a holiday special on Declutter Happy Hour. If you purchase it between now and Friday, you’ll get $20 off. As soon as you buy it and confirm your subscription, you’ll get the first of 28 daily emails. By the time Christmas rolls around, you’ll have received four weeks of advice, support and inspiration for your decluttering efforts. (That’s right, Christmas is only 31 days from today.)

I have a third way for you to get some very special, customized help. The aforementioned Shannon is a life coach. She’s my life coach. And she’s amazing. She’s able to help me make shifts that eliminate emotional barriers to action. It truly feels like magic.

So here’s the thing. It’s a good news/bad news thing. The bad news is that Shannon has developed carpal tunnel syndrome and she can’t type. This is making her crazy and it’s opened up some time on her calendar for the next couple of weeks while she heals. The good news is that she can talk on the phone. So she’s offering a Carpal Tunnel Coaching Special between now and December 4. With this special you can get an hour-long phone coaching session for only $99. (That’s just over half her regular price.) This could be a life-changing hour, believe me. I urge you to jump at the chance. All the details are on her website. I imagine the slots will go fast!

So there you have, it three ways to help you get ready for the holidays if clutter is standing in the way of you and your holiday peace and joy. The holidays don’t have to be stressful with help so readily available.

Quick update on my novel

20 November 2009

I’m happy to report that I’ve written every day this month on the 50,000-word novel I’m writing for National Novel Writing Month. I’m well on track to accomplish my goal of the completion of a short novel during the month of November.

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about what I’ve learned about what it’s taken to achieve this goal can be compared with tackling any large project, like decluttering.

So here are the statistics, as of this morning, just following my writing session:

• I’ve written 36,243 words.

• I’m 2903 words ahead of my daily quota of 1667 words needed to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That means I could take a couple of days off from writing and still meet my goal. (I don’t intend to take any days off; I want to keep my mojo going.)

• I’ve written an average of 1810 words a day. (I know this because my writing buddy Shannon Wilkinson wrote a fantastic spreadsheet for us to keep track of this stuff.) On my most prolific day (which was November 1), I wrote 2427 words. On the day I was most pressed for time, I wrote only 740 words.

• I’m 72 percent of the way finished.

I can only imagine these statistics fascinate me much more than they fascinate you, but I couldn’t help but share, since I had them at my fingertips.

I’ll update here once I’ve written those magical words THE END.

Thumbs up for new book: Unclutter Your Life in One Week

18 November 2009

Erin Doland, the editor-in-chief of the great blog Unclutterer has come out with a new book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week. I’m a huge fan of Unclutterer and was honored to have a guest post on the blog last summer. So I’m predisposed to like this book.

If you’re a fan too, you’ll recognize Erin’s grounded sensibility and her wit and clear writing. But don’t think this book is just a compilation of her best blog posts. It’s an entirely new work, one that strives to systematically help the reader unclutter his or her whole life—work, home, time, leisure, the whole enchilada.

It’s ambitious and it’s comprehensive. The book starts with Erin’s own story of living in such clutter she had to walk through paths in her small apartment through waist-high piles of stuff. She tells of her husband lovingly telling her that he could no longer with all the stuff and of her determination, at that moment, to unclutter it all.

I’ve met Erin and I’ve been reading her blog for several years and, believe me, it’s hard to imagine her living in that kind of clutter. But that I love that she shares this history with the readers. She also shares the habits she’s developed to keep her life simple and running smoothly (they’re exemplary). It’s really nice for readers to know where she started, so they can see themselves getting where she is now.

If you could actually do everything she suggests in seven days—decluttering home and office, creating new routines and changing work and productivity habits—you really could unclutter your life in one week. But it would have to be a really supercharged week. I know I wouldn’t have the energy for it.

You don’t have to pressure yourself to do everything she suggests in just one week. Just use the book as a guidebook for project after project.

Erin provides clear, sensible advice. She’s practical. She understands. And she sets a great example.

If you’re looking for direction in going through the process of simplifying your life, this book will provide it. When you’ve finished one thing, you can just move on to the next. This is a book I’ll be recommending to clients.

I've hung up the car phone

17 November 2009

I got into a minor traffic accident on Interstate 44 at the end of September. I had passed someone on the left just as another person passed that car on the right, and we merged into the center lane, in front of the slow-moving car, at the same time. There were no injuries and my car wasn’t even damaged (though the other driver’s car was, slightly).

It shook me up. One of the first things I thought of after it happened was that I was so glad I hadn’t been talking on my cell phone. That would have caused me to question whether I was at fault. As it was, I was able to clearly recall what happened when I spoke to the insurance companies.

Ever since the accident, I’ve been trying more cautiously and I’ve also stopped chatting on my phone while driving. I’ll make a quick call if I’m running late, but that’s about it.

I also happen to be working with some clients who live some distance from my home. One is more than an hour away. This has given me a great deal of time in the car. In the past, I’d have called a friend or colleague to pass the time while I drive. Thanks to my new-found (and completely voluntary) prohibition on talking and driving, I’ve been getting work done while I drive.

I’ve been listening to talks and podcasts on my iPod Touch rather than chatting on the phone. At the moment, I’m listening to the excellent marketing course Brain Audit. I’m getting great ideas for my business and using all this driving time productively.

If you feel like you don’t have enough hours in the day to read or otherwise expand your knowledge and if you spend a good deal of time getting from Point A to Point B, you might consider turning off your cell phone and turning on your mp3 player. I feel like I’ve added two productive hours to my work day. And the best part is that it hasn’t impinged on my sleep or my leisure time!

Why I love Twitter

16 November 2009

November 12 was the one-year anniversary of my signing up for Twitter. I have to admit that it took a little persuading on the part of my friend Shannon Wilkinson to get me to sign up. I didn’t get the concept and I thought it would be a mindless time suck. I had the rationale that I’ve heard time and time again from people who don’t understand Twitter that I didn’t care to read about the minutiae of other people’s lives, nor was I interested in writing about my own.

Shannon patiently explained that that’s not what Twitter’s about. Twitter is about sharing resources and getting to know others.

As usual, Shannon was right. Twitter has a been a great resource for me and is easily my favorite social-networking site. So today I’d like to share a dozen of the reasons (in no particular order) that I love Twitter.

• It’s educational. I follow smart people who post links to really great blogs posts and websites. I learn so much.

• It’s changed the way I read blogs. I no longer try to read a certain number of blogs on a very regular basis. There are just too many good blogs out there and not enough time. Instead, when I’m on Twitter I check out the individual blog posts that people I respect recommend. I’m exposed to many sites I would not otherwise know about.

• It’s a great way to get great customer service. Many companies have employees whose jobs are to monitor Twitter. Thanks to a (complimentary) tweet I made about Charter earlier this year, my wish for a specific DVR came true within days. (Thank you, Eric, aka @Umatter2Charter).

• I save money. I hear about discounts and coupons on Twitter. Sometimes they’re twitter-only specials. That rocks.

• I can keep abreast of pop culture. I love pop culture. Entertainment Weekly is my bible and I read the print version religiously. But there’s so much more on EW.com that isn’t in the magazine. I would rarely remember to check out that website. Now I follow my favorite EW columnists (like Michael Slezak) and click on the links he suggests.

• It’s a constructive way to use down time. In the past, when I needed a little break, I’d play a solitaire game or maybe surf around the web aimlessly. Now I check out my twitter feed and I’m either entertained or I learn something. So for me, it’s not a time suck.

• Twitter brings hits to my blog. When I write a blog post I think is particularly good, I’ll post a link to it on Twitter. And some of my followers will click on it. I’m sure I get more clicks this way than I would without Twitter. If it’s a great blog post, one (or more) of my followers will tweet about it and their followers will become exposed to my work. Everyone wins.

• I get to see the private, witty side of some of my colleagues. I have organizing colleagues whom I see only at conferences when they’re in full professional mode. But on Twitter, they let their hair down sometimes. I get to know details of their private lives that really help humanize them. I love that.

• There aren’t quizzes or games or pokes. I admit it: I’m not a huge fan of Facebook. I can’t stand seeing all the quiz results and I hate being poked. Twitter comes in 140-word bites. Easy peasy.

• It’s a great writing exercise. I love the challenge of getting my point across in 140 characters or fewer. Add a link and you have even less to work with, particularly if you want to leave room in the message so people can repost (or “retweet” or “RT” it). It can be fun whittling the character count down without diluting the message.

• There’s no pressure to read everything. I follow 605 people. There’s no way I could read everything they tweet. So I just dip in and dip out, reading what’s in front of me at that moment, almost like a stream of consciousness thing. I’ll do a search for people I’m particularly interested in, so I don’t miss their tweets (I use Tweetie and that’s easy). It’s the opposite of overwhelming. I just read what’s in front of me.

• You don’t have to ask (or grant) permission. You can follow anyone on Twitter. And anyone can follow you (though you can block people from reading your tweets). So you follow someone you admire without having to ask them if it’s okay and worrying about their rejecting—or ignoring—you.

If you’ve been tempted to try out Twitter, or if you tried in the past but gave up, maybe you should try again. It’s all about who you follow. If you want to follow some smart people, go to my page on Twitter and see who I’m following and select some to follow yourself. You’ll find organizers, internet marketing gurus, celebrities, lots of fun people.