Peace of Mind Organizing

Update on my punctuality pledge

20 May 2009

A week ago, I blogged about how my aversion to being early (and tendency to be late) almost cost me my life when I started driving down the wrong side of a downtown St. Louis road, thinking I’d turned onto a one-way street.

After that happened, I vowed to give myself the gift of being early to appointments. I’ve taken that vow pretty seriously and I wanted to provide an update.

In the past week, I’ve had six appointments. I’m proud to say that I haven’t been late to any of them. I haven’t always been 15 minutes early (usually, it’s more like five), but I’ve at least been on time. (One of the appointments was getting to the airport by 5:45 a.m. this morning, so not being late at that hour felt like a real achievement!)

It has felt so great to not be eyeing the clock nervously in the car, calculating whether I’ll get there on time, or how late I’ll be. It has taken so much pressure off of me. And all it’s taken is planning to leave the house 15 minutes earlier than I need to.

Two weeks ago, I blogged about how we should try to allow life to be easy. How sometimes we get in our own way and how I crave a life of ease, one I glide through effortlessly.

My foray into punctuality has made me realize that my tendency to cram as much in as possible before I leave the house has made it very difficult to let life be easy. This shift in my thinking not only is helping me be more professional by arriving on time or early to appointments. it’s also giving me a marked improvement in my quality of life. If I’d realized what a difference it would make, I would have tried it sooner!

A money-saving (and green) card idea

18 May 2009

At our home, we like to give one another a bunch of cards when there’s a birthday. Last week was my husband’s birthday, so I bought him a half dozen or so. One of them was particularly funny. It pictured a couple of dinosaurs on the front with the caption “Remember us?” Inside it said, “We sat behind you in homeroom.” That cracked me up so much that I wanted to be able to give it to someone else. So instead of writing inside the card, I wrote on a Post-it® note and stuck the note inside the card. I did the same with the outside of the envelope. Now I can let someone else enjoy it.

It occurred to me later that I should have done that with all the cards I gave him. My husband wouldn’t have minded, since we usually just toss old cards. Now we’ll enjoy them, then sign them and give them to others. This way we’ll save money on cards and put less into the trash stream.

I just had to share, in case you want to try the same thing.

Paper or plastic?

15 May 2009

No, this isn’t a post about green organizing (though I am doing a free talk on that topic next month…you might consider coming if you live in St. Louis). Today I’m thinking about keeping track of things using a paper planner/notebook versus an electronic device.

Personally, my calendar is electronic (iCal on my Mac and iPod Touch) and my task list is paper (I use a Miquelruis notebook for my Autofocus task list). That works for me.

What got me thinking was I read the enjoyable ebook, Todoodlist, by Nick Cernis. Nick’s a big fan of simplicity and unplugging your organizing life. His little ebook provides some innovative ways to harness the power of the pen.

The great thing about this book is that it’s a fun read, regardless of whether you’re on board 100 percent with his ideas. It starts with seven fun essays on simplicity, which are followed by five solutions for using paper and pen to embrace simplicity. They include:

• The Toodlist (a sort of mind-mapping way to keep track of tasks)
• The Sudoku Calendar (which uses a Sudoku puzzle as framework to track up to seven recurring or important events)
• The Tagbook (which adapts the concept of photo tagging for use in a idea-catcher notebook)
• Glyphies (personal shorthand symbols)
• The Banana Reminder (the concept of location-based written reminders)

Me, I’m not looking to make a change, really. So I read the book with an open mind but perhaps not an entirely open heart, if that makes any sense. I found some of his ideas, like The Toodlist and The Sudoku Calendar to seem overly complicated (for me, anyway).

But The Tagbook really grabbed me. I haven’t yet implemented it, but I plan to. (What am I waiting for?)

The book also includes Nick’s five steps to simplify your life (automate, delegate, reduce, drop, focus), along with a blueprint for launching products, another for lunching (i.e. better meetings) and, finally, his final, powerful message:

Lead a simple life. Chase your dreams. The rest will follow.

I like this little book and its message of embracing simplicity. The essays are really fun—they alone are worth the $14 price tag. In fact, I like it so much I’ve added a link to it in my recommended section in the right-hand column. (Full disclosure: that’s an affiliate link, so if you click on it I get a cut.)

It’s paradoxical that a book eschewing electronics is offered only in an electronic format. But it makes sense. The book is easy to purchase and easy to read on the screen—its formatting is delightful. No trees were killed for paper to print it on and no truck is needed to deliver it. So it’s environmentally friendly.

Look at that. I’ve managed to bring this post back to the topic of green organizing. (Sign up for my talk!)

On being early

13 May 2009

I’m punctuality challenged, as I’ve blogged about in the past. This is not a desirable quality in a professional organizer. Or anybody, really. I always try to do too much before getting myself out the door to the appointment.

On Monday morning, when I called my friend, the super organizer Aby Garvey to say that I would be late meeting her for coffee, we talked about the fact that we both actively avoid being early. We agreed that it feels like a literal waste of time to get somewhere early.

Then I recalled a conversation I had about a year ago with another super organizer, Jill Revitsky. Jill shared with me that she gives herself the gift of being 15 minutes early to appointments. That way, she avoids stressing out if she runs into traffic or other delays. When she arrives early, she either relaxes or brings along work. “The gift of being early.” I love that phrasing.

Yesterday, my aversion to being early could have cost me my life (or, worse, someone else’s). That sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. I was on my way to give a talk to an employee group and I was running late, as usual. I was so intent on getting downtown, finding the building and finding parking, that I was just in my own world. I was already five minutes late when I spied the parking garage. For some reason, I thought that the street I was turning left onto was a one-way street. I turned into the far left lane of a two-way street. (I was going to be turning left at the next light.)

So there I was, driving on the wrong side of the street, like I was in Australia or something. I was so in my own gotta-get-there zone, I didn’t even figure it out when cars started coming toward me and had to swerve around me. It wasn’t until one honked that I figured out I was in the wrong. Luckily, it was just one block and I got out of there without a collision. But it shook me up.

That experience has given me a new perspective on being early. I’m going to try being intentionally early to avoid the stress of running late. I’ll take along my Autofocus notebook so I always have something to work on while I wait. I’m going to view being early as a gift, rather than a waste of time.

I got to put this new philosophy to the test this morning. I had a 9 a.m. appointment for my annual mammogram and left the house with plenty of time to get there. Traffic was light and it looked like I was going to be 15 minutes early. Old habits kicked in and I started thinking about where I might stop in order to make good use of that time. Then I let go of that thinking. I decided to just get there early. And a great thing happened. Stress vanished. It felt so good not to be rushed. And it actually felt nice to be early. Maybe I can get used to this!

Postal rates up again

12 May 2009

This one snuck up on me. The postal rates went up yesterday. Thanks to the Forever stamp I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to what it costs to mail a letter. I stocked up on Forever stamps a couple of postal-rate increases ago.

But it’s still good to know how much a first-class stamp costs, what the extra ounce costs and how much a one-ounce large envelope costs to mail. According to the U.S. Postal Services website, the new stamp rates are as follows:

First-class letter (one ounce): 44 cents
First class letter (two ounces): 61 cents
First class large envelope (one ounce): 88 cents
Postcard: 28 cents
Priority mail flat-rate envelope: $4.95
Express mail flat-rate envelope: $17.50

The price of a first-class stamp went up two cents. The postal service is happy to sell you some two-cent stamps if you have 42-cent stamps left over.

I like to use USPS website to calculate postage for individual envelopes and packages. If I’m using priority or express mail, I’ll often pay online and print the shipping label.

If you buy Forever stamps now, they’ll cost 44 cents but they’ll be good forever. I’m awfully glad I stocked up on them.

Even with the increase in price, I’m still amazed that for less than the price of a can of soda I can have an envelope picked up and my house and delivered efficiently right to the doorstep of the recipient. What a country.

Travel tips from a real road warrior

11 May 2009

Peter Shankman, the innovator of the service Help a Reporter Out which matches reporters who need sources with sources who need publicity, logs something like 400,000 miles a year. He recently wrote a blog post with wonderfully detailed tips on the tricks and gadgets he uses to make business travel a little easier.

It’s a must-read blog post as far as I’m concerned. I love knowing his favorite luggage (Ogio), for example. I’d never heard of the Scott-e-vest, a travel vest with 20 or so pockets (and a low profile) so you can load up your electronic gadgets, then send the whole vest through the x-ray machine at airport security. The comments (there’s an even 100 as of this moment) also have wonderful tips. It’s a traveler’s bonanza!

Thanks, Peter, for sharing this great information!

It should be easy

7 May 2009

In working with my life coach, Shannon Wilkinson, I’ve discovered that my driving force is ease. I like things to be easy. That’s why I love living in St. Louis, where the living is easy (recent highway closures notwithstanding) and didn’t like living in New York City, where the hassle factor is high. Ease trumps excitement in my book.

Today, I was fighting back feeling overwhelmed and felt like my creative juices were all clotted up. I needed to do some planning, some brainstorming and nothing was coming out of my head. So, naturally, I decided to take a shower.

As I stepping into the shower, the wise words of super coach Michael Neill came to my mind. “Why is it so hard to let it be easy?” I’ve taken training with Michael, read his books, listened to his radio show, You Can Have What You Want on Hay House Radio and have heard him say those words many times. Why I don’t think of them more often, I don’t know.

As I stood in the warm shower, I felt my creative juices starting to flow as freely as the water. I realized that the tasks I had ahead of me were simple ones. I had just imagined them to be difficult. So I got out of the shower, got dressed, sat down at my computer and started working.

Two things on my list are now completed. I’m prepared for the first class of the May Session of Declutter Happy Hour, which starts in just two hours. This blog post is written. There are more time-sensitive tasks to do (and plenty that aren’t time sensitive), but I know it will all get done.

Life’s starting to glide along again, as if coated in silicone. I don’t know why I let life get frustrating when all I need to do is let it be easy.