Peace of Mind Organizing

Confessions of a time-management-system junkie

21 April 2009

Through the years, I’ve tried many time- and task-management systems. Like many people who are into this sort of thing (the type of people who enjoy walking the aisles of an office-supply store), I was always drawn to new, shiny systems. I’ve used the FranklinCovey® system, Daytimer®, Day Runner®, QuoVadis, the Planner Pad®, even dabbled in GTD. About 18 years ago, I was practically apoplectic with excitement when I purchased a European-style planner called Time/File. (Does anyone remember that? It was a lower-cost version of Time/Design, which is now apparently called Time/system.)

Then, in 2006, I read the book Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management and I was smitten with the system described in it. I was doing so well with it, particularly after its inventor Mark Forster created a modification, that I was actually a tiny bit reluctant to try out Mark’s brand-new time-management system, Autofocus when he announced in late 2008 that he was looking for beta testers.

I signed up instantly because I think Mark’s one smart fellow. I was curious to see what he’d come up with. But I was a little concerned about stopping the good thing I had going.

I needn’t have worried. Autofocus is working beautifully for me. It’s very different from Do It Tomorrow, in that it’s much less structured. As a small-business owner, my time is my own and when I’m at my desk I can decide what I do. (Sometimes that used to mean I’d decide to spend time playing online solitaire or reading about American Idol... okay I still do that.)

Autofocus, which is designed to use my intuition (combined with my rational mind) to select what I’m going to work on next, is perfect. I’m getting so much done. And I’m doing it with a sense of lightness and freedom, something I’ve never found in a time-management system before. I’ve raved about Autofocus several times in the four months I’ve been using it. Click the autofocus tag in the left column to see a list of those entries.

I love Autofocus so much I’m giving a free talk tomorrow night to explain it. (I’m doing this with Mark Forster’s permission.) If you’re in St. Louis and interested in learning more about it, please go to the events page of my website and sign up.

I’ve been using Autofocus faithfully since its debut on January 5. Some days I don’t consult the list because I have no discretionary time. But the list is always waiting for me. And when I’m ready to work, I can plow through the tasks. This system feels like a real keeper to me. Given my past history of planner jumping, that’s saying something.

Looking for some comfort?

20 April 2009

In January, I took Jen Louden’s wonderful Virtual Retreat. Jen, known as “The Comfort Queen,” offered up a four-day weekend full of talks (over the phone) from inspiring self-help folks. It was terrific.

She’s now offering the recordings from that retreat for sale. And she’s offering a Live Refresher Day, this Saturday, where she will provide three live call-in sessions. Click here for more details.

If you missed out on the January Virtual Retreat (15 sessions), here’s your chance to listen in. It was designed as a way to find comfort and courage in the current economic environment. I think we need that now more than ever as the media continue to bombard us with discouraging news. The cost of the recordings plus the Refresher Day is $99. (There are some bonuses, too.) If you just want the Refresher Day, it’s only $25.

If the economy’s getting you down, this might be just the jump start you need.

Wii Fit update

17 April 2009

I posted almost two weeks ago that I’d purchased a Wii Fit and was pretty ga-ga over it. I wondered whether my infatuation would wear off over time.

It’s been only a couple of weeks, but I’m still absolutely loving it. I’ve decided to set a goal of using it six days a week. Getting a day off helps me psychologically and Thursday are tough because I have my knitting group that night and I usually don’t want exercise afterward. (My knitting group meets at a bar.)

I’m happy to say that I’ve used it every day, except Thursdays, since I started. I’m improving my scores on most of the exercises. I’m not looking to lose weight, but I set a goal of lowering my BMI slightly over two weeks and I’ve met that goal.

My favorite measurement is the Wii Fit Age. At the beginning of each session, the Wii Fit’s balance board weighs you and measures your ability to maintain balance and gives you your Wii Fit Age. My real age is 46 (Wii Fit takes real age into account). I don’t think I’ve had a Wii Fit Age higher than 46, thank goodness. And one day my Wii Fit Age was 30. Woo hoo! More recently, it was 40, though.

Thanks to Wii Fit, I’ve exercised at least 30 minutes a day, including yoga (which I’ve always wanted to pursue but never really had the patience), strength, aerobic, and balance exercises.

I’m hopeful I’ll maintain my enthusiasm for the Wii Fit. I’m starting to feel fitter, which is fabulous. Wii has made me realize I need to work on my upper body strength and it gives me the ability to do that. (It’s also made me realize my legs are strong, which is good to know.)

Now I’m thinking about other Wii games to buy. Dance Dance Revolution is high on the list….

Handmade goodness

16 April 2009

Time for a little knitting update. Because my mind and fingers were having problems with a lace project I decided to fall back on some simple knitting. A felted bag. (My husband wonders what I do with all the felted bags I make…I use them to house knitting works in progress.)

I made my first Lucy Bag a very popular pattern I’ve seen friends make. Simple and attractive. I used turquoise Cascade 220 yarn from my stash and bought some economical Wool Pak 10 ply in a yellowy green to go with it. When I finished, the bag was a little smaller than I expected and I felt it needed some jazzing up. A lot of people put a pin on this bag, but I wanted to knit an embellishment.

So I made a little panel with the green yarn and knitted some turquoise flowers (with green centers) to go on it. (I got the extremely simple flower pattern from the great book Knitting Never Felt Better: The Definitive Guide to Fabulous Felting.) Here’s the result:

And a close-up of the flowers:

I have to give credit where it’s due: When I finished felting the flowers on their little base I had to figure out how to sew them to the bag. Sewing is not my strength. Luckily for me, I was going to be seeing my friend, seamstress extraordinaire Bobbi Nesladek, that very afternoon. I presented it to her and she sewed it on for me on the spot. She did a lovely job!

Speaking of Bobbi, she’s made me a couple of things I’m absolutely crazy about. And the good news is, she’s selling similar items in her DownZipper etsy shop.

I have an iPod Touch and I keep it naked without a case because I like its slimness when I’m using it. But I wanted it to be protected when it’s in my purse (where it tends to live when I’m not using it). So Bobbi made me a to-die-for iPod cozy. Here’s a photo:

And a peek at the interior:

I don’t see iPod cozies in her etsy shop at the moment, but I think she’s planning to add them. (Email her from her etsy site if you want her to make you one.)

In addition, Bobbi made me a fabulous wristlet. I adore my Butler Bag purse, but there are times when I just want to take my credit card, driver’s license, phone, iPod (in its cozy) and lipstick. This wristlet is perfect for that. And it’s so darned attractive. I’m giddy about it.

Check it out:

And the beautiful interior:

Don’t you love it? She’s selling wristlets now at DownZipper.

Bobbi belongs to a group of local etsy folks called ShowMeEtsy that’s putting on an event called Artropy at SqWires in Lafayette Square on Saturday, April 25. If you’re in St. Louis, check it out. I’m definitely going.

One fabulous component (from an organizer’s point of view) is the Upcycle exchange. If you have craft items that you’re looking to let go of, bring them to the event and you’ll get a 10 percent discount from participating ShowMeEtsy vendors. The etsy crafters will use your stuff to create more art. How cool is that?

Making April 15th less painful

15 April 2009

I have a very rocky relationship history with April 15. More often than not, I’d wake up on tax day with an anxious knot in my stomach and file an extension. Occasionally, I’d submit the taxes that day, but never without stress.

This year, things are different. Today, I woke up with no anxiety about taxes. Sure, I had to file our city earnings taxes and pay estimated taxes to state and feds. Easy stuff. The rest of the taxes were completed in March and the refunds have already been received.

What happened? Why the shift? It’s a combination of things, which I’ll share here in the hopes of making tax time for you next year a breeze. Here’s what we now do right:

1. Share the burden. For the first 17 years of our marriage, I handled all the financial details. In 2007, my husband very ably took it over. I still handle my business, but he does everything else. That is sweet relief.

2. Use financial software well. I’ve used Quicken for ages, but I used to enter data in batches, sporadically. In recent years, I’d save up a year’s worth of data to enter at once. Bad idea. My husband enters our financial data into Quicken daily. It’s part of his morning routine. (I’m not kidding.) So when it came time to do taxes, I had everything I needed for our house and his consulting businesses. (I wish I could say I did my bookkeeping for my business daily, but I don’t. I did catch up on 2008 by February 2009, though.)

3. Keep business and personal expenses separate. I don’t co-mingle business and personal funds which makes the Schedule C for my business easy to prepare.

4. Have a place to keep tax-related paper. I’m a big fan of Freedom Filer. One of its many strengths are its well-thought-out labels for storing paper related to taxes that have yet to be filed, as well as labels for filing completed taxes. When it came for me to fire up Turbo Tax, I had all the pieces of paper I needed handy.

5. Do it ourselves. After years of paying an enrolled agent to do my taxes, I decided to go back to Turbo Tax last year. When your ducks are in a row and you have a basic understanding of what’s deductible, Turbo Tax rocks, in my opinion.

I’m so happy to have mended my relationship with April 15. If your relationship with taxes is less than happy, don’t wait until January to think about taxes again. Start keeping track of your financial data immediately, establish a place to put tax-related paper, and enjoy a peaceful relationship with the IRS next year.

Peter Walsh teams with Office Max for new product line

13 April 2009

I love office products. I can spend an hour cruising the aisles of Office Max or Office Depot looking at their wares. I love that Office Max, in particular, has become more inventive, offering beautiful product lines like DiVOGA . Staples did the same thing last year with their M by Staples line.

Office Max has taken it another step by enlisting the help of superorganizer Peter Walsh (of whom I’m an unabashed fan) in creating a new product line called [IN]PLACE System by Peter Walsh.

It’s not often that I see office products that are truly innovative. But Peter Walsh has done it.

I took part in a webinar promoting the line and was sent some sample products. These are mix and match filing products that offer up ways to file that break the manila or hanging file folder mold.

The components of the system (so far) include file folders, document sleeves, a document wallet, file tote, interlocking hanging files, desktop sorter, magazine file, and various accessories. There’s also an expanding file and document envelope.

The files are made of durable translucent plastic. While I’ve noticed a trend toward beautiful printed file folders (as in the DiVOGA line), these are completely absent of color. If you want beautiful, you can simply slip a piece of pretty paper in the front. The file folders aren’t 1/3 or 1/5 cut. Instead, they’re straight across the top, with subtle white markings to show where you can affix post-it notes to use as file labels. And, of course, the system comes with specially designed post it notes, in five colors, for that purpose. And here’s something I love: there’s a notch in the side of the file folder just the right size to use a small binder clip to hold the contents in the file. So when you open the file, you don’t risk dumping the contents. Here’s a photo (courtesy of Office Max):

In addition to the post-its, the system comes with file-folder tabs held on by binder clips, and a special dry-erase pen to write on (and erase) the tabs. You can also use that pen to write right on the file folders (and erase the note).

The file tote has retractable handles. It’s two inches deep and seems like a great way to transport a whole project to a meeting or work location. If you had a huge project, there’s even a rolling case file (it seems to me that scrapbookers might go crazy for that). Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of the rolling case, but here’s the file tote:

I haven’t seen the desktop file, pictured in the front of the collection photo below, but Walsh described it as adjustable, to accommodate the various widths of document holders the system offers. So you can remove dividers, to make a wider slot. And this is cool: there’s a place in the back of the sorter to store the dividers you take out, so you don’t lose them.

This system has several things going for it, in my opinion: it’s highly customizable, reusable, and durable. You can make it beautiful if you want, but you don’t have to. I love that the components all work with one another. It’s very clear to me that a lot of thought went into this system.

When I visited Office Max, I found only the starter kit available. I’m assuming more of the products mentioned above will be on the shelves before long. Keep an eye out for it!

The vanishing day

10 April 2009

I’m writing this at 6 p.m. Six flippin’ p.m! I usually blog in the morning and when I mess up my routine, things tend to fall through the cracks.

I was really looking forward to today, an office day, with no time commitments. I had high hopes for plowing through my task list. I did, in fact, got a lot of stuff done, but I lost my mojo later in the day. I find that having an unstructured feels like a wonderful luxury, but the lack of structure often turns into a detriment for me.

It’s clear that I’m most focused in the morning. I went to bed early last night and got up early and actually stayed pretty focused and productive all morning. But once I broke for Wii Fit and lunch, the afternoon sort of slipped through my fingers like water or sand. This is why I’m blogging at 6 p.m.

It makes me realize the importance of knowing my peak times of day and trying to accomplish the stuff that takes brain power during those times. I had a strategic planning phone conversation with my Declutter Happy Hour partner, Shannon Wilkinson late this afternoon and could barely put two coherent sentences together.

Changing the subject completely, I’m still infatuated with Wii Fit. I’ve exercised more than 30 minutes six of the past seven days and I’m really enjoying it. I’m no longer sore and my scores on individual exercises and games are going up (and my Wii Fit Age down!). The hardest part is carving out the time in the day to do it, since my old daily workout was all of three minutes. But it’s certainly time well spent and I’m looking forward to turning it into a routine. (My plan is try to do Wii Fit six days a week.)

Here’s to a relaxing weekend and a productive week!