Peace of Mind Organizing

Some fun craft organizers

10 July 2008

I was part of a focus group that paid me $100 recently and I decided to treat myself to something knitting-related with at least part of the money.

I’d been lusting over the Total Knitting Tote that I’d seen in the Knitpicks catalog. Here’s a picture of it:

It arrived the other day and I love it! I somehow didn’t expect it to be quite so LIME green—it’s not the subtle colored pictured. But the size is terrific, as is the storage. It has one big compartment, perfect for the cabled wrap I’m working on, which is now three feet long. And it also has lots elasticized pockets and straps to store needles and notions. And it’s kinda stylin’. I can’t wait to show it off at my knitting group tonight. It’s really a terrific project bag.

When I received the tote, I learned from its tag that it’s part of a line of crafty products, called Creative Options from Plano Moulding, a company best known to me for its fishing tackle boxes.

Knitting clearly isn’t their focus (and in fact, they show what my bag, which Knitpicks calls the “total knitting tote” full of stamping supplies.) They have some nice stuff for scrappers, people who do beading, rubber stamping, and other crafts. For example:

The swivel stacker with six jars

The digital organizer box (for the digital scrapbooker)

The embellishment box

The grab ‘n go shoulder bag

That’s just a small sampling. I think this stuff is cool. Whenever I look at organizing supplies for scrapbooking, it makes me want to scrap.

Anyway, here’s the jumping off point for all the products. Enjoy!

Declutter You: Blog of the Week

9 July 2008

This week’s Blog of the Week is Declutter You, the newly revamped and re-energized blog of Washington DC-based organizer Scott Roewer.

While Scott launched the newly designed blog just this month, he’s been writing a blog for awhile and this incarnation benefits from the nice archive of interesting organizing-related articles available. What I like about the blog is that he finds off-the-beaten track things to write about. The stuff I read there is new to me.

So far, the posts are event- or product-oriented, though I’m sure that might change. And even though the events he’s written about are closer to home for him than me, I find them very interesting and they also serve as a jumping-off point for more universal ideas. For example, I loved reading about what Washington, DC is doing about recycling electronics and that the city offers document shredding.

Scott also showcases some great before-and-after pictures on his blog.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know Scott through NAPO (he just finished up two terms as NAPO-WDC chapter president) and I’m going to enjoy getting to know him better through his blog. You can too.

PocketMod - a recyclable pocket-size planner

8 July 2008

Some mornings I sit down at the computer with no idea of what I’m going to write in my blog. Today was one of those mornings. On these mornings, I click around the blogosphere, using my favorite organizing blogs as starting-off points.

Through a circuitous but interesting path, I found myself at PocketMod. It’s a simple website with instructions and templates for creating a customized paper planner, printed on one sheet of paper and folded to create a little book that would fit in your shirt pocket (if you were inclined to put your calendar in your shirt pocket).

You can include calendars, sheets to make lists, tables, story boards, even music in your PocketMod. Your calendars can be day-, week-, month- or year-at-a-glance. You can include Ben Franklin’s table of virtues and Sodoku puzzles. You can put a tip chart in there, if you’re arithmetically challenged.

I’m fascinated, though I don’t think I personally need it. I use a Palm handheld (and Palm Desktop for the Mac) to keep my calendar. But I like to keep my task lists on paper. I keep a bound, page-a-day task diary. If I want something more portable to pop in my purse, a blank (or lined) sheet of paper will do the trick.

But it might be perfect for you. It’s not dissimilar to the Hipster PDA (a bunch of index cards bound with a binder clip) that’s become popular. It’s even closer to the D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA edition, which allows you to create custom pages for your Hipster PDA.

My new home office space

7 July 2008

That stressful trip to IKEA was all about purchasing storage furniture for my new adjunct home office. I had an extra room in my house, adjacent to my home office, and I decided to create a second office out of it.

In the new office, I store supplies that I take into clients’ homes. (In my original office, everything is administrative and used in the office.) In addition, I fashioned the room into a virtual showroom of sorts, where I can use photos of what I’m done there as a way to help clients. I also store my yarn and knitting-related items in the new office—the yarn storage itself is a great example for my crafty clients. In addition, I give talks on organizing your knitting supplies, so I feel comfortable storing that material there.

I wish I had a before picture, but I didn’t take one. The room was originally a dining room. We have another dining room upstairs (our house was built as a two-family house), where we dine. I’ve been using the room to store stuff that goes to clients’ homes, but I didn’t have any storage furniture, so everything was in bins and boxes on the floor. That was both inefficient and unsightly.

Before I went to IKEA, my friend, Sally, helped me paint the room. (Sally also put the furniture together for me. What would I do without her?) We painted it in Restoration Hardware’s Silver Sage, to match my main home office. It’s a beautiful, peaceful color. We also painted the little hall between the two rooms, which really brought them together.

Here’s a photo of my cat, Joe, enjoying the IKEA boxes before they were unpacked, as well as the flattened seagrass baskets I bought at IKEA.

Once we put the furniture together, it was breeze to whip this room into shape. In the center of the room are the two Expedit bookcases I purchased from IKEA. I also bought 6-inch Capita legs for them, to bring the cases up to work-surface height.

Each has eight cubbies. One of the cases contains inventory of the Freedom Filer, Exit Strategies, and Time Timer products I sell, as well as “kits” of stuff I take to different types of appointments. It also has my Eyes of a Stranger needs assessment supplies. The other case (the far one in the first picture below), contains more random stuff, including a basket of organizing supplies I keep around to give to clients—stuff that other clients have passed on to me or that I’ve acquired in some other way. I also keep my catalogs there.

These cases hold supplies for clients

You an see the bank of Elfa drawers I use to store my yarn at the end of the Expedit shelves, in the little bay of the room.

In addition to the Expedit bookshelves, I also purchased an Effektiv cabinet, which has two lateral file drawers to hold empty hanging files as well as at least one pre-assembled Freedom Filer set. The frosted-glass-fronted cabinet stores my inventory of flattened canvas file boxes, a rotary paper cutter, and my knitting books, magazines and patterns.

Here’s another view:

I still need to replace the light fixture and move one of my cloth-covered bulletin boards (in fabric that complements the paint color) from my original home office into the adjunct one. It’ll go above the radiator.

The idea for the purchase and placement of the Expedit bookshelves came from my friend, Lara Thiel, who’s an interior designer. I know I never would have thought of it myself. And I love it!

Every day when I walk through this room to get to my office to work, I smile. There’s a place for everything. It appeals to my aesthetic sense. I’m actually enjoying putting things away. And I can’t tell you what an improvement it is over the mess it replaced. Ah, the joys of getting organized.

Director of Wow

3 July 2008

Yesterday I heard a little story on NPR’s Morning Edition about the fact that High Point University in High Point, North Carolina, has a Director of Wow, whose job it is to make the college experience extraordinary for the students. According to the NPR story, the university has instituted programs like ice cream trucks, valet parking, a concierge desk, and free snacks.

According to the university’s website, their new branding statement is “At High Point, every student receives an extraordinary education in a fun environment with caring people.”

When I heard the NPR story, I said to myself, “I want to be the Director of Wow!” That sounds like an incredible job. Then I realized, I am the Director of Wow for my own business. It’s my job to make my clients say wow. And I should make it a goal for them to say it every session.

I think I’d like to (internally) adapt High Point University’s branding statement for my business. “At Peace of Mind Organizing, every client receives an extraordinary organizing experience, in a fun environment, with a caring organizer.” That is what I strive for and, I think, what I deliver. Thanks to this tiny story on NPR, I have a great new way to think about it.

Incidentally, NPR reported that since instituting its WOW program, High Point University freshman enrollment has tripled.

Unclutterer: Blog of the Week

2 July 2008

If you’ve found your way to my blog, you probably already know about Unclutterer. Just in case, though, let me sing the praises of my Blog of the Week.

“Unclutterer is the blog about getting and staying organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place is our gospel,” begins the blog’s welcome note. The posts are informative and well written. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Erin Doland, one of the main writers for the blog (who also blogs at Real Simple). She’s a very nice, very interesting, straight-shooting person.

Unclutterer presents a wealth of diverse information. There’s tech-savvy stuff, personal relationship info, products, time management, productivity—there’s really something for everyone who’s interested in organizing and living simply.

One of the things I like about Unclutterer, is that they frequently (I’m going to guess weekly, but I haven’t paid close attention) have links to what was being written about a year ago on the site. Sure, I could surf the archives. But this way I can just click on what piques my interest. Double my pleasure!

If you were unfamiliar with Unclutterer, you’re going to thank me! I urge you to bookmark it and check it regularly.

The tyranny of the heirloom

1 July 2008

There was a fascinating article in the New York Times last week about how difficult it is for people to part with furniture (or art or other artifacts) that had belonged to relatives. Even if the furniture did not fit in their home, physically, or clashed with their other furnishings, the people interviewed for the article still hung on to it.

I understand: I have a silver tea set that was given to my grandparents on their 25th anniversary in 1955. It’s not yet on display because I haven’t purchased a sideboard to put it on. But I’d be hard-pressed to part with it. And that’s okay, because I don’t find it ugly, even if I would never go out and buy one. (There are virtually no antiques in my 100-year-old house, except the house itself.)

If you have a few minutes, I encourage you to read the article. The insights from the therapists who were interviewed are interesting indeed.