Peace of Mind Organizing

Interview on Sunbound

2 August 2022

I was approached for an interview by Nat Miller, co-founder of Sunbound, a a one-stop relocation service that works with professional organizers across the country to help older adults (55+) relocate to their retirement destinations. Since Sunbound partners with professional organizers (they are a business partner of NAPO), they are spotlighting organizers from around the country as part of their mission to help educate and empower America’s older adults.

I had a lovely conversation with Nat last week and the resulting Q&A was published yesterday! I encourage you to check it out if you’re curious about my origin story as a PO, my favorite spaces to organize and what I see as trends in the industry.

Hangers designed specifically for long dresses

23 July 2022

If you have evening gowns or maxi dresses, you know how they can graze the ground even in your long-hanging area of your closet. That’s bad enough. But if you don’t have a long-hanging area in your closet, it’s really challenging to hang long dresses and keep them in great shape.

Enter Cove. They’ve created a special long-garment hanger specifically to solve this problem. They reached out to me offering to send me a sample and I was curious, so I accepted it. I actually own one maxi dress (and zero evening gowns), and I put it into immediate use.

The hanger consists of two parts. The main part has the hook that goes over the rod and the shoulders of the dress go over it, like a conventional hanger. The second part attaches to the main hanger with a click. You press a button to detach the two parts. The second part consists of an open ended horizontal piece, like a pants hanger. You put the bottom of the dress over that and draw it up to the main hanger.

Here are a couple of photos, because I’m not sure I’m describing it well.

This hanger takes up more space on the rod, but it keeps these dresses safe and tidy. The hanger retails for $22.00 but Cove has kindly offered a 20 percent discount to readers who use the code PEACEOFMIND20 at checkout. (If you use this link or the link at the top of this post, the code will be automatically entered for you.) Cove also offers discounts if you purchase the hangers in bundles of three or five.

I’ll be recommending the long-garment hanger to those clients with plenty of rod space (and budget) who have long dresses to hang!

Trying to resist Amazon Prime Day

11 July 2022

I love a bargain, but I hate false urgency more. I end up buying things that I regret later, which wastes money and makes me feel bad. That’s why I try to avoid outlet stores. And that’s why I’m going to try hard to avoid perusing the Amazon Prime sales tomorrow and Wednesday.

A huge source of clutter in people’s homes (including mine) is so-called bargains. It’s hard to resist a good deal on something, even when I don’t really need it or have a good place to store it. Here’s the thing: The more stuff we have in our homes that we don’t use or love, the harder it is to put away and find those things we do use or love.

Will you join me in resisting unnecessary purchases on Amazon Prime Day? If you do have legitimate needs, by all means go ahead and get a deal on them. But if there’s nothing you’re really in need of, I urge you to step away from scrolling through the deals. Why tempt yourself unnecessarily?

Summer blogging schedule

30 June 2022

I try to post here twice a week. My goal is always Mondays and Thursdays. It’s a bit hit or miss, I admit, but that’s the goal. I also strive to post twice a week on my genealogy blog, Organize Your Family History.

This summer, I’m especially busy with organizing clients and travel and trying to keep up with that blogging schedule has been stressing me out a little. So I’ve decided to relieve the pressure and commit to blogging just once a week through the rest of the summer. I’m not even going to commit to a particular day, but you can expect to see a new post once a week.

When I made the decision to cut myself that little bit of slack I instantly felt relief. I’m also using the same schedule for Organize Your Family History. And now I feel I can breathe a little more easily.

Is there some way you can cut yourself a little slack this summer and relief the pressure to do everything? It’s worth thinking about!

Photo by Valerian KOo on Unsplash.

Worth repeating: What have you been putting off?

21 June 2022

I wrote this post in 2016. It’s an important reminder for me because I’ll be due for another colonoscopy in the coming year. It’s so easy to let fear get in the way of doing things we know will benefit us, like going to the dentist or planning for retirement. I hope this post might help you take action on something you’ve been putting off.

I had a colonoscopy this week. I’m 53 (and a half) years old and for the past 3.5 years I’ve been putting off getting the screening colonoscopy—a procedure that can catch deadly colon cancer while it’s still treatable—that’s recommended for everyone at 50 years old.

I’m a smart woman. I know it’s a good idea to get a colonoscopy and that sooner is better than later. But I couldn’t get myself to do it. My college buddies encouraged me to schedule it (they’d done theirs). But I resisted. Finally, I got a new primary care physician and she basically made the appointment for me.

Why was I dragging my feet? Partly because of the horrible things you hear about the prep (the bowel has to be cleaned prior to the scope). But, in truth, there was also a certain amount of fear that there would be bad news. Irrational, but true. Because of course, if I did have colon cancer, it was better to know than not know. But not knowing bad news can feel safer than knowing it.

Well, it turned out that the prep wasn’t all that bad. Not fun, but not tortuous. And the procedure itself was nothing, because I slept through the whole thing. When it was over the news was good—and immediate. Everything normal. Come back in ten years.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to have that behind me. I didn’t realize the psychic energy I was expending avoiding it. It makes me want to find something else I’m afraid of and just do it.

How about you? Is there something you’ve been putting off? Could you take a tiny step today toward doing it? Trust me, you’ll feel better when it’s done!

Sell (some of) your unwanted stuff on Decluttr.com

17 June 2022

I bought a new 14” MacBook Pro this year. It replaced a 2018 13” MacBook Pro that had started slowing down. I was thrilled to see that Apple was willing let me trade it in for over $500. I ended up not doing a trade-in at the time of purchase because I’d decided to more mindfully transfer files from the old computer to the new one (rather than transferring everything in one fell swoop). I paid in full for the new computer and didn’t really have a use for a $545 gift card from Apple. So I started looking for someone else to sell it to.

I identified four different places and requested offers. Here are the offers I received:

Phobio: $470 (Apple’s business group referred me there)
SellYourMac: $500
Gazelle: $530 (I’d sold a computer to them before)
Decluttr: $568

Guess who I sold it to? The highest bidder, Decluttr.com!

It was a simple transaction. I accepted their offer, followed the instructions to wipe my hard drive, packed the computer in the box I got when I purchased it and put the whole thing in another box to send it in. They paid the shipping. I took it to the UPS store and was notified it was received two days later. Just five days after that the money was in my bank account.

Decluttr also buys smaller tech, CDs, DVDs, textbooks, children’s books, and games and consoles. Based on my (albeit limited) experience, I recommend giving them a look next time you have something you’d like to sell.

Subscribe to my newsletter!

13 June 2022

This year, I’ll mark the 15th anniversary of my monthly newsletter. Every month on the 15th (for 15 years!) I’ve published a short newsletter that lands in your email box free of charge. That’s in addition to blogging here twice a week (most weeks.)

Each newsletter offers a (slightly) longer feature, a trip, a photo and perhaps a bit of news about Peace of Mind Organizing. And it always contains links to the blog posts from the previous month. There’s not a whole lot of overlap between the content of the newsletter and the blog, though occasionally I like a newsletter article so much I run it in the blog (or vice versa).

Some months, I have special offers for newsletter readers only.

You can read the newsletter archive on the website and/or subscribe so that it lands in your email inbox on the 15th of every month. If you subscribe, you’ll receive my free pdf, The 12 Most Common Organizing Mistakes.