Peace of Mind Organizing

December tiny projects challenge: Day 5

20 December 2021

After a weekend off, I took on a truly tiny project today: My evening bags. I store the few fancy dresses I own plus my evening bags and shawls in the guest-room closet. Last Friday when I put away all the little wristlets that I had been taking up space in the household desk, I noticed that I have a large collection of evening bags, which is puzzling since I’ve attended probably two fancy events in the past 15 years (both were weddings).

I had put the wristlets in a Kangaroom hanging purse organizer (which, alas, is no longer for sale as far as I can tell), where I also store my evening bags. Here’s the before picture:

They were tidy enough, but excessive. And as I noted on Friday, I had room to let go of some of the wristlets too.

So I quickly went through them and pulled out evening bags that didn’t make my heart sing. I ended up keeping four (probably at least three more than I need). I also let go of four wristlets, keeping five.

In addition to the evening bags, I let go of a velvet evening stole. (I kept two fancy shawls.) Here’s a picture of what I donated:

The purses are in excellent condition. It makes me happy to think of someone being able to use them.

And here are the wristlets I said goodbye to:

Finally, here’s the improved closet. Not a dramatic change, but I love that there is now white space there!

This entire tiny project literally took six minutes. It speaks to the power of grabbing little pockets of time when they’re available! I hope this series inspires you to look for tiny projects in your house!

December tiny projects challenge: Day 4

17 December 2021

Today’s tiny project was the organizer on the desk in my home that I call the household desk. My husband and I each have home offices with desks, but this desk is in a central room in our living space and stuff definitely tends to accumulate there. This teak organizer is a clutter magnet (as such organizers often are).

So I decided to declutter and organize this little space, which I probably haven’t been done in a few years.

Here’s the before shot (please don’t judge):

I started with the top shelf on the left of the organizer and just worked my way through. I went through each shelf, slot and drawer, editing as much as possible. I threw away a number of old items (like business cards for contractors we didn’t choose and expired Airborne gummies). I relocated a number of things to my office, which helped a lot.

Here’s the after shot:

Probably the most helpful thing I thought of was to move the face masks that I would just toss on the organizer to a doorknob. There’s a door just to the left of the desk that opens in and almost always remains open. So I hung the masks by their earloops on the inside doorknob, where they’re accessible but unobtrusive. And since I’ll surely go to the desk for a mask, they will be nearby when I don’t find them where I’m looking for them.

Here are some of the other things I did that were easy to do and so effective in cleaning up this space:

• I moved the blood pressure cuff to my office, where I’m more likely to remember to use it.
• I put Bix’s clickers for dog training in a little felted wool bowl I’d knitted
• I tested all the pens and removed most of them, so I would have easier access to pens when I needed them. (The pen holder was too full!) And I used a glass I was going to donate as a pen holder rather than the less attractive red one I’d bought in the 90s.
• I moved one of my action figures (Robert Mueller) to my husband’s office, because there was obviously one too many action figures in that space.
• I gathered up my inordinately large collection of wristlets and wallets (from a ceaseless quest for a solution to carrying around my money) and moved them to a different space downstairs. I’ll probably donate a lot of them. (By the way, I found a wallet/small purse solution, which I’ll share in a future post.)
• Best of all, I got rid of the expired Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons, since they no longer accept expired coupons.

This one took longer than I expected—probably 40 minutes. But they were very pleasant minutes and I’m enjoying the results!

December tiny projects challenge: Day 3

15 December 2021

Today’s tiny project challenge involved a built-in cabinet in our extra kitchen. Extra kitchen? My husband and I live in a 1908 home that was built as a two-family house. When we bought it in 1992, we lived upstairs and rented out the downstairs apartment. Then we moved to Brooklyn, New York, from 1997 to 2001 and rented out both units. When we returned, we elected to live in the whole home but we did minimal renovations. So we have two kitchens. This was very handy when we renovated our main kitchen (which is upstairs) in 2016.

Each kitchen has a built-in cupboard. We use the extra one for overflow pantry items, as well as for cookbooks and a few dishes. In our haste to put away groceries we tended to just shove stuff in the cabinet. So I decided to show it some love today.

Here’s the before picture:

I pulled out the half-dozen drinking glasses we’d stashed in that cabinet. I’m confident I can get my husband to agree to donate them. I decided to move a few of the dishes upstairs. And I consolidated the cookbooks. That created some space on the shelves.

Then I pulled out some high-sodium packaged items that we will no longer use since Barry is now on a low-sodium diet. We currently have seven large cans of low-sodium tomatoes that needed to find a home in the cabinet, so that was very helpful. I took two bags of chips to the upstairs pantry. (I love chips.)

I had two large round boxes of old-fashioned oatmeal (one of which wouldn’t fit in the cabinet) because I eat Overnight Oats for breakfast most mornings. I keep a small container of oats upstairs and replenish it from the downstairs supply. I also have some overflow Overnight Oats ingredients in this cabinet.

I made the oatmeal situation more pleasing by decanting the oatmeal into some beautiful 1.5-liter Quattro Stagioni glass canning jars that I had purchased at the Container Store for dog food. I ended up using glass canisters for dog food instead but didn’t want to throw away these beautiful jars, so they were taking up space in the cabinet. This was a terrific solution.

It took no time to put like things together so that all pasta and tomatoes were together and baking supplies were together. On the top shelf, I tidied up the box of plastic tableware I keep there for lunch on the go.

Here’s the after picture:

(There are two items you might be curious about, so I’ll mention them. The big red thing next to the tomatoes is a silicone microwave popcorn popper that totally rocks. And those birds on the top shelf are made of sugar and my husband, who is trained as a pastry chef, made them!)

The whole project took only about a half hour. That was time well spent—it’s going to have a big impact because that cabinet is now nicer to look at and will be much less annoying to use!

December tiny projects challenge: Day 2

14 December 2021

For today’s tiny project, I chose the CPAP supplies that my husband and I have accumulated, which had been messily stored under a desk in the cardboard boxes they came in. Barry and I both had sleep studies in 2021 and both were diagnosed with sleep apnea. So we now both use CPAP machines but different masks. (By the way, this is life-changing stuff. We both sleep better and neither of us snores!)

Periodically, CPAP supplies are mailed to us. I think Barry ended up with an extra shipment so we had two open boxes plus a sealed box stored under the desk. I hauled them out and put them on a table and photographed the two open ones so I could show you a before shot.

I emptied these boxes plus the unopened one. We each had “nasal cushions” (the part that goes under the nose) in different sizes and Barry also had a replacement headgear and a replacement water tub for his machine. There were also many air filters that fit both our machines. Barry had the lion’s share of supplies and his went into its own bin (a shoe box from the Container Store). My two measly cushions and all the air filters fit into one nine-inch shallow Linus drawer organizer.

I put labels on both containers and photographed them for you (the first picture is Barry’s container).

Then I stacked them and put them back under the desk!

I wanted to find a better spot for them, but since everything in them is sealed and they’re off the floor (because I put them on Bix’s interactive dog toy), I feel comfortable keeping them there. It’s where we’re used to looking for them. And everything is more accessible than it was.

This tiny project, which took about 25 minutes, is a great example of “good enough” organization. It’s by no means fabulous, but it’s really functional and I did it with containers I had on hand. It feels good.

December tiny projects challenge: Day 1

13 December 2021

During the lockdown in 2020, I did three tiny projects challenges and blogged about them. These were small organizing projects I could complete in about 30 minutes or less that I did for five days in a row. It was a great way to keep busy and I loved the results. I realized I didn’t do any in 2021, so I thought I would wrap up the year with another five-day tiny projects challenge. Feel free to join me in on challenging yourself to complete one small organizing project a day!

Day 1: Organizing my lettering pens

I love pens. And I love doing hand lettering. The combination of those two loves has led to quite a collection. I primarily do my lettering in the living room, on a clipboard while watching TV or, if I’m doing something that requires more concentration, at the dining room table. So the bulk of my pens (the ones that aren’t on my office desk) are stored in the living room.

A couple of years ago, I blogged about how I organize my lettering pens. In short, I organized them by type of pen and I used a Linus 9-inch divided turntable to store them, divided between GODIS drinking glasses from IKEA and Yoplait Oui yogurt jars. But my pen collection swiftly outgrew the turntable and the categories got a little squishy.

Here are a couple of before pictures:

So yesterday I decided to reorganize the pens. Originally, I thought I would just refresh the categories, but then I realized that when I was looking for a pen, I was often looking for a particular color. So on a lark, I decided to organize them by color. I know from clothes closets that organizing by color can be really attractive and beneficial. I figured it was worth a try for my pens, with the reassurance that I could always go back to organizing by type.

It was a simple process. I started by plucking out all the blue pens. There were too many for one container, so I sorted them by hue, with the purplish-blue pens on one end of the spectrum and the greenish-blue pens on the other and the true blue pens in the middle. I put them into three containers and moved on to the next color.

The whole project took just 40 minutes. Here are the after pictures:

So much prettier! Time will tell how functional organizing by color will be. (I’ll try to remember to report back.) I did keep four types of pen together, in a mix of colors (because function is more important than aesthetics to me): the Mildliner highlighter pens I use all the time, the metallic gen pens I’m currently using to write in holiday cards, some paint pens, and some dual-tipped brush pens that were much taller than the others.

In an effort to keep the session tiny, I did not test all the pens. But that’s an easy project for another day and it will doubtless allow me to trim my collection.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s tiny project!

15 years of blogging

9 December 2021

I just realized that last month this blog turned 15 years old. That feels like a milestone to be proud of.

I started my Peace of Mind Organizing blog on November 10, 2006 with a post called What is organized?.

In the 15 years since, I’ve published 1532 posts (including my Worth Repeating posts, where I revisit favorite posts). I try to blog twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays), though that doesn’t happen every week. It’s usually more like five or six a month.

Writing a blog is a lot of work—particularly if you dedicate yourself to posting regularly. But for me it’s been well worth the effort. This blog has helped me and my business in so many ways. Here are a few:

• It helps my search rankings, which puts me in front of prospective clients
• It lets clients and prospective clients get to know me and understand that I’m not perfect
• It also lets clients and prospective clients know that despite my imperfection, I have expertise
• It’s allowed me to connect with people and companies throughout the world
• It’s given me a lens through which to look at the world
• It’s helped record my personal history so I don’t have to rely on my memory (in a way, it’s a very public journal)

One thing I like about blogging, over relying on social media channels to reach prospective clients, is that a blog is less ephemeral. Past social media posts are harder to find. Now I have a 15-year library all in one place that anyone can search or browse. I also prefer the spaciousness of blogging that social media doesn’t permit. I can use as many words as I want.

I like blogging so much that in 2012 I started a second blog, Organize Your Family History, which marries my passion for organizing with my passion for genealogy research. I try to post there twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays). I love that blog as well.

Blogging regularly takes discipline. But it’s also something that can easily become a habit. I don’t pre-write (or even pre-plan) my posts. I just decide what to write each morning. I include blogging as a daily task on my Trello task management board, just in case I need a reminder. And I also keep a Trello board of blog post ideas.

After 15 years and more than 1500 posts it can feel challenging to come up with fresh ideas. (Thus this post borrows a lot of its words from a post I wrote a year ago on the blog’s birthday.) If you have topics you would like to see me cover on the blog, please share them in the comments!

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

Worth repeating: Letting holiday cards be easy

29 November 2021

I wrote this blog post a couple of years ago and when I read it again today, I was pleased to see that literally nothing has changed. Minted has made holiday cards so easy for me that I did exactly the same thing this year as I did last year and the year before that. Since it’s working so well for me, I thought I’d share again. The picture is the one we used for this year’s personal postcard.

I don’t celebrate Christmas, so December is a very easy month for me. I give few gifts so I don’t have to worry about shopping. And I don’t decorate at all.

But I do enjoy sending holiday cards. I actually always send out New Year’s cards because I like that they’re secular and they take away a little of the time pressure. I send two sets: One for Peace of Mind Organizing clients and colleagues and one for personal friends. (The personal set almost always sports a picture of our beautiful standard poodle, Bix, on the front.) Over the years I’ve been simplifying and making the process of sending out cards easier and easier.

How do I keep it simple? My secret weapon is Minted.com. I’ve been ordering from them for years and don’t even consider taking my business elsewhere.

As I detailed last year, here’s why I love Minted:

• They offer beautiful cards (both photo and non-photo) designed by independent artists who win design competitions for the privilege of being included.
• They offer addressing of the envelopes at no additional cost, in a design that complements the card. This is a huge time saver and looks great.
• The quality of the card stock is excellent and they offer a number of options (like printed return addresses, “skinny wrap” return address labels, printed card backs and envelope liners) to snazz it up. You can customize both the front and back (or inside) of the cards.
• They offer flat, as well as folded, cards. And they also offer postcards.

This year, I picked out my design, then edited last year’s address list. I removed a few people and added some more. Then I ordered stamps from the postal service’s website. The whole thing took an hour or so, partly because I didn’t let myself agonize over the decision. There are many beautiful designed from which to choose, but I went with the first one that caught my fancy.

For our personal cards, we opted for a postcard. Minted allows you to upload the photo so you can see how it looks with various designs. Genius! It was an easy choice this year and my husband Barry was enthusiastic about it. I chose to leave the back of the postcard blank, so I’m jotting a brief message and hand addressing the cards. We saved money because postcards are less expensive to print and the postage is less. (That’s a picture of this year’s postcard at the top of this post.)

My business holiday cards come pre-addressed, but I do write a personal message on each. (I opted for the flat cards that go in envelopes.) I ordered 125 business cards and 65 personal postcards. I’ve been writing a dozen cards and six postcards each evening. That’s easy and pleasant and will be done in four days.

I love sending out holiday cards, but if you don’t I encourage you to take that particular task off your list. As a card enthusiast, I always enjoy receiving cards but I don’t notice if someone doesn’t send me one. I’d be willing to bet that no one will hold it against you if you choose not to send cards! (And as an aside, you have my permission to let go of the cards you receive either right when they come in or after the holidays are over.)

But if you do enjoy sending holiday cards, you might look into ways that you can make it easier, like ordering online and having the addresses printed on your cards. Minted makes that easy. (By the way, that’s an affiliate link; if you use it I get a small commission that doesn’t affect your price.) Always look for promotions at the top of the screen. Right now there’s a Cyber Monday coupon code that will save you 25% but it expires December 2, 2021 at 9 am PST.

Holiday cards don’t have to be a burden!