Peace of Mind Organizing

Loving my new Jarvis standing desk

14 December 2023

I’ve been dealing with some neck and shoulder pain that I’m told is a result of poor ergonomics. That was my cue to research buying an electric sit-stand desk, something I’d been thinking about for awhile. The desk has been in place for about three weeks and I LOVE it!

To help make my search easier, I started by checking the New York Times Wirecutter, which recommended the Herman Miller Jarvis standing desk for petite people like me (those under 5’4”). I went with the less expensive laminate version (versus hardwood or bamboo) and opted for a dry-erase desktop (swoon!). As a Certified YNAB Budgeting Coach, I often have the need to jot down figures during Zoom calls that I’ll never need again. This dry-erase desktop is a dream come true for that.

I also bought a monitor arm from Herman Miller (the Jarvis single monitor arm). I hired a friend to put it all together for me. And that’s when the fun began.

The removal of the old desk and installation of the new desk created a huge mess in my office. It also created a challenge: my old desk (a 1997 vintage IKEA desk), was large. (62” × 47” at its largest point and 62” × 31” at its smallest.) And I had a lot of stuff, like pens, that I stored on it. So even when it was cleared off, it still was pretty full. Here’s a photo of my cleared off desk. Pretty crowded.

My new desk, on the other hand, is only 60” by 27.5” So I had to find a home for all that stuff. I repurposed an Elfa file cart that I had been using for active files under my desk. I decluttered a bunch of files and moved the few files I kept to another file cart. Then I added two mesh drawers to the file cart and a top. And voila, everything I needed at hand is easily available in my little cart under my desk.

Here’s a photo (taken before I added a top to the file cart) that shows both the top and middle drawers:

The game changer was taking my external monitor off my desk surface. I moved the monitor stand it used to sit on to the side of my desk and my laptop sits there, along with some supplies I use regularly. The only other things I really need on my desk are my Bullet Journal, desk lamp and my water carafe and glass. I added a pretty ceramic plate hand made by my friend, Sally Brown, to hold there glassware so they feel safe and anchored.

Here’s a picture of the visual peace I’m enjoying daily—something I’ve never had before on my desk.

I bought a glossy white Kallax cube storage furniture—on feet—from IKEA. That allows me to beautifully store some of the items that were on or near my desk. I love it.

Here’s a photo of that:

Every day since I got this set up going I have kept the desk clean. It’s so easy and enjoyable to clear it off. And, I’m happy to say, I am actually standing at my desk, probably half the time. And I do think it’s helping my neck and shoulder pain.

The desk moves smoothly, quietly and quickly from stand to sit (and vice versa). It’s very stable so I don’t have to worry about anything on the desk top. It has four presets, which makes it a one-touch operation.

The cherry on the sundae is the small standing desk anti-fatigue mat I bought (the Topo Mini) that has contours on it to help me shift standing positions and stay comfortable.

When I add it up, I spent over $1000 on the desk, monitor arm, installation and accessories. It’s early days but I do think it was worth it. Having a beautiful, clear desk is such a boon to my productivity. I feel like I’m living the dream!

Worth repeating: Today's piece of holiday advice

5 December 2023

I wrote this post six years ago and I still think it’s sound advice. The more unloved holiday decor we keep, the harder it is to decorate your home. I urge you to build some ease into your holiday season by following this advice!

Yesterday, I helped a client part with the holiday decor that she didn’t love and wasn’t using. Bags of decor left her storage room to find a new home with folks who will love and use it. She felt great about it (and so did I). When I got home, I wrote down this piece of advice for you.

Prioritizing my health

29 November 2023

I’ve been doing yoga for almost five years now (since December 2018), practicing with Yoga with Adriene from the comfort of my home. I love her 30-day challenges and I managed a streak of over 400 days in a row of yoga, from April 1, 2020 to May 12, 2021.

This year I developed tennis elbow, which took months of physical therapy to get past. (Good times.) That made me nervous about yoga, but now I’m trying to get back into it because I know how beneficial it is to my entire body.

I also need to do physical therapy exercises at home and I’d like to do more cardio exercise. I’m 61 and in the past couple of years I’ve definitely become more stiff and creaky and I don’t go up and down the stairs quite as effortlessly as I used to.

So I’m striving to create a routine that prioritizes self care. I know I find it much easier to create daily routines than any other frequency. So I’m working on creating a daily routine that encompasses:

• yoga
• physical therapy exercises
• cardio and/or strength

Looking back at my blog, I’m taking inspiration from some of my past posts, including:

• Daily exercise for the win! in which I write about my older brother’s amazing exercise routine
• Developing a yoga practice, from February 2019, 60 days into my yoga journey
• Nine things I love about Yoga with Adriene, written in June 2020
• Using rewards as motivation, written this summer as I struggled to get back on track with exercise

I am fortunate to have control over my schedule for the most part. Last summer, I rode my stationary bike at the end of my work day. I like the idea of starting the day with yoga and PT and ending with cardio. I’m going to give myself credit for any effort in these categories, which I hope will get me going even if I don’t feel like exercising.

I’m also going to create a spread in my bullet journal to track my exercise so I get the satisfaction (and psychological boost) of creating a chain that I won’t want to break. (See my 2008 blog post, Don’t Break the Chain for more information on that.)

Keeping myself healthy is probably the most important thing I can do for myself, my family and my business. It’s high time I prioritized it!

Thanksgiving greetings!

21 November 2023

Worth repeating: When is an organizer like a dentist?

14 November 2023

I wrote this post nine years ago (and I’m happy to report that I still go to the dentist twice a year). When I re-read it today, it still rang true, so I thought I’d share it with you again. I’ll add one thing: I certainly hope that working with a professional organizer is more pleasant for you than having dental work!

I had my teeth cleaned today, something I don’t really enjoy. But I do it faithfully every six months. And that’s because I know the pain and fright of slacking off on going to the dentist and then having to go because something’s gone awry in my mouth. For a number of years, when I was younger, I let my fear of the dentist get in the way of my getting regular checkups. Then a tooth broke and I had to face the music. After a root canal and a nasty surgical procedure called “crown lengthening” (I don’t wish that on anyone), all was well again. And, believe me, I haven’t missed an appointment since.

As I was sitting in the dental chair today, I thought about how putting off going to the dentist is a bit like putting off decluttering or organizing your home. If you’re dealing with an overabundance of items, clutter just builds up until it becomes overwhelming. Calling in an organizer for help can be scary and embarrassing (though I try hard to put to rest any fear or embarrassment my clients might feel). I know from experience that letting plaque build up on your teeth can make the prospect of going to the dentist scary and embarrassing too.

But once you declutter and find a place for everything, all you have to do is maintain. Just like brushing and flossing daily, if you put things away every day, then all you need is a bit of a spruce up every six months or so.

Because I brush and floss daily, my semi-annual dental visits are merely mildly unpleasant (because I don’t like having my teeth scraped). But they’re nothing to be afraid of. As a reformed dental phobic, I find this to be revelatory.

So if you’re looking for a reason to get started organizing your home, perhaps you can think of it in terms of preventive maintenance, like going to the dentist every six months. Don’t wait until your tooth breaks (or your house starts falling apart) to reach out for help!

Photo by Steve Snodgrass via Flickr

Upping my coffee game

8 November 2023

This has nothing to do with organizing, really, but I am so happy with how I make coffee I wanted to share with you all. I don’t have counter space (or desire) for an electric coffee maker. For many years, I made pour-over coffee with my trusty Hario ceramic cone, pouring hot water over the grounds through a paper filter and dripping coffee directly into the mug. I’d add half and half and I was good to go. I drink only one cup of coffee a day, so this worked well. It was tasty coffee, but a bit bitter and it sometimes left my stomach feeling a little jittery. If I had my druthers, I’d have had a latte (that’s my standard Starbucks order), but I wasn’t willing to buy a whole latte-making set up.

A couple of years ago I got curious about cold brew. I bought this OXO compact cold brew maker and gave it a try. I added ground coffee to the line of the brewer, then poured 24 ounces of cold, filtered water over the grounds. I let it sit for 24 hours, then put the brewer on top of the little carafe that came with it. The spring-loaded bottom emptied the coffee concentrate into the carafe, leaving the grounds in the brewer to be emptied into the trash.

I watched YouTube videos to find out what to do with the concentrate and decided to try mixing one part concentrate with two parts milk. Because I like hot morning beverages, I heat up the mug of coffee (a total of 240 grams or 8.5 ounces) for 90 seconds in the microwave. It’s delicious and doesn’t make me jittery.

I get four or five cups of coffee out of one batch of concentrate. I store the unused concentrate in the carafe (which comes with a lovely cork lid) in the refrigerator.

The result is a low-acid, filling, delightful cup of joe (a latte, really) that I enjoy so much I wanted to share it with you.

What’s your favorite way to make coffee?

Worth repeating: Organizing coloring supplies

4 November 2023

My team and I unpacked a client after a move recently and her new home has a lovely craft room. It was a joy to organize all her crafting supplies, including those for coloring. At one point during our organizing, I pulled up this post, which I originally wrote in 2016, to show how I organized my colored pencils. Alas, the Container Store no longer sells the acrylic pencil trays, but I suspect they’re available elsewhere. I thought I’d re-run this post again today for the benefit of other coloring enthusiasts.

I jumped aboard the adult coloring book craze last June. I loved coloring as a kid and I love it now. It’s so wonderful that so many interesting types of coloring books are available. And the coloring supplies! When I was a kid, I used Crayola crayons. Now, I use pencils, pens, markers…it feels like the sky’s the limit.

As with many new hobbies, part of the fun is acquiring the supplies. I now feel like a kid in a candy shop in an art store, which is a new feeling. (I’m not particularly artistic.) But with the acquisition of supplies comes organizing challenges. I worked out a great organizing system for my colored pencils that I thought I’d share here. (I also color with colored Sharpies and I’m still working on a system for storing those.)

My first purchase was a single coloring book and a tin of 36 Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. Those were great—I loved the quality of the pencils and the blending I could do with them. They were contained, so all I had was a book and a tin, which I kept on the end table by the couch, along with a clipboard used while coloring a single page. Easy peasy.

But soon 36 colors wasn’t enough. So I went to locally owned Art Mart and bought more individual Prismacolor pencils. That’s when I started having a storage challenge. Then I bought more pencils and books (I asked for Art Mart gift cards for my birthday) and I had not only a storage challenge, but an organizing one. I love this kind of challenge!

Enter these lovely acrylic pencil trays from the Container Store. They’re high quality and hold two dozen pencils. I bought three. So I have space to store 72 pencils plus the 36 in the original tin.

So here’s how I worked it out. I sorted the pens by color category that made sense to me. In the acrylic trays I have:

• Reds
• Blues
• Neutrals

In my tin, I have three trays of 12. I’ve divided them into:

• Greens
• Purples
• Yellows

There’s a little overlap—some oranges could go in either the red or the yellow tray and some blue-purple pencils could go either way. Pinks go with the reds, but I put some with the purples. It’s all about how I think of them.

Here are some photos.

I store all the pencils in a Bigso Letter Box from the Container Store, along with my pencil sharpener and a box cutter for cutting pages out of a coloring book whose pages aren’t perforated. (I prefer to color a single page on a clipboard.)

See how nicely they fit?

(Incidentally, all these photos were taken using the SHOTBOX tabletop photo light studio.)

I used to store my coloring books in a second Bigso box, but after my friend Patti gave me six books for Christmas, my books outgrew the box. So I now keep them in magazine holders on a bookshelf in an adjacent room and keep my not-yet-organized collection of Sharpies in that second box, along with the current page I’m coloring on its clipboard. (I’ll post again when I figure out my Sharpies and other markers!)

The two boxes reside stacked on the end table, because I typically color while watching TV (though sometimes I color on the dining room table nearby). If we have visitors, it’s easy for me to move them out of the way.

If you’re a colorer, how do you store your supplies?