Peace of Mind Organizing

Worth repeating (yet again): Why I'm a professional organizer

30 August 2021

I celebrated 16 years in business last month. I’m happy to report that I still love being a professional organizer. I just revisited this post, originally written in 2013, about why I became an organizer and why I continue being one. Eight years later, all the reasons in this post are still valid and I’ll add another: It feels so great to have helped so many organizers get their start in their own businesses by working on my teams. (I now use employees as well as independent contractors, which is also rewarding.) Peace of Mind Organizing® has helped hundreds of clients over the years and helped many organizers along the way. I feel so good about that. If you’ve ever wondered what a PO gets out of her work—which to some people looks decidedly unglamorous—read on.

Often when I meet folks who learn what I do for a living, they’re keen on learning how I became a professional organizer. I explain the training I took and how I went about starting my business. (That’s all detailed in my blog post, Are you interested in becoming a professional organizer?)

But seldom am I asked why I became a PO, rather than how. I thought I’d spend a little time today exploring that question.

In my observation, there are two sorts of folks who become professional organizers:

• Those who do it because organizing comes so naturally to them. Being organized is like breathing. It’s their passion. So why not make a living doing it?

• Those who enter the field because of their own struggles in getting and staying organized. They’ve spent a lifetime seeking solutions for themselves and want to share those solutions with others.

I fall into that second camp. As I’ve mentioned over and over, I’m a naturally messy person. I’m pretty organized in my space and I’m definitely organized inside my head, but I’m a bit messy and unruly. I sought solutions for my time management and clutter issues throughout my life and I learned a lot. I felt it was time to start sharing.

When I first contemplated starting my business, I was a freelance writer. I’d been writing about pets for ten years and had written hundreds of articles on various aspects of pet care. I’d had seven books published (most of which are no longer available) and contributed to several others. I was working on my last book, an ill-fated venture called Jane Goodall’s Return to Gombe co-written with the famed primatologist. The process of that book about killed me (and was never published) and I knew that in order to get through writing that manuscript I had to know it was going to be my last book. So I started looking for other things to do.

As I considered becoming a PO, I thought of several very important things that being a professional organizer would offer that being a freelance writer was not delivering:

• The ability to help people directly and tangibly
• Respect for my expertise (I was being very disrespected during the whole Goodall book experience)
• Payment at the time of service

That was very appealing and a big part of why I became a PO. But why do I keep doing it, now that I’m in my eighth fourteenth year of business?

Those initial three reasons did prove to be powerful rewarding. In addition, here are some other things I’ve found to be very rewarding:

• I get to help people transform their lives.
• I help people feel better about themselves as I normalize (and empathize with) their messy behaviors.
• I can help my clients go from striving (and failing) to be perfectly organized to reveling in being organized enough.
• I get to effect vast, fast change for my St. Louis clients by bringing in a team of organizers.

Being a professional organizer is life-changing work for me. And its results can be life changing for my clients. It is easily the most rewarding work I’ve done in a career that’s spanned more than three decades. And as long as it continues to be this rewarding, I’ll keep doing it.

Making back to school a little easier

27 August 2021

Around here, school started this week for many kids. I don’t have kids, but I know this is a time of transition for many parents (and children, of course). Throw in the uncertainty of the pandemic and perhaps it feels a little stressful.

I have a suggestion: Choose one small thing that can make getting the kids off to school easier (even if the school is at home). Then try implementing it every day for at least a week and see if it helps you. You can make it easier to remember by pairing it with something you’re already doing every day. (For example, make lunches right after cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.)

Here are a few suggestions…perhaps they’ll spark some ideas that will help you in your specific situation:

• Make school lunches the night before
• Store breakfast foods together so the kids can make their own
• Make sure backpacks are ready to go the night before
• Get up 15 minutes earlier to your morning less hectic
• On Sundays, have the kids select what they’ll wear each day and put the outfits together to make getting dressed easier (you can use a closet organizer like this one to store the week’s outfits, one per shelf)

I’m not suggesting you try all these things. Or any of them, really. Just use these suggestions as a springboard for an idea of some way to make your life just a little bit easier right now. Give it a week. And maybe keep going with it if it helps.

We all can use a little more ease right now!

Photo by Deleece Cook on Unsplash

Worth repeating: What to do with cards you're given

23 August 2021

I just came across this post, which I wrote in 2018. Cards continue to be a challenge for my clients, so I thought it was time to repeat this advice. I occasionally look at the sympathy cards that were sent to me when my mother and pets passed away. So I’m glad I’ve saved them.

I’ve noticed in my clients’ homes that it’s hard for some people to let go of greeting cards they’ve been given. The trouble with saving them, of course, is that they can accumulate over the years and become a storage problem.

I have a couple of clients who save every single Christmas card. But they use them in their holiday decor. Each client bundles the cards by year. One places them in a series of festive baskets. The other creates little books of cards, one for each year. Both look at and enjoy the archived cards every year. I think that’s wonderful.

More commonly I see cards jammed in bags or boxes in the basement, sometimes in rubber-banded bundles. That’s less wonderful, in my opinion.

Here are some options to think about when it comes to figuring out what to do with these cards:

1. Recycle them for your own use. If you’re a crafty type and a card appeals to you, you can cut the image on the front of a card out and glue it to some card stock. One thrifty thing I do when I buy cards for my husband is to sign them on sticky notes so I can just take off the note and put the card right into my organized cards to send later stash.
2. Donate them to a school or nursing home that might use them for crafty activities.
3. Keep them and respect them like the clients I described above.
4. Just keep the ones that touch your heart and let go of the rest.
5. Put them in the recycling bin. I give you permission. That’s what I do with the holiday cards I receive. And I have yet to regret that habit.

I got to thinking about cards today because in my own house I came across some cards I’d stashed, which is really unusual. I took them out, put on my reading glasses and went through them to see if I could let them go. Turns out they were the cards sent me when my mother passed away in 2015. (I honestly don’t remember saving them.) And there were some cards received when my dogs, Pip and Kirby, died in 2010 and 2015 respectively, as well as when my cat, Joe, died in 2012.

I really enjoyed looking through those cards and was touched by the sentiments people had written in them. I bundled them back up—and this time I put a sticky note on each bundle so I could tell at a glance what they were. Then I put them away in a plastic shoe box and put them in a closet. It was nice going through them today and I bet I’ll enjoy them again. But as much as I love receiving annual holiday cards, I have no desire to read them again. So I feel fine about recycling them.

Storing our pizza peels

16 August 2021

My husband bought an Ooni Koda 16 outdoor pizza oven. Lucky me! I get to eat his delicious homemade pizza, cooked on our new deck.

The purchase brought a few storage challenges. Challenge #1: a table to put it on. We ended up buying this terrific outdoor table from IKEA: Kloven Sideboard with ice bucket. (We took out the ice bucket to make room for the propane tank.)

Challenge #2 was where to store the pizza peel. This wooden paddle, used to take the pizza in and out of the high-temperature pizza oven, is 16 × 23 inches. We have two other peels as well. And a 16-inch diameter pizza pan.

We didn’t have spare cabinet space in our kitchen to store these large items. But there is a shelf on the pizza oven table. I was thrilled to find that Our Long Under Bed Box from The Container Store is just big enough to hold the peels plus and the pan. And it fits on the pizza table’s shelf! Since it has a lid, the contents stay clean even though they’re stored outdoors. Plus the pizza oven and table are protected by a custom-made cover that Barry ordered from Covers and All.

Here’s a photo of the setup:

And here’s a photo of how the pizza table looks with the custom cover on it:

This simple repurposing of an under bed box has made our pizza life easier so I wanted to share. Honestly, the clear plastic bins with lids at The Container Store are my go-to for so many storage challenges!

What do I choose to do?

9 August 2021

In a recent episode of our podcast, Getting to Good Enough, my co-host Shannon Wilkinson and I discussed the power of language. (It’s Episode 165 and you can listen to it on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts.) We discussed subtle shifts we can make in our language that change how we feel about something, like a task. Words really do matter.

Case in point: Asking yourself “What do I choose to do?” rather than “What should I do?” or “What do I need to do?” can calm you and actually make your more willing to do the task at hand.

I created a hand-lettered little reminder sign for myself. I printed it out small (less than 3” × 3”) and mounted it on black paper so it stands out on my bulletin board. Here’s that sign. Feel free to print it out as a reminder yourself.

If you’re intrigued by this, I encourage you to listen to the episode!

Worth repeating: Are Apple AirPods worth the hefty price tag?

3 August 2021

I wrote this post in 2018. Back then I was glad I’d purchased Apple AirPods and since then I’ve purchased the second generation of regular AirPods (not the AirPods Pro), with more features, like automatically reading texts to you while you’re listening to a podcast. I’ve purchased also the wireless charging case. So you might say I’m convinced they’re worth the money. Here’s why:

I resisted buying AirPods, Apple’s wireless bluetooth headset, because of the $159 price tag. I also thought they looked a little weird. But I’d heard them recommended by The Mac Guys whose opinion I heartily respect and I was tired of catching the wire of my wired headset and accidentally pulling it out.

I bit the bullet in January and I haven’t looked back. AirPods are truly convenient and (dare I say it?) worth the money. When not in use, the earpods—a separate one for the left and the right—reside in a little plastic charging case that looks to me like a package of Glide dental floss. You charge the case with a lightning cable but the case can charge the airpods even when the case is not plugged in. So far, I have not encountered any problems with the pods running out of juice, but apparently 15 minutes in the case gives you 3 hours of listening time.

Here’s why I love my AirPods:

• They’re comfortable.
• They stay in my ears.
• They connect (and disconnect) automatically when I put them in (or take them out of) my ears.
• They connect to my phone and to my computer (and I could connect them to my Apple Watch, if I put music on it).
• The sound is great. (Full disclosure: I’m no audiophile.)
• I don’t have to have my phone on my person to use them (just nearby). Very helpful for folding laundry when I have no pockets.
• No wires to tediously untangle before use.
• No wires to get in the way and accidentally catch things on.
• They’re easy to charge and I can get up to five hours of listening time one charge.
• Music pauses automatically when I take out the earbud out of my ear.
• I can access Siri on my phone simply by double tapping the EarPods. (ETA: My newer AirPods don’t even require tapping; I just say “Hey, Siri.”)

I have a little trouble keeping track of them (which was true with my wired headset as well) and I still need to find a good spot within my purse to store them. But otherwise they’re just great.

Planning a long road trip

26 July 2021

When I took my epic drive from St. Louis to Walla Walla, Washington, last September to help my dad celebrate his 90th birthday, I planned the heck out of it as you might imagine. I figured I would write a blog post detailing the planning process, but I somehow never got around to it.

Then my friends at Meori asked me to write a blog post about planning a road trip. They like long posts, so I was able to really go into detail about my trip planning. So if you’re planning a road trip or just curious about how I planned my 4,000-mile solo trip during COVID, please check it out:

How to Plan a Road Trip – Summer Road Trip Guide

Meori makes terrific foldable storage products and they generously supplied me with a few items that I used on my trip. (Including the foldable box and insert pictured here.) You can read about them in the post!