Peace of Mind Organizing

Worth repeating: Nine things I love about Yoga with Adriene

30 June 2021

I’ve been doing yoga every day for over a year. I went from April 1, 2020 to May 12, 2021 without missing a single day. Then travel disrupted my routine and I broke the chain. But yoga is so beneficial that I got right back into it and I can count the number of days I’ve missed on one hand. I wrote this post about a year ago. Since then, my love for Yoga with Adriene has only grown.

Back in December 2018 after a visit from my niece, Miranda, who does a yoga workout on the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel every morning, I decided to give yoga a try. I’d been toying with it for eons but had been paralyzed about how to get started. And I knew I really wanted at-home yoga.

I did daily yoga for three months before I broke the chain and my practice became more sporadic.

Then along came COVID-19. Since I’ve had fewer demands on my time, I have been able to incorporate yoga into my daily routine. I am so grateful for that. This morning, when I finished my practice, I jotted down some of the things I love about doing yoga, particularly doing it with Adriene. I thought I’d share them with you in hopes that I might inspire you to give it a go!

• I’m getting stronger and more flexible. I’m 57 years old. I am absolutely thrilled to be getting stronger and more flexible, not the other way around.
• It’s good for my body and my mind. Stilling my mind, breathing deeply and moving my body are absolutely what I need right now.
• It’s gentle. Adriene is such a kind and gentle communicator. Her workouts are full of love and body acceptance. She suggests modifications for every pose and normalizes the idea that you might be not able to do all the stretchy bendy things she can do.
• Adriene is funny. She’s a yoga goddess with a beautiful body but Adriene is self-deprecating and makes funny comments all the time. (Today she bowed her head, then commented, “I see toothpaste on my shirt. Class act.”)
• There are many options, but I don’t have to make a choice. I’m easily overwhelmed by options. Adriene offers 30-day yoga journeys every January where you just do the workout designated for that day. (You can start any time.) No choice necessary. She also offers a themed calendar every month, so you can do the workout for that day. (This month the theme is, appropriately enough, Courage.) So far, I’ve done three different 30-day journeys, two of them twice. I’ve done 2020’s Home twice, 2015’s 30 Days of Yoga twice and 2019’s Dedicate once. [In January 2021, I did Breath, which was fantastic.] I love that I don’t necessarily have to choose which of her many videos to do!
• The workouts are varied but there’s continuity. Each workout has some sort of theme—it might be for a certain part of the body (today I did neck and shoulder relief) or it might be to create a certain feeling, like “Soften.” After doing it this long, the yoga poses are familiar but there endless ways to put them together and each workout feels fresh to me.
• It’s free! Adriene does have a paid community, but all the workouts on her YouTube channel are free. And they’re not interrupted by ads.
• I get to do yoga in my pajamas. I know if would be very hard for me to leave the house to do yoga. Now, I just have to take a few steps from my office to my guest room to do yoga in the morning. And most mornings I do it in my pajamas. Talk about letting it be easy!
• Benji. Adriene’s Australian Cattle Dog, Benji, is present in almost all the videos. He’s calm and zen and adorable. Usually he’s extremely well behaved but occasionally he does something funny (like the time he sat on Adriene’s head when she was in child’s pose.) Adriene always acknowledges him and treats him with love.

The bottom line is that I’m really glad Adriene Mishler is part of my life. I wish I knew her in real life but I will settle for welcoming her into my home via my computer every morning. I truly feel love for her. Thanks to her, I’m healthier, stronger, and calmer. I wish that for you, too!

The importance of joining a NAPO chapter

21 June 2021

Five years ago I wrote a post on the value of joining a local NAPO chapter for professional organizers. Since then, I rotated off the board of NAPO-St. Louis and joined again this year. So it seemed like a good time to update this article. After being an active member of NAPO-St. Louis for fifteen years, I still wholeheartedly believe in its value!

If you’re a professional organizer, I hope you’re lucky enough to live where there’s a local chapter of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. And if you do live near one, I hope you’ve joined it!

When I started Peace of Mind Organizing® in 2005, the first thing I did was join NAPO. The second thing would have been to join NAPO-St. Louis, except it didn’t yet exist. Thanks to the hard work of others, the chapter was established in 2006 and I was lucky enough to be a founding board member.

Through the last 15 years I’ve remained involved with the chapter, serving on the board for the first six years of its existence, then taking three years off before joining the board again for another two-year stint from 2015-2017. After four years off, I rejoined the board this year as Director At Large. So clearly I’m invested in the chapter.

Here’s the pandemic-style photo collage of our members from the chapter website. This is a terrific group of people.

Why do I devote so much time and energy to the chapter? Because it gives so much back to me. Here are a few of the benefits of chapter membership:

1. Camaraderie. For new and veteran organizers alike, the opportunity to spend time with like-minded people sharing advice and experiences is invaluable.
2. Leadership experience. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be as good at leading my organizing teams or managing my business if I hadn’t had the experience of being president of the chapter from 2008-2010 (and again from 2015-2016). It helped form the kind of leader I’ve become.
3. Education. NAPO-St. Louis meets in person 11 times a year and the chapter’s programs are really valuable. (Since May 2020, we’ve been meeting on Zoom but look forward to going back to in-person meetings.) We use both outside speakers and have programs presented by chapter members—there’s an amazing wealth of knowledge among our membership! The chapter also makes conference recordings available to its members as a membership benefit. (I’m certain this is a common chapter benefit.)
4. Visibility. All chapter members are listed on the NAPO-St. Louis website, giving them another exposure to prospective clients.
5. Referrals. When chapter members receive inquiries from clients they might not be right for, they’ll sometimes send them to me. And vice versa.
6. Client resources. We have nine Business Partners of NAPO-St. Louis and I refer clients to them all the time. I can also look for resource recommendations from fellow members of the chapter on our online forum. The chapter makes me a better resource for my clients.
7. Business development. My business model focuses on providing organizing teams. I have one employee, and the rest of my team members are independent contractors. All my team members are NAPO-St. Louis members. I’ve made membership in NAPO-St. Louis a requirement for my independent contractors, because, to my way of thinking, membership shows professionalism and a dedication to their businesses. I want to use contractors who are in it for the long haul. (Some of my independent contractors have been working with me for 13 years!) I can assure my clients that all my team members abide by NAPO’s Code of Ethics.

I honestly don’t know where my business would be without NAPO-St. Louis, but I’m pretty sure it would not have grown like it has. If you’re a PO or an aspiring PO I urge you to get involved with your chapter. It will reap huge dividends!

If you’re a NAPO member who doesn’t live near a local chapter, I urge you to check out the NAPO Virtual Chapter. If you’re a member of a NAPO chapter, please feel free to comment on what you get out of your chapter!

Go-bag to the rescue!

14 June 2021

One of the tiny projects I included in my November Tiny Projects challenge was putting together a hospital go-bag. My husband had been hospitalized in October and then again in November with heart issues, so I took the time after that second hospitalization to create a go-bag that I could grab in the event of a sudden trip to the hospital.

I had clipped to the front of the bag a list of the contents of the bag, plus a second list of things I needed to add to the bag that he didn’t have duplicates of (like noise-canceling headphones and prescription reading glasses).

About a week ago, we made the decision to go to the emergency room. (I drove Barry this time, no ambulance necessary.) While he got dressed, I grabbed the go bag, consulted the list clipped to it and added a few things. It was so nice not to feel frantic about what to bring! It was a moment of calm in an otherwise disrupted day. When he was admitted to the hospital from the emergency room, he had everything he needed.

I felt so smart to have clipped the hospital parking pass I’d purchased to the bag itself. It offers significant parking savings ($4 vs $15 for a single parking session) and it was so great not to have to look for it.

Barry was in the hospital for two nights this time and when I got home, I replenished the go-bag and updated the list that’s clipped to the front. If you have someone in your life who is occasionally hospitalized, I encourage you to take 15 minutes and put something like this together. I am so glad I did!

Look for me in Real Simple Clutter-Free Home

11 June 2021

There’s a new publication from the Real Simple brand that just hit the newsstands and I’m delighted to be included in it. Real Simple Clutter-Free Home is a compilation, with articles taken from a variety of publications, including:

• Real Simple monthly magazine
• Better Homes and Gardens Secrets of Getting Organized magazine
• The book Better Homes & Gardens Organize Your Home (from back in 2014…organizing tips are timeless)

Quotes from me are included in the “From the Pros” tips included in the 32-page Clutter Cleanse room-by-room plan. I haven’t seen the issue yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing which tips of mine (provided for previous issues of Secrets of Getting Organized magazine) they used.

Here’s a photo of the cover so you can find it on the newsstand.

The issue went on sale on June 4 and will be available through September 6. Real Simple Clutter-Free Home is available at newsstands and bookstores nationwide, as well as at grocery stores, home centers, big box retailers, drugstores and discount chains.

If you’d rather not leave the house, you can purchase the magazine online here.

I’m honored to be included with many of my organizing colleagues!

Expectations are everything

3 June 2021

It’s amazing what a huge role expectations can play in our perceptions of success. In the organizing industry, managing the expectations the clients have for what we can accomplish prevents them from being disappointed. It can be hard to say things you don’t think the other person wants to hear, but adding a dose of reality to the client’s expectations can save a lot of hassle later.

If you’re a professional organizer, you may be familiar with Standolyn Robertson’s excellent talk that she’s given at the National NAPO conference twice, as well as to various chapters in the past year. It’s called Managing Client Expectations and I think it’s a must-listen for all professional organizers. Standolyn has written a book, also called Managing Client Expectations, a Guide for Professional Organizers, that’s available on Kindle and in paperback. It’s an excellent read.

I’ve been thinking about expectations recently not with regard to my clients (by now I’m pretty good at managing their expectations) but with myself. I realize that if I don’t create a daily task list that’s achievable, I feel bad about my productivity. I can get 15 things done but if I have five unaccomplished tasks on the list I’m disappointed. Instead of feeling great about the 15 things I did, I feel lousy the five undone things. That’s not good.

So I’m trying hard to create a short daily task list (with tasks selected from a longer master list) that feels achievable. It includes the things I do almost every day (blog, yoga, YNAB, family history research) as well as the important and urgent tasks that I would like to do that day. I’m still loving my Trello daily task management board ) but I’ve taken to creating a handwritten (actually hand-lettered) daily task list for the next day at the end of the day. I enjoy doing the lettering and I enjoy working from a pretty list.

When I don’t cross everything off my list, I try to pause and ask myself whether my expectations for the day were realistic. That kind of mindful task management feels like good self care. The good news is I get the same amount done, I just feel better about it!

Worth repeating: A few products can transform a space

17 May 2021

Four years ago, I had the pleasure of going to New York City to help a dear friend organize her new apartment. I wrote this post then about how some key products really helped organize her items in her small kitchen.

This week, I had the opportunity to help a dear friend organize the storage spaces of her new apartment in New York City. Having just moved in, she didn’t need any decluttering, so I was able to get busy while she was at work. After I analyzed her needs, I went to the Container Store website and scoped out some products, making a Wish List.

Then I took the subway to the Lexington and 58th Street Container Store and told them I wanted same-day delivery of the products I purchased. I was given a scanner and I wandered through the store, scanning the products I wanted, using my Wish List as my guide. Then I checked out, went back to the apartment and within a few hours the products were delivered (for a $25 fee). It was fabulous.

I just want to show you a couple of photos of how some carefully selected products made a huge difference in this small space.

In the kitchen, my friend has a narrow (10 inches wide) cupboard in which she stored supplies to make hot beverages, primarily. She also had a little oil and vinegar and some peanut butter in there.

Here’s the before picture.

And here’s how the space was transformed with a few key products.

The game changer was the Linus 9-inch Divided Turntable, which now holds her bottles of oils and vinegars, plus some liquid sugar for coffee and her peanut butter. (I moved the oatmeal to the cupboard below, to live with the rest of the breakfast cereal.)

The YouCopia Coffee Stack Organizer was a revelation. My friend has a Keurig and this allowed us to store all her pods in a small, organized space. She buys them in ten-pod packages and each of the four levels of the organizer holds ten pods.

I used the Linus Sugar and Tea Packet Holder to hold her favorite tea bags (the rest are stored higher, in another cupboard; see the picture below) along with some individual packets of Sugar in the Raw. Everything else just fell into place.

Over the microwave, my friend had a bunch of boxes of tea, along with some pasta and some flavored syrup.

Here’s the before picture:

And here’s how it looked after adding just a couple of containers.

The 8-Compartment Acrylic Tea Box helped coral all those messy boxes. It fit in the space beautifully and held all her tea bags. Heaven.

I used the eight-inch square Linus Pantry Binz to hold her pasta. And I moved the syrups to the skinny cupboard.

I also worked in her bathroom and bedroom closets, which I can save for another post. (I have to get outside and enjoy New York!) It feels so great to be able to help my friend make her apartment so functional!

New, elegant containers from SortJoy

10 May 2021

Back in January, I read a note from a NAPO member Stefani Herr, about a new line of containers she had co-developed (with an interior designer) called SortJoy. I admire organizers who bring products to the market so I checked them out was really impressed at the product line’s beauty and versatility. I signed on to become a rep (which means that if you click on my link, I get a commission and, for a limited time, you get a 10% discount). I immediately ordered one for myself.

SortJoy offers felt containers (made from recycled plastic) in several sizes as well as some collapsible containers made from paper. I have a huge bias in favor of felt. As I knitter, I love knitting wool bags and containers and then washing them so they felt. (Remember the felted-wool wastebasket I made for my last car?) So I immediate gravitated toward the felt line.

SortJoy has three types felt containers, The Flex Bin, The Handle Bin, and The Sculpted Bin, which is more rigid. I opted for The Flex Bin, which has a foldable upper edge, so you can adjust the height to fit your needs. (The Handle Bin can also be folded.)

Another thing I love is that SortJoy offers limited choices, which made it much easier for me to decide what to buy. Once I chose felt over paper and no handles, I simply had to decide flex vs sculpted, then shape (square or rectangular), size (regular or small), and color (grey or tan). I am so easily overwhelmed by options that I always like to limit my choices. (That’s one of the things I loved about wearing the same dress for 100 days.)

When my Flex Bin arrived (I ordered a tall, square, tan Flex Bin), I was really pleased with the quality. I immediately put it to use holding my current knitting project, which lives next to my chair in the living room. Since it’s out in the open like that, I loved the simple elegance of the SortJoy bin. I folded down the top to make it easier to access the contents from my chair.

Here’s a photo of the room, with the SortJoy Flex Bin. (Please try to ignore the dog-toy stuffing in front of my chair.)

I’m very pleased with this product and recommend SortJoy to folks who don’t need a clear container and who enjoy the simple elegance of felt.