Peace of Mind Organizing

Starting yoga where I am

17 December 2018

In years past, I’ve blogged about how difficult it is for me to keep an exercise routine going. I’m not typically someone who needs to lose weight and my work is pretty active, but I know, intellectually, the importance of regular exercise, particularly in the aging process.

For some months, I kept having the thought that I should give yoga a try. It just seemed like the type of exercise I might most benefit from now. But I had all these barriers to getting started.

For example:

• I didn’t know what type of yoga I should try.
• I didn’t know where to go to learn.
• I was afraid of doing it wrong and hurting myself.
• If I was being honest, I feared I’d invest money and then stop doing it and beat myself up or feel bad about myself.
• I didn’t think I had a lot of time to spend doing it.
• I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy it.

And that’s just for starters. I also have this weird compunction (which I’ve talked about more than once with my co-host Shannon on our Getting to Good Enough podcast) to start any new practice or habit on the first day of the month. If I missed the first day of a month I felt like I had to wait until the beginning of the next month to think about doing it again. Not beneficial. And completely unnecessary.

Then my lovely 24-year-old niece came for a visit. She and her dad (my brother, Larry) were at my house for 10 days and then the three of us went to Walla Walla to visit our father/grandfather. Miranda and I shared an Airbnb for a week. (It was this place and it was awesome!) Miranda has a morning routine that’s very important to her that includes yoga. Since we were sharing a space I got to observe her effortlessly doing yoga at home. It wasn’t terribly time consuming but it was clearly beneficial to her. She could do it daily despite a demanding travel schedule. Miranda made yoga look very appealing.

When I told her that I’d been pondering getting started but didn’t really know where to start, she suggested the free online videos from Yoga with Adriene (which is what she uses) and specifically that I start with Adriene’s 30 Days of Yoga series.

This is exactly what I needed: A specific recommendation of a 30-day program that mixes things up and tells me exactly what to do every day. It doesn’t get boring and there’s no guess work and no choices to make. I’m making a 30-day commitment, which I can handle. The final component, for me, is external accountability. By telling you all about it here (and mentioning it on the podcast), I’m making it easier to stick with the program.

I ignored the fact it was the middle of the month and on December 12 I got started. I completed Day 6 today. Guess what? I’m absolutely enjoying it! The time commitment is 15-30 minutes daily. I try to do it in the morning but a couple of days had to do it in the afternoon. I do it in my home’s guest room, which is opposite my office, and I don’t need a lot of set up or anything. The barriers have vanished.

Adriene explains things well, has a great sense of humor and gives you permission to just work where you are. I am not as flexible as she is (obviously), but she reassures me that that’s okay. I’m starting where I am (we did an episode of the podcast on that) and I am happy!

If there’s something you’ve been meaning to try, perhaps you can just go ahead and give it a shot and try to ignore all your inner objections. I’m glad I did!

ETA: It’s January 15 and I haven’t missed a day of yoga. It’s been weeks since I’ve had any reluctance to do yoga. I’m feeling stronger and more flexible. I finished 30 Days of Yoga and have moved on to Adriene’s 2019 30-day journey, Dedicate. She’s all kinds of awesome!

A morning smile

3 December 2018

I’m in Walla Walla, Washington, with my brother and niece visiting our dad. I flew here through Phoenix Skyharbor Airport, where I purchased a little pick-me-up latte at Peet’s Coffee.

When the barista served me my latte, it put a giant smile on my face. She is an artist! I keep looking at the photo in my camera roll (and on my Instagram feed) and it keeps making me smile. So I thought I’d share it with you.

Worth repeating: Ten things I learned on my vacation

26 November 2018

I haven’t taken a proper, responsibility-free vacation in a very long time. I re-read this post this morning, written in 2012 after a wonderful trip to Barbados, and was so glad to be reminded of the importance of getting away. I thought I’d share it in the hopes that it might inspire you to take a vacation!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, last week I went to Barbados with my college buddies, to celebrate our 50th birthdays.

It was glorious. Barbados is a lovely island, full of friendly people. Our accommodations were top notch. We kept busy, but not too busy. I did virtually no work, save checking email occasionally and responding a tiny bit.

It made me realize how long it had been since I’d taken a real vacation. And that I need to do it more often.

On the last day, I dangled my legs in our little private pool and jotted down ten things I learned on vacation to share with you here:

1. It’s okay to take off your watch and not know what time it is.
2. Unwinding completely is possible—and beneficial.
3. Under certain conditions, I actually am a beach person.
4. Vacations are worth the time and money.
5. You can create memories without documenting them. (It killed me to leave my camera at home when we were in the water, but I couldn’t risk injuring my precious iPhone.)
6. I don’t particularly care for snorkeling (but I was glad I tried it).
7. It’s okay to admit that snorkeling isn’t for me and stay on the boat while others snorkel.
8. There’s no room for the word “should” on vacation.
9. Being among your most long-standing friends who know and love you is a wonderful thing. (Well, I already knew that.)
10. Luxury doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive.

We stayed at a lovely villa booked through Villas of Distinction. I’d go back to it in a heartbeat. A beautiful accommodation for a low price (since there were five of us).

Here’s a photo of the five of us at a restaurant on our last night on the island. I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends!

KC, Dede, me, Denise and Ann

This Thanksgiving...

21 November 2018

Happy 12th birthday!

14 November 2018

This month, this blog turned 12. I published my first blog post, What is organized? on November 10, 2006. I’m really grateful that my website designer, Nora Brown, suggested I start a blog. Back then I had barely even ready any blogs.

In the 12 years since, I’ve published over 1300 posts, which at an average 450 words per post is a whole lot of words. I try to blog twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays), though that doesn’t happen every week. And occasionally, I repeat past blog posts, which is one of the perks of being a long-time blogger, in my view.

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 know that I’m not perfect
• It also lets clients and prospective clients know that despite my imperfection, I do 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)

Social media channels seem to come and go but I think blogs are here to stay. That suits me fine, because I have no plans to stop blogging. 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 as well (Tuesdays and Fridays).

If you have topics you’d like me to address on this blog, I hope you’ll shoot me an email!

Photo by Photo by Bambi Corro on Unsplash

Keeping holiday cards easy

8 November 2018

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 one I thing I enjoy doing is sending holiday cards. I send two sets: One for Peace of Mind Organizing clients and colleagues and one for personal friends. (The personal set always sports a picture of our very photogenic 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.

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” returns address labels, printed card backs and envelope liners) to snazz it up. I opt for the skinny wrap but otherwise haven’t adding any features this year.
• They offer flat, as well as folded, cards.

This year, I picked out my design (I tried not to agonize over it), then edited last year’s address list. I removed a few people and added more. I ordered stamps from the postal service’s website.

When the cards arrive, they’ll already be addressed. All I’ll have to do is write a note on the back of each one, put it in its envelope, apply the return address label and stamp and put it in the mail. I’ve ordered 165 business holiday cards, so if I do 20 a day I’ll have it done in just over a week.

In 2018 I took up hand lettering as a hobby, so I’ll get some great practice when I write on the back of each of the cards.

I still need to do the same thing for my personal cards—picking out the picture of Bix is the hardest part. But I’ll turn my attention to that this weekend and I’ll do it all again for my friends. But that’s a smaller list.

If you don’t enjoy sending holiday cards, 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!

But if you do enjoy sending holiday cards, you might look into ways that you can make it easier, like ordering online and having your addresses printed on the 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.)

Let your holidays be as easy as possible!

The power of the empty inbox

5 November 2018

In the past I’ve been able to maintain an Inbox Zero habit for my email and have blogged a lot about how great it is. I truly believe it’s one of the best things I do for my sanity.

This year, I’ve done a pretty poor job of emptying my inbox every day. I let messages accumulate that required action, with the fear that if I moved them from my inbox, I’d forget about them. But what happened instead is that by leaving these messages in my inbox until it’s bloated, I can’t even see these “important” emails among all the others.

When that happens, my inbox becomes source of stress so I avoid dealing with it. And then not only am I not focusing on the emails that require action, even the easy responses don’t get sent. It’s a bad cycle, obviously.

Yesterday, I finally emptied my inbox after probably months. I started the weekend with something like 285 messages in my inbox. I sorted by sender and got rid of the easy ones, like the daily emails I receive from a newspaper I subscribe to. I filed a bunch of documents that had been emailed to me, which is very quick to do one at a time but a little time consuming if you let them accumulate.

Then I was left with those emails that I had let languish in my inbox because I didn’t want to deal with them. And guess what? I dealt with them! It felt great. I felt empowered and liberated and accomplished.

This morning, I woke up to just a few emails that had come in overnight and it was very easy to delete (or reply to) them. I’ve feeling great about keeping up the habit because I know from vast experience how beneficial it is.

Here is why I love emptying my inbox at the end of the day. (I’m taking this from a blog post I wrote almost exactly a year ago.)

• It forces me to make decisions about the emails I receive: I either respond, archive, delete, or file each one. (I file very few emails; I archive most of those I want to keep and find them with a search.)
• It prompts me to get rid of junk and unsubscribe from emails that don’t serve me.
• It means that nothing gets lost in my email inbox.
• It discourages procrastination—if I want to get the email out of my inbox, I need to act on it. So I’m a prompt responder to people who reach out to me. That’s good for business (and personal relationships).
• It gives me visual peace and a feeling of accomplishment. Every day.

The best part is that when I have only one day’s email accumulation, it takes me less than five minutes to empty my inbox on a typical day.

I encourage you to give it a try. If you have a lot of emails in your inbox, here are some ideas for getting down to zero without too much angst.

1. Sort your emails by sender and delete or file as many as you can.
2. If emails remain in your inbox because they require action, consider putting those actions on your task list, rather than using your inbox as a task list.
3. Use the tools at your disposal, like flags in your email client, or forwarding emails to Evernote and set a reminder or try Boomerang, if you use gmail, to help you keep track of emails without having to keep them in your inbox.
4. Act on emails as you read them, rather than letting them languish and clutter up your inbox.
5. Make ample use of the Archive feature of your email client to get emails that you want to keep but don’t require a reply or action out of your inbox.

Trust me, dealing with email is easier with a streamlined inbox. Inbox Zero is not only achievable, it can be easy to maintain when you commit to it. I’m so glad I’m back on track with it.