Peace of Mind Organizing

Using my early-morning time

11 July 2016

I’m a morning person. I know that I’m most productive in the morning. Especially first thing in the morning. My brain is turned on and I can be pretty focused when everyone else in the house is asleep. (And by everyone else, I mean my husband and dog.)

I’ve learned that if I want to get something done I should do it during this precious early-morning time. For me, this is especially true of blogging. It’s easier for me to blog first thing in the morning than later in the day. I have trouble sitting down and focusing on blogging in the afternoon or evening. So I know that if I want to blog consistently, I am best off doing it in the morning.

Recently, I’ve turned that early-morning focus to doing genealogy research. (I blogged about this very thing on Organize Your Family History recently.) I had not been taking the time to do genealogy research, which was really disappointing me. Now that I’m doing it first thing, I’m really enjoying it and making progress. Of course that makes blogging the second thing I do in the morning, but that’s working out too.

I started to think about the things I can do to make it easier for me to do important things first thing, even on days where I have early client appointments. I’d prefer not to have to get up earlier, so I try to do routine things the night before instead of taking precious morning-brain time in the morning. These things include:

• Loading my car with supplies
• Deciding what I’m going to wear and even putting out the clothes
• Making lunch or gathering snacks
• Clearing off my desk so it’s easy for me to get right to work
• Making a short task list for the next day so that I’m reminded of what I want to get done first thing (instead of mindlessly going to email or Facebook)

Just doing these easy things the afternoon or evening before can allow me to harness the power of my early-morning brain. If you’re a morning person and you have something you’re having trouble getting done, you might give it a try.

If you’re an evening person—which is okay too, of course—you might try switching this up for your schedule. If you know your peak time, work around that. If you’re on your game at 9 pm try to make sure the mindless before-bed stuff is done so that you can really get into your flow at 9 and nothing gets in your way.

Is there something you’ve been wanting to accomplish regularly that keeps going undone? Try doing it before everything else.

Coloring folders giveaway winner!

7 July 2016

After numbering the entries, I used the Random Number Generator to randomly choose the winner of the Smead Coloring Folders that I reviewed last week.

The winner is Jessica Stallsmith!

I was tickled she won, because her comment/entry made me smile. She wrote:

I have an incredibly unhealthy obsession with arts, crafts, and office supplies. I finally confess. And the fact that these folders are everything in one, makes my heart sing. Speaking of heart, these also have the added benefit of reducing stress! Perfect! Since I was just diagnosed with high blood pressure! See what I did there? So clearly, if I win you could be saving a life! Or… Just make a little person like me extremely happy for 32 minutes.

Enjoy those 32 minutes of coloring, Jessica! Actually, with 12 folders I think you’ll get a lot more than 32 minutes of enjoyment out of them.

Coloring for Peace

4 July 2016

Continuing with the theme I started last week about adult coloring, I wanted to highlight an amazing coloring book I think you should know about. (And don’t forget I’m doing a giveaway this week for a set of Smead Coloring Folders!)

One of the positive things that came out of the protests and subsequent vandalism that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, as well as in my own Tower Grove neighborhood, was the art painted on plywood boards that covered broken storefronts. The community came together to paint messages of peace, unity and love. It was truly inspiring.

My friend and client, Carol Swartout Klein, a native of Ferguson, was inspired by that art and created an award-wining children’s story book, Painting for Peace in Ferguson that came out in 2015.

This year, she partnered with artist Robert O’Neil to create a coloring book based on the painting for peace art, Painting for Peace – A Coloring Book for All Ages. I saw her recently and she gave me a copy.

The coloring book, like all good coloring books, is appealing from an aesthetic standpoint. I found it hard to choose the first page to color because there were so many great options. But it’s also really moving. Color photos of the actual paintings that inspired the coloring pages are printed on the inside front and back cover, and the coloring book includes profiles of some of the original artists with an explanation of the art. Coloring pages are on the right side and complimentary inspirational quotations are on the left. It’s printed on high-quality paper and is appropriate for both adults and kids.

Here’s the cover of the book:

Here’s the first picture I colored from the book. I used primarily Koh-I-Noor Tri-Tone colored pencils.

This coloring book, and the children’s book before it, convey important messages of peace, love and hope. I encourage you to purchase either or both books. Your purchase not only spreads a message, it benefits youth, art education and economic recovery programs in the affected areas.

Smead's Coloring Folders: Review and giveaway

30 June 2016

When I attended the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers this year, the item in the trade show that got me most excited was the SuperTab Coloring Folders being sold by Smead. That’s right, coloring folders. File folders that you color on.

Last year, I got caught up in the coloring-books-for-grown-ups craze. I bought many pencils and markers and coloring books. (Perhaps too many.) And I color frequently, for relaxation. I’ve enjoyed coloring and I’ve enjoyed organizing my coloring supplies. So these folders really caught my eye. I was delighted when Smead offered to send me a set to try out and a set to give away on the blog.

The folders come in packs of 6, 12 and 24, all available on Amazon. Smead sent me two 12 packs. Each has four designs to color; two of the designs have sayings printed on them as well (‘Give Life Meaning’ and ‘You are Your Only Limit’). I’ve enjoyed coloring them with markers. Here are a couple of examples. I colored the blue-hued folder with Faber Castell Pitt Artist Brushes and the flowered one with fine-point Sharpies. I will probably also try using colored pencils on these folders.

While I enjoy coloring, I really don’t have anything to do with the finished product. Unlike knitting, where I’m creating something to use, my coloring pages sit in a box when finished (if I really like them) or just get recycled. With the Smead Coloring Folders, I can actually use and enjoy the item I’ve colored. It’s amazing to me how gratifying that is!

Giveaway!

Wanna try these yourself? You can win a 12 pack of Smead Coloring Folders by entering my giveaway! To enter, post a comment below about why you wan to win. After you’ve entered with a comment, you may get additional entries by tweeting about the giveaway (be sure and use @janinea in the tweet, so that I see it) and/or writing on the wall or commenting at the Peace of Mind Organizing Facebook page. The contest ends at 11 pm, central time, on Wednesday, July 6. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday, July 7.

The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Jessica Stallsmith, who won a set of coloring folders!

(Photos taken using the tabletop photo light studio SHOTBOX.)

Feeling busy? Take 5 minutes to create a little order

16 June 2016

When I get busy my natural messiness kicks in. Our kitchen is being renovated so disorder reigns in our house and has for the last six weeks. But even in small spaces that have nothing to do with the kitchen, like my desk, everything felt out of control this morning. I’m feeling pulled in a bunch of directions and just wasn’t taking the time to put away the stuff I could. And the clutter started getting tome.

So this morning I set my timer for five minutes and I cleared off my desktop. I recycled papers I didn’t need. Took coffee mugs away to the (temporary) kitchen and put things in their homes.

After five minutes my desk wasn’t perfect (see the photo above). But I wish I’d taken a before picture, because the improvement with just a little effort was vast. I felt so much better when I was finished. And I was able to get productive quickly—I’m always amazed how a cluttered desktop hampers my productivity. (It’s clear I need to spend some time decluttering my computer desktop…please don’t judge!)

Sometimes when you’re really busy and things are messy you think you just don’t have the time to tidy up. But I think that’s when you should take a little time—even if it’s just five minutes—to create a little order and give yourself some peace of mind.

Decluttering, tidying and cleaning are not an all-or-nothing propositions. You don’t have to wait until you have enough time to do everything. You can do just a little and enjoy some big dividends.

Study on clutter and relationships

7 June 2016

I’m always urging clients not to let stuff have power over their relationships. It breaks my heart when I see disagreements over stuff getting in the way of happy relationships.

In honor of National Moving Day (May 31), Sparefoot recently commissioned a study on the extent of Americans’ clutter and how it affects relationships and health. The results are interesting, and confirm a lot of things I’ve seen to be true. For example, the study found that 91 percent of Americans have kept an item because they felt guilty getting rid of it.

If you’re a numbers cruncher, you can read the complete results from the survey company. Or you can take look at this nifty infographic created by SpareFoot that summarizes the results.

Via SpareFoot.com

Worth repeating: Storing cards to send later

2 June 2016

Four years ago I wrote this blog post about storing the cards I acquire to send to others. I still use this method and find it so helpful when I need a card on the fly.

If you’re like me and like to pick up greeting cards when they’re on sale or when you find one you really like (or, if you like to reuse cards like I do), sometimes storing them can get tricky.

I’m usually looking for a card in a hurry, like when I’m heading out the door to meet a friend and realize her birthday is coming up. Some years back, I started storing my cards by category using a desktop file box. Now it’s really easy to find what I want in a hurry. I’ve suggested this to several clients, who found it to be an easy-to-maintain system as well.

That's our tile porch roof in the background.

Here’s what you do:

• Take a container, either a shallow desktop file box like mine or a plastic (or even cardboard) shoe box. Or use any container that fits cards well.

• Sort your cards into whatever categories work for you.

• Create labels, either using a label maker, printing Avery address labels (which is what I did), or hand writing a label right on the file tab.

• Cut manila file folders so they’re about the width of a card, using the section of the folder surrounding the 1/3-cut tab. Cut the folder at the bottom as well, so that your file folder divider is just a single thickness.

• Simply rest the cards upright in the file box, using the modified file folders as dividers to separate the categories.

The great thing about this is that the cards become very easy to flip through. At one point in my life, a couple of decades ago, I tried using an accordion file. But that took many more steps to access. This has been terrific. Happy card giving!