Peace of Mind Organizing

Your moment of cuteness

15 January 2016

I’ve had difficulty finding time to blog, between the busy beginning-of-the-year client load and sharing puppy-raising duties with my husband.

But, of course, little Bix, our standard poodle puppy born on October 16, is worth all the time and attention we give him. He’s growing like a weed and makes us laugh every day.

In an effort to post something new here, I give you this photo of the sweet boy. I think it can’t help but put a smile on your face.

I took the two photos with my phone and used the app Pic Stitch to put them together. The photo was taken almost two weeks ago, so he’s probably half again as big now, but I love it so much I had to share.

Worth repeating: An empty drawer is a beautiful thing

11 January 2016

I wrote this post a year ago and I still fervently believe its message. Less stuff = more freedom, in my opinion. It’s that simple.

My team and I helped a client declutter and organize her entire home last week and we were able to make a huge impact—because the client parted with so much. She was so ready to let go of the excess that was weighing her down and she made amazing decisions. As we took out bag after bag of donatable items, the rooms seemed to get lighter.

All the team members—and the client—were practically giddy over it.

When it came time to organize the items that were kept, it was a breeze. We found ourselves with empty drawers and even an empty cabinet when we were finished. Folks, that’s a rarity. And it’s a great thing.

To me, an empty drawer represents abundance (though it may appear the opposite). It represents the ability to bring in new items, new ideas, new opportunities. By letting go of so much, this client has opened herself up to a whole new way of life. She’ll no longer have to struggle to find what she needs. Everything in her home has a place (another rarity). Possibilities have opened up.

I have every confidence that she’ll be able to maintain the order. If she has difficulty, she now has a resource (me) to get her right back on track.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the less stuff you own, the easier life is.

If you have more items than you can store comfortably and the excess is getting in your way, consider letting stuff go. I promise that living in your home will become less of a struggle. And who doesn’t want that?

2015 highlight reel

4 January 2016

2015 was a challenging year for me personally, with more loss than I’ve ever experienced, along with family health issues and challenges. Thankfully, my business didn’t suffer much from the personal challenges.

It’s easy to let out a sigh of relief that 2015 is over and forget about it entirely, but I know that it’s wise to reflect on some of the accomplishments of the year. It may have been a tough year, but it was by no means without high points. So, as I have done in the past, I present my highlight reel for the past year.

For Peace of Mind Organizing

I celebrated ten years in business!. I started Peace of Mind Organizing in July 2005. Ten years in business feels like a huge accomplishment.

I worked with three generations of one family. A client who hired us to do a whole-house transformation went on to refer us to her parents and hire us to help her twentysomething daughter. That was such a special treat!

We made a huge difference for several recently widowed clients. For some reason, in 2015 I heard from a number of recently widowed folks. It can be a challenge for grieving people to face the disorganization that can come with the illness and death of a loved one. I am very grateful for the trust these clients placed in us and for my amazing team members who made the experience a positive one for these families.

I made more money working fewer hours. Organizing can be an exhausting profession. And it’s also a profession that many of us start mid-career. That means that figuring out how to continue having a successful business as we age is a very real concern. For me, it’s using team members to do a lot of the physical work. (Many hands make light work.)

I became president of NAPO-St. Louis (again). In my 2010 highlight reel I included the fact that I had passed the reins of the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers on to my successor. Well, five years later the chapter was in need of a president so I volunteered for a year. In this board year, we’ve embraced my mantra of Let it be easy and the result has been a pleasant and productive, if not ambitious, year for NAPO-St. Louis. We’re calling it “the year of catching our breath.”

For Organize Your Family History

A year of great growth for my genealogy blog. I started the Organize Your Family History blog in June 2012. In 2013 I had 18,000 page views. Readership has grown steadily since then and in 2015, it surpassed 100,000 page views for the year. My most widely read post, Reading hard-to-read gravestones has been viewed 19,000 times since I published it in July 2014.

A new identity! The talented designer Rebecca Pollock revamped the look of Organize Your Family History with a new header, new business cards and a template for what became the Orderly Roots guides (see below). I love the new look—it’s a vast improvement over what I had created myself three years before.

I created the Orderly Roots genealogy guides. Similar to my Organizing Guides, my new Orderly Roots genealogy guides are an inexpensive way to tap into my expertise. It took some effort to create the first two and put them up for sale and I’m proud to have managed it. More titles are in the works.

I attended four genealogy conferences. I love conferences and genealogy conferences are amazing ways to learn. Not only did I learn a great deal, I met some amazing genealogists and bloggers (as well as readers of my blog). I think my puppy will prevent me from attending as many in 2016, but I plan at the very least to attend the National Genealogical Society conference in Ft. Lauderdale in May.

For myself

I met my goal of reading a book a week. I love reading on my Kindle Paperwhite and I keep track of the books I’ve read in Evernote. So I know that in 2015 I read 53 books, barely surpassing my goal of a book a week. That feels good.

I started coloring. I hopped on board the new craze of coloring books for adults a little late in the game, I think. But I’ve enjoyed the calm that comes with it. For me, it’s a nice mixture of creativity (selecting the colors) and rules. Plus, I’ve enjoyed organizing my coloring supplies. I’ll have to write a blog post about that.

Clearly 2015 wasn’t all bad. And 2016 will no doubt be better!

Taking stock of the previous year’s accomplishments provides a great foundation for setting goals for the new year. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to create a highlight reel for 2015 It provides an easy and gratifying way to look back on your past accomplishments. I’ve enjoyed reading previous years’ highlight reels as I’ve prepared this blog post.

Here’s to an amazing 2016!!

Six things having a new puppy has taught me

28 December 2015

Happiness is a warm puppy

My thoughts are all wrapped in my dog these days. We brought our standard poodle puppy, Bix, home from the breeder two weeks ago. He’s now ten weeks old and commands most of our attention. Emails have gone unread and unwritten. Blogging has slowed way down. I feel behind in everything.

But I have a warm snuggly puppy and it’s worth all the effort. (That’s Bix in the photo at right snuggling with his dad.) This morning, as he and I had a quiet moment together on the couch, I jotted down a few things that this time with Bix has taught me. He’s not my first puppy, but he is my first puppy since I’ve become an organizer and blogger. I’m in the habit of turning everything into a blog post. So here you go.

Six things my new puppy has taught me to do

1. Be patient. Oh my goodness. I think of myself as a patient person. I can stand in silence for minutes as a client ponders whether to keep or donate an item. But Bix is taking my patience to a new level. It’s been pouring rain for days and Bix is still being house trained. Waiting in the rain for my dog to eliminate requires an exquisite amount of patience.
2. Be attentive. One has to pay attention to an unhousetrained puppy or one cleans up a lot of messes. Also, puppies chew stuff up. So when I’m with Bix I need to be focused. When I focus instead on my phone, I usually am sorry. (In fact yesterday I was focused on neither of them and he started chewing on my phone!)
3. Look for the positive. Puppies are a clean slate. They need to be taught which of their natural behaviors are desirable and which are not. I practice positive-reinforcement training so I have to stay attuned to those things he does so I can reward him for it. (I realize I should be applying this to my interactions with humans as well!)
4. Be prepared. When you have to be ready to take a puppy outside at a moment’s notice and it’s winter, you have to be prepared. That means my coat is at the ready, clicker and treats in pocket. I try to have a toy handy at all times to give to him when he tries to bite my fingers (and other body parts). And I always have a clicker and treats in my pocket for a quick training session or just to reinforce something great he’s doing. And, of course, I try to have my iPhone handy to capture the cute moments!
5. Prioritize. My husband, Barry, and I share puppy duties. (Barry works from home.) It seems like all I have are small snippets of time that I must make the most of while Bix sleeps or Barry is entertaining him. The fact is that all I really want to do is post pictures and videos of Bix on Facebook and read the admiring comments, but really I need to prioritize the things that are essential to keeping my business running (like communicating with clients and team members).
6. Stop and enjoy the little things. Puppies are young only once. And they’re outrageously cute. It’s easy to get frustrated but, really, there is so much to enjoy. Like snuggles. Like the sight of a puppy running toward you with a ball in his mouth. Like the first time he walks up the stairs by himself. This time with him is precious and I’m focusing on creating lasting memories.

Making homemade dog treats

23 December 2015

It’s a little late in December to be offering up gift ideas, but perhaps this is a gift you can give to your dog (and yourself) without needing the excuse of a holiday.

It’s the You Bake ‘Em Dog Biscuits Cookbook, written by none other than yours truly. This cookbook is the last book I had published a dog writer before starting my organizing business in 2005. Ten years after publication it’s still selling.

Making your own treats for your dogs has a number of benefits:

• You control the ingredients
• You control the size of the treats
• You bake love right into the treat
• You have the pleasure of doing something for your dog (or his friends or your friends’ dogs)

I developed the 50+ recipes in the cookbook (some were originally developed by me for a prior, smaller cookbook published by the same company). I’m lucky that my husband, Barry, who works from home right off the kitchen, is a culinary school graduate. He gave advice, when asked, as I was working on the recipes. My own dogs at the time (Pip and Kirby) were taste testers, but I farmed each recipe out to at least one willing dog lover to test that the recipes work and to test that the dogs liked them.

I encourage you to give yourself the gift of the warm heart that goes along with making dog treats for your dog. If you try any of the recipes, please let me know!

Traveling on an airplane with a puppy

17 December 2015

If you’ve wondered why I haven’t blogged in a week or so, I have an excellent excuse.

Allow me to introduce Bix.

He’s an eight-week-old standard poodle puppy who joined our family on December 13. Tomorrow he’ll be nine weeks old. He’s absolutely adorable, smart as a whip and well behaved (for a puppy). He’s endlessly amusing.

Here’s a picture of Bix and me, taken by Dianne Janczewski, Bix’s breeder.

Bix came from Clifton Standard Poodles in Clifton, Virginia. I live in St. Louis, which means that I brought Bix home on an airplane. I enjoy planning such things and I gave the journey home with Bix a lot of thought. I had flown with a puppy once before, a dozen years ago, when we brought our departed poodle Kirby home from the breeder in New Jersey. But I didn’t really remember the fine details.

I did a lot of googling but I did not find a whole lot of helpful information. (The most helpful exception: Dog Jaunt.)

So I thought I’d detail a few things here that I did right and wrong in hopes of helping others faced with traveling with a little puppy on an airplane.

First, let me reassure you that Bix flew in the cabin of the airplane, under the seat in front of me. I flew Southwest and purchased their branded carrier so that I knew it would fit. If my puppy had been a small breed, I might have purchased a higher-quality carrier, like the Sherpa or SturdiBag, but I knew I’d be using this carrier for a very limited time and I felt the peace of mind of knowing it would fit was important.

Overall, everything went very well. My biggest worry had been that Bix would cry and disturb other passengers by whining or barking or that he’d eliminate in the carrier, which would also disturb passengers. He did neither of those things. He just slept, raising his head a little at the noises during takeoff and landing. He was a very good boy and didn’t even seem stressed.

Here’s a picture of him in his carrier on the plane.

What I didn’t anticipate was that he would get motion sick in the car on the way to the airport. My dear friend, Patti, was driving us in her new car and didn’t seem to blink when Bix threw up three times. Luckily, I had some pee pads with me that caught much of the mess, but it was still pretty gross. (He threw up in my car on the way home from the airport, too.)

So based on my experience, I’d like to share some things I did right and some things I did wrong:

Things I did right to prepare for my puppy’s first airplane trip

1. I paid attention to the airline’s regulations and bought a carrier that fit.
2. I booked a non-stop flight.
3. I made a reservation for Bix.
4. I bought some DryFur Pads to line his carrier and absorb any messes (which in his case was vomit).
5. I bought some Adaptil dog-appeasing-pheromone wipes and wiped down his carrier. That may have contributed to his calmness in the carrier.
6. I brought along four pee pads, though I wish I had brought more (see below).
7. I had a friend drive me, rather than taking Uber or a cab to the airport; given the vomiting, that would have ratcheted up the stress level for both of us.
8. I had my husband meet me at the airport so that we could take Bix directly to the pet-relief area once we landed. He really needed to pee.

Mistakes I made in preparing for my puppy’s first airplane trip

1. I didn’t anticipate car sickness. If I had, I would have brought along paper towels and more pee pads.
2. I didn’t insist on a private screening from TSA. I had read that I could request a private screening, but I was refused one by TSA. I should have insisted, because I had a difficult, stressful time getting Bix back into his carrier, which opens only in the front. In a private room, it would have been less stressful.
3. In retrospect I should purchased the higher-quality Sherpa carrier, which would have been easier to get him in to and out of. The Southwest carrier was taller, which I found appealing. But since Bix was lying down in the carrier, that wasn’t really relevant. And the Southwest was difficult to use and of shoddy quality. And it cost nearly as much as the Sherpa.

I hope if you’re faced with a trip like this one that you’ll find this post helpful. Based on my experience, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again (though I’d correct the mistakes I made). Certainly getting sweet Bix home to us was well worth the effort!

Here he is on his second day in our home. He was and remains happy and comfortable and not the least traumatized by his travel experience, thank goodness.

Worth repeating: Keeping the clutter out of holiday gift-giving

7 December 2015

I originally wrote this post as an article for November 2007 newsletter. I love how relevant it still is eight years later. I’ve updated links and added my favorite relaxation method, floating, but otherwise haven’t changed a word of this article. Please consider your gifts carefully this holiday season and try not to give anything that will end up clutter in your loved ones’ homes.

Clutter-Free Gift Giving

So many of my clients develop attachments to inanimate objects. Those attachments make it really hard for the client to part with the objects. And what happens? Clutter happens. I’ve found that clients who tend to get sentimental about stuff find it particularly difficult to part with gifts that have been given them.

This has certainly changed the way I think about gift giving. I personally believe that once I’ve given a gift, the recipient is free to do whatever he or she wants with it. My feelings won’t be hurt if the gift is given away or even thrown away. But I don’t want to clutter up anybody’s life. So I try to give gifts that won’t add to clutter. And I encourage you to think in the same way about gift giving, particularly if anyone on your gift list has a problem with clutter.

Here are some of my favorite ideas for clutter-free giving:

Fresh flowers. A beautiful arrangement of cut flowers livens up any room. After the flowers have died, they can be tossed guilt-free. I try to avoid including a vase with the gift—I’ve seen many a home cluttered by florists’ vases! An easy website for ordering flowers is 1-800-flowers. I’ve also used Proflowers with success. Sometimes I’ll call a local florist in the recipient’s town, if I know of a good one.

Pampering. If you have a friend who would enjoy a little pampering, consider a gift certificate for spa services. Many cities and even towns have day spas. A massage or facial (even for men!) might be something your gift recipient wouldn’t do for him or herself. To find a spa in your gift recipient’s community, try Spafinder. Another favorite way I pamper myself is by floating in a flotation tank. You can find one near you at Flotation Locations.

Services. Give someone the gift of time by offering to perform some needed services for him or her. You could offer a few hours of babysitting, offer to shovel snow, rake leaves, walk dogs or even clean house. If you’re a gardener, offer to do some landscaping. If you’re good with computers, offer to set up a wireless network or make their computer more secure. These gifts are clutter-free and really very special. You can also give a gift certificate for organizing services if you’re sure that the recipient would love to work with a professional organizer.

Clutter-free subscriptions. Giving a magazine subscription is a nice year-long gift, but many people let magazines pile up. Instead, consider giving a subscription to streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. If your gift recipient likes to listen to the spoken word, a subscription to Audible might be just right.

Edibles. Give something perishable to eat and you know it won’t linger in your gift recipient’s home. You can make homemade goodies, or send a gift package from a place like Wolferman’s, which sells great gift baskets of English muffins and specialty breads, or Harry & David for fruit or other sweet edibles.

A side benefit to giving an intangible gift is that you don’t have to go out shopping! Let your fingers do the shopping online. And give yourself (and your gift recipient) the peace of mind of not adding clutter to a cluttered world.