Peace of Mind Organizing

Holiday cards the easy way

3 December 2015

I finished doing my business’s holiday cards this weekend. I send out about 125 cards to clients and colleagues and this year I managed to do it without stress.

In case it helps you make holiday cards easier, I’ll share my process.

1. I selected a card flat non-photo New Year’s card from Minted.com and customized it with my business’s name. I put a printed backer on it, but no text. (I like New Year’s cards because they’re secular and they give me a little extra time, though I didn’t need it this year.) I also included a complementary Skinnywrap return address label.
2. I uploaded a spreadsheet of the recipient’s names and addresses to the Address Assistant in my account on Minted. (I did have to use an app called Export Address Book to export from the Contacts app on my Mac.) Minted will print the names and addresses on the envelopes free of charge this year.
3. When the cards arrived, I put the cards, envelopes, Skinnywrap labels, Sharpies and stamps in a container so everything would be together when I wanted to work on cards.
4. Every day, I wrote a message on the back of ten cards, sealed them, affixed stamps and affixed the return address labels.

It took me a couple of weeks, but they’re all done and now all I have to do is put them in the mail!

Doing just ten at a time made this task so easy. And the fact that I didn’t have to hand address or print and affix address labels made a big difference, too.

If you like the idea of creating a spreadsheet of addressees from which you create labels (rather than have a service like Minted address the envelopes for you) and you use Outlook or Gmail, this step-by-step tutorial from the Kahoots blog might be helpful!

If you use a Mac and would like guidance on printing labels directly from your Mac’s Contacts app (which is what I used to do before letting Minted do my addressing for me), this video# from Ruth Davis of Mac2School shows you how.

The good news is that my professional cards are done. The bad news is that I still have about 75 personal cards to send out, but I have to wait until our puppy arrives on December 13 (squee!) so the card can sport a picture of him. But I’ve done what I can by uploading the addresses spreadsheet to Minted. Next steps will be get a great photo of the puppy, upload it to Minted and order my cards. Then I’ll do 10 at a time again. I should have it all done before Christmas but, if not, before January 1. I love that it feels so easy.

Giveaway winner!

30 November 2015

Thanks to all who entered the giveaway for a copy of Decluttering Your Home: Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets, by Geralin Thomas. I used the Random Number Generator to select a winner.

The winner is

Jessica VanSumeren

Jessica has a blog, The Mama Revival Series, and she just might review the book there. If she does, I’ll post a link!

Even if you didn’t win a free copy, I urge you to purchase and read this terrific book!

Much to be grateful for

27 November 2015

I love that we have a national holiday devoted to feeling grateful. I’ve found that taking a moment to feel grateful for our many blessings, even in times of adversity, is so beneficial.

I’ll share that this past year has probably been the most difficult year I’ve every had. I lost my mother and my beloved dog, Kirby. One of my brothers had a stroke. I broke my first bone. My father, who was my mother’s caregiver, had bladder cancer and was hospitalized, leaving us scrambling to find care for her. To top it off, a dear friend passed away just two weeks ago.

Despite all that, there is much to be thankful for. And, as I’ve done on some Thanksgivings past I’d like to express my gratitude for many of the great things in my life.

• My dad beat cancer. Shortly after my mother’s passing, my father discovered that three rounds of chemo did the trick and he’s cancer free.

• My mother’s swift and peaceful passing. She lived with Parkinson’s Disease for many years. When she finally became too weak, she didn’t suffer. I am truly grateful for that and for the fact that my brother, Larry, who lives in Australia was able to get to our hometown for her memorial service.

• The pre-planning we’d done for my mother’s passing. Nine years before she passed, my parents and I sat down and had the difficult conversation about their end-of-life wishes. So we knew what she wanted for her memorial service and obituary. That was unbelievably helpful.

• My wonderfully supportive family and friends. We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with our St. Louis friends who have become family. I couldn’t be more grateful for them—and for all my friends.

• The tenth anniversary of my business. I am so lucky to get to make a living by making a difference in people’s lives. My clients rock.

• My team members. The vast majority of my client appointments are spent leading teams of amazing organizers. We can get so much done in a short period of time. And we have lots of fun doing it.

• The new poodle puppy who will be joining our family in just a couple of weeks. I know he’s going to be a lot of work. But he’s going to be so much fun.

• Grilled cheese sandwiches made with mayonnaise. Making a grilled cheese is now so easy and the result so delicious. That’s a life changer.

• Morning smoothies. I still love my NutriBullet with a fiery passion.

From the profound to the trivial, these are the things I’m grateful for this year. I’ve let my daily gratitude list go by the wayside this year and this is a good time to start it back again. A gratitude habit can be a really powerful thing.

Decluttering Your Home: A review + giveaway

23 November 2015

My friend, the amazing organizer Geralin Thomas, has written a fabulous new book, Decluttering Your Home: Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets. The 176-page book, published by Firefly Books, is heavily illustrated with beautiful photos and drawings.

The publisher provided me with a copy to review and give away to one lucky reader! (See giveaway details below.)

I need to start this review with a disclosure: Geralin is a good friend of mine, as regular readers of the blog know. So I’m admittedly biased. But, really, even if I had never met Geralin, I think I’d be gaga over this book.

After an overview chapter on clutter and the hold it can have over us, the book is divided into the following sections:

• Household clutter (divided by space in the house)
• Digital clutter
• Calendar clutter
• Maintenance
• Checklists and planners

Here is a photo of an interior spread in the Kitchen chapter of the book.

Geralin has been a professional organizer since 2002. It’s abundantly apparent in this book that she knows her stuff. The book is full of bite-sized information and suggestions for every area in the house. It’s richly illustrated, making it really appealing to read and very accessible.

The information in the book is a wonderful combination of practical and aspirational. She covers things that are in every home (like junk drawers) to things that I probably could only aspire to (a converted armoire-style storage cabinet with custom-made drawers to act as a pantry). So in that way, it’s a little like Pinterest!

In the book, Geralin offers specific suggestions on decluttering, as well as fantastic organizing and storage tips. So if you’re not dealing with a whole lot of clutter but just want to fine tune your organizing, you’ll love this. If you are dealing with clutter, it’ll be a godsend. I love the chapter on maintenance, which covers creating habits and also offers advice on coping with backsliding. And the final chapter—full of checklists of chores, tasks, and even wardrobe and meal planners—is really useful.

Would you like a free copy? Enter the giveaway!

To be entered in the giveaway, you must leave a comment here. Each commenter will receive one entry. 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 giveaway will end on Sunday, November 29 at noon central time and I’ll announce (and inform) the winner on Monday, November 30.

ETA: The giveaway has closed. Congrats to Jessica VanSumeren for winning the giveaway!

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

19 November 2015

In 2013, I wrote a post that explained why I became a professional organizer. I’m celebrating the tenth anniversary of Peace of Mind Organizing, and the works continues to pay off. I feel so fortunate to still enjoy my work after ten years in business. 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 (a couple 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 year of business?

Those initial three reasons did prove to be powerful. In addition, here are some other things I’ve found to so 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 by bringing in a team of organizers to help my clients.

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 almost three decades. And as long as it continues to be this rewarding, I’ll keep doing it.

Instant gratification vs. the joy of anticipation

16 November 2015

My husband and I are getting a standard poodle puppy on December 13. Our beloved poodle, Kirby, passed away on March 1 and since then, for the first time in 23 years, we’ve been living without at least one poodle in our family.

I’m delighted that’s about to change. (I was ready before Barry.) In September, after much deliberation, we made the decision to buy a poodle puppy from a responsible breeder and we contacted Kirby’s breeder. It was interesting timing. She had a litter about to go to their new families and a puppy buyer had fallen through. She offered us the opportunity to buy a puppy immediately. And she said that she wouldn’t be breeding again for awhile, so she gave us the name of a breeder she has mentored, who had had a breeding just a few weeks before. (That breeder is Dianne Janczewski of Clifton Standard Poodles.)

At that moment, we had to decide whether we would buy one of puppies immediately available or wait until December for our puppy (or much later, if that breeding didn’t result in a pregnancy). It was a tough decision, but we decided to wait.

I am so glad we did! We found out in late September that there was a pregnancy and from that point forward I’ve been enjoying putting plans into place for this puppy. (That’s a picture of our puppy or one of his littermates at the age of four weeks.) I’ve made travel arrangements (I’ll be picking him up in Virginia) and a veterinary appointment. I’ve signed up for puppy kindergarten (and gone to a no-dogs-allowed introductory class). I’ve purchased and read puppy training books to refresh my knowledge. This week I’m going to shop for some puppy supplies.

And I’ve enjoyed the freedom of being dog-less, knowing that as soon as the puppy arrives my husband and I will be sleep-deprived and home bound.

If we had taken the route of instant gratification, we would have missed out on all the fun anticipation. Ours lives would have been turned upside down as we scrambled to get the supplies together and arrangements made. We would have been stressed and the puppy probably would have been stressed as well. (Granted, we would have been house training in September, rather than December, but that’s a trade off I’m willing to make.)

For my personality, careful planning and anticipation is part of the enjoyment of something new. It can be hard to delay gratification but often, as in this case, it pays off.

The joy of finishing the long-delayed project

13 November 2015

This past weekend, I experienced the thrill of an empty basement in my own home. My husband and I live in a two-family home built in 1908. (We used to rent out the downstairs apartment, but now we live in the whole thing.) It has a scary unfinished basement that I joked was straight out of Silence of the Lambs. The limestone foundation walls and plaster-and-horsehair dropped ceiling shed dust onto the floor that is so bad we have special “basement shoes” so we don’t track dust around the house.

It’s a big basement and, like so many other people, we would just take stuff down there, storing it willy nilly, rather than making the decision to dispose of it. The washer and dryer are in the basement, so I actually had to look at the unruly mess at least weekly.

In 2009, we hired a professional organizer, Karel Worley, to help clear out that basement. The results were pretty spectacular but after six years of not changing our dumping behavior it had started to look cluttered again. Then matters got worse when the basement floor started heaving due to hydrostatic pressure. So we had no choice but to clear out our basement for repairs and renovation.

The work started this week, so this past weekend, we did a thorough clean-out of the basement. It felt so good!! There were many items down there left by the sellers in 1992 that we didn’t deal with in our 2009 purge. There was stuff in the little under-the-porch storage room the we didn’t even know were there, like the sellers’ college textbooks. There were also some solid six-panel doors and glass-paned cabinet doors. We sold those to neighbors and netted $225.

For four hours, Barry and I went through the stuff. We kept so little that it all fit into the two under-the-porch storage rooms, which will not be affected by the renovation.

I took a carload of stuff to Goodwill. Then we had 1-800-GOT-JUNK come and take away an entire truckload of junk. It was thrilling!

The next day we had Paint Away come and take away the dozens of paint cans (and some other old household products) that had been languishing in the basement. I had no idea there were so many paint cans down there, because they were scattered in little pockets of cans all over the place. Working with both 1-800-GOT-JUNK and Paint Away was a fantastic experience.

At the end of that weekend, I was practically giddy with the joy of getting that stuff out of the house. I didn’t realize how much it had been weighing me down for 23 years. I almost felt like a physical load had been taken off my shoulders.

At the risk of embarrassing myself, here’s how the junky side of the basement looked before we decluttered.

And here’s a picture at the end of the weekend.

This week, that wall on the left of the photos was removed to open the two sides of the basement and now it looks completely different. The drop ceiling was also removed. The next step is removing the floor, adding a waterproofing system, then replacing the floor. Then we’ll have the walls painted with waterproofing paint, improve the lighting and do some more sprucing up. We won’t have a finished basement (we don’t need one), but we’ll have a dry basement that we can wear our street shoes in. It’s very exciting.

The first step to the whole process was decluttering. Isn’t that always the way? I find that decluttering (physical or mental or emotional) tends to be the first step toward progress of any sort.