Snowed in?
Here in St. Louis, we have just a little snow on the ground, with a little more expected this afternoon. Those of you on the east coast, however, are pretty much snowed in. I just communicated via email with a friend in Maryland who said they got two feet of snow and were out of power for more than 48 hours. Yikes.
I don’t much like snow and I’m a white-knuckle driver in snowy or icy conditions. So I never wish for that amount of snow. But if we were to become snowed in, I’d like to think I’d take the chance to do some little tasks, interspersed with soothing activities like naps and watching TV and drinking cocoa.
Here are a few organization-related tasks you might consider if you’re starting to get cabin fever:
Clean out a junk drawer. In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with a junk drawer. But if yours has become hard to open and close, now’s your chance to clean it out. Empty it, weed out the inevitable trash, sort the contents and put them back in the drawer, with like things together. Depending on the contents of your junk drawer, you might consider using interlocking drawer organizers.
Put away the holidays. I realize that Groundhog Day is behind us, but I’d be willing to bet that some of you haven’t finished putting away your holiday decorations or other holiday paraphernalia. I confess that my holiday cards are still in the basket in the living room where I put them as they came in. Today’s a good day to put them (or throw them) away.
Take a look around your bathtub Are there abandoned shampoo bottles, slivers of soap, old disposable razors or any other items that you don’t use regularly littering the edge of the tub or the shower caddy? Take a couple of minutes and spruce up that spot.
Clean out a bookshelf. If you have a difficult time putting away books because your shelves are crammed (or if you have to store some books on the floor, or sideways atop the other books), take 15 or 30 minutes and weed out a bookshelf or two. You can sell your unwanted books to a used book store, on Craigslist or to
Powell’s Books (like I do). The result? A tidier bookshelf and perhaps some money in your pocket.
Pick up your pet area. If you have pets, you probably have an area where you feed them that perhaps is a little messy with dropped bits of kibble or what have you. You may have a tangle of leashes stashed somewhere. And, if you’re like me, your pets might have scattered their toys around. Take a few minutes to pick up after your pets. It won’t last forever, but it’ll be nice while it lasts!
Just taking a little time to do something productive might help make it easier for you to relax during your snow-related confinement. You’ll get to enjoy the fruits of your labor while feeling justified in wrapping yourself in a cozy blanket and waiting out the storm.
Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for The Other Side of Organized. The winner was Debbie Pendell. Keep watching the blog, because I have a couple of more giveaways in the works.
Follow up Friday
I wanted to update you on a few recent blog posts:
- There’s still time to enter to win The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection, the fabulous new book by my friend Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®. You can read the review on Wednesday’s blog post. To enter, either comment on that post or this one, and/or tweet about it on Twitter (being sure to put @janinea in the tweet so I’ll see it).
- The Why Resolutions Don’t Work [and How to Get What You Want Anyway] teleclass that Shannon Wilkinson and I offered last week was great. If you weren’t able to attend, you can still purchase the audio recording of the class. Click here to buy it for only $19.
- The community shred event sponsored by NAPO St. Louis and Shred and Protect Document Services was a resounding success. More than a ton of paper was brought in and shredded. That’s 2000 pounds of paper that would otherwise be cluttering up people’s homes and files or potentially end up in the landfill. I was very impressed by the Shred and Protect facilities and plan to use it for all my shredding needs.
- The Elfa sale at the Container Store is still going on, but the last day is February 15. You get 30 percent off all Elfa products and installation. I love Elfa. I use Elfa drawers to store my yarn stash. I love their wall mounted shelving, too. This is a great opportunity to get a great price.
- My friend, Aby Garvey and her husband, Jay, won the LA Organizing Award for Best Organizing Website or Blog. She went to the awards in Hollywood and looked amazing. (I got to help her shop for her fancy dress.) The full list of award winners isn’t yet up on the NAPO LA website, but it is available on their Facebook Fan Page. (I think you have to become a fan to read it.) Congratulations to Aby and Jay and all the winners (and nominees)!
That’s it. Enjoy your weekend. And don’t forget to enter to win an autographed copy of The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection.
The Other Side of Organized: a review and giveaway
My friend and fellow organizer, Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, has just published a fabulous new book called The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection. She sent me a copy for review and at the end of this post I’ll tell you how you can enter to receive a copy too.
I love this book. I’ll start by telling you what it’s not: It’s not a how-to. It’s not full of tips on getting organized. It’s not written for any special population. There are lots of great books out there like that.
The Other Side of Organized is different. It’s a slender, nicely designed volume full of short essays on getting and being organized and on balancing your life. As I read it, the word “gentle” kept coming to mind. Linda, a veteran organizer, is very gentle to her reader. She’s not telling you what to do. She’s suggesting ways of thinking and doing.
The book is very nicely written and full of insights. Linda’s writing tone is gentle, kind and patient. I think one of the reasons I like it so much is that Linda and I share a lot of the same ideas and attitudes about organizing.
Here are some of my favorite passages:
Why is it so hard to let go? We hold on to our possessions, our busy schedules, and our familiar routines. Do we think that if we let go, we will lose a part of who we are? We can potentially hold on so tightly that we deny ourselves the joy felt from releasing, making space for something wonderful, and experiencing tremendous growth.
I’ve been surprised more than once to discover that one person’s organizing starting point is an other person’s end goal.
Be kind to yourself. If you can’t decide between organizing or going for a walk, take the walk, clear your head and then come back and reset your timer for a 15-minute organizing session.
In discussing tackling projects, Linda advises the reader to break it down into small parts, then:
Stay with the project from start to finish, understanding that there will be distractions and life challenges along the way that can pull you off course. Just recognize that challenges are an integral, normal part of the process. The key is coming back even after you’ve been sidetracked.
Would you like to win a free autographed copy of The Other Side of Organized: Finding Balance Between Chaos and Perfection? To enter, just leave a comment below. For an extra entry, tweet about the giveaway on Twitter (in addition to your comment). Please be sure to put @janinea in the tweet so I’ll see it. The winner will be selected at random on Saturday afternoon (February 6, 2010).
Has your shredding piled up?
Shredding is so important. I’m often shocked when I meet new clients to learn that they don’t own a shredder. They think tearing up sensitive documents is sufficient. Then I’ll share with them a little experiment done on one of the morning shows that a client told me about. They took a credit card offer and tore it up. Then they taped it back together, photocopied it, filled it out and got the credit card. To me, that’s proof enough that shredding is essential. Identity theft is too devastating to mess with.
The problem with shredders, in my experience, is that they’re loud and people tend not to do shred right at the moment they identify a piece of paper that needs destroying. I’m guilty of this: right now there’s a pile of papers to be shredded resting on top of my shredder.
An even bigger problem is when you clean out your files and have a whole lot of shredding to be done. You risk burning out your shredder if you do it all at once. I often recommend using a commercial shredder. You can take all your shredding to them and, for a nominal fee, get it done all at once. Some commercial shredders will even come to your home.
NAPO St. Louis is fortunate to have Shred and Protect Document Services as one of its associate members. As part of NAPO’s national Get Organized Month, the two are pairing up to sponsor a Shred Event tomorrow from 9 to 1. If you live in St. Louis, you can bring a banker’s box full of documents that need to be shredded (about 25 pounds) to Shred and Protect, which is located in Hanley Industrial Court in Brentwood and get it securely shredded free of charge. Additional boxes are $5 each. Such a deal.
Complete details are available on NAPO St. Louis’s website, but here’s the bare-bones info.
Shred Event sponsored by NAPO St. Louis and Shred and Protect Document Services
Saturday, January 30, 2010
9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Shred and Protect Document Services
1429 Strassner
Brentwood, MO 63144
Special thanks to NAPO St. Louis’s Director of Marketing Shannon Zipoy for organizing this event!
How's 2010 looking for you?
January is almost over (already). As I’ve blogged about before, for the last couple of years I’ve been trying to add one big habit per year that will help me be happier and more productive. In 2008, it was clearing my desk at the end of the workday. In 2009 it was whittling my email inbox down to 15 or fewer messages every day. I’m going gangbusters on both of those.
For 2010, the new habit is going to be working on Quickbooks every day that there’s a transaction. I want to stay on top of my finances so I know exactly where I stand, so I don’t have to rely on my memory when I’m entering transactions and so I don’t have a mad rush to enter months’ (or even a whole year’s) worth of data at once so I can do my taxes.
So, as I mentioned, January is almost over. And I’m nowhere near creating the habit I’ve set out to create. In fact, I think I’ve only entered one transaction into Quickbooks so far this year.
But I’m not kicking myself about it. And I’m not really worried. That’s because I know about a really great teleclass that’s going to inspire me — and give me the tools — to get on track with this resolution.
It’s the Why Resolutions Don’t Work [and how to get what you want anyway] teleclass and I’m one of the teachers of it, along with life coach (and my Declutter Happy Hour co-creator) Shannon Wilkinson.
I think of Shannon as my secret weapon. The hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming techniques she uses are amazingly powerful and effective. She’s also kind, generous, and filled with great advice.
She can be your secret weapon too. You can benefit from her amazing skills (and from the practical advice I bring to the table) by signing up for this teleclass, which will be held this Friday (January 29) at 1:00 p.m. central. The call will be recorded, so if you can’t make it Friday you can still benefit from it (and listen to it over and over).
It’s only $10. And if you sign up, you get a $20 coupon for any products or services offered by Shannon or me.
I’ll summarize: You’ll learn some practical ways to set and achieve resolutions and goals. You’ll be taken through some really powerful (and relaxing) exercises. You can listen to it over and over. It only costs ten bucks. And you can get that ten bucks right back (plus ten more) when you buy coaching or organizing services from us.
Please join me in making 2010 the year you get what you want.
Salvaging the day
My standard poodle, Pip, is out of sorts today. She keeps coming up to me to ask for something. I feed her and she doesn’t eat. I let her out and she doesn’t want to come in (which is unusual, since it’s a very blustery day). It appears she wants something, but doesn’t know what. And she’s having a little trouble getting comfortable.
I’m the same way today. I have a lovely, clear calendar all the way to a phone meeting at 5 p.m. I have a long to-do list. But I have not checked a whole lot of things off on it. Like Pip, I find myself a bit out of sorts and uncomfortable.
It’s 3 p.m. and I have some options here to salvage the day. I can:
- Buckle down and try to get as much done as possible before my 5 p.m. meeting and 7 p.m. NSGCD teleclass. That way maybe I’ll feel better about myself and the day’s productivity.
- Cut myself some slack and just pick one or two really important things from my list and then do them.
- Concentrate on what I have managed to accomplish, since the day hasn’t been a total wash. (Hey, once I post this, I can cross “write blog post” off my list!)
- Do something that will make my mind feel more clear, like cleaning out my (physical) in basket which is starting to get full or clearing off my desktop completely, dusting it thoroughly and putting back just the few things that need to be there. That kind of activity might set me back on the course to being productive for the last hour before my meeting.
- Set my timer for 15 minutes and do something (anything) from my list for that period of time. Then I could take a break and do it again.
- Throw in the towel (so to speak) and soak in a hot tub or take a nap.
Any of those options are good. All of them are better than surfing the web for the fashions worn at this weekend’s SAG Awards (which I admit I did today). I think I’m going to go with the option of clearing off my desk. I might combine it with the use of the timer. Once it’s clear, I’ll prepare for my meeting and if there’s time continue reading the book I’m planning to review here this week. That should make me feel better.
Now if I can only figure out how to get Pip feeling more comfortable!
An interesting take on email
Staying on top of email is a perpetual challenge for most people. There’s a midground between letting it be a distraction and letting it pile up. I’ve worked out a system that works for me, actually allowing me to get to the elusive inbox zero at the end of the year (though I was up to 15 when I closed up shop last night).
Virtual Assistant Extraordinaire and Can-do-ologist Marissa Bracke wrote an interesting blog post this week called Two reasons email has become ineffective. Her new policy, to officially check email just once a day, is an intriguing approach.
