Who doesn't love a sale?
Any sale is fun, but a sale at the Container Store? That’s cause for celebration.
Yesterday, Oprah re-aired the clutter-busting episode that had Peter Walsh working his magic in Atlanta. Back when it originally aired, the Container Store offered a coupon. And they’ve done it again.
Just go to the Container Store’s website and download a 25 percent off coupon, good for the entire store. You can print it out and take it to the store (one coupon per visit, but you can print out a fresh coupon for each visit), or use information on the coupon to get 25 percent off online or phone purchases.
The coupon expires on July 22.
A note of caution: Don’t buy organizational tools until you’ve decluttered, so you know just what you need. Even at 25 percent off, you don’t want to spend money on items you end up not being able to use!
Autofocus 2 to the rescue
I’m back from my husband’s family reunion at a lovely mountain resort in Pennsylvania. We had such a nice time. There were over 100 people at the reunion, all of them lovely. We drove the 700 miles to the reunion site, spending a night on the road each direction. It was so nice to get away. I barely thought about work.
We’re back now and it’s great to be home. But now I have to face all the tasks and responsibilities I was able to forget about for basically the last nine days.
This morning as I faced down the >150 messages in my inbox and an extremely long task list, I started to feel overwhelmed. As I’ve mentioned before, I love the Autofocus time management system invented by Mark Forster. It does have one fairly major flaw, however. It doesn’t easily handle urgent items. As a result, urgent tasks were handled “off list,” so to speak. In other words, I’d put out fires and not actually look at my Autofocus list and use its methodology. In the time leading up to my two mini-vacations everything seemed urgent, my Autofocus list had been sorely neglected.
Mark Forster recognized this problem with urgent tasks in Autofocus and has been working on solving it. This weekend, while I was away, Mark issued a major revision of the system, which he calls Autofocus 2 (or AF2).
Today’s the perfect day to test it out. My whole day is free of appointments. I have a pretty desperate desire to get caught up and become reacquainted with what’s going on in my business. So I’m trying out AF2, using the AF1 list I’ve had going since January 5 of this year.
The new method has me working the list from bottom to top and asking me to act on (or dismiss) older tasks at the top of the list. So far, it’s working nicely. I’m getting quite a bit done. The few items that really needed to be completed today are completed, as is some older stuff. It’s going to take a little getting used to, but I think I’m going to like it. Once again, I salute the genius of Mark Forster.
My email inbox is well on its way to my goal of reducing it to 10 or fewer action-related emails. I’ve reacquainted myself with what I need to be doing and thinking about. I’m getting stuff done. And I’m feeling more in control. Thank you, AF2!
I may even unpack today!
Away again
I was home for a day and am now heading to Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania for my husband’s family reunion. Because of all the coming and going I haven’t had time to blog.
My R&R trip to Michigan with my crafty friends was fabulous. Beautiful house on beautiful Lake Michigan with beautiful friends. We sat on the giant screened porch with a view of the lake and did our craft thing. I’ll post more about my crafting later, but for the moment, I just want to share this picture of a sunset over Lake Michigan, which I took from the back porch of the home where we were staying.
Oh, and the temps were in the upper 70s and low 80s. I didn’t even feel guilty that my family and friends in St. Louis were sweltering in the three-digit heat index.
I’ll be back to regular blogging next week!
R&R - practicing what I preach
I encourage my clients (and Declutter Happy Hour participants) to be sure and take breaks and build in rewards when they’re working hard (on clutter or anything else).
I’ve had a busy few weeks and I’m ready for some rest and relaxation. And lucky for me, I’m getting some! Tomorrow I have an all-day strategic planning retreat for the board of NAPO St. Louis, of which I’m president. I expect to be pretty tired out after that.
But that’s okay because Saturday morning, I’m hopping in a mini-van with five girlfriends and we’re driving north to a resort community on Lake Michigan, the summer home of one of the friend’s parents. These are women I get together with monthly to do crafts. (And some I see some of them more frequently than that.)
So the plan is to hang out, enjoy some sun (with sunscreen of course) and water, eat, drink, and do crafts. (I’ll be working on knitting projects.) We return on Tuesday via Chicago and a visit to some fabric stores and, perhaps, the mecca known as IKEA.
Doesn’t that sound nice? I think it’s really important to build in some down time, especially for those of us who own businesses we’re passionate about.
So I probably won’t be blogging again until Wednesday. Have a great week!
Got old trophies?
I’ve seen a lot of old trophies littering my clients’ basements. When they’re ready to let go of them, it’s hard to figure out what to do with them. It seems such a shame to throw them away.
Here’s an answer! Awardex, a trophy company in the Chicago area, accept trophies for recycling. If I’m understanding the email I received from them, they give the used trophies, plaques, etc. to charitable organizations to reuse.
If you have trophies or plaques you’d like to recycle, just package them up carefully and send them to:
Awardex
117 South Cook street
Suite 360
Barrington, IL 60010
847-794-3347
If you live in the Chicagoland area, you can even arrange for Awardex to pick up the trophies.
PSA: Today’s the last day for the $40 discount on Declutter Happy Hour e-course!
Another 30-minute miracle
Okay, “miracle” is completely overstating it. But I was amazed at my office’s transformation the other day when I set my timer and got to work for 30 minutes.
If you can stand another before and after picture set, here’s how my office looked before. (I’m cringing as I type this because it had gotten so cluttered, just in the course of my ignoring while I was busy working.)
This is what happens when you don't put stuff away.
And here it is 30 minutes later after decluttering, tidying, and vacuuming.
Much better! Taking a few minutes to run the vacuum made a big difference.
Clearly, my poodle, Kirby, appreciated my effort.
It never ceases to amaze me what can be done in 30 minutes of focused effort. That’s why Shannon Wilkinson and I allow 30 minutes of decluttering in each of our Declutter Happy Hour sessions.
I love sharing the message that we don’t have to put aside a whole (or half) day to declutter a space. Grab the time you have and get started! Little and often is the way to go.
Music to declutter by
In my newsletter, which goes out today, I mention the power of focus and how by setting a timer for a short period of time, I can get a lot done. (This is a refrain here on the blog too). I also mentioned that sometimes instead of (or in addition to) a timer, I’ll play a playlist of songs that ends after a set period of time.
So I decided today, at the risk revealing embarrassing personal information, to share what’s on my iTunes playlist called “Clean the office for 30 minutes.” Here it is:
- I’m No Angel, Gregg Allman
- It’s a New Day, will.i.am
- I Sing the Body Electric (from the Fame soundtrack), Eric Brockington
- Little Red Corvette, Prince
- Feeling Good, Michael Buble
- Fantasy, Earth Wind & Fire
- Borderline, Madonna
All these songs make me move and make me happy. And, together, they add up to 31.2 minutes.
How about you? Do you have songs you like to declutter by?
P.S. Don’t miss out on the $40 discount for the Declutter Happy Hour e-course—it expires on Wednesday!
