Peace of Mind Organizing

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!!

Tagged with: accomplishments, goals, gratitude

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