Peace of Mind Organizing

Worth repeating: Are Apple AirPods worth the hefty price tag?

3 August 2021

I wrote this post in 2018. Back then I was glad I’d purchased Apple AirPods and since then I’ve purchased the second generation of regular AirPods (not the AirPods Pro), with more features, like automatically reading texts to you while you’re listening to a podcast. I’ve purchased also the wireless charging case. So you might say I’m convinced they’re worth the money. Here’s why:

I resisted buying AirPods, Apple’s wireless bluetooth headset, because of the $159 price tag. I also thought they looked a little weird. But I’d heard them recommended by The Mac Guys whose opinion I heartily respect and I was tired of catching the wire of my wired headset and accidentally pulling it out.

I bit the bullet in January and I haven’t looked back. AirPods are truly convenient and (dare I say it?) worth the money. When not in use, the earpods—a separate one for the left and the right—reside in a little plastic charging case that looks to me like a package of Glide dental floss. You charge the case with a lightning cable but the case can charge the airpods even when the case is not plugged in. So far, I have not encountered any problems with the pods running out of juice, but apparently 15 minutes in the case gives you 3 hours of listening time.

Here’s why I love my AirPods:

• They’re comfortable.
• They stay in my ears.
• They connect (and disconnect) automatically when I put them in (or take them out of) my ears.
• They connect to my phone and to my computer (and I could connect them to my Apple Watch, if I put music on it).
• The sound is great. (Full disclosure: I’m no audiophile.)
• I don’t have to have my phone on my person to use them (just nearby). Very helpful for folding laundry when I have no pockets.
• No wires to tediously untangle before use.
• No wires to get in the way and accidentally catch things on.
• They’re easy to charge and I can get up to five hours of listening time one charge.
• Music pauses automatically when I take out the earbud out of my ear.
• I can access Siri on my phone simply by double tapping the EarPods. (ETA: My newer AirPods don’t even require tapping; I just say “Hey, Siri.”)

I have a little trouble keeping track of them (which was true with my wired headset as well) and I still need to find a good spot within my purse to store them. But otherwise they’re just great.

Planning a long road trip

26 July 2021

When I took my epic drive from St. Louis to Walla Walla, Washington, last September to help my dad celebrate his 90th birthday, I planned the heck out of it as you might imagine. I figured I would write a blog post detailing the planning process, but I somehow never got around to it.

Then my friends at Meori asked me to write a blog post about planning a road trip. They like long posts, so I was able to really go into detail about my trip planning. So if you’re planning a road trip or just curious about how I planned my 4,000-mile solo trip during COVID, please check it out:

How to Plan a Road Trip – Summer Road Trip Guide

Meori makes terrific foldable storage products and they generously supplied me with a few items that I used on my trip. (Including the foldable box and insert pictured here.) You can read about them in the post!

Kitchen Stickin' makes labeling easy

23 July 2021

Recently, I was asked to try out Kitchen Stickin, a new product that makes labeling easy. The entrepreneur behind it lives here in St. Louis and I was happy to say yes. I’m glad I did!

Kitchen Stickin’ is a simple product: It’s a dispenser for painter’s tape with a place to hold a marker. It comes with Command strips so you can easily adhere it to a cabinet or the refrigerator so that you always have an easy way to label something. (It comes with the tape and a marker!)

I absolutely love simple solutions to common problems and Kitchen Stickin’ fits the bill. As soon as it arrived, we used the Command strips to put it on the side of the refrigerator, where it’s actually out of view. I can now easily pull off a piece of blue painter’s tape to label leftovers or other containers. I’d never labeled my leftovers before, but I find it so handy! For less ephemeral items in the kitchen, I would typically use my beloved Brother P-touch Cube label maker, which connects with an app on my phone. But using painter’s tape is so much easier than getting the label maker out and fiddling with technology.

I recently started eating overnight oats for breakfast and one of the ingredients is chia seeds. I bought a large container of chia seeds at Whole Foods and since I only use a teaspoon at a time, I decanted some into one of my favorite small containers, a Oui yogurt jar so the seeds would take up less room in my kitchen cabinet. (I stored the bulk of the chia seeds in overflow storage.) I quickly made a label for it using Kitchen Stickin’. So gratifying. Here’s a photo of that labeled jar.

Its uses aren’t limited to the kitchen, of course. I’ve used it for a label on a container of a particular collection of lettering pens, for instance. Having the tape and marker together in an established location makes labeling anything easier. And I’m all about ease (and labels!).

In case you’d like to try it, Kitchen Stickin’ has offered Peace of Mind Organizing blog readers a discount! Use the discount code PEACEOFMIND at checkout to get a 10% discount on your entire order. Or click on this link to go to the website and automatically get your discount.

The storage items organizers can't live without

16 July 2021

Consumer Reports recently published a story on its website called 10 Organization Pros on the Storage Items They Can’t Live Without. The writer contacted ten professional organizers and asked a simple question: “What is the one storage item you can’t live without?”

I was tickled to be one of those ten organizers. I didn’t agonize over my choice because it was obvious to me. I chose the Linus drawer organizers I use all over my home. But when I read the article and saw the choices of the organizers, I kept nodding my head because I have (literally) all of those things in my house too! I think this is a great compilation of suggestions and I urge you to check it out.

My Inbox Zero challenge

12 July 2021

I love the feeling of an empty inbox. The goal of Inbox Zero can feel elusive. For some people it may feel impossible. I know some people who think it’s a laughable goal. Not me. To me, Inbox Zero is not only achievable, it’s highly worthwhile. I’ll admit, it’s a wagon I fall off frequently. But once I get back to Inbox Zero, it feels so good.

It’s worth the effort to take a little time at the end of each work day and empty my email inbox. Here are just a few of the benefits I see:

• I have only one day’s worth of email to deal with
• I respond to messages more quickly
• I take action more readily
• My inbox is much more welcoming and less overwhelming

So why is it so hard for me to maintain Inbox Zero? I think like so many things, it’s a habit that’s relatively easy to maintain on a daily basis. But if you let a backlog build up, it quickly becomes overwhelming. I don’t tend to let my janine@peaceofmindorganizing.com email inbox get really full. It rarely tops 100 for any length of time. But unless I’m focused on achieving Inbox Zero, I usually stop at about Inbox Twenty. Those last 20 messages are typically reminders to do something or they’re emails whose responses require thought.

One morning last week I woke up and told myself I was going to achieve Inbox Zero that day. I did it before noon. All it took was actually doing a few of those tasks, adding a couple to my task list then archiving the messages, and writing a few responses. (A couple of the emails had even aged out.)

Since then, I’ve emptied my inbox every day. It feels great starting the day with just those emails that came in since the close of business the day before. (If you’re interested in some tips about whittling down your inbox, check out this post, Slaying the email dragon that I wrote at the end of 2019.)

Today is July 12. I know the value of public accountability to keep me focused on something. (Witness the 30 × 30 challenges I do on my genealogy blog about six times a year.) So I am making the following pledge to you (but really to myself, because you probably don’t care):

I will empty my inbox every day for the rest of July.

At month’s end, I’ll write a post and let you know how it goes. And if you care to join in any commitment toward making email easier for you, please do!

Less stuff = more freedom

4 July 2021

We’re celebrating Independence Day here in the U.S. and, as I do almost every year, I’ve been reflecting on what freedom means to me.

I created a graphic.

This month marks the 16th anniversary of Peace of Mind Organizing®. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients. And this simple truth continues to be reinforced with each one of them.

Photo by Leon Wu on Unsplash

Worth repeating: Nine things I love about Yoga with Adriene

30 June 2021

I’ve been doing yoga every day for over a year. I went from April 1, 2020 to May 12, 2021 without missing a single day. Then travel disrupted my routine and I broke the chain. But yoga is so beneficial that I got right back into it and I can count the number of days I’ve missed on one hand. I wrote this post about a year ago. Since then, my love for Yoga with Adriene has only grown.

Back in December 2018 after a visit from my niece, Miranda, who does a yoga workout on the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel every morning, I decided to give yoga a try. I’d been toying with it for eons but had been paralyzed about how to get started. And I knew I really wanted at-home yoga.

I did daily yoga for three months before I broke the chain and my practice became more sporadic.

Then along came COVID-19. Since I’ve had fewer demands on my time, I have been able to incorporate yoga into my daily routine. I am so grateful for that. This morning, when I finished my practice, I jotted down some of the things I love about doing yoga, particularly doing it with Adriene. I thought I’d share them with you in hopes that I might inspire you to give it a go!

• I’m getting stronger and more flexible. I’m 57 years old. I am absolutely thrilled to be getting stronger and more flexible, not the other way around.
• It’s good for my body and my mind. Stilling my mind, breathing deeply and moving my body are absolutely what I need right now.
• It’s gentle. Adriene is such a kind and gentle communicator. Her workouts are full of love and body acceptance. She suggests modifications for every pose and normalizes the idea that you might be not able to do all the stretchy bendy things she can do.
• Adriene is funny. She’s a yoga goddess with a beautiful body but Adriene is self-deprecating and makes funny comments all the time. (Today she bowed her head, then commented, “I see toothpaste on my shirt. Class act.”)
• There are many options, but I don’t have to make a choice. I’m easily overwhelmed by options. Adriene offers 30-day yoga journeys every January where you just do the workout designated for that day. (You can start any time.) No choice necessary. She also offers a themed calendar every month, so you can do the workout for that day. (This month the theme is, appropriately enough, Courage.) So far, I’ve done three different 30-day journeys, two of them twice. I’ve done 2020’s Home twice, 2015’s 30 Days of Yoga twice and 2019’s Dedicate once. [In January 2021, I did Breath, which was fantastic.] I love that I don’t necessarily have to choose which of her many videos to do!
• The workouts are varied but there’s continuity. Each workout has some sort of theme—it might be for a certain part of the body (today I did neck and shoulder relief) or it might be to create a certain feeling, like “Soften.” After doing it this long, the yoga poses are familiar but there endless ways to put them together and each workout feels fresh to me.
• It’s free! Adriene does have a paid community, but all the workouts on her YouTube channel are free. And they’re not interrupted by ads.
• I get to do yoga in my pajamas. I know if would be very hard for me to leave the house to do yoga. Now, I just have to take a few steps from my office to my guest room to do yoga in the morning. And most mornings I do it in my pajamas. Talk about letting it be easy!
• Benji. Adriene’s Australian Cattle Dog, Benji, is present in almost all the videos. He’s calm and zen and adorable. Usually he’s extremely well behaved but occasionally he does something funny (like the time he sat on Adriene’s head when she was in child’s pose.) Adriene always acknowledges him and treats him with love.

The bottom line is that I’m really glad Adriene Mishler is part of my life. I wish I knew her in real life but I will settle for welcoming her into my home via my computer every morning. I truly feel love for her. Thanks to her, I’m healthier, stronger, and calmer. I wish that for you, too!