Peace of Mind Organizing

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10 December 2020

Last month, my organizing advice appeared in two articles in the same week. The first was on Readers Digest’s website, in an article called 12 Things Professional Organizers Declutter Every Day. I was specifically asked about things I do in my own home, so this is truly real-life advice. (I talked about laundry, email, kitchen countertop and desktop.) My friends and colleagues Ellen Delap and Kathy Vines also contributed to this piece.

In addition, I was part of a round up of professional organizers on Porch.com in an article called, Home Organization: Tips from Professional Organizers. This time some 40 professional organizers provided tips on 40 different organizing challenges. My contribution was my answer to the question “What are the best apps to help you get organized?” This robust article is chock full of information. Ellen and Kathy are included in that story, along with a lot of other great organizers.

I urge you to give them a read. There’s so much great information shared in the articles!

One dress, one hundred days

7 December 2020

Last week my friend and podcast co-host, Shannon Wilkinson told me about Wool& and their 100-day challenge. Wool& sells simple wool-blend dresses and they have challenged customers to wear one of their dresses for 100 days in a row. After 100 straight days of (photo-documented) dress wearing, you receive a $100 gift card for another dress. (You can read more about the challenge here.)

When Shannon told me about this, I got really excited. I love limiting my choices and really enjoyed the Project 333 challenge I undertook a few years back, where I kept only 33 garments in my closet for three months. But that had fallen by the wayside and I found getting dressed during this pandemic to be, to say the least, uninspiring.

So I ordered the Rowena swing dress from Wool&, in black. I was thrilled when it arrived a few days later, because it’s as comfortable as I hoped it would be.

Then I went through my closet and removed everything that I couldn’t wear with the Rowena dress, though I did keep a few things out in case I became desperate to wear something else. Everything else went into bins in the basement. And I also went through the basement bins (there are three of them, established during my Project 333 time), and pulled out a few things that go with the dress.

Here’s what my closet looks like now.

So now I get to play with ponchos and scarves and feel a little creative without having to give it too much thought. Today is Day 4 and I am loving it! I will also be creative in wearing sweaters and shirts over the dress so it looks like a skirt.

I’m taking pictures every day, just in case I end up wearing it for 100 days and need proof. Here are a couple of photos to show what it looks like on me and how I’m wearing it. I promise not to bore you with 100 photos!

Day One, with burgundy cashmere/wool shawl and leggings:

Day One

Day Four, with a short, brown sleeved poncho, my hand-knit cowl and fleece-lined leggings:

Day Four

It seems a little ironic that I’m going to be getting away from the monotony of pandemic dressing by wearing the same dress every day. But I think that’s how it will work out. It’s so nice to feel excited about getting dressed again!

November tiny projects challenge: Day 5

3 December 2020

Okay, I realize it’s December, but I didn’t manage to finish my five tiny projects in November. Today is my fifth and final tiny project of this challenge. It’s the top drawer of the desk we call our household desk. I declutter it every decade or so. And today when I opened it I realized it was ripe for a tiny project challenge.

At the risk of embarrassing myself, here’s the before picture, taken at 3:41 pm.

You’d never know it, but there’s a drawer organizer hiding underneath all that stuff.

I emptied the drawer, sorting as I went along. (That’s my modus operandi.) The abundance of dried-out rubber bands went straight to the trash, as did icky paper clips and so forth. I had a handful of items I put aside for donation and a few (like business cards and a bunch of sticky notes) I brought downstairs where they are more appropriately stored in my office. I can’t seem to let go of expired passports, so I moved my collection of four passports into a different drawer in the household desk.

Only 25 minutes later, I was finished. Once again, I’m bowled over by the benefits of focusing on a tiny space for 30 minutes or less. Here’s the after shot:

I hope this series inspires you to take a little time out to declutter and organize a tiny corner of your space. Do it a few more times and you can truly make life a little easier—and more beautiful.

November tiny projects challenge: Day 4

30 November 2020

Today I put together a hospital go-bag for my husband, Barry. Twice this fall (once in October and once in November), I had to call an ambulance because he was experiencing a heart-related emergency. (A congenital heart condition is giving him problems.) The first time, I didn’t know what to bring with me and the first three days of his five-day hospital stay I was bringing in more stuff. The second time, I had a better sense of what he needed, but I still had to gather it up.

So when he got home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, together we created a list of items to keep in a bag that I can grab on my way to the emergency room, should this come up again. I’m hoping that this will have the same effect as bringing along an umbrella when it’s threatening to rain: I won’t need it. (In fact, I created a similar bag for my dad several years ago and he hasn’t been hospitalized since!)

I put the list in Evernote, divided into two sections: (1) Things to keep in the bag and (2) Things to put in the bag. The latter category is for stuff he doesn’t have extras of, like noise-canceling headphones and reading glasses.

Today, I gathered the stuff up that will live in the bag and set it on the table. Here’s a picture. Pretty simple stuff like socks and underwear, soap, shampoo, and the all-important iPhone charger (with an extra-long cord).

I selected a colorful, distinctive Trader Joe’s bag to pack the stuff in. It will probably live in the corner of our bedroom. I printed out the checklist and attached it with a binder clip to the outside of the bag, so I’ll know exactly what’s packed inside the bag and what needs to be added.

I also clipped my hospital parking pass to the bag, so I wouldn’t misplace it. I was able to purchase a pass for five exits of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital parking garage for $20. I found out about that pass only after paying $15 to park the first day of the last stay, since I hung out with Barry in the ER for seven hours. Knowing exactly where that parking pass is and knowing it’s attached to the go-bag gave me instant stress relief.

Coming up with the list took a few minutes, but I did it right after getting home from the hospital. Gathering up the stuff and putting it in the bag took a few more minutes. It’s a tiny project that already gives me peace of mind!

November tiny projects challenge: Day 3

25 November 2020

When I look around my house, it’s not hard to find tiny projects for this series! Today, I cleaned up some surfaces that had become a dumping area in my home.

We live in a large, old house that was built for two families back in 1908. When we bought it in 1992, we lived upstairs and rented out the downstairs apartment. But now we live in the whole thing, still residing primarily on the second floor. My office is the first-floor master bedroom and I’ve spread out to the first-floor dining room. In 2008, I furnished that room to store the organizing materials I take to people’s homes. I bought two IKEA Expedits (that piece of furniture has been replaced by the Kallax) and put legs on them.

I have no problem with the storage part of the furniture. The tricky part is the surface. That’s where I tend to dump stuff to get it out of the way. I don’t spend much time in that room, but I pass through it every day on my way to my office. Today, I decided it was high time to clear off those surfaces and tidy up the cubes.

Here’s the before picture:

This is a great example of a tiny project, because it took me only 15 minutes—including dusting!—to go from eyesore to visual peace.

Here’s how it looked 15 minutes later.

All I had to do was put some stuff away. Why do I let it build up? (That’s a rhetorical question.)

Among the items cluttering up the space were things I wanted to donate, which I moved to the little folding table I had set up from this fall when I was notarizing ballots on my porch. So I need to donate that stuff and tidy up the knitting-related items that are on top the Elfa drawers containing my yarn stash. (That’s another surface that attracts clutter.) Once I accomplish that, I’ll feel great about that space again.

Once again, it’s amazing what 15 minutes of focused tidying will do!

November tiny projects challenge: Day 2

23 November 2020

Today, I spent 20 minutes on my main office-supply closet. My office is in a spare bedroom. I took the sliding doors off the closet and filled the closet with shelving to store office supplies. Since those supplies are so visible, I don’t let the closet contents get too crazy before decluttering an organizing.

I snapped an overall before shot so that you can see what I had to work with.

It was very easy to take a declutter a few things and tidy everything up. And you know what? It actually has a pretty big impact.

Here is the after shot. It reminds me a little of those “spot the differences” cartoons in Highlights magazine when I was a kid.

Just getting the stuff off the floor (most of it went to another room where it’s more appropriate) was really helpful. I also I moved to the donate pile a few things that I should have donated in the first place (rather than stashing the in the closet.) Then I tidied up and moved a few things around to more sensible locations within the closet. It’s so easy for a closet to become a dumping area, but a few minutes of tidying helps me treat it with more respect.

I have to admit, it put me in a brighter mood!

November tiny projects challenge: Day 1

18 November 2020

Today I focused on the little drawer in my laptop stand. My laptop sits on a stand on my desk to my right, while I use a larger external monitor as my main focus. I bought the leather-covered stand from Levenger years ago. I think its original intent was to place books on for easy reading. (It may predate laptops!) I purchased it for a place to keep my planner open and available at all times.

Here’s a photo of the laptop stand so you can visualize what I’m talking about.

The laptop stand has a drawer that comes out the side where I store office supplies I want close at hand, since my IKEA desk doesn’t have any drawers. I use this drawer every day, but I hadn’t actually decluttered and organized it in my years. (Evidence of that: I found cat hair and bits of cat claws. My cat died in 2013.) Because so much stuff was crammed into it, it would sometimes get stuck when I tried pulling it out. This was a fun and easy tiny project to contemplate.

Here’s as picture of the drawer before I started.

I took the items out one by one onto the desk and sorted them as I went. The categories included the things I use most, the things I never use, and things I have duplicates of. I also had categories like pens, rubber bands, paper clips, binder clips, sticky notes (I found some nice ones I didn’t remember!) and trash.

Here’s a photo of all the stuff sorted on the desk.

It was a no-brainer to get rid of the stuff I never use, like all three letter openers (!), the booklets of sticky notes and the keyboard cleaning tool I bought on impulse in the stocking stuffer section of The Container Store years ago. I put just four of the writing instruments back in the drawer, and placed the sticky notes in the order of frequency of use. I was in my happy place doing this.

Here’s the after photo.

It took me all of 20 minutes to accomplish this project and I’m tickled pink. Since I open this drawer daily, it will have a big impact. I’m thrilled that it will no longer get stuck and that I won’t have to push stuff around to find what I’m looking for. Definitely 20 minutes well spent!