Peace of Mind Organizing

Send to Trello Safari bookmark

29 July 2019

Last month, I blogged about Nine ways I use Trello. I still absolutely love Trello and use it daily. It seems like I’m always finding new ways to use it. (Most recent addition: a board to keep track of where I needed to change my head shot, since I had new pictures taken.)

It became even easier to use when my friend (and Getting to Good Enough cohost) Shannon Wilkinson clued me into the Send to Trello bookmark shortcut for Safari. I use Safari for most of my browsing and was happy to learn that with this little tool any website I’m visiting can be turned into a Trello card and placed on a board.

The two places I’m using the most are my Kindle library (I can now effortlessly place a photo of the cover of a book on its card!) and my board of suggested organizing products to show clients. I know there are going to be many other applications as well.

To install the bookmark, just click on the Add Card page on the Trello website. If you’re not already showing your Favorites Bar at the top of your browser screen (under the URL box), click “Show Favorites Bar” under View. Then drag the “Send to Trello” link from the Add Card page to your Favorites Bar. It’s that easy.

The next time you’re browsing in Safari and see something you want to save, just click on the Send to Trello bookmark and you’ll be asked what board to save it to. One more click and you’ve created a Trello card from that site.

It’s a game changer!

Worth repeating: Solving my business-card problem once and for all

23 July 2019

When I wrote this post five years ago, I was a little bold in declaring that I’d solved a problem once and for all. But you know what? It’s true. I now enter the info of anyone I want to keep track into my Contacts database and toss the card. I ended up getting rid of the little file box and the very few cards that I keep I put in a little container on a shelf in my office supply closet. Simple and sustainable!

Keeping track of business cards is a challenge for me, and, I’ve observed, for many of my clients. I’ve been accumulating them for awhile in a business-card file box (sorted into rough categories) and then when I outgrew the box, the whole bunch went into in a larger bin that sat on a shelf in my office closet.

I blogged about this in May of last year and even went so far as to create an action plan to deal with the cards. But I never followed through on it.

A winter storm blew through St. Louis on Sunday, putting on hold my plans for going out. So I decided it was time to deal with those darn business cards.

Here’s how they looked when I moved them to my desk to deal with them. My plan was to organize them into a larger See Jane Work business-card file box I’d purchased some time back.

There was no way all these cards would fit in this box.

Before getting started, I thought about why I hang on to business cards. I realized that it’s because I want to be a great resource for my clients. And I’m afraid that I won’t remember the names on the cards I’d collected if I put them in my phone. So my thought was that I would organize the cards into categories for easy access if I have a client who needs a name.

That seemed reasonable until I started thinking about the fact that I like to be able to give my clients the resource immediately, not wait until I get home (and risk forgetting to do it). I’m not going to carry a business-card file box around with me (nor would I if I had a business card book or any other more portable way to carry around business cards.). What I do carry around with me to all client appointments is my phone.

So I decided to use my phone like I would use the file box: I’d enter the contact info by category. But first, I would narrow the cards down to as few as possible, to make the job easier.

I went through the accumulated business cards, being very selective about what I kept. I created categories for the ones I wanted to keep and filed them in the smaller business-card file box.

I threw away a big pile of cards.

My discard pile was huge!

The next step was to go through the keepers and make sure the ones I really want to refer to clients are in the contacts list on my computer and phone, filed into groups for easy access. I created groups that match the categories in my physical business-card file.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long to enter the names and contact info. Less than an hour. I tried to see if I could use my Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M scanner to take of that task for me, but the business-processing card software that came with the scanner was out of date and I didn’t want to go down the rabbit hole of updating things. So I just entered the names that weren’t already in my computer.

After I was finished with that task, I had a big decision to make: should I keep the physical cards or toss them all? Part of me wanted to keep them, since I had a place to store them. But reason prevailed and I decided to let go of all those resource cards. I kept a few of the cards related to me personally, but tossed a giant pile of cards. Knowing that they’re in my database, backed up regularly, gave me the courage to do that.

And I’m here to tell you it felt good!!

Now, when I pick up a business card, I’ll decide then and there whether to put it in my database. And then I’ll take the 60 seconds or so necessary to add it. And I’ll toss it.

I did keep a few categories of cards. I kept those of some friends, just because they make me feel good when I look at them. I kept a category of cards related to professionals in my home town, who might be of help if problems come up with my aging family. And I kept a category of genealogy-related cards (mostly picked up at the RootsTech conference I attended last month.

This is all the the cards that were left when I finished:

Now my box has more index cards than business cards.

Hooray! It’s a thrill to come up with a solution that works for me for a problem I’ve been grappling with for awhile.

The beauty of vertical storage

18 July 2019

To the extent possible, I love storing things vertically, rather than horizontally. Think about how files are stored in a file cabinet—it’s much easier to access them than a stack of file folders.

But vertical storage isn’t just for files. I love using the principle all around my house (and with clients). For my office supplies, for example, I have three shelves in my office supply closet where I store supplies vertically (see the photo below). Notice how my Post-it® notes and other supplies are stored vertically using acrylic containers (a divided one similar to this and a 4 × 12 × 3 like this) on a shelf. I used small containers inside a basket so help me store as much as I can vertically on the middle shelf of the photo. And on the shelf, this magazine sorter allows me to store clipboards and portfolios vertically. I repurposed a box from Bare Minerals so store a small collection of handy pouches.

I have some notebooks I like to keep handy on the radiator behind my desk. One of them is the one grab when I’m on the phone on a business call. By using a desktop file holder, I can store notebooks vertically so I can easily (and silently) grab the right one when I need it.

Long before Marie Kondo was telling us how to fold, I was folding my t-shirts in half again and storing them vertically in the drawer. I love that it enables me to see the shirts and just pluck out the one I want. I do the same thing with my leggings—I store them vertically and use this closet drawer organizer to keep them upright.

When you’re organizing in your home, I encourage you to think about how you might integrate vertical storage. I think you’ll find it life-enhancing!

Shopping mindfully

15 July 2019

Today and tomorrow are both Amazon Prime Days, where members of Amazon Prime are offered special pricing on lots of items. I took a peek today at some of the specials in categories that interest me and managed to turn away without buying.

I dislike artificial pressure to buy, like special sales or outlet stores or even yard or estate sales. Those situations set up a feeling that if you don’t buy now, you’ll miss out. I can’t tell you the number of so-called bargains that I’ve clients declutter over the years. It’s not a bargain if you don’t use it or it clutters up your home.

I encourage you to shop mindfully, whether it’s during a special sale or just everyday shopping. If clutter is an issue in your life, then decluttering and letting go is part of the equation for relief. But the other part of the equation is modifying your acquisition behavior.

Before you purchase anything, I urge you to ask yourself these simple questions, which are very similar to the questions I ask clients when we’re decluttering:

• Do I love it?
• Will I use it?
• Does purchasing this item contribute to my vision for my space?
• Where will I store it?

If you don’t have room to store a new purchase, then either forgo buying it or commit to letting go of something to make room for the new purchase. When clients who are struggling with clutter tell me they can’t resist a bargain at an estate sale, I encourage them to stop going to estate sales. If Amazon Prime Day feels irresistible and you don’t have room to comfortably store all your belongings, then I encourage you to either ignore Amazon Prime Day (or any other special sale) or go into it with a list of specific items that you need and would buy anyway and then search for those items only.

Even if you have plenty of room to store everything, mindful shopping leads to a more peaceful life, in my opinion. It saves you time, money and self-recrimination. It’s excellent self care.

Latest knitting project

11 July 2019

These days, I’m spending less leisure time knitting and more time practicing hand lettering (and writing postcards to voters. But when my friend told me her daughter was pregnant with her first child, I just had to pull out my needles and knit my favorite go-to baby gift: the Harry Bear teddy bear, a free pattern from Berroco.

I have a small stash of Berroco Chinchilla yarn. It’s discontinued, but I love how it knits up into this bear, so I bought some from folks on Ravelry a few years back. It was fun and easy to knit this bear and for the first time I embroidered the face myself. (I usually have a friend help with that.) I kept the facial expression subtle, to say the least.

Here’s a photo of the sweet little bear. It was a well received gift and I enjoyed giving it!

New Secrets of Getting Organized magazine

9 July 2019

I was delighted to receive in the mail over the weekend the Summer 2019 issue of Secrets of Getting Organized magazine from Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications. I was a bit puzzled because I didn’t remember doing an email interview recently, but my memory isn’t the greatest.

So I opened to the back, saw my picture in the list of contributors, and thumbed through to see what I was quoted about. It seemed very familiar and one of the articles I remembered from a couple of years ago. Very mysterious. And then I took a closer look at the cover. There, down by the bar code, it says, “Back by Popular Demand: Second Printing of Secrets of Getting Organized Early Spring 2018.”

Mystery solved.

Here’s the cover, along with a couple other Janine-related snaps. (I always get a thrill when I see myself included on the contributors’ page!) I’m quoted in three of the articles (Stop Paper Pileups, Goal: Conquer Media Room Clutter, and a kitchen-organizing article called In the Zone).

It’s a particularly good issue, which I urge you to take a look at, if you have the opportunity. You can order it online at the link above, or look for it in newsstands and book stores nationwide. While the interior is identical, the cover of the Summer 2019 issue is different from the Spring 2018 cover (which you can see in the post I wrote about it at the time). I wouldn’t want you to inadvertently buy it if you already have it!

I love these magazines. They’re free of advertising and just plain eye candy. And, because the editors reach out to professional organizers for the ideas and tips in the stories, the content is terrific!

A calm summer thought

1 July 2019

I’m a big fan of Yogi Soothing Caramel Bedtime Tea. (Be forewarned: It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s delicious.) One of the things I love about it, in addition to its flavor and its soothing nature, is the words of wisdom on each teabag. I haven’t had any other types of Yogi tea, but I assume all their teas have wise tea tags.

This one caught my eye:

Being owner of Peace of Mind Organizing, I naturally love any mention of peace of mind. (It’s so important!) And of course, I’m all about breaking things down into small steps and making incremental progress toward your goal. So the message on this tea tag really resonated with me. I hope it touches you too.