I’m not Disorganized, I’m Messy! June 26, 2008

I’m looking around my house and realizing that what I see is not really clutter, or the result of being disorganized; what I see is a messy house! The kind of clutter I’m seeing is not the kind of clutter you need to purge, it’s the kind of clutter you need to put away properly.

Although it drives me nuts when the house is upside down, I realize how much I contribute to the mess without even realizing it. Here is the evidence staring me in the face:

• the dining room table is not cleaned off (remember the paycheck?); nor are the chairs pushed in
• there is one basket of clean laundry upstairs and another downstairs, needing to be put away
• my bag from a weekend away is still sitting - only partially unpacked - on my bedroom floor
• my various coats and jackets are draped over chairs or hung on doorknobs - they’re anywhere but in the closet

I have walked by all of this many, many times over the last few days, and it’s like I don’t even see it. These are the times I feel like I’m suffering from ADD. I can’t seem to focus, but end up going from one thing to another, all day long, without any real results.

So, I will get up from the computer now and clean off the table; put away the laundry; unpack and store my bag; and hang up my coats! And I’ll try hard to be more mindful of this habit of “not seeing” from now on.

The Basement Report: It’s Working! June 18, 2008

Yesterday I needed a gift bag and some tissue paper for the end-of-year gift for my daughter’s teacher. A few weeks ago I probably would have just bought them new, rather than face the mess in my basement.

But this time, down I went, put my hand (almost) immediately on a pretty bag, quickly found some matching tissue and we were all set. I could get used to this!

We had a wonderful last day of kindergarten morning: the gift looked lovely, I wasn’t stressed and frustrated, and I gave myself a pat on the back for the work I’ve done to create some order and serenity for myself - and for my family.

If you’re facing a decluttering and organizing job that seems so overwhelming you can’t even start, try working just a little bit at a time. I’ve done all this organizing in just five-minute bites; I aim for five minutes every day - slow but steady - and I see the results.

Give it a try - the payoff of a small amount of time is enormous!

The Basement Report: 39 Gift Bags June 3, 2008

I’ve been working - five minutes at a time - on clearing out and organizing our basement, starting with the “holiday room”. Yesterday I found no fewer than 39 gift bags in there: 31 Christmas bags, 4 Hanukkah bags, and 4 birthday bags. Is that a lot of bags? Hmmm . . . looks like I need to catch up on the Hanukkah and birthday bags.

I guess it’s crazy to have so many, but now that the bags are organized and I can find them, I might actually use some this year. I can’t wait to sort through the ribbon and gift tags!

And by the way, I worked for 10 full minutes down there this time - I’m picking up speed in my quest for order, serenity and peace of mind.

I’ve Dropped My Big Rocks May 29, 2008

Several weeks ago I wrote about the notion of attending to your “big rocks” first, in terms of time management and productivity. I had three big rocks, and ambitious goals.

As of this writing, I think I’m still carrying just one of those big rocks. Why?

The first rock was to work towards financial security for my family, by diligently working at my freelance job, which bores me to tears. I have to force myself to do my projects, and this is no way to live!

The second rock was to find a new job, by making one contact daily, which was probably unrealistic in the first place. But I’m so unfocused and unsure of what I want to do that I have no compass for making those contacts.

The third rock was to work on my personal serenity project - decluttering and organizing my house, doing a little bit each day. I think I can give myself a pat on the back for this one. I’ve organized my sock drawer, and my linen closet, greatly reduced the amount of stuff I had on my desk, and managed to clear the floor of piles of debris in my basement “holiday room”. I’ve taken two trips to the consignment store, put together a favorite recipe binder (two in my case - I cook a lot), and organized my spoons :-).

So how to tackle rocks one and two? A coach. I thought I had to approach a coaching relationship with goals, like: “I’m dying to be a (fill in the blank) and I don’t know how to get there”, but I’m learning that the idea is to start the process with questions. I know I want to make more money, but I’m really torn between my interest in social service work and my entrepreneurial dreams.

In the meantime, I do need to pick up that financial security rock and keep marching along . . .

Reducing Email Clutter May 28, 2008

There’s a lot of chatter on the productivity blogs about “processing your inbox to zero” and how to manage email overload. I decided that poor David Allen would hyperventilate if he saw my inbox, so I took a crack at it, and began by ruthlessly deleting mail after mail. Most of those emails represented indecision and/or procrastination; I figured if I hadn’t done anything about them for several weeks, I never would - so away they went into cyberspace.

I was able to reduce the number of emails in my inbox from 200+ to under 10. As we speak, there are 10 read (but not processed) emails awaiting my attention. Some examples of what I’m now avoiding:

• a baby shower invitation
• an email from a cousin which includes his siblings’ email addresses - which I need
• an invitation to a political fundraiser
• a request from Budget rental cars inviting me to create a profile - for fabulous discounts, of course!

One rule I try to live by when dealing with email is to never sit down at the computer without my calendar. So many emails require checking on dates and times and it’s so much easier to just look, decide and delete right on the spot. Of course this doesn’t help with the guilt of wanting to say no to something - I deal with that by procrastinating!

I get quite a few promotional emails from online retailers; I don’t unsubscribe because I’m waiting for the free shipping promotions - I wear petites which are not usually available in “bricks and mortar” stores, so I order online a lot and I try not to pay shipping if I can avoid it. I’m pretty good about deleting those right away if they aren’t offering free shipping.

I’m about to unsubscribe from Daily Candy. While I have to admire the founder for her ingenuity (a daily email focusing on just one topic or product), they’re all about consuming, and they have this weirdly smug tone-of-voice that I find annoying. And let’s be serious, I’ll never buy a $400 purse . . . so DC is going away today.

I do make use of folders to store emails; I have way too many I’m sure, but the ones I’m finding useful now are my Summer 08 folder (vacation and camp info); my Hours folder where I keep the emails I send to my employer (if I ever work instead of blog); and my Daisy Scout folder (I’m one of the co-leaders).

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your email inbox, take a quick look (remember you can spend just five minutes on this to start) and maybe set a goal of deleting anything that’s older than three months, or 10% of the entire contents - something arbitrary but quantifiable so you’ll feel a real sense of accomplishment.

For me the payoff is as high as clearing my desk or decluttering the linen closet - give it a try!

Heading Home May 25, 2008

It’s kind of scary how much I’ve enjoyed this trip. My brother was critically ill, so this was far from a relaxing vacation. And as I mentioned in my post the other day, I’m staying in a very modest hotel, but it has seemed like heaven.

And I haven’t had any real responsibilities. Someone else is cleaning my room - every day! my husband and daughter are fending for themselves at home; other than blogging, I haven’t been working (that’s the best part) and I haven’t cooked or washed a dish since Wednesday. And the hours I’ve had alone at the hotel - pure bliss!

I guess the lesson is that I need to find a way to create more space for solitude, creativity and renewal in my daily life. I’m alone a lot during the day, but I’m either housecleaning or working - or feeling guilty that I should be doing one or the other. And being alone is not the same as solitude.

I’m going to try two ways to find the time and the space I need. One is something I just read about the other day called time striping, which I think might suit me better than the other systems I’ve tried for managing my time and my work. The other is the unschedule from Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit, which encourages you to calendar the things you want to do before scheduling the things you “have” to do.

My organizing and decluttering project is still important to me, and essential for my serenity and peace of mind, but I really need to get this time management thing figured out and make more room for joy in my life.

Summer is coming and it feels like the perfect time for a fresh start. I hope One Bag Nation will help me stay on track with these resolutions; I’ll definitely be posting about my pursuit of joy - along with order, serenity and peace of mind.

The Basement Report: Day Ten May 22, 2008

Five minutes at a time, I’m making progress.

I’m tackling the “holiday room” first, where there is a jumble of wrapping paper, gifts, ornaments, cards, art supplies - and for some reason, ski and camping equipment. I’m bound and determined to have it all squared away by the time the holidays hit - or sooner!

I began by sorting the true holiday stuff (that’s Christmas AND Hanukkah AND Easter AND AND AND in our house) from the rest (birthday party stuff) and in the process hauling out the trash and recycling - that alone created some decent floor space and almost a tabletop where I can sort and organize the rest.

You can see from the photo that I have a lot of five minutes left, but it’s all good. I’ll keep posting photos as I go, and you’ll see the space won’t look so scary anymore!

I Met a Real Live Professional Organizer May 20, 2008

I recently met with Laura Leist, author of Eliminate Chaos. Laura’s office is in her home, and I was dying of curiosity to see how an expert organizer lives and works.

Her home and her office were neat as a pin, but not in a sterile, does-anyone-actually-live-here way. Her desk was tidy, but she had a few piles of paper on it - which she said was making her crazy - so I imagine she keeps it clear most of the time.

All in all it was pretty interesting and made me curious to see the work and home environments of other professional organizers. They spend so much of their time in other people’s spaces but rarely, if ever, reveal theirs. I wonder if they feel pressure to keep everything perfectly perfect . . . then again, keeping it all together comes easily and naturally for them - or so I assume.

My First Guest Post May 19, 2008

Jennifer at myorganizedbiz is away on her honeymoon, so she asked if I would write a guest post on her blog this week. I was totally flattered!

In my post I suggest three tips for keeping your home office organized, and if I just followed my own good advice on a regular basis, I’d be in excellent shape!

Learn more about Jennifer and her unique perspective on home office organizing at Inspired Home Office.

The Basement Report: Day Five May 16, 2008

On Monday I posted about the worst organizing project I’m tackling: the disaster we call the basement.

I realized that committing to spending just 15 minutes a day down there was more than I could face, so I decided to aim for five minutes, every day.

How have I done? I’ve worked down there 3 out of the last 5 days, and I’m thrilled. It may be absurd, but the truth is that if I keep at it, even for just 5 minutes at a time, it will eventually get cleared out and cleaned up. And I’ve made more progress over the last five days than over the last five months.

Baby Steps, Baby Steps (as flylady would say) toward order, serenity and peace of mind.