Making Room for Something New

I don’t think I have ever had the technique of  “getting rid of something old to make room for something new” work this quickly, ever.  And this time instead of it happening to a client it happened to me – yeah!

I’ve had tickets to the Turbine Showcase event for many weeks and was so excited about finally being able to attend this event showcasing the designs of our own very talented Lisa Drader Murphy.   My friend Leslie had volunteered to model in the fashion show and since it was her first time modeling she wanted to have a few supporters in the audience so a group of us girls got together and bought a table.

Anyway, the one thing I’m never very good it as thinking about what to wear to an event until the day of.  So, yesterday it dawned on me that I was going out to a fashion event with a bunch of fashionable people and that what I wore might be slightly more important than on other occasions.  Sure makes a girl realize how lacking her non-business wardrobe is when she goes digging and can’t really find anything to wear.

I did manage to pull together an outfit which was just perfect for the event I thought.  However, in the process of digging through my somewhat sparse closet I discovered three dresses that were several years old and decided then and there to put them in a bag to go off to charity.  I said to myself that I really did need to purchase a couple of “fancy” new dresses for other events like this that might pop up unexpectedly.  Now buying a “fancy” dress is always very stressful for me.  I’m quite sure that being 5′ 11″ tall doesn’t help the situation whatsoever.

Off to the event I went putting my need for a new dress behind me and looking forward to an evening out with the girls.  There is nothing I love more than either a great live rock band or an equally exciting fashion show.  Having been a model myself way back in the day I fell in love with fashion shows back in the 80′s and have loved them ever since.  Although as never a very good runway model I’m afraid to say - my nerves always got the best of me.

I digress. Back to the purpose of this post.  The fashions were awesome and there were many pieces that I loved and would wear.  However, there was one long dress on a very tall slim model that appeared to be calling my name.  Oh no, I couldn’t possibly, could I?

Being the smart business woman that she is, Lisa offers a “shopping party” at the end of the show.  Now I’m not usually much of an impulse buyer but I couldn’t stop thinking about that dress.  We wandered out in the racking area where all the clothes were displayed and I remember thinking that some other tall woman had probably already gotten her hands on that dress.  I’m flipping through a rack and there it is.  Dare I hold it up and see if there was even a possibility it might fit me? It certainly was long enough which is 90% of the battle normally. 

I grabbed my friend Leslie (can’t buy anything “fancy” without her fashionista eyes) and we snuck off to the washroom to try on the dress in front of the mirror.  You guessed it, a perfect fit! Check out my dress on that tall slim young model.  Do you suppose I’ll look just like her when I wear it?

That awesome dress is hanging in my closet and will be going off to Toronto with me in two weeks to the Professional Organizers in Canada Conference where I will have a chance to wear it at the Gala Awards dinner.

Just goes to show you that letting go of a few old things that are keeping you stuck in the past certainly can make room for a fabulous new thing that will help you move into the future.

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Can You Live a Good Enough Life?

I am fascinated by how the concept of ‘good enough’ relates to being organized and our many attempts to be what we perceive as ‘well organized’.  What does being organized mean to you?  Most likely not the same as it does to your spouse, your best friend or your children.

What if, instead of constantly striving to be more organized, better organized or even, heaven forbid, perfectly organized we strove for ‘good enough’.  According to Sarah Hampson the author of an article entitled, The Secret to happiness? Live a ‘good enough’ life,  “. . . when you don’t expect much, when you manage the ideas of what you think your life should be, you can be pleasantly surprised – and grateful – for the good fortune that comes your way.”

Somehow this sounds like lowering expectations, reducing the standards of what is acceptable and seems to me like settling for mediocrity.  Not acceptable to someone like me who is a recovering perfectionist and still battling with doing my ‘best’ instead of striving for ‘perfect’.  So, the concept of good enough doesn’t sit well with me but I know for many of you it might be just what you need.

If your kitchen drawers are organized so that you can find what you need but you don’t have those fancy dividers that you saw in a friends kitchen that might just be good enough?  If your clothes are all hanging up but not on matching hangers is that good enough?  If your papers are all off the floor and in tidy piles on your desk where you can put your fingers on what you need that might just be good enough.  If your email inbox is down to 50 messages, instead of 500, maybe that is good enough?

I like the idea of good enough as opposed to perfectly organized as it does allow us to lower our expectations of what organized means and move towards a level of organization that is achievable.  I think this concept is especially important for those who don’t like to spend their time organizing or find it difficult to know when to stop organizing. 

What we see in magazines and on television is often not realistic and perhaps that is where some of our expectations of perfectly organized come from?  Have you ever noticed the desk in the corner of the living room on a makeover show with a computer on it but not a single cord in sight nor a stitch of paper – no matter how organized we are our space will never look like that so perhaps lowering our expectations is exactly what the doctor ordered!

Everything in life seems to come back to deciding what matters most.  As long as your home and office are organized ‘enough’ so that you can function effectively and enjoy your space, forget about what others may think and go with what works for you.  I think the summer is the perfect time to try some ‘good enough’ thinking – at least for you my dear readers even if not for me!

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Time to Look for Something but No Time to Put It Away?

Here are some wise words from my good friend Georgina Forrest from Smartworks Organizing in Calgary, Alberta from one of her recent newsletters. 

Doing Small Things Can Make A Big Difference.  Have you ever taken something out to use it …

• a file from the file cabinet
• the hole punch out of the supply cupboard
• a book off of a shelf
• something – anything – out of a drawer

. . . used it but didn’t put it back? You know, because you just didn’t have time to put it away.

Then you needed to find something – perhaps a file or a hole punch or a book or something – only to SPEND time digging through the piles of stuff that had accumulated because you didn’t have time to put it away in the first place.

It’s a funny paradox of life:

Why is it we always have time to look for something yet we don’t always have time to put it away?

Don’t just put stuff down when you’re done with it, put it away. It really only takes a few additional seconds to do this, but can save you oodles of time wasted looking for it again in the future.

Every little thing you can do to keep order, results in huge benefits for you down the not-too-distant road.

So put that file or hole punch or book or whatever away – right now.

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The Importance of A Place for Everything

As I sat in my office yesterday checking my e-mail I looked around my desk area and thought about the importance of the mantra ‘A Place for Everything’.  The key for all of us is that it doesn’t say ‘A Place for Almost Everything’.

In my opinion, this is where we all get ourselves into trouble, myself included.  I find you need to have a place for absolutely everything.  Otherwise,  you put one thing out of place ‘just for now’ and then another and another and before you know it you have many things with no place.

Now, having a place for absolutely everything takes a fair bit of effort.  And my problem is that I periodically change my place for things which means then I sometimes have two places where information could be kept.  Naughty, naughty!

The main problem seems to be all the projects and bits that are ‘in the process’. They are things we have started and not finished.  In my office there are two categories of  ’in the process’ – client files and business projects.

Here’s what seems to work for me:

1. Clients I am working with over the coming months - their files are all in a binder for ‘current clients’ which stands on my desk at arms reach

2. Clients I am actually doing something with in the current week – their files are in brightly colored plastic 3-hole pouches contained in a nice sturdy silver mesh magazine holder on my desk beside the ‘current clients’ binder. 

3. The tasks associated with #2 are on my Task List

4. My business projects are in the drawer to the right of my chair where I have easy access to them in a hanging file called ‘Projects’

5. Each month when I do my monthly planning I pull out the Projects folder and review it for anything I want to do in the next month and add these to my Task List

6. Paper clips and pens have a home on the desk as I reach for those several times a day

7.  All of my other office items like the hole punch, highlighters, stapler are in the top drawer next to me

8. I have two bulletin boards on the wall behind my computer monitor where I post my focus activities for the year and other inspirational items

9. I have a whiteboard next to me where I track my projects for the month

If you want to see exactly what all this looks like, check out my YouTube site and watch the Home Office video. 

Whew, now that’s what you call having  ‘A Place for Absolutely Everything’!

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The Need for Control

Three weeks ago we began a small renovation project in our house on our downstairs laundry and bathroom.  What does that have to do with control you might ask?

Well, I have had a very interesting revelation in the last week or so.  Let me start at the beginning.  As you can imagine, my house is pretty darn neat and tidy pretty much all the time.  It has always been that way and I feel that because I am a Professional Organizer now I am obligated to practice what I preach so it’s just something I work on every day.

As you can imagine, with a renovation going on, chaos has ensued.  The only rooms that are untouched by clutter and things being where they don’t belong are the master bedroom and bath, the kitchen. and my office.  That means that the sitting room, living room, and the entire downstairs are a disaster.  Dirt gets tracked through the entire house every day and we attempt to clean it up.  The downstairs bathroom is completely torn apart down to the stud walls and concrete floor and there is a huge pile of garbage building up outside the house.

So, here’s my discovery.  I am a bit of a control freak – no surprise to many of you I’m sure!  However, because I have no control over my house and won’t for another 2 or 3 weeks I am having trouble concentrating on work and relaxing when I’m not working.  Now I know how many of my clients must feel every single day. Somehow having an organized home and office allows many of us to feel that we have some control over our lives.  And the reverse is also true. When we feel our lives are out of control it tends to manifest itself in the external chaos in our homes and offices.

Therefore, my conclusion is that I feel in control of my entire life because I am able to keep my home and office tidy, have a place for everything, feel more focused and relax when I need to.  If your life is out of control on all fronts, perhaps getting even one room in your home organized or tackling your office, will help you regain control of your life and have a positive impact in many other ways.

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Procrastination and Clutter

I’ll let the reporter from Metro take this one.  Here’s a link to today’s article ‘Procrastination has its place in cleaning post-Christmas clutter’

Rosalie Maggio, author of The Art of Organizing Anything, says, “So don’t deal with it. Take Santa and the lights down, stuff things under the bed and make your house livable. Then forget about it until February.”

This approach could lead to overwhelm I would think. Imagine if you just kept procrastinating and shoving things where you couldn’t see them?  What would happen?  Would it work for you?  Or would you get to the point where every nook and cranny is full and then the clutter is so voluminous that you have no idea where to start? Or maybe you simply wouldn’t be able to find anything anymore – yikes!

Then again, on the positive side perhaps it will lead to more business for Professional Organizers?

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Declutter Before the New Year!

I’m starting to think about the projects I will be working on over the holiday season to get myself ready for the new year.  As I unwind (with a treatment at the spa on December 23rd), and enjoy the company of friends and family, my thoughts turn to plans for 2010.

Every year between Christmas and the New Year, I go through all the paper files in my office, throw away what I don’t need and remind myself of the information I do have that I had forgotten about.  I also take a look through each of the main folders in My Documents and in my e-mail folders again looking for files I can delete and those that need to be moved to the appropriate folder.

During the holiday season try taking the time to dig through all the drawers and cabinets in your office, clear you computer files, clean house,  and take control of your environment.  Have fun and you’ll be well prepared for 2010.

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Clutter Free Gift Giving

The holiday season can indeed be one of the most clutter-generating times of the year. We give and receive gifts, buy decorations, load up on extra food ‘just in case’ and so much more.  Here are a few gift ideas to reduce clutter and save you time and money.

• Consider making your own gifts – perhaps coupons offering your time for things like baby-sitting services, car washing, lawn mowing and house cleaning. 
• Donate to a charity – Revenue Canada has a list of all registered charities in Canada (www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/chrts/menu-eng.html).  Why not donate to a local charity in someone’s name instead of buying a gift for the hostess of the holiday party?
• Pass along a family heirloom like dishes or jewelry – they are meant to be used and enjoyed. If you’re not using them, give them to another family member who will enjoy them. Include a story about the gift and why it has a special significance in the family.

Gift cards are an awesome choice. Here are some of my favourite things:

• A shopping mall gift certificate (good for any store in the mall)
• A giftcard to download music
• A gift certificate for the latest technology
• Offer to pay for a child’s piano, swimming or horseback riding lessons
• Tickets to a sporting event
• My personal absolute favourite – a trip to the spa! (Hint, hint . . . )

Happy holidays to all!

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