Does the way you keep your home mirror the way you take care of yourself?

Food for thought today:

Do you keep the outside of your home picture perfect, while allowing the inside to be a mess? Or are you just the opposite - do you focus on order and cleanliness inside, but allow the outside to more or less "take care of itself"? Are you somewhere in between?

How do these habits in your house reflect your personal and psychological state? Do you make sure that you look great on the outside, but feel like a mess inside? Do you spend time maintaining internal clarity and peace, while somewhat ignoring outward appearances? Where is your focus? If you spend your energy on maintaining inner peace, how does that impact outward appearances? If internal clarity improves outward beauty, does this same principle apply to your home?

Where do you fall on this scale, and what are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!

Balance your life!
Nora.

It is OK to forget! - Part 2

I know you have just been waiting on pins and needles for Part 2 of this post.  I was just trying to torture you by taking three months to post it.  Did it work?

Of course I am just kidding.  I have spent the last three months moving to Nashville, TN, and am sorry to say that I had to put my blog aside for a spell while I did that.  But now I am settled in and will hopefully be able to resume a more reasonable schedule for updating it.  So here goes my first blog post from Tennessee!

The first part of this post explained how being organized is merely a way to cope with the normal phenomenon that in the course of our busy lives, we often forget where we have put things.  This post will focus on finding and storing information rather than "stuff".  This includes appointments, names and phone numbers, things you need at the store, to-do lists, notes from meetings, brilliant ideas for your blog posts, etc. 


Of course there are many appointments and phone numbers that we often do remember independently.  But your brain cannot possibly store all of this information accurately.  Nor does it need to.  In fact, if you try to tax your brain with all of this information, you will find that you cannot focus on the things that are important to you, you will be stressed much of the time, and you will forget much of the information that you have spent so much energy trying to remember.  It is better for your health and sanity to relieve your brain of this responsibility.

The key to getting to the information you need when you need it is to have it with you at all times.  Fortunately in this technological age, it is very easy to carry with you all of the information you may need for any purpose.  In almost every current cell phone you can store every phone number and every appointment you may need. With smart phones, you can store thousands of other pieces of information as well, but that is just icing on the cake.  The only two vital components that you need to be organized are the to-do list and calendar (and these two can often be combined).  They can be the old-fashioned paper model or the new-fangled digital versions, according to your preference! 
 
Remember What
To-Do List - This is a way to remember and record your various errands, tasks, and goals for the day.  Having a to-do list will help you know what you need to take with you that day (receipts to return items at the store, notes to help you prepare that presentation you want to work on later, list of clients you need to call today).  So the To-Do List helps you remember "what" - what to do, what to bring, etc.

Ideally your to-do list is not very long each day.  If it is too long, you will never complete it and you will be discouraged and disappointed in yourself.  This doesn't bring peace - it brings stress.  So make sure your list is manageable.  If you have more things than you can possibly accomplish today, pull out your calendar and make appointments with yourself to complete certain tasks.  Then treat those appointments with the same sincerity that you would a work commitment.


Remember When
Calendar - This is, of course, where you capture all of your appointments.  I firmly believe that you need one calendar and one calendar only.  Having more than one will just add confusion, not relieve it.  Depending on your family structure, the ages of your kids, or the number of available drivers, it might make sense to have family members' schedules separated from each other on the same calendar (by color or column, for example).  But in many families, it makes the most sense to have all of the appointments recorded together on the same column, because often Mom or Dad is required to drive, prepare for, or attend the event anyway, so it is best to have the main calendar reflect all of the commitments in a way that shows any conflicts or overlap.

Regardless of the format of the calendar, it is important to have it available and visible all the time, and to have a way to update it when you are not at home.  I think it is best if you have a calendar that you can carry with you at all times.  There are many calendars that are designed with this purpose in mind, both in paper and digital versions.  The paper version can be set in a visible location when you are at home (add magnets to the back and hang it on the fridge when you walk in the door), or a digital calendar can be printed from the computer and placed in a visible spot.

A good calendar is usually multi-functional, and can actually capture all of your information, eliminating the need for a separate to-do list.  In addition to appointments, you can also schedule reminders, chores, to-do items and anything else that needs to be accomplished into your calendar.  This will ensure that you not only remember the items, but you have also planned an appropriate time and place to fulfill each task.  If you just have a basic paper calendar, you can even use post-it notes for your to-do items and place them in the calendar.  They make large, lined ones that would be perfect for this.

My notebook
I use my smart phone to capture all of these appointments, to-dos, phone numbers, directions, etc.  But I also like to take notes during meetings, to brainstorm about blog posts and ideas for workshops, to doodle while I think, and to make long, pretty to-do lists for big projects like parties.  Therefore, in addition to my smart phone, I like to keep a notebook handy for jotting down all of the random things that occur to me throughout the day.  If my jottings actually turn into tasks, appointments, or phone numbers, I transfer them into my phone.  Otherwise I leave them in my notebook.  You don't need to have a notebook like this, but I put it out there to give you an idea about how to handle things that don't fit cleanly into the vital categories of calendar or to-do.


To take this back to the original point, it is okay to forget.  In fact, you will feel better if you do.  Don't try to remember things - write them down so you don't have to!  Then carry your calendar and to-do list with you everywhere you go.  When you need to know something, you know where to look.  Each day when you make your plans for the day, you can refer to your list and to your calendar and know exactly what you have to do, when you need do it, and what you need to carry with you.

As a side note, I will admit that just the other day I neglected to show up for a commitment at my son's school.  I was upset about something my daughter was going through, and did not look at my calendar until noon.  When I did, I saw that I had committed to attend an event at 9:30 that morning.  I had to chuckle at myself because I was in the process of writing this article at the time, and found it ironic that this would happen to me then.  It just goes to show that no system is perfect, and no one is perfect.  Not only is it okay to use your calendar to "forget" your appointments, but we will all sometimes make the mistake of not looking at the calendar, and that is okay too.  It happens to everyone!

Have a beautiful day, and remember that it is okay to forget!  :-)

Nora

It is OK to forget where you put it! - Part 1

Many of my clients think that there is something wrong with them because they can't remember appointments or names or where they put their keys.  They may be shocked to learn that I can't either!  In fact, that is the whole point of getting organized.  You don't need to remember everything - you just need to know how to get the information or the item when you want it.

Being organized means that I know where to find what I need.  This applies to information as much as it does to material possessions.  In Part 1 of this post, I will focus on material possessions, because it so neatly follows my previous post "It's all about retrieval!"  In my next post, I will talk about how this also applies to information such as appointments, names, etc.

Material possessions - the key is to have a LOGICAL home for everything!
Did you know that I don't actually remember where I put things?  I don't even have to remember its "home".  Really.  Instead of trying to remember where something might be, I make sure to put it away where I will be using it (refer to my last blog post - "It's all about retrieval").  Then when I need something, I don't have to remember where I put it.  Chances are, it is somewhere near me at the very moment that I want it!  I just have to open the cabinet in front of me or check behind the nearest piece of furniture.  When I am cleaning or straightening up, I just think about where I will be needing the item, and store it nearby.  (Chances are, the reason I am cleaning is because I left the item out as I was using it, so it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out where in the house I use the item!)  Here are some examples from my own home:

• Lunchboxes are always stored in the cabinet above the counter space where I pack lunches.  
• My Bible Study books are stored right by the door (because I am always rushing out the door to get to Bible Study on time!).  
• There are two small chairs that the kids use for their homework hidden behind the TV.  My other folding chairs are in the basement, but since my kids sometimes want to sit at the coffee table to do their homework, they each need a chair available that will fit this table.  They can merely grab one from behind the TV cabinet.
• My laptop is stored under or behind the couch, because that is where I like to sit when I am working. 
• I have a small clothes hamper in the stairwell leading to the basement, because my children will often leave dirty socks or I will have dirty rags on the main floor.  I need a place nearby to throw these clothes when I am cleaning so that I don't have to run upstairs to my own hamper.

You might be thinking that you can't do this because lots of items are used in more than one place.  This is true.  What happens is that there are a few occasions when I have to look in more than one place for an item.  But usually it can be found very quickly because there are only a few logical places where it might be, and if you can't find it, you don't have to turn the entire house upside down - either the item hasn't been put away or it has been put somewhere that it will be used, so just think where that could be.  My books, for example, might be on my bedside table, on the guest room bookshelf, or (as a last resort) on the bookshelf in the basement.  Children's books will either be still sitting out in plain sight where the person was last reading, or they will be on my daughter's bookshelf or my son's, or on the stairs leading to their rooms waiting to be put away.  I will either find the book sitting out on the bed, on the bookshelf, or I will step on it on my way to their rooms!  :-)  Either way, I will find what I need within moments of beginning my search.  Because each item has a logical home, I don't even have to remember where it "lives".  I just have to know what the item is and I can narrow my search to a few specific locations in my home.

One added benefit of this method is that cleaning is fast and simple.  When my house is a mess, it is because we have all just left our things right where we were using them.  Chairs are left by the coffee table, the laptop is on the couch, my Bible is on the table by the door where I dropped it when I came in the house, and my son's dirty clothes are on the floor.  Since the home for these items is near where they are used, clean-up is a snap - I just slide the laptop under the couch, put the chairs behind the TV, put my Bible in the cabinet beneath the table where I left it, and throw the dirty socks into the clothes hamper in the stairwell.  Two minutes and I'm done!

Next time - how to forget all of your appointments and still make it everywhere you need to be!

Balance your life!
Nora

It's not about storage - it's all about retrieval! Think "where will I be when I need it?"

The most important element in organization is having a "home" for each item that you own.  But finding a home for everything can be a daunting task, and there are so many items which just seem to have no category!

Here is the key to finding a home for everything:  It's all about retrieval.  Don't think about where the best place is to store something.  Instead, figure out where you will be when you want to retrieve it.  Once you have figured this out, you can determine a specific place in that room for the item.

If you will need this item as you leave the house, find a home for it near the door.  My family's shoes are the perfect example.  It makes sense to store shoes in your bedroom closet, and for shoes that are part of an "outfit" that is where I keep them.  However, on a typical day, I am wearing "clothes" rather than "an outfit", so I will want to wear my flip flops or my tennis shoes.  In that case, I don't put on my shoes until I am walking out of the house, so I need a place near the door where I can keep my shoes, since that is where I will be when I want to retrieve them.  So I have a shoe shelf just inside the door where I can keep my "generic" shoes.
Some items you might want near the door:
Shoes
Bookbags
Activity bags (kids' ballet clothes, baseball gloves, etc.)
Extra (empty) bags that you can grab when you have an armload of random things to take with you
Car keys
Purse
Coats, hats, gloves
Umbrellas
Sunscreen (for me, this is a case of being honest with myself - oh, I could write a whole blog about the relationship between organization and honesty to oneself! - If I have to walk too far to get sunscreen, I won't do it.  If I can just grab it when I put on my shoes, I am more likely to put it on and take care of my pale, freckled face!)


If you will need it in the kitchen, that is where it needs to "live". The kitchen is usually the heart of any home.  Of course that means that there are often things going on in the kitchen that don't involve food!  My kids are busy getting ready for school while I am in the kitchen making lunches.  So I often need to give someone a hairbrush while I am working on food prep.  That means I need a home for a hairbrush in the kitchen!  I also like to listen to music while making dinner, so I need a place to keep a few CDs.  What  activities go on in your kitchen?  Don't feel silly looking for a place in the kitchen to house your hammer if that is where you will be needing it!  This system must work for you and help you live your life more easily.
Some (non-food-related) items that might be appropriately found in the kitchen:
Label maker - for labeling lunch box items like a thermos or for labeling a casserole dish you are loaning to a friend
Hairbrush
Batteries
Tools (screwdriver or small hammer)
Tape
Cell phone chargers
Pens/pencils and notepads - great for grocery lists
School calendar for quick reference (you can hide this by taping it on the inside of a cabinet door if you don't want it to be cluttering up the refrigerator!)


If you will need the item while you are out, can you keep it in the car?  I think cars and the storage space they provide are often over-cluttered and under-utilized!  Keep a notepad in your car for a few weeks.  While you are out and about for the next month, keep a running list of the things that you wished you had while you were out.  For example, a few years ago I realized that I would often leave the house having forgotten to eat.  I would finally be out the door and driving to my destination when I would realize that I was starving.  I reprimanded myself and vowed to do a better job of remembering to eat.  Of course that didn't work, so it occurred to me that the best way to solve the problem was to keep snacks in the car.  I found a basket that would slide between the two front seats and now I keep it filled with snacks for those rushed days where I am likely to forget to eat.  (It comes in handy for my always-hungry 7-year-old boy and his friends, too!)
Some things you might want to find a place for in the car:
Snacks
Kleenex or napkins
A change of clothes for each family member - I have used this clothing stash more often than seems possible!
Extra feminine supplies
A basket of books for the kids to read while on the go - And another little tip:  Check out books from the library to fill this book basket, and then just keep them there in the car.  If they never  come into the house, you can't lose them, right?  When you realize that the due date is upon you, the books are in the car, ready to be returned!
Sunscreen (in case I still managed to avoid putting it on as I was leaving the house!)

The key to home organization is to figure out your patterns and your needs.  Make it easy to get what you need.  When you are staring down an item that has no home, ask yourself "where do I use this?".  Sometimes the answer will surprise you!  If the answer seems funny, just chuckle as you find a home for it there.  If the answer is "I don't use it" then the home for the item is in your donation box or trash can!

Balance your life!
Nora.

Are you organized, neat, or clean? There's a difference, you know!

There are several misconceptions that people often have about organization that are important to recognize if you are trying to get a space in order.  One big one is the idea that if you are organized, you must also be neat or your house must be clean.  On the other hand, people who are neat or very clean are often mistaken for being organized.

In fact, there is a difference between being "neat", being "clean", and being "organized".  While these three things are certainly complimentary skills, and while there are those who embody all three characteristics beautifully, it is very common to be neat without being clean or organized, clean without being neat or organized, or organized without being neat or clean!

When I think of someone who is merely "neat" (let's call her Neat Nadine) I think of someone who keeps her space fairly cleared of clutter.  Nadine probably keeps the beds made, and her laundry in the hamper rather than on the floor.  Nadine can make her home presentable for guests quite quickly.  However, she may do that by putting things in drawers or closets haphazardly without any real system.  Items are not necessarily always put in the same place, but rather are put wherever they will fit.  Nadine may also achieve a neat look by simply not having many belongings.  Her house is always presentable and pleasant to visit, but isn't necessarily clean and she may not have any system in place for storing her belongings.

Someone who is "clean" ("Clean Carl" - aren't these names fun?) is much more interested in keeping surfaces free of dirt or grime, keeping dishes washed and bathrooms sparkling.  However, he may not feel any particular need to have the beds made, or his dresser or countertops cleared of clutter.  Clutter is fine with Carl - he just wants to know that his house is not dirty.

And then there's the "organized" one ("Organized Olivia").  Olivia likes to know exactly where to find something when she needs it - everything has a "home" in her home.  She is the one who always has a band-aid in her purse, snacks in her car, and can point you to the exact shelf in her kitchen where you will always find a box of macaroni and cheese.  However, Olivia may not mind that the place you will always find the macaroni and cheese is on a grimy shelf, or that her coat is always, without exception, on the arm of the sofa.  Carl would never have macaroni on a grimy shelf (of course, he might not even know whether or not he HAS any macaroni at all), and Nadine would be loathe to leave her coats lying on the sofa in the living room (a guest might pop in and want to sit there - she would say that any closet would do the job to hide that coat!).

Being neat, clean, and organized are all different.  However, they are complementary skills, and being good at one will make it fairly easy to learn the others, if you wish to do so.  It is just a matter of adding little steps to your already established routines.  This is a case of using your strengths to help develop your "weaker" areas.  If you are already strong in one of these areas and would like to develop skills in another, you will add one small step to your already established routine until that step is a habit and comes easily.  After that step has been incorporated, you can add another.  

For example, if you are  Clean Carl, where you wish for all of your surfaces to be clean, you can add a new habit to your routine by putting things away as you clear surfaces to be washed.  You can start with one area of your home - maybe the kitchen, which is usually a little more organized because of the nature of standard cabinetry and appliances.  Once you feel confident that you have met your goals there, you can apply the same technique to another room of the house.

If you are already a Neat Nadine, it won't be too difficult to add a new habit of wiping down surfaces after you have cleared them of clutter.  If you are already Organized Olivia, you will probably have little trouble adjusting your home to find more discreet places to house certain items or to adjust your routine to ensure that you are able to wipe down or vacuum more often.

Finding a logical home for your belongings is a little bit more difficult, and requires some deliberate thought, but it is certainly doable and not difficult to learn.  My tip for today as you try to find a home for an item is: "Don't think about where you should put it.  Think about where you will be when you need to retrieve it.  If you will be running out the door when you need this item, then you should store it near the door you will be running through.  It's all about retrieval!"  I think I will write an entire entry about that next week!  Stay tuned!

Balance your life,

Nora

Are you always running late? Follow these tips for getting everywhere you need to be!

Do you have trouble getting where you need to be on time?  Do you always feel lucky or even shocked if you arrive somewhere before the event has actually started?  

The trick to arriving on time is to overestimate how long it will take to get where you need to be.

If you are going to a place you have never been before:

• Pad your estimated travel time by 20 minutes.  I know that sounds like a lot, but this gives you time to get stuck in traffic and get a little bit lost!  You may be great at directions or have a GPS system, but when you are going to a new place, you never know exactly what will slow you down.

If you are going to a place you have been before, but you wouldn't mind being early, or you definitely don't want to be late:

• Pad by 15 minutes.  You aren't likely to get lost, but if traffic is thick or if your kids somehow slow your exit (let's just blame the kids, right?), you will still have time to get there with a minute or two to spare.

If you are going to a place you have been before, but you don't want to be early:

• Pad by 10 minutes.  In this case, you are merely trying to allow time for traffic or unexpected delays as you walk from your house to the car.  (Or, as often happens to me, time for forgetting your wallet or your cell phone and having to turn the car around and run back into the house!)

With this padding, you shouldn't be late, and you might just be early!  (I know, it's unthinkable, right?)  But don't look at that as a problem!  If you are early and don't want to go inside yet, make the most of your extra time: 

• Clean out your glove box, wipe out cup holders, dust dashboard (with handi-wipes that you keep in the car just for such a festive occasion!)
• Read a book
• Put on mascara or lipstick, 'cause let's face it - who had time to do that before they left?
• Clean out your purse
• Zip off a thank you note
• Write up a grocery list 
• Make a phone call to a friend or to schedule that doctor's appointment you have been putting off
• Or, dare I say it?....Just relax for 5 minutes!!!

Balance your life!

Nora

It sounded so great, but it just doesn't work!

So have you ever felt like you are a failure when it comes to organization?  Here's the situation:

You see your favorite magazine at the grocery store with a headline that says "Organize your (fill in the blank with your own personal organizational nightmare) today!"  You eagerly grab the magazine off the shelf, read through the article immediately, letting your ice cream melt in the cart, and decide that THIS IS IT!  This is the solution you have been looking for!  You run out to the car, drive straight to the nearest big-box store to buy everything you need to implement this perfect solution (deciding that you will clean up the puddle of now-melted ice cream later), hobble home with a smile on your face, a hundred dollars worth of bins, labels, and stacking shelves bulging out of their bags, and, with great enthusiasm, you dive into your project.  You tell everyone you know about how you have finally solved your biggest organizational problem, and then... two months later... you are ashamed to find yourself with exactly the same problem you had before (but now with less room because of those annoying shelves you bought).

You then decide that you are a failure, that you cannot get organized, and that all is hopeless.  And of course it goes without saying that you will never buy THAT magazine again!  Has this happened to you?

You are not a failure.  This happens to everyone.  In fact, I will have to admit, it happened to me two months ago.  And to make it worse, I was the one who suggested that perfect solution!  (To give credit where it is due, I have also read similar suggestions by other organizers - I am not the only one to suggest something like this.)  

Here is what happened:  I suggested a way to make decorating for Christmas easy and sane.  I suggested that you should store (and label) your Christmas decorations in bins based on where in the house the decorations will go.  For example, I usually display all of my angels on the sofa table under my picture window and my Santa Claus decorations on the bookshelf.  Under this plan, I would store my angels together in a bin labeled "Angels - Sofa Table" or "Santas - Bookshelf".  I could take a photo of the area and put it in the bin with the decorations (or tape it on the outside) so that next year I could easily reproduce the look.  I suggested that if decorations were stored in this way, it would be easy to decorate in just a few minutes each day (or all at once) without making a big mess of the house.  If you had 20 minutes available one day, you could just grab the bin labeled "Angels - Sofa Table", decorate that area, and clean up at the same time.  If you never did get all of your decorations out, at least you would have some of your house decorated for the season.  If you had 20 minutes each day, you could decorate the whole house one area at a time.

Doesn't this sound great?  It didn't work for me.  I realized that the way I like to decorate is a more creative process.  I like to put on some beautiful Christmas music, get out ALL of my decorations, put them all over every surface, and then stand there and wait to be inspired with a vision for the room as a whole.  I realized that I don't want my decorations to look exactly the same every year, even if I do have the same general layout (angels under the window, Santas on the bookshelf).  Some years I like to cover every surface, and some years I would rather take a more minimalist approach.

So this idea sounded great, but it didn't work for me.  Does that mean there is something wrong with it?  No - in fact, if it sounds good, you should try it!  The same goes for the perfect solution you found in the magazine.  But if any organizational idea doesn't work for you, don't jump to the conclusion that you have some sort of problem with organization or that you cannot change things for the better.  Maybe the ideas that sound good to you don't really fit your personality or your lifestyle.  If you need something a little more free-form, acknowledge that and embrace it.  Try several approaches, and don't give up!

If you think you need some help finding the best solutions for your personality, don't be embarrassed to call a professional organizer to come and help you find what will work for you.  He or she will enjoy figuring this out with you!

Balance your life!

Nora