Organizing the Car Trunk Means Less Rattle, More Mileage April 5, 2012

Last week, I was driving very, very carefully.  Driving conditions have been fine, but I was driving gingerly because I was harboring a noise-maker in the back: a wire bin with wheels on it, that I hadn’t yet returned to the store.

Empty trunk + metal bin on wheels = lots of noise when driving

Did you know that organizing your car can keep your car quieter AND save you real money? Predictions are that gas prices will rise above $4.00 by April.  Every extra pound that you carry in the car trunk (or anyplace else) leads to lower gas mileage, costing the average family an additional $40 per year, and more as the price of gas increases. As if you needed another reason to get organized.  Here are some strategies to get it in gear:

Read More on How to Declutter the Family Car

This is excerpted from the article originally published at  ShopGetOrganized on March 21, 2012.

What essentials do you keep in your car?

How to Organize Kids Art Projects April 3, 2012

Kids’ art projects are notoriously hard to organize.  The topic comes up constantly.  There are a bazillion ways to store your little Picasso’s projects, of course, but really, simple is better.

My absolute favorite storage solution is the Li’l Davinci art frames.  You can check out this video of how these front-hinge beauties from Dynamic Frames work.  My kids (2 and 5) decide which creations are frame-worthy, and they love to help me load their new opus into the frames at least once a week.

While we have enough wall space in our house for a mini art gallery, we don’t actually have enough space in our house for the art studio it takes to create said art.  So I was thrilled to take my little ones to a new place recently, the Creative Clubhouse in Havertown, PA.  Unlike the pottery studio just down the street from our house, the Creative Clubhouse is geared for the younger set (12 months to 8 years), and I didn’t feel like I was bringing my bullish children into the china shop.  The setup is simple, with areas set up for Lego play, dough play, simple glue projects, easel art, magnet boards, a huge chalk wall (sure kids, go ahead and draw on these walls), and an area for building towers from blocks.  They also run scheduled art and music classes throughout the week.  If I had an extra room in my house for art, it would look just like the Creative Clubhouse.

Look around this space, and you’ll see some pretty simple but effective art solutions that can easily translate into most homes, even if you don’t have your own art room.  Owner, Amy, will tell you that they are all IKEA solutions, easy to pick up and easy to install.  Supplies, like paint brushes, crayons, and any other high-risk implements can be stored in cute and shiny cans hanging from organizing rails, originally meant to organize a kitchen.

Smocks and aprons, the wardrobe staple of the preschool set, hung on simple keyhook bars in the lower left corner of that shot, were super accessible to the kiddos.  At home, you might be able to hang these on the inside of a pantry door or coat closet door.

If you can’t spring for a set of Dynamic Frames, then a simple set of clips hung on airline wire, normally used to hang curtains in a hip loft space, will allow you to hang painted art, especially great for those that need a bit of drying time.

For hardback or canvas creations,  this skinny ledge provides the perfect perch for a rotating display of color.  It’s only about an inch and a half deep, so it can fit into just about any space. I like the idea of adding in some favorite books to create a seasonal or theme display.

Last, think multi-functional in every single piece of furniture you bring into your house once you have kids.  I think it should be a crime to manufacture any bench or ottoman without storage underneath.  With just a little planning and maybe a basket or two, a bench can store even more puzzles, games, and creative supplies.

We’ve been back to the Creative Clubhouse, and I love that my kids get to be creative and messy, but I don’t have to clean it up.  If you need a few more ideas on how to store your kid’s art, check out how to organize creations in digital form, and 5 more ways to organize kids art supplies.

Are any of these solutions to organize kids’ art working in your home?

Home Office In a Closet March 28, 2012

I was talking to a friend about this particular transformation, and realized it had never made it to the blog, so here you go.  For those of you who work at home, you can have a super-functional and pretty office, in just about 30″ of space (deep).

Before:

After:

What would you accomplish if your office was this pretty?

Why I Love My Job March 22, 2012

This week I’m enjoying hanging with my organizing peeps at the National Association of Professional Organizers annual conference. Did you know there is one?  It is always one VERY organized agenda!

I can’t wait to get back and share what’s new in the industry.  I’ll be spending a few days in the land of crab cakes and Orioles.  Too bad we’re a few weeks ahead of opening day. It’s true, I have one of the best jobs a person could ask for.

I love my job.

This is one of my favorite parts of my job.  I almost never work alone.

This is Smudge, and he was doing the safety check and space planning for this linen closet reorganization.   I have a million shots of my your little furry children helping me organize your spaces.  Next time I’m at your place, please remind me to snap a shot of the silly things they do to help us out.

Enjoy your week.

What do you love best about your job?

Organizing While Human March 20, 2012

People I work with often blame their current organizing state of affairs on the blessings of being an American.  Let’s face it, while the 99% have gotten a lot of press with the Occupy Wall Street movement, most Americans are still the richest 2% of the world’s population.  If we feel overwhelmed by our stuff, our debt, our gadgets, our calendars, and our information, is it just because we are Americans living in the year 2012?

Nope.

One of the biggest reasons we keep too much is because we treasure possibilities.  We keep things we’ve never used just in case we might need them some day.  We keep relics of activities we used to do, but are unlikely to take part in again.  We keep magazines we don’t have time to read because there might be a cool article in there. There’s lots of psychology behind this, but basically it boils down to us being human, not the year we live in.

I found a little organizing story tucked in the book of Acts in the Bible.  Acts tells the story of what happened to Jesus’ followers immediately after he rose and ascended to be with the Father.  His guys were sent all over the ancient world to tell His story.  Paul, one of the new guys, heads over to Athens, Greece and is hobnobbing with the folks who run the town.  “All the people of Athens spent their time talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” (v.21)  Sounds a bit like us, always plugged in and getting our news practically by I.V. drip.  The Greeks were really into their gods, as you might recall from mythology.  The guys in charge ask Paul what he’s in town to discuss, and Paul says, “As I walked around, I looked carefully at the things you worship, I even found an altar with to an unknown god written on it.” (v.23)

In effect, the people of Ancient Greece were keeping an empty building or shrine in high-rent downtown real estate labelled to an unknown god, just in case they might need it one day!

There’s no need to beat yourself up about a little extra in your life here and there.  After all, there are times when being prepared makes a lot of sense.  The ability to plan makes us human and sets us apart from the rest of the animals. But taken too far, you might be taking up valuable real estate for something that really is a little wacky. We’ve seen it for two thousand years and more.  We’ll always organize while human.

Paul says that not only can he describe the God that they are holding a place for, but that God doesn’t even need a separate shrine, that He’s master over everything and everywhere.  Hey, Greeks, he’s saying, listen up.  That space could be better used than sitting empty.  Today, our unworn sweaters, unused books, uneaten food, unworn shoes, and yes, probably even our unoccupied real estate, can be better put to use helping our fellow humans.  Donating unused goods is a good thing!

Stay human, but keep the just in case within reason.

Candyless Month: SMART Goals Help Organize Smarter Snacks February 16, 2012

Remember when I told you I was going to try to get a handle on my candy addiction in January?  Boy, am I glad that’s over!

You might be wondering, how is this an organizing or decorating story?  Trust me, it is both.

The thing about organizing is that if you have a plan, a system, and the right tools on hand, you can be successful.  Without any of those things, well, you get more of what you’ve always gotten before.

My plan was to cut out my candy binges.  Not calories.  Not candy entirely.  Just the 3 o’clock and 8 o’clock binges.  That’s where I sit down and eat half a bag of M&M’s or an entire box of Girl Scout cookies.  My system was to have some substitute sweets on hand, including frozen fruit, oranges, Greek yogurt, and roasted vegetables. And the tools, well, that’s where you came in.  Every time I went into the pantry, I thought about this post I was eventually going to have to write, and so I thank you for being there for me.

My goals were SMART:  specific, measurable, applicable, realistic, and time-bound.  There was absolutely no reason I couldn’t be binge-free for thirty days.

Things pretty much went as planned.  Not having my daily sugar dose, some mornings I definitely woke up less sluggish.  Sugars that come from processed foods and candy really do gum up my works, which is way more noticeable than in my twenties.

Oh, and I remembered that I needed to drink more water.  Not just pour it and let it sit nearby, but actually drink it.  Osmosis isn’t a good way to get your hydration.

Then, near the end of the month, I took on a two day staging job, and my system failed.  (That’s the decorating part of the story.) I fell back on chowing through an entire bag of Skittles to get me through the job instead of taking sensible breaks for water and real food.  Skittles are so seductive, I even got my assistant hooked on them.  Sorry, Jill.  Although the Skittles.com site is one of the biggest wastes of time ever, I have to agree with the tweet/quote, “Where there are Skittles, there’s a way.”

OK, one slip is not bad.  But then I had a weak moment in the evening, which began with me reaching for a box of chocolate drizzled popcorn that I bought as a hostess gift in case I was invited to a holiday party.

 

Note to self:  buying candy just in case is probably a bad idea.

I struggled with this one, so close to the end of the month.  So I flipped the box and checked the stats.  10 servings in the box.  130 calories per serving.  Are you kidding me?  Stalling, I pulled out 9 plastic baggies, intending to eat just one serving.  It works for those Nabisco hundred calorie packs; it might work for me.  Here’s what one serving looked like.

Pathetic. Hardly worth the calories.

That particular night, my better nature won out.  I opted for a tub of Greek yogurt instead and saved about a gazillion calories.  ‘Cuz you know I was not just going to eat one serving of that popcorn.  You know I was going to eat the ENTIRE BOX, right?

 

Organizing my pantry and my thoughts help me stay on track.  I have no idea if I lost weight or not, but I can definitely say that one of my favorite shirts feels more loose.  Yeah!

So, it all ends well.  Borrowing a title from my blogger friend, Stephanie over at Intentional Girl, I’ve become a bit more intentional about my snacks.  Which is good, because candy season never really seems to end, does it?

Forget Resolutions: Do This One Thing and Sleep Easier January 2, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

And, by the way, forget the resolutions.  Who ever thought up that idea, anyway?

But here is one thing you can do in three minutes or less that can make a real difference for you this year.  Not kidding.  Right now.  Read this, and then run to find your nearest file folder, oversized envelope, or empty box.  Yes, you can even repurpose a gift box if you need to.

Label this folder, oversized envelope, or gift box with a thick, dark marker:  TAXES, 2011.

Set this folder, envelope, or box aside in your home office, or near where you process your mail.  If you share your home, let your spouse know where this is and what it is for.  Start filling it with items you might need to file your taxes this year.  You’ll start gettting these items in mid-January, possibly through February.  You might already have a few receipts or pages to add right now.  But if not, you’ll find them over the next few weeks.  When you find stuff that is or might be tax related, just pop it in here without worrying about organizing it.  Get something in email that you might need?  Save your sanity today by actually printing it out and popping it in the safe spot you just created.  Do you run a small, disorganized business from home?  Start pulling all of your records together now, and you’ll have what you need come crunch time.

Important tax records include W2’s, 1099’s, receipts for charitable gifts and donations, 529 records (contributions or expenses), end of year banking statements, refinance records, energy-saving home improvement records from the past year, and, of course, any unreimbursed work expenses.  If you aren’t sure whether it might be tax-related, pull out last year’s (2010) tax return and use that as a guide.

Don’t organize this stuff until you get ready to prepare your taxes; you are weeks away from that.  Right now, you are just trying to corral the little buggers that you’ll need for your 1040.

There.  Done.  You’re all organized, and it’s only day 2 of the new year.  Good for you!

 

 

Copyright (c) <a href=’http://www.123rf.com’>123RF Stock Photos</a>

Critter Control for Family Outings December 22, 2011

My little peanuts don’t like to leave the house without their friends.  On any given day, we might leave the house with a dog, cat, bunny, unicorn, or even Elmo.  On our recent trip to Sesame Place, I was especially worried that our escorts for the evening, Elmo and Kitty, might get lost.

Using a label maker, you can use my method to keep your critters safe. I created an extra special name tag bracelet for both animals by adding a few extra spaces before and after my cell phone number on our favorite pink label tape.  The tape overlapped on to itself and stayed on each critter’s paw for the night. See the pink bracelet on his right leg, below?

If one of the animal’s had been lost, there would have been no problem contacting us. Just be sure to clip the special bracelet off when you return home, since label tape isn’t something you want in a crib with a toddler.

I hope this little tip helps you prepare for your next outing with your entourage.

7 Organizing Tips for Medical Records at Year End December 20, 2011

Near the end of the year, you may be thinking about clearing out your medical savings account, organizing medical paperwork for tax time, and scheduling year-end medical appointments.  Do you know the rules?

Read the full article on how to use these seven tips to organize medical records and expenses.

1.  Will your medical expenses be tax deductible?

2.  Do you have a medical savings account or flex-spending account (FSA)?

3.  Have you used up your medical savings account or FSA?

4.  Are you saving Explanation of Benefits (EOBs)?

5.  Have you stashed away medical articles?

6.  Still looking for receipts that might be tax-deductible?

7.  Did you develop a chronic condition this year?

Not sure of the answers?  Read the full article on organizing medical records, originally published in About One.

Have you started getting organized for tax season?

Photo Credit:  Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Make Room by Making Charitable Donations December 13, 2011

December is the perfect time to get organized.  You may not feel like you have much time, but chances are you can find $50 or $100 or more hidden inside your home in just a matter of minutes.  Here are some ways to do good and do right by your home at the same time.

Donate Toys

Now is the best time to tackle toys.  Go through the piles of toys with your kids and see what they are willing to part with.  Even if it’s just one or two things, you’ve planted a seed with them that they don’t have to keep everything forever. My four year old and I went through our books this week and decided to part with only three books.  That’s ok for now.

Donate Clothes

Tweaking your wardrobe can be painless.  Keep an extra hamper or shopping bag in your closet for clothes that you’ve outgrown, that are hopelessly out of style, or are beyond repair.  If you have a laundry room, you might keep a donation bag there to catch items before they get put back in closets and drawers. Once a year, or more often, the bag will be ready to take to the car and a donation drop point.

Donate Household Goods

Household and decor items that you aren’t using but are still in good condition can be passed on.  Just because that lamp that you can’t stand doesn’t fit your style, doesn’t mean that a DIY-er like me can’t bring it to life again.

Donate Just a Little

If the thought of making a charitable donation run makes you think BIG ORGANIZING PROJECT, don’t sweat it.  Just set the timer for 15 minutes, grab a box,  and run around your house with an eye to remove one, two or three items from each room.  Removing just one box or bag of unwanted items frees up space in your home and cash in your tax return.

Document Donations Properly

These items can pay you back in cash when you do your taxes.  Read how charitable donations on your taxes work.  Just be sure to document your donation with an itemized list for charitable donations and a receipt from the charity you donate to.  Taking a picture of the donated items if you have an especially large haul is also a good idea to provide even more documentation.

Donate to a Good Cause

Two of my favorite donation points are Goodwill Industries, because they take nearly everything, and Impact Thrift Store, because they will often schedule a pickup to include larger items like furniture.  If you are scheduling a pickup, do it now with plenty of time to get that end-of-year tax write off.

Merry Mail, Or 5 Ways to Organize Mail During the Holidays December 6, 2011

Seriously, if I’m annoyed by the amount of mail I got this week, you probably are, too.  I’ll show you my pile if you show me yours.

 

This pile is from just one day.  There are more than 13 catalogs, and 3 pieces of mail from Comcast alone!

Here are a few tips, good for the holiday season and all year through.

1. Wait to go through your mail until you have a few uninterrupted moments.  Glancing through a stack gives you the false impression that you’ve done something with it. It sends your brain a message that you can move on to other activities, and your unprocessed mail then becomes clutter.
2. Immediately recycle everything that doesn’t require your action.  Here’s where it gets tricky.  Go ahead and put those catalogs in the recycling bin.  WHHAATT???   If you don’t look at them between now and the next recycling day, chances are that Williams Sonoma, LL Bean and Victoria Secret will send you three more by next week.
3. If you receive a charity notice that you intend to donate to, then immediately place the donation request with your bills, since it requires nearly the same actions as bill paying.
4. Define a designated space for your bills.  Ensure that bills have a unique place in your office, on your kitchen counter, or somewhere special.  Ideally, keep your bills standing up vertically, so they aren’t easily covered by tomorrow’s mail.  Paying bills may not be on the top of your list right now, but you don’t want your gift budget to be spent on paying late fees!
5. Be ruthless.  If you aren’t sure if you need to keep something, then don’t keep it.  This is especially true if you know you can request it again from the internet or another source. There are relatively few mail items that are irreplaceable or vital records.

There is a lot to get excited about this time of year, but losing your sanity over mail overload shouldn’t make the list.

Ready to Enjoy the Holidays with Two Forms November 17, 2011

Nope, this isn’t another article about left-over turkey recipes, getting your guest room organized, or this season’s hottest decorating trends.  Instead, this is about how to actually enjoy the holidays, and two little forms that might help you do this.

(I could insert a holiday photo here, but I’m not going to torture you with early holiday mania.) 

Do we really need one more to do list for the season?  Well, these forms aren’t about getting more done.  In fact, if possible, I’d like to do less this year, and enjoy it more.  I’m a working mom with two tiny children and a desire for a home that passes for clean. Do I need more stress in my life?  No.  What I need is to remember the five year rule and build my life around it:

If it is likely to matter five years from now, then it is probably worth doing or paying attention to.

So this year, I’m trying to spend more time on crafting holiday memories, instead of just getting through the holidays.  These forms should help me, just by writing things down and scheduling memory-making events before they pass me by.  You’re welcome to use them, too.

The first form is a 2+ Month Holiday Calendar Page.  Since I’ve gone to an electronic calendar, it always seems like there should be another week in between today and next week.  So I’ve created a view of the calendar that takes us right through the first week in January, where all of our social commitments and wishes are getting posted.  This is getting clipped to all the party invites and newspaper clippings of things that I want to do.

The second form is to do list of a different kind for the holidays.  It seems like our holidays have way more Santa than Jesus.  I wanted to look for opportunities to introduce more angels, Jesus, and our true holiday heritage.  So I modified a template so to list out four types of events for this year’s holidays:

• Family traditions.  For instance, I love to have matching holiday pajamas for the whole family, but they are extremely hard to come by without paying a fortune.  These can’t wait until the last minute.
• Entertaining Angels.  You might know the Bible verse Hebrews 13:1, which says Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.  We may have a party, or we may take a meal to a family.  I want to be ready to entertain angels.
• Praise the Lord.  Here’s where I’m looking for ways to make Christmas more about Jesus for my kids.  Since they love animals, I figure a visit to a live nativity would be amazing for them.
• Can’t Miss Events.  We love to do things like visit a live reindeer and learn about them.  Elmwood Park Zoo has had them in years past.  We’ll probably be seeing ours at Hershey Park this year.

If these couple of forms help, that’s great.  If they just get you thinking in a different way about what needs to get done this season, that’s fine, too.  As always, I wish you peace and purpose.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

How to Decorate Mudrooms November 8, 2011

The mudroom or entry way to your home is probably the hardest working space in the house.  Decorating a mudroom can be a challenge because the space is usually small, multi-tasking, and heavily used.  If you have kids or dogs, an entry hall or mudroom can be a disaster waiting to happen.  It helps to know how to pick paint for high traffic areas and a few other tricks when decorating a mudroom.

Read more about how to choose the best paint, furniture, lighting and accents for your mudroom at the originally published location for How to Decorate Mudrooms.

 

Photo credit and © HeartWork Organizing 2011.

Originally published in www.blog.AboutOne.com.

Five Ways to Cut Digital Clutter September 27, 2011

Professional organizers call it digital hoarding.  Just because we can keep more data doesn’t mean we should.  Here are tips to make your digital life more manageable:

1. Live on one screen

Make it a goal to have a file structure, desktop,
electronic notepad, or whatever  you use fit on just one screen.  Use your preferred device’s own structure to create folders or grouped icons so that you can see your inventory/main headings without having to scroll or tap.  Incredibly complex data may require a second screen, but decide if it is worth it.  The more visual stimuli your brain has to process, the slower you will be. Think of your screens as a container (like a box) for an amount of data that you can comfortably manage, not a blank slate for all available cool apps.  It’s the same principle as keeping only the amount of files in your office that you can fit in your filing cabinet; left unchecked, chaos reduces productivity.

2.  Don’t be an early adopter

Yeah, it’s cool, but what will that really cost you?  Early adopters spend more in money, time and frustration working out the bugs for the rest of us.  The first iPhone in 2007 sold for $599; today the much improved iPhone 4 sells for $199.
Approximately 5% of the mobile handsets are Apple iPhones, which means that 95% of the world saved about $400 plus hours, days or weeks of learning time.

3. Digital Overload  is normal

Be weird.  If you always respond to email, texts, Facebook and Twitter, then people will expect you to respond to them. You train your network.  Inc. Magazine wrote about David Karp, founder of Tumblr, in June 2011 and his method of handling email. Two things are interesting. First, he reverse filters, meaning everything goes into a folder that he doesn’t read, and the folder he looks at only has emails from his
employees and girlfriend. Second, he’s right on that if you condition people to
expect that you don’t read email, they’ll get to you another way.

4. Admit Digital Addiction

If you have an addictive personality, knowing this may save your life.  Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows; What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, describes what the research tells us about the immense pleasure and gratification that our limbic brain gets from
electronic activity, including twitter, texting, and blogs.  People today may need to create physical or other barriers to access this stimuli.  Texting while driving is a well-known danger, and yet the problem persists.  Nationwide’s survey showed that 80% of drivers favor a ban on mobile use while driving, despite the fact that up to 60% of people admit to texting behind the wheel.  Or do as I say, not as I do?  Curbing or eliminating addictive behavior such as texting and emailing on the road may literally save a life.

5. Print your pictures

Here’s  a novel idea.   Instead of keeping thousands of poorly labeled digital pics, create a special family photo album once a year using commercial services like Shutterfly, Snapfish, and hundreds of others locally and on the internet who will print and bind your treasures. Then  you can delete all the photos of marginal quality, re-label any that have incomprehensible computer-assigned labels using a single year or topic file name, and set those aside on your hard drive.  These make great  gifts, but you already knew that.

What makes your digital life more simple?  We’d all love to hear.

How to Save Passwords, Please September 23, 2011

Quick, do you know the best way to save passwords?  How to store passwords?  How to remember passwords?  Here are some of my favorites for offline, online, or on your computer.

Where to Save Passwords Offline

If you want to save passwords offline, I like the On Line Organizer. It is about the size of the Hallmark calendars that many people still carry in their purse, and inside it has tabs A-Z.  On each page you can store a company or URL, User name, and Password.  The size and the A-Z indexing make it very easy to use at your desk or carry it with you.  I use and sell these lovely babies for $10.  They come in a two pack, so you can carry one and keep one at your desk, or give one to your honey or best friend.  Click here to order and make saving passwords easier.

The Best Way To Save Passwords

Save Passwords from A to Z

How to Save Passwords Online

Online, there are many programs and apps that allow you to save passwords to an encrypted site.  LastPass is the one I’ve been trying out for the past few weeks, but since it has limitations when using iPad, I’m not able to recommend it for iPad users just yet.  I want something that works as seamlessly as Evernote.  But at my PC, LastPass does a great job of capturing login and passwords from every site I visit, and then auto-populating it when I return. You don’t need to remember passwords, you just need to remember one password.  Because the data is encrypted, it truly is about as secure as anything gets on the internet. Oh, and it’s free.  You can look into other password manager programs here.

I recently learned that some of the newer browsers are able to store passwords, too.  I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of letting Microsoft hold all my passwords, even with encryption.  I’m pretty sure Bill Gates isn’t going to try to hack my PayPal account, but it gives me the shivers nonetheless.

How to Store Passwords on Your Own Computer

The last option to store passwords is on your computer.  Before you go this route, be sure that your system has the latest version of a strong security/antivirus program and that the program is doing auto-updates often.  This would be McAfee, Norton, AVG (which has both free and paid anti-virus software), or similar.  If this works for you, then just type up a simple document or spreadsheet to remember passwords, and then encrypt the file.  You can find encryption programs like EncryptFiles, which is another free program.  My thanks to Jim at HelpDotNow for passing this along.  I do not personally use this approach or software, but it would be pretty simple.

If any of these options helps you, I hope you’ll let me know.  And remember that you can order your own 2-pack password keeper for $10 right now.  Ten bucks is a pretty small price to pay for your sanity.  (They also make great teacher’s gifts.)

**Please remember to always consider your business and personal needs and consult with an advisor before making business decisions.  HeartWork Organizing accepts no responsibility from any actions you may incur from this or other advice.

Monthly Calendar…Digital Daze September 18, 2011

Someone once asked me, “Are you organized inside your head, too?” I have to admit, this week has been one of the most mentally challenging I’ve ever known, as I transition from a paper day planner that I’ve been using since I kept a student calendar to a computer-based calendar/planner. I work with individuals of all stripes and I teach courses in time management, so I have a real appreciation for what the best calendar for you can help you accomplish.  Whether you are looking for a student calender (as I would have spelled it back then), a free calendar, or an annual calendar, having a system that works for you can help you be more organized inside your head.

Monthly Calendar Page

If I was supposed to return your call this week, I’m working on it.

Loyal followers might know that I’ve just upgraded from my six year old computer to a new desktop and MS Office 2010. Let’s just say things are not going smoothly. But I have gone ahead and loaded all of my appointment and commitments into the calendar and begun syncing it to my iPad. After six hours of heads down conversion time, my Outlook program where my mail lives was operating unreliably. It was randomly deleting messages and data. EEEK!  After 12 hours of tech support, we think it’s working correctly, but there was one heart-stopping moment when my calendar info disappeared.  We were able to retrieve it and massage it back to behaving.

Using the free calendar on your phone isn’t revolutionary, but having it sync properly and having business-level reliability is important and harder than it sounds.  Keep reading for a good tip.

Pros for an Electronic Monthly Calendar:

• It looks more professional than paper.
• It comes with my computer and phone, and so it is a free calendar.
• It allows loading recurring events like monthly and weekly meetings and birthdays just once.
• It allows using different colors for different categories, like the family calendar and work appointments.
• It can be loaded on my desktop but stored “in the cloud” and accessed from any computer or mobile device, theoretically. (See more below.)
• It allows dragging emails over to a calendar and creating appointments almost effortlessly.
• It allows for easy scheduling of appointments with others via formatted email requests.
• It plays audible alarms.
• It can integrate with Outlook’s task list allowing me to link an email and an action item.
• It it an annual calendar, but doesn’t need to be ordered each year.
• If stored in the cloud, it can not be lost like a paper day planner.
• It allows sharing my calendar with a family member or coworker.
• It automatically overlays conflicting appointments, showing a schedule snafu quickly.
• It allows word searches within the calendar.

Cons for an Electronic Monthly Calendar:

• It takes longer to type in details of a meeting or task than it does to pencil a note in a day planner.
• You must enter details exactly right (am vs pm, next month vs. this month) or the appointment floats somewhere I might not have intended; these errors seem to be easier to make on the computer.
• I am terrified that it will crash or disappear. Backup is important.
• It is not easy to archive a copy with my tax records unless I print it off.
• Outlook 2010 features are much improved over what was available in Outlook 2003, but things can only be modified so far.
• I can only see four events per day in monthly view. Oh, if only real life had a limit of only 4 appointments per day!!!
• I must have an electronic device charged and with me to access my calendar.
• Each device shows a slightly different view of my monthly calendar. For instance, the iPad does not show all of the color coding that I set up on my desktop.
• I must sync at least daily to have a current copy of my calendar on my mobile device. (Read more below.)
• I’m very used to having a copy of my calendar open on my physical desk while I work, and I’m finding it disturbing to not have that. Yeah, I can keep a window open on my desktop, but it’s not the same thing.

To Do Calendar List

One of the major tenets that has made my best calendar systems work so well over the years is that the paper calendar, to do calendar list, and a subset of often-used contacts always always always travel together. As of now, my calendar is online, my contacts are still in the process of getting migrated and synced, but the to do calendar feature in Outlook leaves much to be desired. I’ll update you later this month with how I’m addressing that.  Generally I believe a to do list separate from your actual calendar works best for most people.

Best Calendar

The best calendar, bar none, is one that you have with you all the time.  A paper calendar will work if you carry it, but an electronic calendar will work, too, if you always have your phone along.  One cool little tech tip…if you do use an Outlook calendar, you apparently can sync it with your mobile device over the air automatically either using Google or one of the apps made for this purpose. It looks like Google Sync is for single users and Google Apps Sync is for companies who need to link up calendar and email systems for employees. Here’s a video that explains how this works. I’ll be setting this up before the month is out.

There are also other apps available to handle different platforms and vendors, so do a search for “sync calendar with xxx” where xxx is your device. I’d love to hear what works for you. Please comment below and share it with our readers.

One last thing…you absolutely have my permission to stick with a paper day planner if you chose, but DO have a calender/calendar/planner of some type if you want to be organized inside your head.

How Microsoft Stole My Day: Moving to a New Computer September 9, 2011

I should have never called this tech month.  As if taunting me, my six-year old computer decided that it was going to slow to an absolute crawl, and I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to a new business-class machine.  All of today was spent in my office with my wonderful, wonderful tech support department backing up data, moving it my new machine, and installing updated and new software.   Thank you Jim Haupt from http://www.helpdotnowcomputer.com/.  It’s good to know that there are reliable professionals with integrity (besides me, of course!) who will still make housecalls.

Whew.

And I’m not done yet.  I can share a bit of what I learned with you here today.  The most importantis probably backup, backup, backup.  Jim and I talked about the different backup options widely available.

• On-site backup units like those from Seagate can run about $100, but can be super easy to set up.  You purchase an external hard drive, which sits next to your computer and automatically makes a copy of files you specify in real time.  He also recommended looking into a fire-proof, waterproof unit like ioSafe http://www.hddfiresafe.com/index.php/, especially for businesses, in the $200-$400 range.  Cooooool!  Remember, some hard drives do auto-backups, and some require you to manage them.  I prefer the former.
• Online backups like Carbonite, Mozy, SugarSync, and SOS Online backup offer options that will run you roughly $50 to $100 per year, and offer additional peace of mind.  Some, like SugarSync even offer a free account, which is better than nothing, and I know plenty of people who have nothing set up for backups.  But Jim says he’s had many instances of clients who couldn’t retrieve data at crunch time.   You can read more about these services at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370803,00.asp  And if you are worried about whether it’s safe to save your data off-site, consider this:  you are more at risk for fraud when you send the server at your favorite restaurant back to the kitchen with your credit card than when you send encrypted data to a server farm.
• Businesses really need to consider stepping up their backup plan, perhaps with a monitored solution like that offered by Jim’s firm, http://www.helpdotnowcomputer.com/.  Not only are backups routine and automatic, backups are reviewed daily to look for imcomplete or problem backups, while tech support, hardware and upgrades are included in the service price, which starts at about $25 per month.  I’ve read stats that say more than 50% of businesses with a major data failure go out of business within a year.  It’s just too important to not backup your business data.

Once you have a backup solution in place, it’s a good idea to test it from time to time, which means you go to wherever your data is stored and select a small slice of data, such as a file, and try to restore it to a file you’ve created on your home or business computer just for this task.  You might name this file something like “BackupRestoreTest,” so that you can actually verify the backed-up data is actually readable.

One more tip along these lines.  I learned the hard way a while back that MS Outlook does not backup along with most Microsoft data files, like Word and Excel.  You need to surf out to the web and find a neat little utility that MS created to make a backup of your .PST file, which is where your emails live.  http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=9003  Without this, if your email flakes out or your drive crashes, even if you’ve backed up your “My Documents” files, your email could be gone forever. With this little utility, you’ll have a copy of your email files under “My Documents,” which can easily be restored.

One last thing…if you’ve ever gotten a Word or Excel file that you couldn’t open from someone who has a newer version of those programs, then you need a quick little patch on your software that you can get by going to http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=3&WT.mc_id=MSCOM_EN_US_HP_CAROUSEL_121LSUS007870.  You’ll never have to ask someone to save a file to your lower version again.

There are a lot of people using online services for everything, including websites, blogs, photo storage and mail, but much of that can and should be backed up as well.   If something is really important to you, and you would experience hardship or personal history (like photos) if disaster were to strike, you should probably be asking about backup, and maybe more than one type of backup for the same data.

OK, I know this whole post is basically about insurance, and most of us don’t have enough of that either, but hopefully there are some good resources and vendors here so you’ll get off the fence and make a decision about backing up your personal data.  Wish me luck as I go to learn about all the goodies on my new computer!

Going Paperless…Or at Least Less Paper September 4, 2011

It’s so appropriate that on the day I start a tech series, my iPad misbehaves. Actually, it misbehaved so badly that the Apple “genius” replaced the entire unit.  So now I’m on my third iPad in just under 12 months, and I’ll spend the next day downloading settings and getting it to work with me again.  Grrr. You’ll hear more about on what I love and don’t love about my iPad later. 

But it is so lovely when technology really does simplify your life.  I’m on the hunt for tools that really save you time or aggravation so I can share them with you this month.  I think I’ve found a solution to one of my worst clutter monsters…business cards. My great system for filing business cards worked, but it always seemed so passive, separated from my MS Outlook that I depend on so much, and it started growing out of the box this year. Is there a way to eliminate those cards once and for all?  Is there a slick way to email trusted vendor contact information directly to clients when they need great painters, electricians, and other great resources that I work with, information that is stuck in my business card box in my office?

I am infatuated with my new NeatDesk. This isn’t some organizer slang, but an actual brand name. You might know that I am not always the tech specialist in the room, but ever since I saw the NEAT scanning capabilities about two years ago, I realized the power. 

NeatDesk

The solution looks like a scanner, but the magic and power is really in the accompanying software.  Setup took me about 25 minutes. Not bad considering most of that was trying to figure out how to temporarily disable security software on my desktop. I also took another 20 minutes to watch some very informative videos. You’ve gotta love when a software company provides great instruction to make the power of their tools completely obvious. 

What started out as a search for simplicity in my card file blossomed to many, many possibilities.  This photo shows the types of paper that I hope to eliminate from my office:

Paper Be Gone

• Business cards
• Business receipts for my smaller second business (www.PregnantEntrepreneur.com) 
• Banking receipts (Most of these I toss, but I have this small account that I keep receipts for reasons that won’t interest you.)
• Informational articles- Trust me, even a professional organizer keeps some ideas that look wonderful in a magazine but have no immediate application in real life.  
• Backlog of professional articles
• That little pile of -what the heck is in that pile???- that is always to the left of my phone. Just kidding, it’s mostly recently acquired business cards that have not yet gotten filed, but it’s always there. 

Can the average person and small business really go paperless?  I looked into several other options before choosing to bring this machine in-house.  There are card scanners by companies like Dymo that are too uni-tasker for me.  There are regular flatbed scanners (I already own a decent one integrated with my relatively new-ish printer), but they don’t have the software needed to really make sense of scanning large batches and mission critical information.  There are programs like PaperTiger, but that forces a whole new indexing system that never felt right to me and requires a class to learn how to properly use it.  There scanning services “in the cloud,” like OfficeDrop, which get pricey at $20 or $30 per month but are good options for high volume users with lean staff.  Yes, you can even take pictures on your iPhone and store them away, but you only have an image, and not a high-fidelity, searchable, IRS-acceptable document storage system.  

 

Are you intrigued by the idea of getting your paper out of your office and into memory?  I’m going to play with this new toy for a few days, and I’ll be letting you know about the capabilities, and also what the downsides are.  Like any technology, it’s not for everyone, but I know that it is for some of you, especially those with businesses or a deep-seated need to go paperless.  I’ll keep you posted. I’m wondering what other paper problems NeatDesk might be able to solve, so throw your comments and questions my way and let me see whether it is up to the task.

 

It looks like tech month just took on a whole new meaning, as it appears I’ll be upgrading my 6 year old computer as well.  Wish me luck. 

 

In full disclosure, the Neat product was supplied to me for evaluation purposes, but I am not being compensated for this review. 

Shoplifting Mom Tells All August 15, 2011

It’s rule number eight.  Don’t steal.  Seriously, look it up.  Among the revelations that come with being a mom, I never thought I’d be breaking rule number eight of the Ten Commandments, or that I’d be claiming that my kids made me do it.  And it’s happened more than once.  Holy cow.

            I find myself in the Target parking lot after an hour of combo cardio shopping and squats from picking up items that the baby has chucked from the cart, bags already loaded back into the car, when I pick up the toddler to find hidden underneath her, items that we took from the store without paying for.  (Queue the stunned look and pregnant pause.)  Obviously the exit gate shoplifting scanner thingies didn’t beep when we passed through, so I’m ok, right?  The cashier didn’t notice, so I’m ok, right?  I just saw the 20/20 show about how major retailers actually plan for a certain amount of “shrinkage,” so I’m ok, right? 

            No.  I have to load the baby and the toddler back in the cart, trudge back into the store, and own up for these items totalling $6.39 before I can lay my head to a pillow tonight.

            The next week, we just make it through the Wal-Mart checkout line when I notice the open box of graham cracker bears that the baby has almost devoured.  When I try to own up, the checker says to me, “I thought they were yours.”  Yes, they are since possession is 9/10th of the law and my daughter clearly possesses 9/10 of them by now, but I haven’t yet paid for them.  The checker wants me to get lost rather than mess up the rhythm of her line, but I hang tough and cash out anyway.

            It’s the cupcakes that do me in.  While sitting in a local bakery where the owner knows me, I coerce the counter kid to hand over two beautifully decorated carrot cupcakes to busy the kids while I am making my cake selection.  When all is said and done, I scoop up the kiddies and race back to the car to crank the air conditioning.  Once the car is cooled, nothing on earth could convince me to turn around and pay for the tasties that we innocently just stole, so I have to phone the shop and ask them to add the cupcakes to my tab.  I can’t do this anonymously.  They know me there.  How embarrassing.

            I’ve been mulling over the moral of the story for a few weeks now, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.  Even organized people can overlook things?  Children learn more by watching than through words?  Kids make you do things you never imagined?  Stuff happens?  Lighten up a little?  Yes, all of the above.  I know I’m not the first mom to do this (repeatedly), but I hope that I’m modeling doing the right thing when nobody is looking, which is the definition of integrity.  But it sure would help to hear if you have your own mommy shoplifting story to share.

What Is the Internet Doing to Our Brains? July 15, 2011

I’m up late working, I’m a little hungry, and I’ve been fighting with my email program all day.  I also just finished reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr.  I started reading expecting the news to be all bad, but the book shows a fairly balanced view of the benefits and pitfalls of the information age.

 

It turns out that the demands that modern technology places on us and our bodies (for that is where cognition and memory lives) is complex, but not unique.  Our ancestors were also changed profoundly by the introduction of technologies like – brace yourself  here – the wristwatch and the map.  What is cool is that we now have the technology, through MRIs and modern science, to understand that changes are being made to the way our brains operate biologically as we shift our information consumption habits. 

Carr makes the case that:

• we are more like jet-ski skimmers today than scuba divers of the past
• we are learning staccato, non-linear patterns of processing through our interaction with the net and hypertext
• we become skilled online hunters, but we lose the ability for “deep reading”
• the natural state of the human brain is one of distractedness
• we are replacing core, firsthand knowledge with an “outboard brain”
• we are undisputedly losing memory skills through disuse, poor nutrition, and lack of sleep

There is a reason many of us spend the day muttering, “Now what was I just doing?”

Many of my clients are ADD or are concerned they might be.  In fact, I believe that many of us are situationally ADD, unable to focus on important aspects of our lives and relationships to a level that brings us satisfaction.  Carr makes the case that we are approaching a time when those who make time for reflection and mental downtime will be considered the “Reading Class” and societal elite.

Carr neither diagnoses society’s infatuation with instant everything, nor does he prescribe a cure for our rapidly decreasing attention spans.  What he does is provide some perspective that while change is inevitable, we can chose the level of interaction we allow.  We can make our own space for quiet reflection.  And by paying attention, we can make time to think about how we think, strengthening our thought processes. 

Carr’s book builds on the premise of another book I read recently, called How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer.  Both books can be summarized into a credo: thinking about thinking matters.  What do you think about that?