30 days

30 Days

April 26, 2013


If you’re at all familiar with home organizing websites (or Pinterest) then you’ve probably come across the concept of “30 Days of Organizing.” With my affection for lists and for clearing out and decluttering, I’m always drawn to these lists and often start off making my own with a burst of enthusiasm—enthusiasm that fades approximately five days into the whole deal. You see, I’m always attracted to the fantasy idea of “getting things under control” in a set time, like 30 days. Never mind that life itself resists efforts to control it, and likely will never be under control. Never mind that my list often sounds about as fun as 30 days of dental appointments. (How much interest can I really drum up in cleaning the bedroom ceiling fan?)

So as I was making my latest dreary home organizing list, I pondered taking the 30 days concept in a much more enjoyable direction. What about scheduling 30 days of creativity? Or 30 days of sketching, writing, gratitude, or even pampering? Oh, oh, oh—or 30 days of chocolate! Gee, those sound a lot more fun! Frankly, I have more need of scheduling creativity and fun that I do chores. Despite my sensitive conscience and obsession with contributing to family life, I do enough. Instead of adding more to my workload, I’m going to schedule in some fun.

As I was thinking about this idea, I also remembered something I’d read on Matt Cutts’ blog—a slightly different take on the 30 days concept.  Matt is a software engineer and head of Google’s Webspam team and he chooses a new 30-day challenge every month. Some of his challenges have been 30 days of: exercise; acts of kindness; avoiding reading, watching or hearing the news; drawing something; and ukulele! Here’s a link to a video of Matt giving a short TED talk about 30-day challenges: 


I decided to go for 30 Days of Creativity, and here are a few things I’ve jotted down on my list (any suggestions?): go on an artist’s date; finish filling my sketchbook that only has two or three blank pages left in it; write a haiku; take some photos. At this point, I’m not going to limit myself to any one area of creativity, but I am going to try hard to make it 30 consecutive days. That will be a big challenge for me, because I often find it hard to do anything for 30 consecutive days, even fun things. I usually miss a day here and there, but I won’t beat myself up about that. Any step in a more creative direction will be progress. To keep me honest, I’ll let you know when I officially start my experiment, and post updates about it here on the blog.

In my opinion, we don’t need to add more work to our lives. We need to add more joy, more play, more fun and creativity. There will always be more than enough work to fill our time—but is that really how we want to fill it?

What would you like to try for 30 days?

Books

It's Not About the Label Maker

July 09, 2012


My husband laughs at me because I read a lot of books about getting organized. After 24 years of being married, living in seven different domiciles of my own, moving cross country, and running our household more or less successfully, he figures I should have it all down pat. What’s funny about this is he’s often not happy with the level of cleanliness and organization in our household. (I suppose he thinks I should put down the book and pick up a broom. And perhaps he's right.)  Now, I believe I am a basically organized person, but sometimes the complexity of life and the sheer number of different activities and projects I need and want to do overwhelm me. I’m always on the lookout for something that will make my life run more smoothly with less mess.

With that in mind, I picked up David Allen’s Getting Things Done, mentioned briefly here. This is not a book focused on physically decluttering your house or workplace, but rather one that focuses on setting up a system for getting all your projects, both large and small, corralled in such a way that you clearly see what the next step is for each one, and nothing gets lost in the shuffle. I’ve found it helpful and have been trying to put the principles into practice.

Enter the label maker.

I’ve always resisted a label maker before, feeling like it was an unnecessary purchase, one that would end up adding to the clutter in my life. And that may still turn out to be true, but in the meantime I’m using it to put my files in order, both personal and professional. Before I take the time to print a label, I make sure whatever’s in that file is really something I need or want to keep—is it label worthy? It’s been an excellent way to purge files and simplify the giant wads of paper I tend to accumulate. (Allen isn’t the only one to recommend a label maker. See here and here.)

Despite what my husband thinks, I have not “read every organization book known to man.” If you type “getting organized” in Amazon.com’s search bar you’ll get 5,385 results in books alone and I’ve only read a small fraction of them! I keep reading because each getting organized book provides one more little piece of the having-a-beautiful life puzzle. I do not think the label maker, or any one gadget or program, is going to magically organize my life. My real goal for getting better organized is to have my family life run smoothly and have time to pursue and get better at my many hobbies and interests. Until I feel like I've got a handle on it all, I'll continue to read about and try new systems. (Next up: Organizing for the Creative Person.) 

What’s one thing you do to keep your life running smoothly?

Calendars

Paper or Plastic?

January 23, 2012

Personal organizer, that is.

Most of us use some sort of system to stay organized and on track. Some people opt for electronic organizers (“plastic”), and others stick with paper-based systems. You can probably guess: I’m a paper person. (Yes, I know, it’s the 21st century.)


Electronic organizers have certain advantages—they’re lightweight and portable, hold tons of information, can be kept current when synced with your computer and can often access email. But there’s just something so deeply satisfying in putting my pen to paper, in writing in my obligations and, eventually, crossing them off. My personal organizer has a month-at-a-glance calendar, a two-page spread for each week, a section for important numbers and quite a hefty section devoted to books I want to read. I have some favorite pictures in there, too. I find it very easy to use—just flip it open and jot down whatever-it-is. It’s also a fun way to look back on previous months with their notes, questions, birthdays and social engagements. I’ve had the binder itself since we moved to Florida more than 20 years ago! I love sitting down with it on Sunday afternoons to plan out my week. It’s like an old—albeit slightly grubby and battered—friend. It can’t break, run out of batteries or crash and eat my data, though it can be a pain to transfer data when a new year rolls around and it can get messy when I tuck various bits of paper into the front and back pockets. Choosing new inserts each year is a simple pleasure I always look forward to. I try to make it pleasant to work with all year long.

Old Faithful
Of course there’s no right or wrong organizer system—just one that feels right to you and one that you’ll use. (I’ve found from sad experience that it doesn’t help to write down the appointment if you don’t look at the calendar again.)

And now I’m going to go cross off “write blog post” on my to-do list for today!

What type of organizer do you use? Do you prefer paper or plastic?

Cleaning

Surprised By Happiness

September 09, 2011

When you think of being happy, do you primarily think of doing fun things, getting what you want, or having your life running smoothly? Me, too—but that’s only part of the picture. Happiness is not just something that appears when you reach a goal or finally have that free time you’ve been longing for. Here are some surprising sources of happiness:

For many, work is a source of deep and lasting happiness. Ariel Gore wrote in Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness: “...in recent years I’d noticed a growing disconnect between the things I imagined would make me happy and the things that actually did. Potentially ego-boosting rites of passage in my career, for example—awards or good reviews—only seemed to cause me anxiety. Allowing myself to be absorbed in my work, on the other hand, whether it was writing or teaching or doing some familial chore I outwardly complained about, brought a quiet contentment I could feel radiate from my chest.” She continued later in the book, “When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we’re doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness.”

I don’t know about you, but when I need a quick shot of satisfaction, I begin cleaning and/or organizing. One of my favorite bloggers, Crazy Aunt Purl (Laurie Perry), coped with a scary and unexpected move by scrubbing grout! Perhaps putting one small area of our lives in order helps us cope with chaos elsewhere, I don’t know. All I know is a clean and organized office/refrigerator/hall closet is cause for rejoicing.

“Happy women know that no one gets to be happy all the time,” according to What Happy Women Know, by Dan Baker, Ph.D, Cathy Greenberg, Ph.D, and Ina Yalof.  As Gretchen Rubin notes in her blog post, “Negative emotions are a key part of rational thought and effective performance. Also, up to a point, they can be of great service to happiness. They’re loud, flashy signs that something isn’t right. Because they’re so unpleasant, they can sometimes prod us to take action when nothing else can.” Negative emotions are a part of life—feel them, accept them, learn from them—then let them pass.

According to Dr. George E. Vaillant of Harvard Medical School, what seems to contribute most to happiness as we get older are the coping mechanisms we develop to handle the inevitable pain of life. Coping mechanisms like humor, a positive outlook, willingness to control anger and hostility, and treating others the way we’d like to be treated, help us avoid depression and foster connections with others—both of which make our lives more enjoyable.

This makes me…happy. I see that many factors contribute to a person’s happiness—factors we can control, and ordinary things that are likely already part of our daily lives. Happiness is waiting…we just need to recognize it.

What surprising thing makes you happy?


Attitudes

Clean Sweep

January 03, 2011

I love watching cleaning/organizing shows on TV. There’s something cathartic about purging a home of what’s not needed anymore, cleaning it thoroughly, and putting back only what is useful and beautiful. I really wish someone would come to my house and do it for me, but since I don’t expect that to happen, I’ve gotten started on my own clean sweep.

I actually started a few weeks ago on our home office, which my husband and I share, because it had become what we only half-jokingly called “the pit of despair.” One wall is a built-in bookshelf with a flat surface halfway down, and more shelves and a cupboard where we keep our shredder below that. The flat surface had become stacked with piles of books, files, papers and miscellaneous stuff that I hate to admit belonged to me. So one weekend, I tackled the area. After going through everything, discarding and filing and moving things to different spots, I dusted and neatened up the whole space. Now, when I sit in my rocking chair first thing in the morning, to read, think or do morning pages, I love looking at the light shining onto many of our travel souvenirs and the spines of so many treasured books. I’m still in the process of purging my files and cleaning off my desk (the holidays forced me to take a break) but I’m almost done.

Part of the finished project

My office hasn’t been the only focus. I’ve also scrubbed out my tack trunk at the barn (it had at least an inch of dirt in the bottom of it) and all my grooming tools, and several other cleaning and organizing projects wait in the wings.

While I do all this cleaning and purging, I also have time to pull out my attitudes and beliefs, give them a shake and try them on for size. Do they still fit? Are they true and useful to me, or are they holding me back from my goals and dreams? It’s time to let go a few of them, too, I realize—especially the ones that begin with “I should” or “I can’t.”

Once I clean out the old, my next step will be to see if there are any little touches, such as fresh flowers or a pretty basket to hold art supplies, that will inexpensively warm and brighten my spaces. I also swap outdated or wrong beliefs and attitudes for new, more positive ones: “I will finish writing my book this year,” for example.

A brand new year seems like a good time to do a little purging, whether it’s of papers and clothes or of attitudes and ideas. I feel a sense of relief and lightness as I clear away the clutter of things I no longer need or want, and let go of outdated ideas and negative thoughts.

How about you? Are you cleaning out any old ideas and attitudes in this new year? What are you replacing them with?