My Own Organizing: Water and Other Disaster Supplies

I live in earthquake territory, where preparation for a possible quake makes all sorts of sense. But, like anyone else, my preparedness sometimes is a little lacking. However, this past week I took some good steps forward, and I'm so pleased I just had to share.

I know to stock up on water, and I'd actually done that some months ago — and then found I had no good place to put the bottles. I had some of them in my garage cabinets, but I didn't really like that answer; if a bottle sprung a leak, it could do a fair amount of damage.

So this past week I got some shelving, which fits into a little niche in my garage just perfectly. (I didn't even realize that; I had the shelves put up somewhere else, and then my neighbor noticed the better place for them.) I'm not handy at all, but these Plano shelves really were as easy as they claim; the "two minutes to assemble" claim was actually true. So now my water has a good home.

And I did one more thing. I carry an emergency kit in my car, because I may be away from home when a quake hits. But I was overdue to order replacement supplies for that kit, and I just took care of that.

Anyone going to join me in taking at least one baby step toward being better prepared for earthquakes or other natural disasters? If so, please share in the comments!

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Weeding My Own Book Collection

We hold onto books we’ve already read, as trophies of our reading accomplishments. We hold onto books we might read in the future (but probably won’t), with the optimism that our future selves are going to be more amazing readers than we’ve ever been in the past.
— Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

Today I decluttered myself; I got rid of 27 books.

One went in the recycling bin because it was falling apart. Some others have been snapped up on Freecycle — even ones with yellow highlighting. (I read nonfiction with a highlighter close at hand.) Others will go to the used bookstore tomorrow.

What did I get rid of? Here's a partial list:

- The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Let's be real. If I ever want to read a Shakespearean play, I'm not going to want to pull out this heavy volume with its small print.

- Three books on designing usable web sites. They're good books, but I've already absorbed their lessons. I wouldn't go back to them for anything.

- Four books of history by Simon Schama. I'm glad I read these, but I can't foresee reading them again, or using them for reference. I've already incorporated key tidbits into my personal crib sheets on French and British history. Much better they go to the Freecycler who's so very excited to be getting them.

- Two books about the book business. These were fun, easy reads — but not something I'd pick up a second time.

- A book about cats. I love cats, but I don't love this book. It's on its way to a fellow cat lover.

- A book that's developed some bad associations. It might be a great book, but I really need it out of my home.

- Seven books I've had for years and never read, and still feel no great desire to read.

And now I have plenty of room on my bookshelves for the books I truly want to have — and even room to add some more. I also did some re-arranging, so the books I use the most are more accessible.

It feels really good.

Related Posts/Newsletters:
Loving Books and Letting Go
Is It Time to Bid Adieu to Some of Your Books?
3 Perspectives: Not All Books Are Keepers
Clearing Out the Bookshelves
Letting Go of (Some of) the Books

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My Puppy: Organizing for Pet Emergencies

I have a cat named Puppy. When I first met him, he was a very skittish semi-feral cat — too scared to approach anyone. But as my neighbor and I walked around our neighborhood, he followed us up and down the streets — like a little puppy dog, I said. The name stuck.

Puppy obviously wanted to find himself a person, and he picked me. Over the years, he became much more socialized. While he was still primarily an outdoor cat, he'd come inside sometimes and cuddle with me. He hung around the yard a lot, especially as I made it cat-friendly; I even had custom-built cat houses to protect him from the elements.

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know he wasn't eating well recently — and he just got diagnosed with feline large-cell gastrointestinal lymphoma, a particularly nasty type of kitty cancer. My vet removed the problem area, and it doesn't appear to have metastasized. Today he started chemo — but he's home now, curled up in my bed, eating OK and purring whenever I come and cuddle him. Please send good thoughts his way.

So how do you get organized for such a situation — a suddenly very sick pet? Here are the things that helped me:

1. Instant access to Puppy's medical history.

I scan all my cats' vet records and put them in Dropbox, so I have their history at my fingertips at all times.

2. A wonderful support network.

Besides my vets, who have been superb, I have:

- A fantastic neighbor who I could call to pick Puppy up at the vet when I got stuck in traffic and wasn't sure I'd get home in time.

- A friend who's a great dog trainer and also has lots of animal skills, who came over and helped me coax Puppy out from behind the bed when he was huddled there, out of reach.

- Lots of friends who support me with their kind messages, hugs (both in-person and virtual), little tidbits of practical advice, stories of other pets that did well with chemo, and introductions to other people who might be helpful. And they also just listen when I need to vent. And offer to help however they can.

And then there are all the folks who've posted helpful information on the Internet. I don't know those people, but I sure am grateful to everyone who took the time to share words of wisdom.

3. The right supplies.

Once I had to bring Puppy inside and keep him separate from the other two cats (so he doesn't get scared), I needed things like an extra litter box; I was really glad I already had one on hand. What I didn't have was an array of different foods to tempt Puppy to eat, but that was an easy thing to get.

4. The ability to say no.

Tonight is Halloween, which I usually look forward to; I really like seeing the kids in their costumes. But tonight I put my box of books — the treats I give instead of candy — on the front porch with a note saying I had a sick cat who needed peace and quiet, and to please just take a book or two. It seems to have worked just fine.

And I'm backing out of some evening engagements until things settle down a bit. I know that now, even more than normally, I need to protect my time and focus on the most important things: taking care of my cats; being there for my clients, family and friends; and taking care of myself. (And why is that last one always the hardest thing to do?)

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Decluttering the E-mail: Eliminating PR Spam

Mixed Berry-Acai Smoothie; photo by esimpraim, found on Flickr; licensed under Creative Commons

Exciting developments are at play for fitness authority, body image expert, TV personality and best-selling author Jennifer Cohen.

On behalf of the one and only Betty Crocker, I would like to introduce you to Fan Fare, a collection of fun new recipe ideas to enjoy while watching your favorite shows this fall.

I wanted to share with you information on iRenew’s new line of color wellness bracelets, ideal for women and men that are looking to maintain an active lifestyle in a fashionable way.

I wanted to send you a note and introduce you to 28Black and 28White the first all-natural beverages powered by the açaí berry.

As anyone who looks at my blog can readily tell, I don't write about recipes, fitness or health issues. So I was bewildered when I recently started getting a bunch of irrelevant pitches like these, from various PR firms.

I could have kept on deleting the messages, but I'd rather just not get them in the first place. So I wrote to the firms sending them, asking to be removed from their mailing lists, and noting (when applicable):

This message appears to violate the CAN-SPAM Act, since it provides no "clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future." http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business.

Two people wrote back and told me they were not in violation of the act, because they didn't have a mailing list; they got my name from the Cision database, where I was listed as a lifestyle blogger.

Well, I don't know whether or not that means they had an exemption from the CAN-SPAM act, but I was glad to know the source of the email pitches. I'd never heard of Cision, but it was easy to find on the web. And the folks at Cision were very responsive to my request to be removed from the database; they took care of it within a day.

Cision told me the company has researchers who look for bloggers who write about various topics, and then add those bloggers to the company's database. The bloggers are supposed to be notified when this is done; apparently, something went awry in my case.

So now another stream of useless e-mail has been eliminated, which feels good. I hope people who have developed organizing-related products or services will still write to me; I like hearing about those things! But if I never get another e-mail about acai berry — unless it's from the naturopathic doctor whose mailing list I choose to be on — it will be just fine by me.

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Tackling the Reading List

I read a lot of other blogs. I'm subscribed to about 190 blogs, which publish about 500 posts/day. Fortunately, I use Google Reader, which makes it easy to skim through those posts and decide which ones I really want to read; I only read a very small percentage of those 500 daily posts! But sometimes I'll scan the posts and "star" those I want to read later, rather than reading them right away.



And that's a fine strategy — except the number of starred items I had was approaching 950, which felt seriously out of control. So I had a project this past weekend to finally clear up my Reader.



And, like any organizing project, this meant I was making decision after decision. Do I still want to read this item, or watch the associated video? Do I want to keep this post for future reference?



And I found I hit the same kind of stumbling blocks we often find in other decluttering situations.



1. No clear "home" for something I want to keep.

I "store" my posts in a big list of bookmarked sites, organized into many bookmark folders. And I found that many of the items that lingered in my "starred" list were things where I wasn't sure where to file the post — where my filing system for bookmarked sites wasn't working for me. So I did some reorganizing of my filing structure, until everything I wanted to keep had a logical home.



2. A tendency to let time-consuming items linger on my list forever.

That might be a long post, or a pointer to a long video. I need to be sure to set aside time to read and watch these items — or let them go.



3. A tendency to keep things I really won't ever refer to again

When I see something neat on the web — whether it's an organizing-related product, some place I'd like to visit, or just something that makes me laugh — my first tendency is to bookmark it and file it away.



But when am I really going to go back and look at that post about some Italian furniture that, while cool, isn't something I'm likely to blog about, or recommend to a client? That might be a really cute photo of Paul Krugman and his cats — but do I really need to keep it? And that might be interesting information — but could I easily find it again, if I ever really wanted it, just by using Google? I had to stop myself, over and over, from keeping stuff that I just don't need.



But now I'm down to 13 starred items — and I'll get the count down to zero, except I wanted to take a break and write this post first. And I'm pretty darn pleased with myself!

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Feng Shui and Your Desk

My desk, with Sunshine in one of her favorite places.

Shannon Del Vecchio told me I needed to move my desk.

Shannon was my feng shui consultant, and she was helping me get my office arranged back a number of years ago. I'd read enough about feng shui to know I had the desk poorly placed, but it took Shannon standing there with me to get the change made.

What's a good desk position? Shannon McGinnis discusses this in her new book, The 10-Minute Tidy: 108 Ways to Organize Your Office Quickly. She writes about putting your desk in the empowerment position:

The empowerment position will have you facing the door of the office when you are sitting at your desk. Ideally you would have a solid wall behind you and if your office has windows, it’s great to be able to look outside.

The position of my desk in my home office now meets all of those criteria — and it really does make the office feel great.

So now I really notice desk placement — in the offices I visit, in magazine photos, in catalogs, and on the web. I see many lovely office pictures — and almost all have them have a desk position that feng shui would frown upon. Pictures showing anything other than the desk facing the wall are so rare that I've started bookmarking them when I stumble upon them!




Here's a desk from Ballard Designs.




And here's one from Horchow.




And here's a fun desk from Restoration Hardware.

For a couple more examples, take a look at Unclutterer and Apartment Therapy.

Yes, it's more complicated when you're talking about a desk with a computer, printer, scanner, etc. — and all the cords that often involves. (I still struggle a bit with cord control.) And yes, not all offices will accommodate such desk positioning. But it's worth at least considering whether such an arrangement might work for the office space you have. Try it, and see if it makes a difference to you.

Disclosure: Shannon McGinnis was my roommate at the 2011 NAPO conference, and she gave me a free copy of her latest book, in PDF form.

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Organizing the Tax Records: My Own Story

Tax-related papers. It's easy to be overwhelmed by them, and have them take up an inordinate amount of space.

While you should certainly ask your own tax accountant or tax attorney about his or her recommendations on record retention, I personally follow the guidelines I see most often: Keep the returns themselves forever, and keep all supporting documents for seven years. (That's a general rule; there are exceptions.) And since I've seen conflicting advice on whether or not it's OK to rely on scanned copies, I keep paper originals for all those "last seven years" papers.




But even with this approach, I had much more paper than I wanted, or needed — and I wasn't storing it well. For the last couple years I've been using my ScanSnap to make scans of all tax-related papers, and then filing them in my file cabinet — and that worked well. But before then I'd been keeping my tax-related papers in fireproof boxes, and the boxes were taking up room I wanted for other purposes. And the old tax returns, dating back to the 1980s, were taking up room in my file cabinet.

So this past weekend I finally embarked on my "clean up the tax records" project.

Paper reduction: I scanned all the old returns, after blacking out my social security number and my signature. (I don't need either of these floating around in electronic form.) After making sure I had a good backup in place, I then shredded the returns. I have a very full recycling bin this week!

Improved storage: For returns within the 7-year period, I scanned what had not yet been scanned, and put the papers in my file cabinet — in the space that used to hold all those really old returns. Since I have electronic copies, I'm no longer afraid of losing the originals, and see no need for those fireproof boxes.

I'm not quite done with the project, but it's well underway and I'll finish it this week — and then I'll Freecycle all those boxes.



While all the scanning was a bit tedious, a good scanner (and a good shredder) made things go pretty quickly. And now I have a lot of reclaimed space — and I have all my tax information at my fingertips, in well-organized computer files.

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May 2011 Organizing Tips and More

After a few months where I didn't publish a newsletter, my May 2011 newsletter is now available.

Tip of the Month: Organizing for the Unpredictable

Product of the Month: Cool Britannia Union Jack magnetic notice boards from Beyond the Fridge

Additional Reading: Feng Shui for Small Spaces, with my nine small-space organizing tips

Also: Organizing Quotes of the Month

If you'd like to get my newsletter by e-mail, you can subscribe.

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My Own Lesson in Overcoming Procrastination

Snow Leopard - the latest upgrade to my MacBook's operating system - was released in August 2009. I finally installed it three weeks ago - just in time for the next release, Lion, coming out this summer. So I thought I'd share my story of procrastination, and how I got past it.

What held me back, given that I've had no problems with upgrades in the past? All sorts of imagined stumbling blocks, which made the whole thing seem overwhelming. But when I broke the process down into small steps, each one was easy.

1. See which applications need upgrades to work with Snow Leopard.
Answer: Only two! What a relief! I had upgraded Quickbooks some time ago, so now all I had left was Microsoft Office and Freeway Pro (the software I use to create and update my web site).

2. Upgrade Microsoft Office.
This was easy; I could download the latest version from the Microsoft web site for a free 30-day trial. I did that, and it worked just fine, so then I bought the software and registered it.

3. Upgrade Freeway Pro.
The last time I upgraded this software, it was a big deal - a bunch of preparatory work was needed - so I was sort of dreading this upgrade. I didn't see anything on the vendor's web site about the upgrade process, so I sent of an email asking about it. I got an answer right away: This upgrade didn't require me to do anything but install the software. So here I'd been imagining a problem where there wasn't any!

I was all ready to buy the upgrade, but then I saw I qualified for a discount - so I sent off the information needed for that. I got my discount code very soon afterward, and then bought the upgrade and installed it, again over the internet.

4. Figure out how my new external DVD drive works.
The DVD drive in my MacBook died outside of the extended warranty period - and the folks at the genius bar suggested just buying an external drive, which I did. But I hadn't yet used it, and now I needed to - and I hit a minor stumbling block.

I had expected an icon to show up on my desktop when I attached the drive, but that didn't happen. I assumed I'd bought the wrong product, or I had bought a dud. But when I wrote to the company that makes the drive, they explained that's how it's supposed to work - it doesn't show up until I load a DVD. Sure enough - when I loaded a DVD, it showed up just fine. So there was no problem here except my misunderstanding of how things worked. More relief!

5. Do a full backup of my laptop.
I do this regularly, anyway, so this was an easy step.

6. Do the operating system upgrade.
As expected, this went without a hitch.

So here are the two things I already knew, but got reminded of once again:
1) Just take one baby step after another; that's how projects get done.
2) Projects are often less difficult and time-consuming than we imagine they will be. Don't let the imagined problems stop you from taking those first baby steps.

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January 2011 Organizing Tips and More

My December 2010 / January 2011 newsletter is now available.

Tip of the Month: Decluttering as a Treasure Hunt

Update on My Own Decluttering: the file cabinets

Product of the Month: P'Kolino Play Kits, sold (among other places) at The Shelving Store.

Also: Organizing Quotes of the Month

If you'd like to get my newsletter by e-mail, you can subscribe.

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Travel Planning: Guidebooks and More

I love to travel, and I travel independently - not on a tour. And I book my own reservations; I tend to stay at less-expensive places not handled by travel agents. So how do those of us who travel this way decide where to go?

I'm pretty organized about this - big surprise, huh? I do a lot of research, and plan out my days at a high level - how many days in each city, things I want to see there. (And then I sometimes throw this all away, as I did when people I met on a trip invited me to visit them in their home.)

Where do I look for information?

1. Guidebooks

Rick Steves wrote: "Guidebooks are $15 tools for $3,000 experiences. Many otherwise smart people base the trip of a lifetime on a borrowed copy of a three-year-old guidebook." Sure, he sells guidebooks and he's a bit biased - but the point is still well-taken. I always get the most recent copy of whatever guidebooks I'm using.

And for future trips, I'm looking at electronic versions of those guidebooks, when available, which I can put on my iPad. Lonely Planet has taken the smart step of selling individual chapters of its books - so if I'm going to the northwestern part of England, for example, I can buy just that part. The site also kindly tells you when the next edition of the guidebook is due.

But, by themselves, guidebooks are far from a perfect answer. Read Dawn MacKeen's article, The Truth about Guidebooks, and you'll know you want other sources of information. Here's how the article begins:

Seven days after graduating from college, I boarded a plane and landed in the middle of Greece, with little knowledge of the language, the culture or the geography. I had two months from that moment to become an expert on the country for the now-defunct Berkeley Guides; to travel to, research and write about 15 islands and nine cities and towns. ... I had to find the best hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, museums, archaeological sites, beaches and bars, as well as the prices and schedules of the ferries, trains and buses.

So where else do I look?

2. Online Sources

When I traveled to India, before we had all the web resources we have today, I got some of my best tips by posting my planned itinerary to the Usenet group (now Google Group) soc.culture.indian. Those groups are still available - but now I might also pose a question on Ask MetaFilter or Twitter or Quora. Benji Lanyado, writing for The Guardian, has taken "TwiTrips" - most recently to Liverpool - where he arrives with no plans and relies on the people of Twitter to guide him, step by step, to places to eat and things to see. That's not how I would use Twitter - but he does get some great advice!

And then of course there are all the online review sites, such as TripAdvisor.

Many guidebook sites have discussion forums: Rick Steves, Fodor's, Frommer's, etc.

There are all sort of travel blogs out there, too. If I have an idea where I might want to go next, I might start reading a few blogs related to that place. Or I might follow selected travel writers on Twitter.

I get inspired by photos, so I'll search the web - or Flickr - for pictures of places I'm considering going. I know another trip to Paris is in my future, so I always look at Paris Daily Photo - one of a series of such City Daily Photo sites from around the world.

And just plain searches, using Google or whatever your preferred search engine might be, can turn up some great things, too.

When I stumble upon a web site talking about a place I might want to visit, I add it to my bookmarks. For example, I would never have visited the small Statue of Liberty in Paris if Anthony's site hadn't directed me there; I bookmarked it years before I went there. And here's a place I may well want to visit the next time I'm in Paris.

One final thing: If I want to visit a museum or some such place, I'll check the web site of that specific place to ensure I have the latest information on its hours and any special exhibits - or notice of any closures. (Sometimes museums send their art out on loan or remove it for renovation.)

3. Personal Recommendations

And then, of course, there's the advice from people I know: people who have visited the place, or people who live there. Those people often provide the best tips of all!

Do I check all these resources for every trip? No - but it's sure nice to have so many good options available.

Do you have any favorite travel planning resources? If so, please share!

Related Post
Organizing for Travel: The Packing List

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Cleaning Out My File Cabinet

See this lovely file cabinet? It's mine - and until yesterday, it was entirely filled with travel-related files. All four drawers.

Well, I do enjoy traveling, and at one point - before we had such easy access to information on the web - it even made some sense.

But now? Almost anything I want to know I can find online. And some things I can't find online can be scanned, so I don't need to save the paper.

I knew this was an area needing some attention - but it didn't bother me until recently, when I really wanted to use that filing space for something else. So yesterday I began the clearing out.



The old train schedules from England, the old restaurant recommendations for places around the world, the glossy promotional literature from Singapore and Spain and Thailand - that's all in the recycling bins now, along with much more.

And I have a free drawer - with more space to come, because this project isn't yet finished.

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Bookends: Sometimes Simple Works Best

I've been doing some of my own decluttering - the continual weeding of the books. Getting rid of some 20-year-old travel books that I haven't opened in ages left me a nice space to display these cranes that a friend folded.

Of course, when I don't fill up a whole shelf with books, that means I need some bookends. And if I'm putting them next to decorative items, I want those bookends to be unobtrusive - but I still want them to be attractive. The bookend I'm using here comes from Blomus; you can get the Blomus bookends at Unica Home and other places.




Here's another example, with a vase - which I don't use as a vase. The bookends I've used here appear to be the Elements bookends from Spectrum Diversified. They come in two sizes, and are available in both chrome and black. I'm seeing them on Amazon.com.

Related Posts:
Nice Bookends Don't Have to Cost $685
Treat Your Books to Some Nice Bookends: The Elephant Edition
Bookends for Those Who Haven't Totally Converted to the Kindle, Nook or iPad

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Decluttering the Election Materials

If you're a United States citizen, I hope you're planning to vote in the Nov. 2 elections. But are you getting totally swamped with election mailers, phone calls, and radio and TV ads?

Over the years, I've found a way that works for me to manage the election information. I ignore all of the items listed above; the mailers go into recycling, the phone calls are hung up on (politely, if it's a real person calling), and I change channels if an ad comes on the radio.

And honestly, I rarely read all the gory detail in the official voter guide. (In California this time, we have 10 state-wide propositions, as well as the local ballot measures, and all the candidates. Reading everything in detail just isn't how I want to spend my time.)

But I do want to be an informed voter. In reaching that goal, I've found these two resources help me the most:

1. Reasoned editorials

I don't want a clip-and-save list of who and what to vote for. Rather, I want to read why certain people and positions are being recommended. For state-wide issues, I tend to start with three newspapers, which don't always agree: The San Francisco Bay Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento Bee. By the time I've read their opinions, I usually have a good grasp of the issues, and can see where I might want to read more.

For local issues, I have a different list of sources. And if you follow my approach, your choice will differ from mine, being dependent on where you live and which editorial sources you find helpful.

2. SmartVoter

Here I can see position papers, biographical information, endorsement lists - and links to candidates' web sites. Sometimes what you read still comes across as sound bites, but often there's really useful information, too. And if a candidate chooses not to supply information to this nationwide non-partisan site managed by the League of Women Voters, that tells you something, too.

And after I've done my reading, having a discussion with friends who are also deciding how to vote can be very useful, too.

How do you wade through the election material clutter?

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Getting Organized for Blogging

Organizer Geralin Thomas of Metropolitan Organizing - one of the professional organizers on the TV show Hoarders - asked me how I get organized to research and write my blog posts. If you'd like to read my answer, check out my guest post on her blog.

And while you're there: If you're interested in hoarding, you might want to check out some of Geralin's excellent posts on the subject, including:
- Organizing a Hoarder’s Home for Television
- Helpful Resources for Hoarders

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Cleaning Up the Computer Bookmarks

I have thousands and thousands of bookmarks - I don't know exactly how many, but they take up 9 MB on my computer. (If you're using Internet Explorer, my bookmarks are the equivalent of your favorites.) I come across many web sites that seem useful for either for work - including this blog - or for my own personal reasons.

But I've just spent a few hours decluttering and organizing them - and wow, does that feel good. I'm only about half done, but its already much easier to find what I'm looking for.

The types of activities I needed to do for this project are very similar to those needed in other organizing projects: deciding what to keep, grouping like with like and deciding where to keep those groupings, and labeling.

1. Delete (the declutter part)

In some cases, I got rid of large collections of bookmarks. Example: Since I've been a self-employed organizer for over five and a half years now, I figured I'm really not going back into the corporate world, working in an Information Technology department. So I really had no need for all those bookmarks having to do with software engineering. I'd gotten rid of the books on such topics years ago, but had somehow neglected to clear out the computer files.

I also got rid of bookmarks if I could readily find the same information again in a single Google search. Why do I need to bookmark Car Talk, for example - no matter how much I enjoy that radio show?

And then there was the outdated information. I had bookmarked information about specific cars I was considering from a few years ago, when I was buying my Prius (after my prior car - my wonderful Toyota MR2 - finally needed to be replaced, at 280,000 miles). But I won't need car reviews again for many years - and certainly not the ones I had!


2. Delete or re-label

Sometimes I would glance a bookmark and really not know whether I wanted to keep it or not - it wasn't clear what the article I had marked was about. So I'd click the link, and sometimes find out the article (or the web site itself) no longer existed - or I'd find the article was no longer interesting to me - and I'd hit Delete. Other times, I just needed to rename the bookmark, to make it meaningful to me.


3. Organize

This sometimes meant subdividing a bookmarks folder. I did this with my ADHD bookmarks - I had a long list, and it was hard to even remember what I had! Now it's easy to see what I've got.

And sometimes it meant combining files. I'd sometimes find - just as we often do with a large collection of paper files - that I had two folders with similar information. Now everything is in one place.

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Cleaning up the To-Do List: A Tale of Two Light Fixtures

See that light fixture? It's the one I had in my home office until this morning. Unfortunately, at some point it became next to impossible to get the screws to line up, so the cover often hung down, leaving the exposed bulb - as you can see. This did not exactly create the ambiance I wanted in my office.




See this new light fixture? I bought it a few days ago. My wonderful handyman installed it this morning. It's much prettier, and it provides better light. My office feels good again.

How long did "replace office light fixture" sit on my to-do list? Let's not talk about that. And it wasn't as though this was a difficult task. I knew exactly what store I wanted to buy the fixture from, and I knew who to call for installation. The store isn't in town, but it's only a 35-minute drive away.

But whatever it was that had me procrastinating about some minor home projects, I seem to be crossing them off my list quite rapidly now.

The garage door that didn't go down when I clicked the remote - except in rainy weather, for some unknown reason - now has a new opener mechanism that works just fine. No more getting out of the car and walking into the garage to close the darn door.

And I've got an appointment for this weekend to drop off the household hazardous waste items (cleaning products, yard care products, etc.) that currently reside in my garage.

Now I have some momentum, and I want to get all my lingering mini-projects done. Any time now I might actually get a couple nice nightstands, sell a few things on craigslist, and finish my document scanning project.

What a difference it made once I decided to really focus on getting these projects done, one step at a time! And how much better things are for having gotten them done!

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April 2010 Organizing Tips and More

My April 2010 newsletter is now available.

Tip of the Month: Lessons Learned While Preparing My Tax Returns

Organizing Product of the Month: Fabric buckets from Bulgaria, available via Etsy

Also included: Organizing Quote of the Month, Organizing Statistics of the Month, and some Twitter tidbits

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Decluttering the Blog Subscriptions

Unsubscribing from all email/newsletters/blogs that don't make me say "awesome!" when I read them. -- Scott Stratten, UnMarketing

I subscribe to a lot of blogs - some for work, some for personal reasons - but as of now, I subscribe to about 20% fewer than I did a few hours ago. That's because I decided to follow Scott's lead.

Now, some of the blogs I removed from my list on Google Reader were not really a problem; they weren't being published any more, anyway. But I also removed blogs that fit into one of these categories:

- Blogs that might indeed provide good information sometimes, but the format is just too annoying. That includes blogs with color combinations that hurt my eyes, and blogs that don't leave any space between the paragraphs - also hard on the eyes.

- Blogs I thought I should read, because they relate to my industry, but I just didn't enjoy them. There are plenty of industry-related blogs I do enjoy reading; there's no point in forcing myself to read the others.

- Blogs I tried out for a while, but they just didn't capture my attention, so it was time to end the trial and take them off my list.

It's amazing how good it feels to do even a little decluttering like this! And of course it will save me time every day, too.

Technical note: I subscribe to blogs in Google Reader - an RSS reader - rather than by e-mail. If you want to learn about RSS, you can watch the RSS in Plain English video or read The Simple Guide to RSS Readers.

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Filing the E-mail - Or Not

What do you do with all those e-mail messages you want to save? Since I wrote about applying some of the suggestions from The Hamster Revolution to my own e-mail, people have asked me for more detail.

What The Hamster Revolution Recommends

The Hamster Revolution suggests these four e-mail boxes:
1. Clients
2. Output
3. Teams
4. Admin

The numbers are actually part of the file name, and they ensure that "clients" come before "admin." Since the book is focused on a work environment, but acknowledges that you'll also get personal e-mail, the author says you might want to add another folder for personal messages.

What I'm Doing

My own version of that list is
Admin
Associates
Clients
Freecycle
Outputs
Personal

Admin includes electronic receipts for work-related purchases, messages from my business insurance company, etc. I don't have a lot of admin.

Associates includes sub-folders for BNI (Business Network International) NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers), NSGCD (National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization), etc.

Clients is self-explanatory, isn't it?

Freecycle is a folder I added, because I'm both a Freecycle moderator and an active Freecycler, so I access this folder a lot and I wanted it at the top level.

Outputs include files related to the magazine I edit, my blog, my newsletter, etc.

And Personal is also self-explanatory.

While these six folders take care of most of the messages I'm saving for reference - my archive files. I used to have many more top-level folders, and I much prefer this more streamlined approach. But I did add on two other sets of folders.

1. The four folders at the top, with the --> in front of the name, are just extremely active folders that I want easy access to. The first one is the issue of the magazine that I'm currently working on.

2. The folders with the @ in front of them will look familiar to those who use David Allen's Getting Things Done. These are folders related to things on my calendar or one of my to-do (and related) lists.

So Calendar has detailed information about things on my calendar. Next Actions (or na) are the messages related to things on my to-do lists. Project Support is information about larger efforts, not simple to-do items. Someday Maybe relates to things I might want to do. Waiting For are messages where I'm awaiting a reply. Waiting for - Freecycle are messages about pending pickups of Freecycled items.

This is what works for me - a blend of two systems, with some of my own tweaks. But there are a number of other approaches that work for others.

Another Approach: No Filing!

A number of people argue that filing e-mail is just a waste of time, since search tools can allow you to find any message you want. Merlin Mann said, "Organizing your email is like alphabetizing your recycling!" Gina Trapani suggests that all you really need is three folders: Follow Up, Archive, and Hold (a temporary holding place for important messages you'll be referring to in the next few days).

I understand the arguments for this approach - and it does have a lot of appeal. I'm continually simplifying my filing system - but I'm not ready take the plunge to this system yet.

If you have an e-mail filing (on non-filing) system that works for you, I'd love to hear about it!

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