3 Keys Thursday: 3 Small Steps to Brighten Your Surroundings

Most of us have been spending a lot more time at home, which can give us plenty of time to identify places in our homes that would benefit from a bit of our attention. Unfortunately, seeing them doesn't always give us the energy and/or motivation to do anything about them.

Want to take a small step toward organization? Here are three ideas to get you started.

One container upgrade. Is there a container that's not earning its keep? One that works or has seen better days? Treat yourself to something new with the same features. Brightening up the space can pay organizing and decorating dividends.

One space that needs work. If you're like me, you don't have to look far to find an area that could benefit from some improvement. Once you've identified the area, take a moment and look around again. What's working in a similar space, or to store similar items? Can you import an idea that's working into a space that isn't?

Help a family member identify a solution that works with their styles. Now, while we're all close together for long periods of time, other people's dilemmas can bother us more than usual. If they bother the other person too, perhaps together, you can brainstorm some ideas that might work with their styles. This has the potential to be a win-win, especially if the space is bothering you, too. 

Having time on our hands or being in the right place at the right time can be beneficial to our organizing efforts, but it's not a promise of success. Taking small steps can yield big payoffs, and the sense of accomplishment that results might even nudge us on to other projects as well.

True Confessions Wednesday: End-of-Month Transitions

True Confession #46: I struggle with the transition from one month to the next.

I can hardly believe the end of October is almost upon us! At school, in particular, this gets my attention because this year, fall semester ends on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It's been a challenging semester on many levels and compacting it has been one of those challenges. 

As someone with an I need to see it personal style, it's the flip of the calendar page that gets me. Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous that sounds coming from a full-grown woman but, somehow, a week that is split between one month and the next contributes to my losing track of time in a way I can't really explain.

Luckily, this month will not provide the same challenge since the last week in October had the courtesy to fill an entire row of block on my calendar page. But, since other months are less cooperative, I've come up with a few tips that help to keep the shock of "you mean that's next week?" at bay. They're not foolproof, but their consistent use has kept me from missing many important events and appointments.

Look ahead. Preparing for a transition makes it easier, and the simplest way for me to do this is to make it a habit to flip from one month to the next far enough ahead of time to wrap my brain around the wraparound of this month into next. Ten days to two weeks ahead of time is usually sufficient.

Create a sign post. Always meaning to look ahead but still getting caught by surprise? Jot important first-week-of-the-next-month tasks or appointments on a small, square sticky note and attach it to a calendar square in the last week of the month.

Do a weekly check-in. My family just loves this (yes, that's sarcasm), but it helps us to make sure that we align our calendars and don't miss appointments (plus my husband is better at the whole next-week-is-a-new-month thing than I am). When my daughter was growing up, we had our "calendar meeting" at dinner on Friday, but you can pencil in any time that works for your family. Once this becomes a habit, it's something you can accomplish in less than ten minutes.

Investing a little time in your calendar can make things run more smoothly every day of the month, even when the next one sneaks up on you.

Then & Now Meets 3 Keys Thursday: Scrapping the Schedule

Because I've been posting here for more than five years, I sometimes dig into my archives for material. Lots of times, I aim for the same time of year to see how similar my posts are during a particular season. 

As I scrolled through posts from October 2016, I had to laugh when I stumbled on the post below, entitled "The Thursday Post that was Supposed to be a Wednesday Post" -- right after I'd posted yesterday's post just before 5:30 on a Thursday evening.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Then:

On Tuesday, I made a decision that made no sense from a time management perspective. In the midst of grading papers and exams, posting midsemester warning grades and preparing for a long-awaited trip to see my daughter, I decided to carve out a chunk of time to visit with a friend.

There were plenty of other things I could have been doing (writing this blog post, for example). There were plenty of other things I should have been doing (see the first paragraph of this post), and, when I got home, there were plenty of other things that remained to be done. And you know what?

I have no regrets.

As I type this Wednesday post a little after midnight (making it one of two Thursday posts), it promises to be a late night. I've finished grading most of the papers I needed to grade, but a few still remain. A Wednesday post on another blog has also been shifted to Thursday.

But I had a great day. I got to spend uninterrupted time with a friend I see face-to-face only a few times a year. We got to laugh and commiserate and enjoy each other's company. And the food at the restaurant was pretty good, too.

Pexels via Pixabay

I realize that this is a strange post for a blog about organization. My very structured, practical husband told me (more than once) how surprised he was that I opted to meet with my friend when I had so much to do, and I'm pretty sure most professional organizers and productivity experts would have advised against it.

But I'm not a professional organizer or productivity expert -- something that's abundantly clear if you read this blog on a regular basis. If organizing by STYLE means embracing the styles that come naturally, then managing time by STYLE means embracing our priorities and planning accordingly. For me, that means making sure to spend time with the people who matter to me, even when it means posting a blog later than usual or making a late night even later. 

The good feelings that are created when we do things that matter to us linger.  There will always be blogs to write and papers to grade, but my friend won't always be in town.

And I hope I'm never so grown up that I forget that people are more important than papers.

Now:

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Since it's Thursday, I thought I'd stick with my usual "3 Keys Thursday" theme. Inspired by the post above, 
here are three things I think are worth abandoning the schedule for:

• Friends and family (some things never change);
• An excellent opportunity (especially one that can't be rescheduled) and
• Sleep. (Never underestimate the power of a good nap).

What would you add?

True Confessions Wednesday: Success is in the Eye of the Beholder

True Confession #45: I'm not good at counting my successes. I'm definitely a list maker, and I love checking things off those lists but, instead of focusing on what I checked off, I instead find myself frustrated by the items that remain.

Part of the problem is that I tend to overpack my lists. In the interest of writing everything down, I lose sight of the fact that the amount of space in the Monday box on my week-at-a-glance planner isn't necessarily a good indication of whether or not there are actually enough hours in Monday to get it all done.

In the past few months, I've checked a few things off my long-term list, including finally getting rid of the file cabinet in my office and replacing it with storage that's a better fit for my I need to see it personal style and actually keeping the desk and counter in my office mostly clear on a regular basis. I've also come up with a simple, style-friendly way to keep track of my class planning materials without them taking over either of those clear spaces. All of these things led to a tidier, more efficient office space but, some days, when I look around, all I see is what remains to be done -- here and everywhere else in the house.

Isn't my first rule of STYLE Start with successes?

Indeed it is. And the irony of this does not escape me. I stand by that starting point, too, but that doesn't mean it's always easy. It takes special effort to notice our successes amid a never-ending backdrop of things to be done or clear spaces to be reclaimed from the detritus of day-to-day life. 

It's really important to notice these things, though, because our successes are what keep us going, reminding us of what we're capable of, perhaps most of all during those times when we feel less-than-capable. 

So, I'm going to close with a little lesson in reframing. (Some might call it rationalization. I prefer to classify it as reclaiming success from perceived failure).

It's Thursday. This is (clearly) a Wednesday post, one that was unfinished as Wednesday turned into Thursday. I have several choices. I can abandon it and delete it, negating the work that went into it and leaving an empty space on this blog where a Wednesday post might have been. I can skip this week, and save it for next week, posting it on the right day of the week. 

Or, I can post it today.

All of these options are viable, and it's up to me to decide which choice to make. The empty space will disappear quickly, as soon as I post something new, and future readers will perhaps not even notice that this week, there was no Wednesday post.

But that option isn't the one that makes me feel successful. A post that's late seems to me to be better than no post at all and so up this one will go. Today. 

Sometimes, success is in the eye of the beholder.

Even if she needs a magnifying glass to find it.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Key Time Management Strategies I Really Should Adopt

Yesterday's post was long on confessions and short on solutions so, today, I'm going to share three time management ideas I should practice. 

Build in a buffer. My default productivity setting is "one-more-thing-itis." Never willing to waste a minute, I regularly try to get just one more thing done before I start dinner, switch tasks, leave the house -- you fill in the blank. This inevitably makes me late for the next thing, whatever that may be.

Schedule down time/me time/self-care. I have a bad habit of thinking I need to work till I drop and then I can take a break. Heed my warning: don't wait until you have nothing left. We'd all be much more productive (and less grouchy) if we built short breaks into the schedule as much as possible. 

Honor my schedule even when others intervene. If I have laid out my schedule intentionally, I should have no reason to feel guilty when I don't dump my plans for someone else's but, then again, I'm a wife and a mother and the guilt runs deep. I feel as though I should stop what I'm doing to pay attention to the family member standing in front of me, especially when I'm working long hours and everyone's feeling shortchanged, but that only lengthens the day. Every interruption I succumb to not only takes me out of what I'm doing, but also requires up to fifteen additional minutes (beyond the interaction or distraction) to get me back to where I was when I stopped. Finding a polite response or, better yet, heading off the interruption before it happens by communicating "do not disturb" times, would probably benefit everyone involved. 

As a flexible-schedule girl in a structured-schedule world, I suspect these things will continue to be an uphill battle. As it turns out time management and organizing have many things in common, not the least of which is one enduring fact. 

It's a process. 

True Confessions Wednesday: Telling Time

True confession #44: I am terrible at estimating how long things take. One of the pieces of advice often offered by those who do time management well is to estimate how long a task will take, then add at least fifteen minutes. Others suggest building buffer time between tasks to aid in staying on schedule.

I don't know if I'm optimistic or dense, but no matter how I try, I cannot manage to do this successfully on a regular basis. I have my regular routines down so that I am rarely late for obligations (like work) but, when it comes to things like getting ready to leave for (or from) a trip, I always cut things too close. I considered the possibility that this happens only when it's something I don't want to do (like pack or leave for home after a weekend away), but my internal monologue is always the same.

It won't take that long.

Ha. Famous last words. It always takes longer than I think it will.

I'd like to say I'll do better -- or, better yet, actually do better -- and I probably will on a limited basis. The real problem, I suspect, lies in transitions. When I'm happily ensconced in an activity, it's easy to convince myself that the thing I have to next won't take as long as I think it will because I don't want to stop doing the thing I'm already doing.

Just me?

In the end, I'm on time for most things that matter and I'm good at cramming a lot of tasks into a day when I put my mind to it but, if the option for flex-time exists, I'll take it every time.

How about you? Are you good at sticking to a schedule, or are you hoping someone will create a planner with dotted lines to accommodate your style of one activity merging into the next?

A Trip to the Five and Ten

Today is my mom's birthday. She would have been 84 and so I decided to share this vintage post because it made me smile. 

Wishing you smiles, stationery, and lots of time with those you love. 

When I was a little girl, I used to go to the five and ten with my mom. My mom didn’t drive, so we’d walk downtown — or at least that’s how I remember it. Though I loved walking up and down all the aisles to see everything this amazing store had to offer, the stationery aisles were always my favorite. If memory serves, that was where I found my flowered binder in fourth grade, splurging on pink looseleaf paper to put inside it.

Later in elementary school, I discovered the stationery store about eight blocks away from the five and ten — one big place that put single aisles of school supplies to shame. I could literally buy paper by the pound, a concept I'd never before imagined. I could mix and match by color, size and texture.

These days, I indulge my love of office supplies in the stationery aisles at Target and office supply stores. Though I've outgrown my affinity for pink looseleaf paper, as a writer, I'm particular about the pens and notebooks I use. My collection of notebooks, folders, sticky notes, pens and the like probably rivals what I found in those stationery aisles so many years ago. 

There are some loves we never outgrow.

About a decade ago, when I was teaching organizing by STYLE to my elementary school students, I brought a bit of my love of office supplies to my fifth graders. Each month, I offered a school supply giveaway, with one winner in each fifth grade classroom. This gave my students an opportunity to experiment with different organizational tools, but I got a payoff, too -- it was a lot of fun to watch my students get as excited about school supplies as I had at their age.  

These days, organizational supplies have moved far beyond binders and pink looseleaf, which is a boon to all of us who organize differently. In most areas, five and tens are long gone, replaced by dollar stores, office supply stores and, of course, Target and WalMart. Much as I enjoy my weekly trips to Target and my time spent wandering the stationery aisles there, it's not quite the same as meandering through the five and ten.

Finding the "just right" tool for each of our organizational needs can be a challenge but, for me, sometimes it's still as much fun as walking up and down the aisles of the five and ten

True Confessions Wednesday: Packing and Procrastinating

True Confession #43: I am a last minute packer.

It makes no difference how much lead time I have. It makes little difference how busy I am (although that is a factor). When it comes to packing, I am always putting things together the night before we leave.

And the day of departure.

International trips notwithstanding, my clothes don't go in my suitcase until the last possible minute. I start mental preparations ahead of time, and do lots of laundry basket packing (clean clothes come upstairs and the ones I'm thinking of taking along go into a laundry basket in my bedroom) but rarely do things make it into a suitcase sooner than the night before.

Procrastination is definitely a factor, as is experience, but the most important factor that lets me get away with this is the fact that I have a process.

• Pre-Pack. With the exception of make-up and medicine, all of my toiletries are always packed. And long before I put anything in a suitcase, I'm making lists and tossing odds and ends into bags (and that laundry basket) so I don't forget to pack them.
• Pack as I go/stash it when I think of it. I always pack make-up and medicine the day I leave, immediately after I use it. That way, I'm less likely to forget something I need. At times  (like now) when I'm busy, I pull contenders for the suitcase out as I get dressed. One sweater to put on, another to pack. 
• Develop a routine. For me, it's laying everything out on a flat surface where I can see it, which makes it much easier for me to figure out what I have and what's missing. (I also make lists). To my husband, my plan looks like chaos, but it works for me, so I stand by it. Likewise, your plan doesn't have to make sense to anybody else; it just has to work for you.

I certainly don't recommend waiting until the last minute to get everything together. But, if you find yourself in that situation, as I so often do, getting it together successfully is possible.

Especially if you have a process.

Friday Feature: Grit and Creativity

This week, I assigned my freshmen Angela Duckworth's TED Talk on grit. This morning, as I got ready to teach, I took the grit test in her book and discovered what I usually do. According to the test, I'm much less gritty than I thought. As a matter of fact, 70% of test takers are grittier than I am.

This bugged me a bit, and also seemed at odds with what I believe to be true about me. Trust me, there are plenty of low scores I'd accept without argument. Athletic ability. Advanced mathematical concepts. Theoretical physics.

But grit? Duckworth defines it as passion + perseverance, both things I think I have at least an average amount of.

So, I went back and looked at the items where I'd rated myself low, and all of them had to do with sticking to one stated purpose. No deviation. Pushing forward to meet that goal no matter what. 

And that's not me. 

I set goals, and I reach them. But I also value new roads and directions that open up along the way. Sometimes I take them, sometimes I don't but, when I do, I'm usually glad I did. The other day, for example, I was grading papers when a friend I haven't spoken with in ages called me. I dropped everything and settled in for a chat. 

Gritty? No. But I haven't a tinge of regret.

All of this got me thinking about the relationship between creativity and grit. As it turned out, I was on to something. 

Creativity and grit often don't go together. There's a level of openness necessary to creative pursuits that can make grit counterproductive. Sure, it's important to put in the time, to sit down and just do it, but what we end up doing might not be what we thought we were going to do when we sat down.

And that's not always a bad thing. It can lead a character down a new path, break us out of a creative rut, or lead to a whole new piece of writing, artwork or music. 

I have tremendous respect for Angela Duckworth's work, and I certainly think there are aspects of grit that are key to success.

But, as is so often the case, it's complicated.

More than Three Things I Love About My New Tote Bag

Clearly not my new bag,
but useful nevertheless.

maciej326 via Pixabay

Last summer, I found a tote bag I really liked, but it was expensive. Not only that but, since I used to sell Thirty-One, there is no shortage of tote bags at my house. In fact, I have one for every day.

For three weeks.

Still, I watched the tote bag, checking the price, waiting for sales and discounts until I finally gave in. Even then, I wasn't sure it was a good decision.

I've been using that tote bag for a month now and let me tell you, it was worth every penny.

Why?

• The fabric is substantial, as are the straps -- which don't dig into my shoulder when I carry it.
• It has a perfect pocket for my phone...and one for my wallet, and one for tissues...and one more. Oh, and another. And another.
• It has a squared-off bottom so it stands upright without tipping over, even when the contents are a little off-center.
• It distributes weight well so I don't feel as though I'm going to tip over when it's full.
• I can put my laptop in it and zip it closed so my computer -- and the rest of the contents -- don't get wet when it rains.

Oh, and it's pretty, too.

With my daughter's help, I was already in the process of divesting myself of my remaining Thirty-One inventory, along with a number of bags I was no longer using, so one in-one out was not an issue; in fact, the ratio was more like one in/four out. That made me feel better, as well as providing a little cash to offset the price.

I know I'll hold on to some of my tote bag collection because different tasks call for different tote bags, but this time, I think I've found a school bag that's a keeper.

Sometimes, a little splurge can be a very good thing.

How about you? What features do you look for in a bag?