Organize and Spring Forward!

Now is the time to clean your closets and organize your schedule – while the weather is dreary enough – so you don’t mind spending the day with your head in the back of your storage space. With an organized life, you’ll have more time, space, and energy to enjoy the outdoors this summer!

Time: Grab a calendar and check in with yourself about your goals – even if you didn’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Schedule a couple of hours on a rainy weekend day to tackle some organizing projects.

Space: Make a list of the organizing projects around the house that need work. Choose the project that is bugging you the most, and tackle that one first. Try to estimate how long this project will take. Be realistic and don’t burn yourself out. Make sure to schedule in a good protein-packed lunch, especially if you’re moving furniture and boxes. You’ll feel so amazing when you’re finished and you can cross that dreaded project off your list!

Love your Email – (by organizing your inbox)

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with email. We keep expecting it to bring us joy, but never seem to catch up with the flood of emails that come into our inbox every day.

A study by the Radicati Group, (a technology market research firm) in May 2009, discovered there are 247 billion email messages sent per day. With 1.4 billion email users worldwide, that’s about 176 emails per day for each person. Which is WAY to many emails to answer for the 16 hours in the day that we are awake.

Here are some quick tips on how you can eliminate junk in your inbox and learn to love your email again:

Get off email lists – like, NOW! The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires that companies get your permission before they send you emails. Although, if you’re not paying attention when you shop online, it’s pretty easy to get tricked into saying yes to solicitations. In this case, don’t delete the email without clicking the “unsubscribe” button. You may have to do this several times a week until you’ve removed yourself from all the lists – but it’s worth the 60 seconds it takes to click a couple of buttons.

Next, learn to say “no.” Be honest with yourself about who you want to receive emails from. If you’re on a list to receive coupons from your favorite store, ask yourself if you’ve used the coupons in the past. Are you saving emails that you’ll get to “someday,” but that day never comes?

Take a moment to visualize the emails that you would LIKE to see in your inbox. Is it a note from your lover? A happy hour invite from your friend? Then write down the names of the people you want to get emails from, and keep a reminder to email these people on a regular basis. Focus on the types of emails that you would like to receive, and think of ways that you can encourage these emails to come into your inbox.

Remember: a clear inbox can put your mind at ease and leave you with more time to correspond with the people you love.

Take a Mental Health Day

I believe in taking one day a week to do “nothing.” I call it “me time,” and I guard it with a stubborn resistance. After a long work week, I often refuse invitations to all-day Sunday BBQs – and insist on taking a night of rest if I feel like my brain is in overload.

Lucky for me, I have science on my side. I just listened to a fascinating interview with Jonah Lehrer, the author of “How We Decide” on NPR’s Fresh Air.

Lehrer describes the “paralysis of analysis” we experience when our brain is overwhelmed with information and we’re confronted with simple decisions. He cites a research study by Stanford psychologist Baba Shiv who studied how two different groups resisted temptation when asked to memorize information. The first group was asked to memorize a seven digit number and the second group was asked to memorize only two digits. The groups were then offered the option of eating a piece of chocolate cake or a healthy fruit salad. The people who were asked to only memorize two digits had the brain capacity to make a healthier decision.

Lehrer says the “five extra numbers – so overwhelmed the prefrontal cortex that there wasn’t enough processing power leftover to exert self-control.”

It’s important to take time out of the proverbial hamster wheel existence of our information-loaded world. Take a mental health day, and tell the world you have scientific research to back you up!

Resolution Hangover Cure

Two weeks have passed since we celebrated the new year – and hopefully you don’t have a new year’s resolution hangover.

Most of us – even if we didn’t make specific goals on January 1st – are hoping that 2010 can be the best year that we’ve had so far. So how do you make it through a whole year without giving up? What is the antidote for mid-January frustration?

Try tricking your brain to turn your resolutions upside-down – and play a game with the wording. Focus on the positive and take all the negative words out of your goals.

Let’s test it out with the most common new year’s resolution: losing weight.

What excites you about it? The statement “I want to lose weight” is not particularly inspiring. Not only does it sound cliche, but it also doesn’t sound motivating. Ask yourself why you want to lose weight – what excites you about it? If you really want to fit into your favorite jeans, then picture yourself waltzing through a summer barbecue in all your denim-clad glory. “Waltzing” sounds like more fun than “losing” – agree?

Trick your brain into thinking positive about the new year, and you’ll have more energy to put toward making changes.

The Best Medicine…

Laughter always makes painful situations more bearable. I’ll be the first to admit, keeping up on a long to-do list is often a humorless experience. That’s why I love these sticky notes that say, “I will do one thing today.” http://www.prettybitter.com/product-p/sp01-12x.htm They’re like prescription pads to cure procrastination.

Imagine: you’ll have successfully completed 400 things by the time you’re finished with the package! Now that’s nothing to laugh about.

Space Out: a Lazy Person’s Guide to Organizing

Take a lazy, rainy Sunday to clear your space and make a fresh start for the New Year.

1. Focus on only one area. You might start by organizing a bookshelf or a closet – instead of an entire room.

2. Set a timer and give yourself an hour to start. Promise yourself you won’t dig through old photos or read love letters from high school. It’s tough, but you can do it. The purpose of the hour is to organize – not to walk down memory lane.

3. How much space do you have? Be realistic about how much space you have compared to how much stuff. You should, of course, have an equal space to stuff ratio.

4. Find containers that fit the space. A “container” could mean a photo album for photos or a plastic bin for summer clothes. Get some colorful boxes (IKEA has cheap ones) to make the space look more attractive and hide your piles. Just keep in mind that the everything should fit into the space like a puzzle piece.

5. Organize your stuff into categories - and then put the categories in containers: put CDs in one box and old birthday cards in another. Label each box with a black Sharpie so there’s never any mystery about what’s inside. If you can’t think of a category for something, put it in a box marked “miscellaneous.”

6. Definitely create a pile in the recycling bin (if you know what I mean) and take lots of stuff to Goodwill. If you can’t decide whether to get rid of something, set it aside in a “maybe” pile.

7. When you’re finished, the puzzle should be complete… and everything else should be in a truck headed for a thrift store. Put the “maybe” pile in storage for a month and write the date on the outside of the box. In February, if you haven’t missed anything in the box, you will know that you can live without it.

If you need any help, drop me a line: mary@missorganizer.com.

Download and Print for New Year’s Eve Cards

Make it Happen This Year!

The New Year has been given a bad rap because of the terrible success rate of New Year’s resolutions. The data is there to prove it: Quirkology.com tracked over 3000 people attempting to achieve New Year’s resolutions and only 12% actually achieved their goal.

Before you give up – read on…

With my clients, I always stress the importance of breaking goals into smaller more achievable tasks. It is truly the only way to achieve what can sometimes seem impossible. In fact, there is scientific research that links neurological evidence to support this theory.

The neurotransmitter Dopamine is linked with motivation. Our brain rewards us with a rush of Dopamine when we achieve our goals. Therefore, if you achieve smaller goals more often, your brain will reward you on a regular basis, making it easier to make the long trek toward larger goals. For instance, if you’re planning on running a marathon, but your  regular workout routine in 2009 involved a remote control and a bowl of popcorn, it would be smart to break this goal into smaller parts for 2010.

If your New Year’s resolutions are truly going to stick, then you have the rest of your life to make them work. Get yourself a 2010 calendar and mark out smaller goals throughout the year. For an example of a success story, read this article.

Happy New Year and enjoy your Dopamine!

Instant Holiday Spirit

If you’re like most Americans,  you’re probably too busy to create the perfect Martha Stewart holiday atmosphere in your home. In fact, you might barely have enough time to grab some last-minute gifts and tack some stockings on the mantel.

If you’re short on time, create an instant holiday spirit in six steps:

1. Wear red. Everyone will say you “look festive.”

2.  Trick your nose:

a. Instead of slaving for hours in the kitchen, you can fill the house with the smells of scrumptious home cooking with scented candles in cinnamon, nutmeg, or vanilla.

b. You can also skip the Christmas tree fiasco and buy strong-smelling wreaths and pine-scented oils. (Hang some lights around the windows, and your house will fill warm and enchanting.)

c.  Bake a small batch of cookies (cut the recipe in half) – or make a loaf of gingerbread (from the box) – just for the smell.

3. Start a holiday tradition – but keep it casual. Have an ugly sweater party with your friends at a local hangout, and try to outdo each other with your hideous Goodwill finds. If you’re feeling ambitious, add a White Elephant Gift exchange – it’s the ultimate low-maintenance holiday tradition.

4. Stop expecting everything to be perfect, and start enjoying what you have. It sounds simplistic, but it’s actually difficult to do. Take a deep moment to breathe deeply. Look around yourself and notice the things that you are thankful for.

Bring Home More Bacon

Save time and money at the grocery store by creating a list of items that you always need… or want.

Be realistic – if you’re always trying to cut down on sweets and eat more vegetables, make sure to include some healthy dessert so you don’t stock your fridge with rotten veggies and sneak out for late-night ice cream runs.

Make it easy: Keep your shopping list on a bulletin board near the kitchen and attach a pen on a string. Save the list in a Word document on your computer desktop and print out a couple of copies to tack on the bulletin board.

Don’t rely on your memory: Write down items that you need as soon as you think of them. If you get in the habit of doing this, your cupboards will always be stocked with everything you need.