The Clutter Diet Blog

A Timer Solution for Old-Timers

Yesterday I had an eye exam, and since I have been having trouble with eyestrain, I was told to take regular "eye breaks" throughout the day. Since I do a lot of close work in front of a computer screen, the idea is that periodically I pause and shift my focus to something far away. Since my lenses are... *ahem*...AGING, this will help them adjust better.

I am always looking for how to make things easier, so I figured there must be a way to automatically remind myself to do this. I put it out there on Twitter asking if there was some kind of "eye break" software I could install. My friend Lauren suggested a just-plain-old timer application instead, and that reminded me I have written before about how I like XNote Stopwatch as an on-screen timer for your PC-- I had talked about it being a good idea to time yourself doing tasks.

So I tried it with XNote, and it worked! If you are in front of a screen all day, you can use this idea to remind you of any periodic repeated nagging that you might require. Here are the steps:

1. Download XNote Stopwatch for free. You can use it as long as you like, but I am now going to pay the optional license fee ($24) because I do believe in the value of shareware and want to thank the developer for his work. It's a nice, small, clean application that is highly unlikely to interfere with other software or hog resources.
2. Choose "More" from the menu, then Timer. You can format the options for the countdown timer as shown here in this screenshot--click image for a larger view. What's cool is you can have it do whatever you want it to do when the time is up-- open a document, play a sound, start a program, etc.
3. Customize your timer. The More menu will also allow you to change the background color, the font, and the title of your timer window. You can even set your own keyboard shortcuts to start it and stop it.
4. When you have the timer exactly the way you like it, choose More again, then File>Save. You can save a bunch of different timers that are set up for different needs, and they will even run concurrently if you needed to do that (now THAT is multitasking). You can save your customized timers to your desktop and click to run them whenever you like!

A brief word about the difference between a timer and a stopwatch (both functions are available with this application):  A timer counts down from a predetermined amount of time and rings when that time has elapsed. A stopwatch counts upward from zero and allows you to find out how long something is taking when you stop it.

Now, all of you old-timers with aging eyeballs, stop and take an eye break with me right now. Deep breath. Ahhh. What will you set a timer for today? Share your ideas in the comments! (image courtesy of eyechartmaker.com- did you notice? Maybe you should get your eyes checked.)

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Forget Multitasking- Try Simultasking (or, DUOTASKING!)

We've probably all heard about how "multitasking makes you stupid," namely, that trying to make your brain process two things at the same time makes you less effective at both tasks. (Here's a great article on that at the Wall Street Journal work and family blog, The Juggle.)

I do understand this, though arguably I think there are valid multitasking scenarios like walking & chewing gum and listening to audiobooks while cleaning or driving that make sense and are okay. (and even "workwalking"- see previous post!)

But if we shift our focus slightly, I would like to introduce the idea of "Simultasking"... I am defining it as setting a task in motion to operate independently while you work on a different task. Here are some examples of Simultasking:

• Starting a load of laundry to run while you cook breakfast
• Having a teenager run errands for you while you do other work or leisure activities
• Running a big print job on your printer while you do other work
• Installing software updates while you make a cup of tea
• Starting the oven cleaning cycle while you do other cleaning tasks
• Boiling water for pasta while you make the salad or prepare the bread
• Sending off a draft for comments and editing while you do other work
• Running the dishwasher while you sleep
• Watering the lawn while you read the newspaper 
• Using a slow cooker to make dinner while you work all day

Simultasking requires a few things to be successful:

• Visibility to your task list: Knowing the entirety of what tasks need to be done overall
• Identification of Simultasking tasks: Figuring out what things you could Simultask so that you will recognize them at the right time
• Preparation: Some tasks may require preparing information so you can delegate to someone or having something already sorted, purchased, or ready-to-go
• Forethought: Stopping to think ahead of your Simultasking tasks at moments of opportunity

I thought of this idea and then Googled it, because I don't want to accidentally take someone else's ideas and pass them off as my own. It turns out that Benjamin Watson over at The Deliberate Life has already used this word that I thought I made up, although he is using it differently... and Standard Microsystems Corporation has a trademark on "Simultasking" as it relates to computer chip processing. So there you go, but you know what they say about great minds thinking alike!  :) I am moving forward with my own definition here so we can discuss and add to the ideas.

>>>UPDATE: I have been thinking that "Duotasking" really works great here. I think I am going with that word now. And nobody is using it, so there you go! Done. Thanks, everyone!

Can you think of a better word for this? What are your favorite Simultasking task duos? Share with us in the comments!

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5 Ways to Make Better & Faster Decisions

This photo was taken at a local grocery store, showing the vast array of choices of salsa that we face here in Austin, Texas. (click photo to enlarge) Sometimes in life we just have WAY TOO MANY CHOICES! In my book I talk about how all disorganization really stems from two things: delayed decisions and actions. (See also previous post, "You Should Probably Be Decisive, I Think") Let's talk about how we can make better and faster decisions to help get rid of the clutter. Here are some guidelines:

• First, take ownership. Someone needs to make the decisions-- is it you? If not, could it be you? Issues have a way of lingering when nobody takes ownership of the problem. Even something as fun as deciding where to go on vacation never gets resolved when each party thinks the other person is going to decide. Time slips away and before you know it, flights are sold out. You can still decide together and ultimately agree, but someone has to take ownership to make steps toward getting the information and following through.
• Set a deadline. Commit to making the decisions. We are not joking when we tell people to throw a party to help themselves get organized! Something about the idea of people coming over to visit really motivates you to get busy on your organizing projects. It's a great way to set an artificial deadline. You may have a real one, like an upcoming move or the birth of a baby. Use the pressure to your advantage!
• Narrow your choices. Having too many choices can be paralyzing, like facing the salsa aisle. Dr. Barry Schwartz wrote a whole book about this called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.
  • Maybe if you're deciding where to go on vacation, you could narrow your choices by saying you'll only travel within this hemisphere. If it's salsa, you could narrow it down to only green (verde) sauces,or just mild ones (if you're a wimp). 
  • When organizing lots of paper, you can quickly get through a pile of items by giving yourself only three choices:  Action, Reference, or Trash.  (spells the word ART) You need to do something with it, you need to keep it to refer to later, or you need to throw it away. These three choices make the piles disappear faster than "drilling down" to all of the possibilities those pieces of paper represent.  
  • When deciding about physical items, stick to "Keep, Toss, or Donate" as a way of staying focused. You could also say, "Yes, No, or Maybe" or whatever works for you, sorting them into piles as you go. (If you have a "Maybe" pile--make sure you go back to it and decide yes or no once you see what remains.) You could also narrow your choices by declaring that anything in the room you do not actively USE or truly LOVE will go. 
• Be a "satisficer" not a "maximizer." Schwartz's book talks about the work of 1950s psychologist Herbert Simon, who identified these two types of decision-makers. A maximizer is someone who perfectionistically needs to be assured that every decision they make is the best possible, causing them to review every possible alternative. Maximizers worry that there is always something better around the corner. Satisficers are people who, once they have found a decent option that meets their criteria and standards, move forward without worrying about whether there is something better.
• Make "policies" to make the decisions easier. If you set rules for yourself, they become the guiding force to make choices for you. You may decide, for example, that you will donate or discard any clothing that you have not worn in one year. You may also decide that if you have magazines older than 3 months you will recycle them without reading them. Further, you might even set a rule that magazines stacked up over a certain number of months mean that you will unsubscribe to that publication.

Most of us in North America have both the blessing and the curse of too many choices. The most important thing to keep in mind is whether the choices we make bring us closer or further away from our goals. What decisions can you make today? Share your thoughts in the comments. And your favorite salsa.

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The Cure for Procrastination-- Seriously

Why am I up at 5:00 every morning lately? I have two mean friends who are making me do that. I have to e-mail them to prove that I am up and working. I am trying to finish one of those "very important but not urgent" projects that has been lingering for a while, and I have to keep getting up at 5:00 until this project is done.

My "mean friends" are actually my Accountability Partners. I have been working with Susan since 2001, and we have since been thrilled to also include Audrey in our weekly calls with each other. The three of us each take our portion of the hour-long call to go over what we got done from last week, what's going on in general, and what we want to get done the next week.

Having to answer to someone else is VERY powerfully motivating. You cannot hide! In our Clutter Diet online coaching program we encourage our members to pair up with each other to provide this accountability (in our program we actually call them Motivation Partners because it's a little less scary-sounding).  :)  There are many organizing goals that can be accomplished this way. It's a combination of providing deadlines and visibility to your progress that is simply one of the most effective cures for procrastination I have ever witnessed!

In my calls with Susan and Audrey, for each thing we commit to doing we can choose to give ourselves either a consequence or a reward. Right now I am getting this 5 AM consequence because I was not able to stop procrastinating on my project... and I know it works because that is how I wrote my book last year! Sometimes we give ourselves rewards like massages or getting to go to a special event, as an incentive instead of a consequence.

Today I will leave you with this thought from the American Society of Training and Development...the probability of completing a goal is:

• 10% if you hear an idea
• 25% if you consciously decide to adopt it
• 40% if you decide when you will do it
• 50% if you plan how you will do it
• 65% if you commit to someone else you will do it
• 95% if you have a specific accountability appointment with the person to whom you committed.

SO...be accountable to me here in the comments. Let me know when you've chosen YOUR Motivation Partner and when you're going to talk!

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Are You Ready for the Summer?

Many of our readers have kids, as do I, and we're about to have a big shift once again from school time to summertime. Are you ready for it? Here are some things to think about:

Getting Away from It All:

• Have you asked off time from work?
• Do you have travel arrangements made for flights and lodging?
• Do you have your passport if needed? (See previous post: Do You Know Where Your Passport Is?)
• Do you have someone to care for the house & pets while you're gone? (See our Bon Voyage trip planning checklists for more)

Kids Are Afoot:

• If you work outside the home (or work from home), have you finalized your plans for child care? If sharing custody, have you worked out plans for the kids spending extended time with dad or mom?
• Have you figured out the driving arrangements for getting all of this accomplished?
• Have you thought about a new summer routine for the household, accounting for a different pace and bedtimes? You want to stay open and fun, but have some structure too.
• Using up tons of drinking glasses? With everyone around and the summer heat and activities, your sink may pile up quickly with dirty glasses to wash. Read this previous post for our tip on reducing the glassware consumption!
• Are there rules you should think through about use of a neighborhood pool or park or how to interact with the neighbors and their kids and homes?
• Do you have a place figured out for the pool gear and other sports equipment that might be frequently used this season? Make it as simple as possible for the kids to use & put away these items by using hooks and open shelving whenever you can.

Packing for Summer Camp:

• Have you finished all of the required paperwork for camp, such as physicals, shot records, and permission waivers?
• Have you shopped for and gathered camping supplies and gear to send along? Have you labeled your child's camping gear? We had to label every sock and pair of underwear. Here is a good resource for iron-on labels, and you can also use a Rub-A-Dub® laundry marker.
• Read my previous post, Organize Your Happy Campers, for more tips on getting organized for camp. It's kind of an elaborate process but there is a big payoff for you in getting some kid-free time alone. Everyone appreciates each other more when it's over, believe me!

Dust Off the Welcome Mat:

• Are you ready for visitors to come to your home? What needs to be done for you to feel ready? Imminent guests are a GREAT motivator to declutter and get organized! Many of our Clutter Diet members are currently getting ready for summer guests and are getting a lot done.
• You can create a Tourist Binder to help your guests find fun activities to do and places to explore in your local area. See this previous post on creating one for your guests.

It's the middle of May, so you probably still have a nice amount of time to figure these things out. The key is to TAKE ACTION on something on this list TODAY. Is there one phone call you can make or one item you can pick up while shopping to get you on track?

What are your summer readiness tasks, and are you ready? Share in the comments!

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Learn How to Bee More Organized

I am a huge fan of TED Talks, which are amazing speeches by some of the brightest and best minds in the world on widely varying topics. I listen to them as a podcast when exercising or working around the house--incredibly enriching! I just listened to Deborah Gordon talking about ants and how they know what tasks to perform in the colony, and it reminded me of one of my earliest inspirations about organization-- another social insect, honeybees.

When I was growing up we actually raised bees for a little while. I think we had two hives when I was about ten or eleven years old. I read the giant ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture book cover-to-cover, and I would get in there all geared up and use the cedar smoker to calm them down before we opened up the hives. I have never been stung by a bee in my life and am not afraid of them. I find these creatures industrious, inspiring, and simply lovely.

Here are some organizing lessons from the bees (just a few of many):

1. They have a place for everything and everything in its place, with excellent, efficient storage. The honeycomb they intuitively build is a marvel of engineering and stores honey and pollen and incubates eggs.
2. Bees have systems and routines! And they work together to keep those systems going every day. They do not wait around and procrastinate their work.
3. Bees bring home only as much as they can carry. They have pollen baskets on their legs that help collect pollen and bring it back to the hive. They do not have Hummers that they can load up at the "Costco of flowers" and bring home excessive amounts of stuff they don't need. They also know exactly what they are shopping for and don't deviate from their lists.  :)
4. Bees think ahead. They put away extra honey for when they need it, and they anticipate the seasons and do what is necessary to prepare for each time of the year.

Bees and other social insects are truly the epitome of an organized society. They all have very clear jobs to do and they simply do them. Imagine what we can all do if we put our minds to it and focused the way the bees do.

Do you love bees too? Are you inspired by other animal behavior in your life and work? Share your thoughts in the comments!  (Photo here from Flickr by Peter Shanks)

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Containers on the Cheap!

For those who want to save money and the environment too, here is my list of practical containers that you can repurpose or recycle while you are getting organized...

• Shoeboxes
• Checkbook boxes
• Velveeta boxes
• Mini-quiche plastic trays
• Egg cartons
• Muffin tins
• Baby wipe containers
• Gladware or Ziploc brands of disposable plasticware
• Paper boxes from office supply store
• Baskets from gift baskets
• Salad greens containers (click photo to enlarge)
• Gourmet rice containers (like Texmati rice)
• Glass milk bottles (from Cathy in our comments)
• Canning jars and cardboard packing trays from Elfa brackets (from Allison Carter in our comments)
• Chocolate candy boxes with plastic tray inserts for earrings/jewelry (from Julia in our comments)
• Warehouse store packaging for snack crackers/cookies (from BuggabooBren in our comments- Hi Bren!)
• Notecard and stationery boxes, and clear, heavy, food-grade plastic containers with hinged or fitted lids (from Marie in our comments)
• Coffee mugs; and tissue boxes for holding and dispensing plastic grocery bags (from Sharon Lowenheim in our comments)
• Business card boxes (from Kim Oser in our comments)
• Prescription medication bottles for small items like cotton swabs (from Corkee in our comments)

There are many others out there. Here's basically what to look for in a recycled/repurposed container:

• Something that is nondescript so that you can use it without always thinking about what it was before. Hopefully you can remove the labels and other markings so that it fits nicely in with its new purpose and doesn't always remind you of queso dip or whatever it used to be.
• Square/rectangle shaped containers as opposed to round ones. Notice I do not have margarine tubs or Cool Whip containers on the list above. Round containers do not use the space as efficiently when stacked next to each other.
• Clear instead of opaque containers. Of course if you want to hide or cover what is inside, or do something decorative that is a different story. In general, clear is usually better for containers.
• Something sturdy, not flimsy. Make sure it will stand up to normal use.
• Something easy to care for and clean. Make sure it doesn't have lots of grooves and crevices if you will need to wash it frequently.

I hesitate somewhat as I publish this list, because what I have seen in practice is that people hoard these containers once they realize they are useful. Enforce a limit on the number of containers you keep and recycle/discard additional ones. You don't need to keep them all.

Another caveat-- if you would feel tremendously better by purchasing the "right" organizing container to use in a frequently accessed space, I highly recommend getting the right item instead of "making do" and always feeling crummy about it. If you like your organizing systems you are more likely to maintain them because you feel proud of what you created.

What are your favorite repurposed organizing containers? I will add to the list above and republish (with credit) based on what is given in the comments!

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Information Gluttony- Revisited

This past week I have been swept up in the time/space vortex that is the annual NAPO conference, this year in Orlando, FL. (National Association of Professional Organizers) Yes, there were about 800 of us crazy organizer people in one place, can you imagine? I will be sharing what I learned and favorite new organizing products from the expo in our newsletter this week. You can click here to sign up for our newsletter at no cost. It goes out every Thursday. And now for something completely different...

One of the most popular topics I discuss and have posted about is "Information Gluttony." Our Clutter Diet members and experts were recently chatting in our message boards about this as it relates to people-pleasing, and I thought this was an excellent point to expand upon.

Sometimes I have seen clients keep lots of magazine clippings, newsletters, and other types of information for the purpose of sharing it with others. Are you trying to be a Know-It-All with all of the information you're collecting?

Being a Know-It-All is another way of trying to be a "pleaser." (See our related post on "Overdoers Anonymous") You may want to play the role of always having the answers and being the Go-To-Guy or Gal. Is this role really serving you? Is it the best use of your time? Are there better ways you could help the people in your life?

Is this really something the people in your life want? Are you sending this stuff to them to try to reinforce a point or prove an argument you were having? (Example: "See, you should be eating less salt because of your high blood pressure. This article says so!") If so, this may be annoying and unwelcome.

Most of the time when I work with clients like this, they have never gotten around to sending out all of this helpful information to people anyway, so it's certainly not helpful if it's sitting there unsent. And often the information is outdated by the time they re-encounter it.

I highly encourage all of you who are saving these items in paper form to "go electronic" and at least try to send the info to others via e-mail with links they can pursue on their own. Less clutter for both of you.

Can you relate to being a "pleaser" with information? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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