Saturday Special: Parting Words and Good Stuff from HGTV

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I've been writing about time management a lot  lately over at Organizing By STYLE, and at CatholicMom.com. Last Thursday's post in particular, along with the planning that preceded it, nudged me to take a look at my blogging habits. I've done so before, but now, with proof that blogging sometimes overshadows the other writing I want to do, it was time to look at my schedule with an eye toward change.

When I first spun the organization posts off  this blog and onto Organizing By STYLE, these Saturday posts were a great way to continuing sharing my love of organization here, as well as featuring people, places and articles that inspired me. Julie Morgenstern. Marcia Ramsland. A Perfect Mess.

Sometimes, though, it's time to focus on that L in STYLE and let it go. I've featured all my inspirations, along with quite a few fun finds I made along the way, which brings the organization- themed Saturday Specials on this blog to a natural conclusion.

So, for the moment, at least, I'm stepping away from Saturday posts. You can still find me here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at Organizing By STYLE on Wednesdays and (3 Keys) Thursdays. I've been posting a STYLE Savvy feature at CatholicMom.com, as well, also on Wednesdays.

Meanwhile, since HGTV got me inspired to walk down this road in the first place, it's only fitting that I conclude this feature with something from them. Over at CatholicMom.com, I've been writing about containers, and this HGTV feature on organizing mistakes to avoid fits perfectly into the Organizing by STYLE philosophy.

See you Monday.

Saturday Special: Marcia Ramsland's Simplify Your Holiday Season

organizingpro.com/holidays

As I've mentioned before, there are a few organizing experts whose work I particularly like. One of those is Marcia Ramsland, whose book I picked up almost by accident at a local discount store. It was love at first read, particularly when it came to time management concepts.

Though I like all of Marcia's information, one thing I especially remember about her books is that she  devoted chapters to the organizing projects and organizing for holidays. This month, her Facebook page is like the intersection of Christmas Avenue and Organization Street, complete with resources and lots of pretty pictures. And, since they're Facebook posts, it's easy to scroll through even if you have only a few minutes.

Just what I needed. Another excuse to hit Facebook.

Saturday Special: Simplify with Marcia Ramsland

You've probably guessed by now that my house is not an organizational utopia of clear, spotless surfaces. As a writer and an educator, I live surrounded by paper. Paperless is not my thing. I need to see it, so life is an uphill battle with the land of spotless surfaces at the top of the mountain where the air is thin and it's hard to breathe.

But there's one surface I tackle daily. Every day, I make my bed. And I have Marcia Ramsland to thank (sorry, Mom). I found a copy of her book, Simplify Your Life, at a local store known for selling overstocks at cheap prices, and in it, I found this gem, (#1 on a list of Ten Timesaving Habits to Simplify Your Day):

"Make your bed and make your day. It takes only two minutes to give you sixteen hours of order. Besides, a room is 50-70 percent clean when the bed is made."

50-70% clean for two minutes of effort? That's an investment I can get behind!

The other nine tips were also inspirational, to varying degrees (#2 is "practice the two-minute pick-up" -- yet another advocate of small actions yielding big results!)

I went on to read several other books by Ramsland, and I've even written about her here on more than one occasion, but Simplify Your Life was timed perfectly. It landed in my hands at a time in my organizational journey when I was a sponge, open to not only tidbits but also organizational philosophies that rang true for me and encouraged the development of my own way of thinking about organization. Though other organization books have come and gone, Simplify Your Life has kept its place of honor on my book shelf.

Time, Sprints and Marathons

Ironically, this post is late because I was teaching a class on time management. I broke my 2013 streak of perfect postings - yesterday was the first Monday I haven't posted since some time in 2012 - but the combination of class preparation and a writing conference on Saturday stretched my time boundaries to the breaking point. I apologize to those of you loyal enough to show up on a regular basis, and promise to try to resume my normal Monday postings next week.

The concept of time having boundaries is one I learned from Julie Morgenstern, one of my favorite author/organizers to reference when I teach these classes. Morgenstern compares time to a closet. Both have boundaries and neither can be stretched to accomodate more than its capacity, though we certainly try on a regular basis.

My other favorite author/organizer is Marcia Ramsland. Ramsland talks about two ways to manage time: vertically and horizontally. What she refers to as vertical time management is managing the day from beginning to end - the "sprint." Horizontal time management, on the other hand, is long-term planning - week-to-week and month-to-month - the "marathon."

I was talking to my time management class yesterday about Ramsland's concepts when they made  sense to me in a whole new way. If I'd been a cartoon character, a light bulb would have gone on above my head.

As a mother and a counselor, I'm familiar with the philosophy that children grasp concepts when they're ready. I learned this in graduate school, and understood it while preparing lessons for my elementary school kids, but I didn't have my "aha!" moment until I was a mother, trying to potty train a preschooler or break a kindergartner of her thumb-sucking habit. When my daughter was ready, these things happened in a heartbeat. Until then, I could try every trick, bribe or plea in the book, but I'd have just as much success losing 20 pounds in a week.

Yesterday was one of those times when I was ready to absorb old information in a new way. As I strive to find both balance and routine in a life without full-time employment, I find that when I have sprint days they're often followed by crash days. Oh, sure, I knew this was the case after big events - holidays, vacations, other major schedule disruptions - and I felt it to a certain extent when I was working, too. But now that I have more control over how I allocate my time, I'm noticing it much more.

When I have a super productive day, I can't help but think that if I could do that every day, I could conquer the world - or at least my little corner of it. Then, when the next day looks completely different, I'm disappointed. I wonder if I'm lazy or unmotivated or tired - or perhaps all of those things - and figure I just have to try harder.

But yesterday, sharing Ramlsand's concepts with my class, it hit me. No one can sprint through every single day. If we want our sprint days to be successful, we have to balance them with training in the form of rest and rejuvenation. And we can't do that if we're sprinting all the time.

I'm too old to sprint and I'm too out of shape for marathons, but with enough motivation, I can walk the marathon route and still finish the race with some degree of pride. So I will sprint when I can and rest when I need to, remember that my goal is a balanced life, not a perpetual sprint.

Guess you're never too old to learn.

Resolutions and Goals and Calendars - Oh, My!

This year, for the first time, I am forcing myself to come face-to-face with my goals. When I made my New Year's resolutions, I wrote them as goals for several important areas of my life. I would never have attempted this while working full-time, but now that I'm retired and pursuing new adventures, it was a way of keeping myself on-track.

As I do this, and as part of my planning for the classes I'm teaching, I find myself going back to my tried and true resources. I first read Marcia Ramsland's Simplify Your Time a few years ago, and at that time, I only skimmed the sections on projects - very lightly. Back then, I was more interested in getting the day-to-day under control, and projects were something to be tackled...someday.

Now I am at a different stage of my life - one where so much of what I do is a project in and of itself, and I'm the only project manager. So, I find myself establishing the same SMART goals that were foisted upon me at work, and following the advice I've read in so many places for so long - setting annual goals, writing monthly goals and breaking them down into smaller chunks that can be managed on a daily or weekly basis. It's an entirely different mindset.

And it's actually kind of fun. (Admittedly, I might define "fun" differently than the average person). At the beginning of each month, I review my goals from the previous month and set new goals for the month to come, based on my accomplishments. I take the advice I read in Ramsland's book and write the projects (goals) for each month at the top of the page for the month in my planner. In addition, I look over my annual goals - the ones that began as New Year's resolutions - to see if I'm making progress.

If you'd suggested this to me five years ago, I'd've rolled my eyes and told you that it sounded like an awful lot of work. And you know what? I'd've been wrong. It actually doesn't take much time at all, and the payoff (staying focused and motivated much of the time) is worth it.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the next item on my list - working on this week's Friday Freebie.