Hasta La Ideas

According to the National Association of Professional Organizers, the phrase “get organized” is one of the top 10 resolutions people make every year. I’m not really sure how to validate this information, but my guess is that some version of “get organized” falls on the majority of resolution lists (“get the basement organized” or “have better time management”). If you add uncluttering into the “get organized” category, it’s likely a top 5 resolution.

If you fall into the group of resolution makers who wants to be better organized in 2012, the first thing to do is specifically identify why you want to be organized. Being organized isn’t usually a goal. Being organized is merely a path to achieving another goal. For instance, you might want to be better organized with your time after work so you finally get your business idea off the ground. You might want to be more organized with meal planning so you have less stress surrounding mealtimes with your family. Knowing why you want to be organized will help you with the remaining steps of the resolution-making process and with ultimately achieving your goals.

While brainstorming resolutions and the reasons you wish to make your resolutions, keep in mind that change is difficult and that research has found that it is easiest to achieve a goal when you’re only focusing on one at a time. This means you need to have 12 or fewer personal resolutions for 2012, giving yourself at least one month to focus on each resolution. If you have a resolution such as weight loss, and you want to be better organized with your meal planning to help you achieve that resolution, consider making your weight-loss resolution a six month or even an entire year-long resolution. You can focus on each step to help you achieve the weight loss each month — research and doctor’s visit in January, journaling food consumed and daily weight in February, meal planning in March, twice-a-week workouts with a personal trainer in April, four-times-a-week workouts on your own in May, etc.

After you have identified why you want to be more organized and have a rough idea of the resolutions you wish to achieve, your next step is to create a detailed plan of action. This Resolution Action Plan should include very specific language and planning. You need to identify exactly what you want to do in concrete terms and then the exact steps of how you plan to achieve these steps. Create milestones — small goals — for each resolution and rewards you will give to yourself when you reach each milestone.

Similar to last year, I will be taking on 12 monthly resolutions in 2012. Some of the resolutions are organizing and uncluttering related, but most are personal in nature, so I won’t be writing about them the way I did in 2011. I will check in with you over the course of the year, however, to see how you are doing with your resolutions and to provide tips for making and keeping your 2012 Resolution Action Plan. What resolutions do you have on your Plan for 2012? Good luck, and I wish you great resolution success in the coming year.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

California-based artist Gregory Kloehn likes to recycle used metal into sculptures of familiar objects, people, and animals. His work is usually quite whimsical, with a dash of social commentary.

Recently, Kloehn spoke with video blogger Kim Aronson about his decision to study housing and what constitutes a home. Beyond providing basic shelter from the elements, Kloehn concluded a home also includes a place to cook a meal, a bathroom, and a safe place to sleep. Once he narrowed down the qualities, he sought to find something metal he could recycle to make a bare-necessities home.

What resulted was his creation of a house inside a trash dumpster. From Aronson’s video interview:

Kloehn doesn’t live in this house, but he thinks it may be able to provide a place for someone who either doesn’t want the burden of a more traditional dwelling or someone in great need of shelter. I think it could work as a meditation cabin, but I certainly wouldn’t want to live in it full time.

Is a house nothing more than shelter from the elements, a place to cook a meal, a bathroom and a safe place to sleep? I don’t know if I agree with Kloehn’s conclusions — a house to me also includes a place to entertain friends and family — but I’m also not certain I completely disagree with him. A home doesn’t have to be gigantic to be a good (safe, sanitary) place to live. Maybe if the item he chose to recycle wasn’t a trash dumpster I would have less of an issue with the structure? I don’t know. He has certainly given us all something to ponder.

You can find more fine art from Gregory Kloehn on his website. (via Good)

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

I’m very likely the odd ball, but August is by far my favorite month of the year. August is celebrating my grandmother’s birthday (she’ll be 102 this year), it’s having a beer on the patio and watching the sun set, it’s long days, it’s cicadas singing, it’s getting ice cream and sitting on a bench with nothing else important to do. August is the perfect month to simply be.

My resolution for July was to evaluate and reconfigure our family’s routines, schedules, and goals. This happened without much stress or anxiety. One night my husband and I sat at our kitchen table and reviewed what routines we’d been following, identified which ones were no longer meeting our needs, and then created a new routine chart. So far, the new routines are working well and our house is back to running smoothly.

Our family routines include meal preparations, meal cleanup, meal planning, laundry, trash, yard work, exercising, getting ready for the day and bed time, general pick up around the house, room-by-room intense cleaning, paying bills, mail processing, pet care, and running errands to the grocery store, bank, and gas station. If you do not have routines in place for these recurrent activities, check out the article “Establishing routines” for some guidance.

We went through the same evaluation process with our work schedules and our family goals, and we’re back to feeling like we have a handle on our time. It’s nice to know where you want to go and how you plan to get there.

My goal for August is to get our “In case of …” files up to date. Since we moved, some of the information in my file is no longer accurate and it needs to be updated. Since no one, including me, likes to think about “in case of …” situations, it’s best that I do it during a month that I find especially cheerful.

If you do not have an “In case of …” file, let me recommend that you make one in August. If you have one, this month might be a good time to review the file’s contents to ensure they’re fully accurate. Your loved ones will feel more comfortable knowing this file exists, and so will you.

What are your resolutions and/or goals for August? How did you do with any resolutions or goals you made for July? If you have annual resolutions instead of monthly resolutions, how are these advancing? Are you on track to accomplish what you are hoping to by the year’s end? Share your experiences in the comments.

–
Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, March, April, May, June, and July.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to read Keeping It Straight — You, Me, and Everything Else by Patrick Rhone. It’s a digital book that is part memoir, part simple living and productivity guide, which through a collection of short essays addresses clearing clutter from your life to greater experience happiness. If you are a Mac user, you may be familiar with Patrick’s website MinimalMac.com.

It is a quick read, but an intimate look at how and why someone has embraced simple living practices. I certainly gained some wonderful insights from the text, and wanted to share a handful of excerpts with you.

I really liked his approach to smart consumerism:

… anywhere I can make a buying choice that I, with proper care and maintenance, will never have to make again for the rest of my life, I do. In those cases, I’m willing to pay far more for an item if I know it will last a lifetime and, even more importantly to me, if I will never have to spend the mental energy making a choice again. Especially because making final choices often requires far more time and research then making regular ones. In fact, I would argue that the more final the choice, the longer it should take to make it. Also, what you spend on the front end usually repays exponentially, and in many different ways, on the back end.

His thoughts on saving time by learning a piece of software and its associated short-cut keys:

if you use an application more than once a day you can save so much time and effort by learning the keyboard shortcuts for the features you use. Do you know how to reload a page in your browser without touching the mouse? How about opening a new window in the Finder? While those may seem like no-brainers to some, I can tell you from personal experience that it still takes me conscious effort to use my keyboard to jump into the Google search field in Safari because the muscle memory of clicking it is so strong. Bottom line, if you find yourself performing regular actions, see if there is a way to automate those.

A non-traditional perspective on creating to-do lists (especially in contrast to the Getting Things Done maybe/someday list):

Your to-do list should be a sacred place. It should be filled only with the things you really plan on doing, things you are constantly evaluating, and things you are taking active steps to move forward and to get them done.

And his humorous, yet poignant view of productivity tools:

The Three Most Important Productivity Tools — The trash can, the delete key, and the word “no.”

If you enjoy a memoir with helpful simple living and productivity advice, Patrick’s book of essays is available for sale at keepingitstraightbook.com and firsttodaypress.com. It is also available for download from Amazon for the Kindle.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

March is supposed to come in like a lion but go out like a lamb. In my case, it transformed from a lion into a stampede of angry bulls. I liken this past March to the running of the bulls through the streets of Pamplona, and I am donned in a white shirt with a small, red (a little bloody) scarf tied around my neck.

My March resolution to have our entire house unpacked was a failure. Somehow, I forgot that until our previous home sells, many of our large pieces of furniture will still be in that house. For example, our more than 12 feet of bookshelves aren’t in our new home. This means we have 17 unpacked boxes of books on the living room floor where the bookcases will one day reside.

I’ve decided that I’ll revisit the unpacking resolution after we sell our previous place. In the meantime, I’m moving on to my favorite resolution each year — I’m declaring April a Super Simple Month.

To me, a Super Simple Month is defined as no travel for work, one social engagement a week or less, no shopping except for necessities, and no new large projects (craft, writing, organizations, etc.). The goal is to finish some items already in progress on my to-list, relax as much as I can with my family, and be as low-key as possible.

I need time to recuperate from all 2011 has thrown at me so far. I have to get my feet back under me. I’m ready for the lamb that March promised me.

Can April also be a Super Simple Month for you? What rules would you impose to achieve this goal? If not a Super Simple Month, what resolutions do you have on tap for April?

—
Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, and March.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.