Hasta La Ideas

Reader Dawn submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

Do you have any thoughts on whether it’s best to have a safety deposit box vs. an at-home fire/water-proof safe?

We have a fire/water-proof safe mounted to the floor in our master bedroom closet that stores all of our super important documents, as well as some valuables. Maybe that’s not the best idea? Do you have any thoughts about which would be best for safety purposes? It is so convenient (and obviously cheaper) long-term to have these items stored at home, but maybe a financial institution safety deposit box is smarter storage.

There are positive and negative aspects of both options. Ultimately, it comes down to what works best for your family.

A safety deposit box at a bank is nice because it’s 1. fireproof, 2. waterproof, 3. not in your home (in case someone breaks in or a disaster destroys your home), 4. under tight security, and 5. its contents are legally protected in the case of death.

On the other hand, a safety deposit box isn’t all that great because 1. the bank isn’t open 24 hrs a day or on Sundays, 2. it’s easy to lose the key to it, 3. your bank is probably in the same part of the country you are (a natural disaster that wipes out your home likely would destroy the bank, too), 4. there is an annual fee, and 5. since the contents are legally protected, in case of death, typically your estate has to close before the executor of your estate can access the box.

An in-home safe is nice because it’s 1. locked, 2. easily accessible, 24 hours a day seven days a week, 3. when mounted to the floor a burglar can’t easily run off with it, and 4. it’s a one-time expense.

An in-home safe isn’t all that great because 1. based on its fire rating, what is stored inside of it isn’t protected from heat damage for very long, especially digital items, 2. almost all at-home safes are only water resistant, not waterproof, so a fire hose putting out a house fire can still damage the contents, 3. it’s contents are not protected in case of death (which could be either a pro or con), 4. if a natural disaster destroys your home your stuff is gone.

For more information on in-home safes, check out our article “Fireproof storage, part two” from 2007.

We use both an in-home safe and a safety deposit box. Our home safe stores things we might need access to in an emergency (mostly documents, like our Wills), and our safety deposit box stores hard drives and a few small items we would never need on a moment’s notice (like negatives of our wedding photographs, since we were married in ye olden days). Our home safe is only water resistant and not certified to protect digital data, which is why the safety deposit box is something we need.

I also recommend scanning all documents and photographing the valuable items you keep in either location, encrypting these files, and placing a copy securely online. Services like Carbonite and Backblaze are fine for this. Having a copy online is nice if your home or bank are ever destroyed in a disaster (assuming the online data storage facility is in a different part of the country), so you can at least report to an insurance company what was lost and be able to see what items you’ll need to replace.

Thank you, Dawn, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. I hope my response was able to help you. Check the comments for more suggestions.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

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A common topic of discussion among the parents in my son’s playgroup is:

How do we teach our children to put away their toys?

Our children are only one year old, which means we don’t yet have much of a problem, but we’re eager to ensure we don’t have problems later. We want our children to develop life-long skills that help them to be organized and respectful of their things in the future. We might fail miserably — kids have amazing will-power — but here is what we’re trying:

• Model the behavior. It’s tempting, especially with small children around, to wait until after the kids go to bed to pick up the house. However, children should watch and “help” you clean up so they can start to mimic your actions. Otherwise, they’re under the impression that a magical fairy appears and cleans up the toys, coloring books, and wooden spoons.
• Explain the process. As you put away toys and project materials, talk through what you’re doing. “I’m putting the lids on these markers so they won’t dry out and you can use them next time you want to color.” “I’m putting these books on the bookshelf because it’s where they belong when you’re not reading them. The bookshelf protects the books from being damaged so you’ll have them the next time you want to read them.” I should admit that this narration is extremely tedious, but I’ve noticed my son incorporating words into his vocabulary like shelf and cap, so I at least know he’s listening.
• Be positive. Look for ways to make the clean up process as interesting as the play. Put on fun, fast-paced music your child enjoys every time you pick up toys and dance while you work. Make up a cleaning song to sing or play a counting game. Voices shouldn’t be raised and threats shouldn’t be wagered.
• Give your child time. Clean up for young children shouldn’t be rushed. If the child has an hour to play, budget the last 10 minutes of that playtime to picking up the toys. Let your child know that playing with toys involves taking the time to put them away. This is similar to dinner not being finished until the dishes are cleaned, the table is wiped off, and all of the ingredients returned to the pantry or refrigerator. Playtime includes putting away the toys.
• Be consistent. This is the hardest part of the teaching process for me — making sure I always leave time for picking up toys. If we’re in a rush to get out the door to run an errand, it’s difficult to pause and make sure the toy is returned to it’s storage place before we leave the house. The consistency and repetitive action, however, are what instill the positive behavior. If a child doesn’t know there is the option to leave his toys strewn about the room, he won’t make that decision. (Well, at least in theory.)

Versions of this can be used with older children. When I was teaching high school, I’d let the students know when they had three minutes left in the period so they could gather up their materials and be ready to leave when the bell sounded. When the students were working in groups, I’d have them race to see which group could clean up their workstation the quickest. I’d award imaginary points to students when they found something of mine left in the classroom: “5,000 points to Gryffindor!” But, I never gave real rewards (no points, no gold stars, no treats), since I believe that cleaning up is a sign of respecting materials the school provided and an expected behavior of all the students.

What techniques have you used with your children or students to encourage them to pick up their toys? Share your tips in the comments.

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Each morning when you sit down at your desk, before turning on your monitor or checking your voice mail, take a second to mentally prepare yourself for the day’s work. Briefly close your eyes, inhale, exhale, and settle into your chair.

Once you’re comfortable and relaxed, pull out your to-do list and calendar. Read through every item and decide:

1. What has to get done by the end of the day?
2. What would I like to get done by the end of the day, but won’t lose my job if I don’t?

The answer to your first question will decide your flow of work for the day. Look at your calendar, and schedule blocks of time when you will work without interruption to get those must-do items completed. During these times, you’ll hit the Do Not Disturb button on your phone (or disable the ringer), turn off the notification light on your e-mail, close all instant messaging programs, and hang an “If it can wait, please talk to me after 11:00 a.m. — I’m working on the [X] project” sign on your office door or at the entrance to your cubicle. If you work in an open office, stick ear phones in your ears, even if you’re not listening to music, as a signal to others not to disturb you. When it’s time to work on your most important projects for the day, set a timer to help pace your work. If you finish your task before the timer sounds, tackle a few of the non-essential items on your list while you have the time.

Be careful not to schedule your dedicated project time during your low-processing points of the day. Even if you eat to maintain consistent energy throughout your day, you will still have mental highs and lows. Our brains simply can’t stay focused for multiple hours consistently — and you’re actually more productive if you vary the type of work you do. It’s best to alternate your schedule between mindful and mindless work to produce your best work product.

A productive workday for a desk job might look like the following:

If you’re already into your workday, you can plan the rest of your day now. Do what you need to do to make sure that the most essential work is completed on schedule. Even if your plan isn’t 100 percent successful — you get pulled into a meeting you hadn’t expected or an emergency arises — you will experience less stress because you will know exactly how to adjust your schedule for the remainder of the workday to accomplish what you have to do before leaving work.

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Interesting articles and services relating to uncluttering, organizing, and simple living:

• Patrick at Minimal Mac asks “A Most Important Question.” If you don’t know where something belongs, it may “… not have a place in your home, in your relationships, in your job, or or in your life,” and, “perhaps it should not be there.”
• Alton Brown, the celebrity chef who is the inspiration behind our Unitasker Wednesday posts, wrote a diary about his (bizarre?) minimalist eating practices when he travels in last week’s New York magazine: “Alton Brown Makes His Own Avocado Ice Cream, Does Shots With John Hodgman.”
• Learning Express Library is an online resource for practice tests on hundreds of topics. The free and digital tests range from the U.S. Citizenship exam to college entrance tests. Save your money and some trees with these helpful resources.
• Lose the equipment and your gym membership, and get an uncluttered workout using only your body weight. From Nerd Fitness, “Beginner Body Weight Workout.”
• The Art of Manliness has a tribute to all things minimalist in “Go Small Or Go Home: In Praise of Minimalism.”
• Clean up your iTunes digital music collection with Tagalicious — a simple and easy to use application that gets rid of all of those “Track 01″ files you have in your directory.
• Are you on Twitter? Does it bother you when someone attends a conference and floods your stream with messages that don’t interest you in the least? Use DeClutter to remove specific keywords from your timeline. (via Swiss-Miss)

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The website /Film reported on Friday about author J.K. Rowling’s method for organizing her books. Using pen, notebook paper, and a simple grid, she plotted out the direction of her stories. Pictured here is the chart for chapters 13-24 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

(Note: /Film includes a larger version on their site for detailed reading.)

The grid outlines the chapter, month, chapter title, explanation of how that chapter relates to the over-arching plot of the book, and then columns for each of the book’s six subplots (prophecies, Harry’s romantic interests, Dumbledore’s Army, Order of the Phoenix, Snape and crew, and Hagrid and Grawp). Like the /Film post’s author, I believe that Rowling likely used more organizing tools in her story preparation. However, I think it’s wonderful to see how an author planned out her story before writing it.

When constructing memos, documents, short stories, novels, or whatever it is you’re writing, do you map out where you’re going and all that you want to include? Could adopting a method like Rowling’s help you to be a better organized writer? I’m certainly taking a few tips from her method and applying it to my own work. I’m thoroughly impressed.

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