Hasta La Ideas

When sorting items during an uncluttering project, I recommend having a minimum of three piles: keep, purge, and other. The keep pile is obviously full of the things you wish to retain in your space. The purge pile can mean the item needs to go in the trash or the recycling. It’s the third pile, the other pile, that seems to be the hang up point for most people.

The other pile might be things you wish to sell, give away to someone, return to the people who loaned them to you, or have repaired. These are the things that require follow-up actions of some kind, and often the stuff just sits around instead of being dealt with right away.

When creating an other pile, try keeping a pad of paper and pencil handy or (best case scenario) your laptop with an internet connection.

Using Paper

1. As you place items into the other pile, list the item on a sheet of paper and note what action should be taken next. For example: Cordless power drill — Return to David
2. After all of your keep pile has been returned to storage and your purge pile trashed or recycled, sit down with your list and organize like actions with like actions. All return items should be grouped together, all your items you want to sell on eBay should be grouped, etc.
3. Once items are grouped together on your list, set completion deadlines for each group. Give yourself 48 hours to return borrowed goods, maybe another 24 hours to list all sale items on eBay and give away items on Freecycle, or whatever schedule works best for you.
4. Mark your deadlines on your calendar and take care of them on schedule.
5. Be sure to also include any follow-up dates on your calendar as well (things like dates to ship items to eBay purchasers and when to meet up with Freecyclers).
6. Enjoy your clutter-free space.

Using your laptop

1. As you place items into your other pile, immediately take action on as many of the items as possible. On the spot, create an eBay or Freecycle listing (or whatever service you plan to use). If you need to return something to a friend, immediately send him/her an e-mail and request a time when you can come by to drop off the item.
2. All other items, list the item in a document and note what action should be taken next. For example: Cordless power drill — Return to David
3. Set deadlines for when you’ll complete all of the actions that made it onto the document.
4. Mark your deadlines on your calendar and take care of them on schedule.
5. Be sure to also include any follow-up dates on your calendar as well (things like dates to ship items to eBay purchasers and when to meet up with Freecyclers).
6. Enjoy your clutter-free space.

Ignoring your other pile won’t make it go away. The faster you can process this pile, the closer you’ll be to living and/or working in a clutter-free space. As the 1988 Nike campaign proclaimed, “Just do it!”

I am still on cloud nine since our little man joined our family last week. He is happy, healthy, and beautiful. We have spent most of the past two weeks in a hotel room half-way across the country from where we live. It took 10 days to receive permission through the ICPC to travel home, and on Thursday we were finally back to normal.

A lot has changed in the past two weeks — all of it very welcome change — but still a schedule upheaval. Students, teachers, and others going through major life changes are also experiencing similar schedule changes right now. Whenever these types of changes happen, I recommend the following to help handle the change but being (a bit) organized in the process:

• Relax your standards, at least temporarily. While you’re adjusting to the new schedule, it’s okay to let things slide a bit. You don’t have to be at the top of your game from the word “go.”
• Minimize. Get rid of the unnecessary things in your schedule and only focus on the most important tasks at hand. Many people also find that they go through an uncluttering of stuff during this time. Do whatever works best for you.
• Sleep. Change of any kind can be physically and mentally taxing, so be sure to sleep.
• Lean on others. You don’t have to go through this change without help. Whether it’s a supervisor at work who can provide guidance for a new job, a babysitter who can come over and watch your baby for a few hours while you sleep, or a therapist with whom you can talk through your situation, it’s okay to turn to others. You’re less likely to feel like you’re on a sinking ship if you turn to others for support.
• Plan, as best as you can. You can’t predict everything, but mentally prepare for your new schedule. Even if what you predict is wrong, it’s fine. The simple act of envisioning the future will help you prepare for whatever does happen.
• Learn from your failures. If something isn’t working, adapt, adjust, and tinker until you make it to smoother waters.

How do you plan for and handle change? Sound off in the comments.

September is National Preparedness Month and it’s a great time to make sure you are organized for emergencies.

Do you have a first aid kit assembled? Are your favorite photographs digitized and saved securely online? Do you have a fire escape route for your home and office? Does your family have local and out-of-area meet-up plans in case you ever get separated in an evacuation? If not, now is the time to get organized.

The Homeland Security and FEMA website Ready.gov has additional tips for getting your home and business prepared for an emergency. Also, sound off in the comments about ways your family has prepared and organized for emergencies. The more information we share, the more prepared all of us can be.

Today, Ali Hale has a wonderful post on goal setting over on the blog Dumb Little Man. The post, “How to Set Goals When You Have No Idea What You Want,” talks about how to set goals for the less-ambitious things in life.

We’ve written in the past about how determining what matters to you most is an important aspect of uncluttering. Not only does focusing on what matters most to you keep up your motivation, but it also helps you to decide priorities for your time, energy, money, and space. “How to Set Goals When You Have No Idea What You Want” is a great resource for getting you thinking about the day-to-day things that are important to you.

A “goal” is simply something which you’d like to do or achieve. It could be buying a house or a car, yes, but it could also be something which might matter to no-one in the world except you — perhaps your goal is to learn to bake cakes as good as the ones your grandma used to make.

Goals aren’t things that you feel you “should” do, and any good life coach will steer you away from goals that have been imposed upon you by other people.

Spend 15, 20, or 60 minutes working on determining what matters most to you. Uncluttering will be easier and more productive when you know why you’re simplifying your life.

I recently wrote a post for the Evernote website that I want to direct you to: “5 Ways to Use Evernote to Organize Your Busy Family Life.” Here is the first tip:

1. Remember where you parked
Whether at the mall, an amusement park, or a concert with your kids, the last thing you want to do is delay getting home because you can’t find your car in the enormous parking garage or lot. When you first park, snap a picture of identifying information near your space and save it to Evernote. If you’re in a rental, also add a picture of the license plate of the car you’re driving. Once you’re back, either delete the pictures or add notes about the quality of the spot if it’s somewhere you might want to park again. “Great place for quickly getting onto the highway ramp after a packed concert at Wolf Trap Amphitheater.”

Feel welcome to check it out and come back here and add to the list. Tell us how you use Evernote and other technologies to organize your busy family life.