You know those people who always seem to just have it all together? The ones who are usually calmly waiting, scrolling through Facebook, when you burst through the door feeling frazzled and out of breath because you're late meeting them...again!? The folks who have the PTA calendar memorized and always seem to have contact information right at their fingertips to meet every conceivable need, from trusty mechanic or top notch medical specialist to medieval jousting expert? They remember to return your book, even though you forgot you loaned it to them in the first place. They know when and where outdoor movie night is happening and exactly when to score free cones because it's National Ice Cream Day. They always acknowledge your birthday and never forget to send in non-perishables for the school's canned food drive (while you, on the other hand, can be found desperately hunting through your pantry at the last minute for cream of mushroom soup or something else you'll probably never eat).

Yeah, we all know at least one of these people, but starting today, you can become one with much less effort than you think.
 
New Habit #4: Take and Use Notes. Keep track of everything as it enters your brain...reminders, to-dos, shopping needs, contact info, events, appointments, due dates... in a central, reliable system and--here’s the key--review it daily. 

Why? The biggest benefit is the confidence and peace of mind you'll find from having a reliable way to tame your brain clutter. Yes...that's a thing...and too much of it leads to stress, whether you're consciously aware of it or it's just bubbling up right beneath the surface. That old expression "too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth" means that having no established leader to give clear direction will lead to chaos and, ultimately, failure. Well, that's what happens when you have competing priorities, demands on your time and random thoughts running wildly through your head without a central unified and reliable system in place for managing it all. 

Now, the key word here is "reliable". Lots of people have calendars, address books, fancy apps on their phones, colored-coded giant whiteboards on the refrigerator....you name it, yet still suffer from brain clutter because they aren't in the habit of actually maintaining and using these tools properly. All the fancy pots and top-of-the-line kitchen tools in the world won't make you a master chef unless you know how to use them and do. With proper daily maintenance and a solid habit of reviewing what you’ve noted, you'll avoid overbooking (and overstretching) yourself, missing important appointments or deadlines, or forgetting to do tasks, and you'll be able to plan ahead with confidence. You'll also rest easier knowing you can communicate with your network whenever and wherever needed.

How? This is actually a three-part habit.

First, choose a format that you think will work best for you, be it electronic, paper, cave drawing, whatever, or even a combination of the above elements. This will involve some trial/error and re-evaluation as you go. Expect that...it's okay, and if you have to change formats along the way, it just means you are learning more about yourself and what works for you (or doesn't). There is no right or wrong way...just a right-for-you or wrong-for-you way. Whatever format you choose, it must meet these three criteria:

1. Allows you to keep track of appointments, reminders/to-dos, shopping needs, and contacts (all four!)
2. Is portable and accessible at all times
3. Is easy and convenient to use (never underestimate the power of even the slightest inconvenience to prevent you from completing any task...especially one you didn't particularly want to do in the first place)

​Your system may be comprised of multiple components just as long as they are coordinated with one another. For example, you may initially add an item to your To-Do list but then schedule it on your calendar later during your daily review, or vice versa. Just avoid keeping multiple To-Do lists or calendars for the same purpose.

Next, add anything and everything you need to remember into your system as soon as you become aware of it.

• Need to return that book to your friend when you see her next week? Create a reminder in your calendar to take it with you on that day.
• Need to call the doctor during office hours tomorrow? Schedule it in your calendar or tell Alexa or Siri to remind you at 8AM on Monday (or both).
• Want to take the kids to see the free magic show at the library next weekend? Calendar.
• Thinking of getting the house painted? Put the contact info for the painter who left a flyer on your door into your contacts (and throw away the flyer) and then add calling for an estimate to your to-do list.
• Out of soy sauce? Add it to your shopping list right away.

​
Finally, make a daily appointment with yourself to review the data in your system so that you can bring it to life through an action plan. This is crucial. Without this, your system will not work and you will no longer trust it...reliability is key, remember? Simply sitting down each and every day to review what is coming up so that you can prioritize, plan ahead and share info with others as needed will save you time and stress otherwise spent worrying about what you're forgetting. Having a centralized system for tracking everything not only enables you to address your immediate concerns but also keeps the back-burner items on your radar so they don’t sneak up on you. 

Alternative Option
Already got this one down? Fabulous! Have you tamed your paper piles? Having a system in place for keeping track of appointments, reminders and contacts is a prerequisite to eliminating paper clutter. If you've already mastered Habit #4, go ahead and begin a daily triage of your incoming papers into these categories: action, file, pay, and read. Create calendar reminders/contacts for action and pay items, file reference papers and contacts regularly, and keep reading material handy and to a minimum (seriously, if you haven't read the fashion article you bookmarked in that 2010 magazine by now, it's probably safe to go ahead and toss it).

Tip of the Week
Speaking of taking notes, one way to improve your odds of adopting any new habit is to take note of what has (and hasn't) worked in the past. Was there a particular person who encouraged you (or sabotaged your efforts)? Is there a specific strategy that kept you motivated? Repeat the behaviors that have led to success and try to identify and eliminate the ones that led you astray.

It’s still not too late to join the official Good Habits Challenge! From this point on, only those who have actually joined the challenge will receive weekly emails introducing the remaining six habits of organized people. Plus, those who join get some free tools to help in adopting any new habit (not just these ten) and are eligible for free accountability check-ins and a chance to win a prize at the end. Joining is FREE, so what have you got to lose?

Email [email protected] if you have questions about the challenge, need more suggestions or encouragement, or just want to share your success story!

You’ve got this!

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If you're suffering from what I call "Covid Fog", you are not alone! Almost everyone I've talked to has experienced this phenomenon on some level during the past six months. Covid Fog is when you have difficulty sharpening your focus and/or maintaining it for as long as you used to before the Coronavirus pandemic shooed each of us into our respective corners of quarantine. Several factors contribute to creating Covid Fog: looser schedules, more frequent interruptions, lack of structure, changes in routine, mild depression, fatigue, boredom, grief, a dearth of motivation, and lapses in self-care are just some of them. Whatever the cause, the results can affect everything from your job performance to quality of life issues. Adopting strategies to help you find your focus is an essential first step in coping with the uncertainty that is 2020.

Here are my top tips for finding and maintaining your focus:

1. Create a routine framework. Go on autopilot for everyday tasks like personal hygiene, meal preparation and household chores or errands. When you do the same thing in the same order at the same time of the day or week, you become more efficient and are less likely to forget a step.
2. Plan your day/week in advance. This allows you to do all the focus-intensive strategizing at one time and enables you to create an overall approach that saves both time and effort and minimizes the unexpected.
3. Use calendars and lists to keep track of even minor tasks and appointments. In addition to ensuring you don't forget something, the mere act of documenting your to-dos helps to re-focus your attention and recalibrate your anxiety level about the challenges in front of you.
4. Perform your most attention-demanding tasks during your "prime time". Are you a morning person, or do you work better at night? Plan your day accordingly.
5. Adopt a movement strategy. Engaging in some small physical movement can re-focus your attention. Create a menu of options and keep it handy for times when you feel your concentration slipping. Taking a five minute break to walk around the block, climb a few flights of stairs, or toss a tennis ball in the air will pay dividends in your productivity.
6. Reduce electronic distractions. Turn off all non-essential devices, close unnecessary tabs on your browser, and silent notifications to reduce interruptions while working. 
7. Try the Pomodoro Method to stay focused on a task. This involves setting a timer and working only on the designated task until the timer goes off. Then take a short 3-5 minute break before resuming work. (This break would be the perfect time to engage in your movement strategy.)
8. Create an effective tickler system. Remember things that pop into your mind while you're doing something else by recording these to-do items in a manner that ensures they re-surface at a later time. You'll be better able to continue giving the task at hand your full attention instead of devoting brain space trying to remember the new thought.
9. Make self-care a priority. Resist the urge to zoom in your pajamas. Showering and dressing just as you would if you were going out to work will subconsciously encourage you to take your work more seriously.
10. Create a clutter-free space in which to work or retreat when you feel overwhelmed. Visual noise creates distraction and stress. Spending a few minutes before you begin working to tidy up your workspace is a worthwhile investment. If creating a clutter-free zone inside your home is too difficult, go outside to work or to take a nature break when you feel overwhelmed.
11. Power your brain with the right kind of food. Instead of grazing on snacks while you work, take a break to actually focus on your meals so that your brain registers that you've eaten. You'll feel more satisfied and less sluggish if you're choosing healthy options instead of carb- and sugar-laden junk foods.
12. Establish some boundaries. Make it clear to family members, friends and roommates when you are working and wish to be left undisturbed, but also communicate your work availability clearly to bosses and co-workers to avoid the stress of feeling constantly on-call. By avoiding intrusions on either side wherever possible, you will be better able to meet the needs of each group during their designated times.
13. Build in a cushion for the unexpected. Some interruptions are unavoidable. Reduce the stress they can cause by making sure you have a back-up plan for when hiccups occur.
14. Set flexible goals whenever possible. Shower both yourself and others with as much grace as you can afford to give. Everyone needs more of that right now and it will likely come back to you just when you need it most.
15. Reward yourself for staying focused. Whether it's ten minutes to get on social media, a bubble bath at the end of the day, or a snuggle break with your kids, give yourself something to look forward to after all that hard work spent concentrating.
16. Breathe!

With a little intention, perseverance, and these strategies, even finding your focus through the Covid Fog can be easy peasy.

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It's that time of year again...when life returns to its usual hectic pace after the lazy summer months. Four days into the new school year, I've finally finished celebrating. Now it's time to put away my martini glass and batten down the hatches, because we're about to get hit with a hurricane of homework, extracurricular activities and PTA events.

I'm a person who loves routines--no, needs routines--in order to function well. I  find that it helps to be able to go on autopilot for everyday tasks so that I can save my brain power for when I really need it, like understanding what those international laundry symbols mean. (By the way, if you have the same problem, here's a key that you can print out and tape above your washing machine for future reference.) Routines are a great way to make sure you are squeezing in all of your repetitive, must-do tasks that, if forgotten, could be problematic...like going grocery shopping, doing the laundry, and brushing your teeth. But what happens when you have a one-time or less essential task or activity, like fixing the broken closet door or making time for friends, or getting a physical? Where do they fit in when your day is already packed to the gills with work, housework, homework, grocery shopping, chauffeuring the kids and laundry? Chances are, they get deferred until you have some "free" time. And when is that? When your kids leave home  or you retire? (I've been told by those in the know that that golden goose is a myth, too.) Or worse, they happen when the fact that you have deferred them for so long leads to some crisis that makes them suddenly essential, like discovering you are really sick.

Time is like money and available calories: limited and once gone, you can't change your mind about how to spend it. Anyone on a food or financial diet will tell you that advance planning is the only way to avoid wasteful spending, yet few of us put that much advance thought into how we will budget our time in order to fit everything in.

Start with plugging the leaks and becoming more efficient:

1. Multi-task by returning phone calls while you are doing something mindless, like laundry or cleaning (invest in a bluetooth if you need to).
2. Turn wait time into productive time by storing your reading in a tote you can take with you to appointments or other places you are likely to be kept waiting.
3. Carry paper and pen with you so that you are always prepared to write a letter, make a To Do list, or create a shopping list or menu plan during unexpected wait times.
4. Keep a "Stuff we need" list in your wallet or phone for those times when you have a few minutes to kill and are near a store.
5. Delegate tasks to your spouse or kids or hire some help for chores like cleaning, tutoring your kids, or yard work. It may be the best money you ever spent.
6. Organize your home so that you spend less time looking for things, shopping for things you already have, or putting things away. This also makes delegation easier if everyone in your home knows where to find things and/or put them away.

Next, prioritize according to your core values and current needs. Which comes first, health or friends? Financial security or time with the kids? There's no right or wrong answer, and the answer isn't always going to be the same for every situation. Sticking to your new diet and exercise program during your lunch hour may be more important right now than having lunch with your co-worker friend, but it may not be as important as lunch with the friend who is moving halfway around the world or was just diagnosed with cancer.  And it may not be as important once you feel more confident that you will get back on track the next day. Perhaps your kids are your priority, but  the financial security you need to provide them with a key opportunity means you have to work overtime for awhile, even if it takes you away from them for now. My point is to make conscious, well-thought-out choices about your time after weighing everything. Don't just let life happen to you by default. Grab the wheel and decide what direction you want to go in. It is okay to say no to something!

Finally, stop feeling guilty about spending time on you. (I'm Catholic, so guilt comes really easy to me and I struggle with this one.) You are the most important person in your life. Without you, none of it matters, so you should be a top priority. If you need to exercise or meditate or shop or nap in order to feel refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of your seemingly endless To Do list, then do it! Nothing kills motivation like resentment, and that is what you will end up with if you don't take time out to tend to your own needs from time to time. Put it on the calendar, just as you would a doctor's appointment or parent-teacher conference, because it is just as important.

As my mother-in-law likes to say, "You're a long time dead", so make every minute count while you can!

If you are anything like me, you have a gazillion little household tasks that are too-often neglected. Things that would take about five minutes or less to complete, but just aren't high enough on the priority list to be remembered until your disgust or frustration with the results of having neglected them for so long forces you to take action. Often, you are in the throes of some other project when this occurs, so the trick is to make note of them as you think of them and use the little pockets of available time you have (the ones you don't consciously acknowledge and probably deny that you have) throughout your week to accomplish them. Keep the list where you can easily add to it the next time you notice something that needs doing.

Before you say it, yes you do too have pockets of available time, especially if you have a spouse or kids who are never ready when it's time to go somewhere.

Here are a few items on my list to help get you thinking:

• Change a lightbulb
• Clean out the silverware tray (Where do all those crumbs come from anyway?)
• Wipe fingerprints off the doors, kitchen cabinets or banisters
• Hang a picture or a hook
• De-clutter the junk drawer
• Replace the stock photo that came in that picture frame with someone you actually know
• Re-fill the soap dispenser, toilet paper holder, salt and pepper shakers, sugar bowl, or ....
• Empty/clean the crumb tray in the toaster
• Clean the coffeemaker
• Wipe the grime off the top of the refrigerator
• Clean the mirrors or TV screen (Make sure you use the appropriate cleaner on your TV screen)

You can also keep a separate list in your phone or your purse for things that you can do while waiting for an appointment, such as making a grocery list or menu plan, writing a thank you note, or reading that thing you set aside to read later. And speaking of reading, store all those "I'll read it later" papers that come into your home in a tote bag that you can grab on your way out the door so that you can make the most of your wait time away from home.

Aliquid magnum ex parva! (Click here for translation)

My name is Valerie and I'm a neat freak. Or so I was told by my six-year-old last week. It is pretty hard to deny.

You've met people like me before. I'm the one who sends emails around the office reminding people to clean their coffee cups and then signs them with some passive-aggressive moniker like "the Dish Fairy" (a nickname that quickly morphed into "the Kitchen Witch" in one office I worked in). I'm that co-worker everyone jokingly accuses of doing no work because there are no papers left on her desk at the end of the day. The owner of a company I used to work for once asked if he could borrow my office for a meeting because it was so much neater than his. When I offered to help him clean up his, he just got a frightened look on his face and walked (ran) away.

At home I'm even worse, although contrary to popular belief, my spices are not alphabetized, nor is my closet color-coded. But I guess the mere fact that I often get asked if they are is an indication that my propensity towards order is a little excessive.

Believe it or not, I was once a typical kid who shoved stuff under the bed and got nagged at for leaving dirty dishes in the sink. My mother always loved to tell the story of the night she came home after dark and could see me through my ground-level bedroom window, head under the bed and rump up in the air, digging through the huge pile of stuff under my bed like a dog searching for a bone. I'm not quite sure when the mutation started, but I have often longed for that sloppy teen to come back and teach me how to happily co-exist with mess and clutter.

I have tried...truly I have. I once forced myself to leave several baskets of clean laundry in the hallway for a whole week while I took the kids on excursions to the zoo and picnics in the park, all in an effort to forget about housework in favor of spending more time with the ones I love. My best friend suggested snubbing the clean laundry as a good first test as she coached me in letting go of chores in favor of fun. She's one of those fun and easygoing moms who likes to pile her family's clean laundry at the foot of her bed. By the end of the week, after sleeping on top of it and tossing it out of the way when required, each piece has magically disappeared as the owner has claimed it and worn it again. Why waste time putting it away, she mused? It will be gone eventually and you'll always have more anyway. I have to admit that she does have a point, but by the end of my week of laundry rebellion I found myself tossing it all back into the dryer in a vain attempt to quickly eliminate the wrinkles that had infested the entire basket from everyone  rummaging to find what they needed. Bottom line: As we learned at the zoo, a leopard can't change it's spots.

Now don't get me wrong...I can and do make one helluva mess in the midst of some of my more creative moments or in the hub-bub of my busy life as a mother of two and loving wife of a man who couldn't find the dirty clothes hamper if it was covered in $100 bills. It's just that I can't stand to live in it for very long. To me, clutter is the visual equivalent of too much background noise and prevents me from being able to concentrate on anything else. Order calms me. Order makes me happy. Order is the vodka in the Bloody Mary of my life.

Now I know what you are thinking. Valerie, you say...life is too short to spend all of it tidying up and doing chores. You need to stop and smell the roses and enjoy the people around you more. I agree! And believing it was possible to indulge my inner neat freak and be a fun and easygoing mom like my best friend, I began a quest for an orderly existence that still leaves time for the ones I love.

Through this blog I hope to share some of the precious gems I have picked up along the way on how to simplify life so that yours might be a little richer too. After all, life is meant to be enjoyed and an orderly home should be a means to that end, not the beginning and the end of your existence. An organized, relaxed lifestyle is not an oxymoron, and it can be easy peasy with just a bit of planning and the right attitude.

Check back often and you just might find some easy peasy solutions to your everyday challenges.