How to Relieve Stress From Overwhelm

Karyn Greenstreet's 44Tips for Dealing with Overhwelm, in her April 2, 2012 eNewsletter, Self-Employed Success, provides "practical tips" for small business owners who have "...too many tasks and projects, and not enough time or resources."  Most of us experience this same state of overwhelm in our personal lives...some time; try Karyn's three useful tips to tame your overpowering task/project list:

1.  "Do it.  Sometimes, a bare-knuckle commitment to getting things done is necessary.  That pesky colonoscopy you've been putting off?  Do it.  That phone call to a disgruntled employee?  Do it.  That 3,000 word article?  Do it."

2.  "OMD:  Off My Desk.  Make a concerted effort to handle each item that comes across your desk ONCE.  do not stack it in a pile and think, 'I'll get back to it later.'  Each morning, make a clean sweep of your desk while reciting the mantra:  OMD, OMD, OMD."

3.  "Action alleviates anxiety.  Pick one high-priority task on your To Do list and do it.  Nothing relieves stress better than getting off your butt and taking action.  Don't fall in the trap of picking a low-priority task just because it is easy.  Do the things that matter."

Preventative measures to get us procrastinators moving!

Why do we accumulate a lot of emails?  Perhaps we don't want to deal with them, or maybe we save them for future needs.  There is a similarity between overflowing email in-boxes and piles of paper mail; both "stacks" represent unmade decisions.  Emails usually arrive daily and multiply quicker, without proper management, than mail delivered by the post person.

Five reasons I get behind in processing email

1.  Emails require action.
2.  Spider Solitaire snares my attention--until I win a game.
3.  Reading an action-packed novel is more enjoyable.
4.  My computer stays at home when I visit my Mom, for several days.
5.  Kitty drapes herself over my shoulder and needs to be held up and petted.

Five ways to reduce email accumulation:

1.  Sort email by "From."  This method seems organized, whereas arrangement by "Subject" or "Receive" appears jumbled and takes longer.  Process those emails that require a response--first.
2.  "Unsubscribe" to emails sent daily or weekly from airlines, bookstores, and catalogs, etc.
3.  Reduce the number of your email accounts, especially if you seldom look at them.
4.  Ask friends to cease sending chain-letter type emails, jokes, and/or forwards, if burdensome.
5.  Read and process 10 emails before playing 3 games of Spider Solitaire, or reading 5 pages in a book.

Before you start to tackle email clutter, ask and answer these questions:  "Why am I putting off processing this email?  Do I really need to save it?  Can this information be found elsewhere?"  Choose a time of day that works best for you to read and act on your emails.  It works!

Tips On How to Preserve Photographs

How and where do you store your photographs?  Rita Norton and Brina Bolanz asked this question at a recent National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) Oregon Chapter meeting.  Yes, one of our answers was--shoeboxes--along with photo albums and plastic boxes; storage places mentioned were attics, basements, closets, drawers, and garages.  

       Rita is a training specialist with the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO), and Brina is a photo archivist and personal historian who owns Restored Stories.  Both organize and showcase photographs (in different ways) for a living; their websites provide greater detail about organizing, storing, and preserving paper and digital photographs for future generations to enjoy.

       Rita and Brina shared several tips and a few are listed below to help you get started with your photo preservation project:

Rita Recommends:

1.  Gather all your photographs into one place and sort them into these categories:

• Photographs that tell a story and are photo-album worthy
• Photographs you want to keep, but not necessarily share
• Photographs destined for the trash container as family members are unable to recognize faces and places and because they are unlabeled. 

2.  Scan your photographs into your computer, then use a free program such as Picasa, an image organizer and viewer, for organizing and editing your digital photographs.

3.  Back up your files!  Use one of these:

• Gold DVDs, purported to last 100-300 years
• External hard drive
• Cloud storage: 

          -  justcloud.com advertises:  "Access Your Files From Anywhere Anytime, From Any Device"                -  zipcloud.com advertises:  "Simple. Safe. Secure."

Brina Suggests:

1.  Proper storage is essential to preserve photographs.

• Light, temperature extremes, water and humidity, and gases given off by chemicals in household products can cause degradation.
• Use only materials that pass the Photographic Activity Test (P. A. T.), administered by American National Standards Institute (ANSI), rather than products labeled "Acid Free," a term not regulated by the Federal government.  These products may be purchased from photography stores, or online from:  

          - Archival Methods:  www.archivalmethods.com
          - Gaylord Brothers:  www.gaylord.com
          - Hollinger Metal Edge:  www.hollingermetaledge.com
          - University Products:  www.universityproducts.com

2.  Label your photographs because they are not useful without identifying information:

• Use a 4B (soft) graphite pencil for all-paper photos and write on a hard, flat surface, preferably glass, to avoid damaging the front of the photograph.
• Write names, life dates, location, and event (if known) along the top or bottom edge of the back of the photograph.
• Write women's maiden names in parentheses.

       Switch from shoebox to computer storage; back up your files and keep a second copy in your safe deposit box to avoid unforeseeable loss of treasured photographs due to damage and destruction by fires and floods.  Write down your parent's and family's genealogy information and label old family photographs...before photographs and memories' fade.  Once our WWII veterans (our parents for some of us)--and other family members pass, so too do the details of their lives.

Quick Steps Move You

       Do you make to-do lists to tidy your home and complete work projects?  I do.  Finishing one job and crossing it off this list inspires me to do another.  Each lined-off task moves me on to the next.   
       Some days...I don't make a list and would rather "shut the door" on an untidy room...and nothing more.  Does that happen to you?  If it does, my friend and fellow organizer Jill Viglione, owner of Embrace Your Space, suggests we:  Take ten tiny actions.  These may be as minute as turning off a light in an unused room; putting away a pot holder in a kitchen drawer; or rinsing off one dirty dish.  Finish one, cross it off your mental list, and then complete another little chore...until you've reached your goal of ten. Taking care of each little job is a reward in itself; and it might inspire you to bring order to an entire room.  If others live with you, invite them to join in the fun and share in the maintenance of your home.
       You can use this method on any space, room, or for paper pileups. Try it! It's fast and it gets you moving!

Messy Sock Drawer

 Five reasons it makes sense to organize your sock drawer:

1.  Your sock drawer looks like this:

Messy Sock Drawer

2.  Socks removed from the dryer are thrown into a messy drawer...sock hunt required later.

3.  Two socks are selected without turning the light on; crossed ankles in a seminar later that morning reveals one black and one blue sock. 

4.  Purchase of a new pair of socks is easier than digging through the stuffed sock drawer to find mates.

5.  Annoyance is experienced because of the reasons noted above.

Even though I fold and put away clean clothes right away...usually...sooner or later my socks end up jumbled.  I decided to try out the drawer dividers pictured below before recommending them to clients.

Five reasons I like these drawer dividers: 

1.  It only took a few minutes to remove all socks from the drawer, sort and pair matching socks, discard singles, and insert the dividers.  

Tidy Sock Drawer

2.  Neatly arranged socks take up less space than a bunch of socks tossed in a drawer.

3.  Specific type and color of socks are so easy to select...at a glance; no mismatched sock surprise after arrival at work.

4.  It's only necessary to buy new socks when a different color is needed, or socks wear out.

5.  Satisfaction is derived from the one small change--organizing your sock drawer--no wasted time in  mate matching.

Note:  Purchase sock drawer dividers on-line, or at Bed Bath & Beyond and The Container Store, for example.

Stacked Up

One or more magazines arrive monthly and are scanned, or not, and plopped onto a pile of other unread magazines.  My Yoga Journal met this similar fate after its second 2-year renewal.  Does your Better Homes and Garden, National Geographic, Southern Living, or Time Magazine, for example, get treated like this too?  My five reasons magazines may mount up: 

1.  National Geographic may be like classic cars:  occasionally taken out, opened up, dusted off, and then put back.  Why?  Interest in them may be low.

2.  The new Sports Illustrated arrives in the morning and by afternoon the comfy couch beckons the receiver to rest and read.  The article's first paragraph gets read because it grabs your attention.  Then...the magazine slides off your lap and slithers to the floor, in a heap.  Nodding off requires repetitive rereading.

3.  The new Golf magazine joins its mates on the coffee table.  Your lifelong subscription and lack of actual golfing makes reading it unimportant in your busy life.

4.  The last, and previous issues of Better Homes and Garden nest in a basket by your chair.  Several weeks pass, and then, a telephone solicitor offers a new-subscriber rate--hooked!

5.  Throwing away or recycling magazines feels like throwing away money.

My thoughts about magazine reading and recycling

1.  Do you save magazines because you may read them in the future?  Maybe you won't.

2.  Check out this National Geographic website for reuse of this magazine.

3.  Keep a magazine in your vehicle for road repaving standstills, doctor's appointment waits, or friends delayed.  It makes the time pass pleasantly.

4.  Give your previous month's magazine to a friend when the new edition arrives, or try these tips for recycling magazines.

5.  Let go of guilt about reading your magazines.  Lehmkuhl and Lamping suggest, in their book, Organizing for the Creative Person, "...Stop everything and decide either to do it and forget it, or not to do it and forget it, and not feel guilty...."

Paperwork Past Its Prime

 

                 Paper, in some form, arrives daily in most households.  True?  Advertisements, bills, junk mail, magazines, donation requests, and newspapers are received by mail; documents are brought home from work and/or school; and business cards, fliers, and pamphlets are collected at business networking meetings, expositions, and trade shows.  Upon arrival, the tendency is to lay the paper object on the nearest chair, couch, desktop, or kitchen counter with the intention of taking care of it...later.  However, unprocessed, miscellaneous papers lie around, multiply, and may spread into other rooms.   

                Eventually, the time is right, or an occasion arises and the paper finally gets some attention. Hours upon hours are needed to sort, review, and dispose of the amassed paper collection.  Recently, a client’s decades’ worth of papers was processed by us, and inspired me to write this cinquain poem:

Papers

Many, saved

Reading, filing, recycling

Stack up, clutter minds, cause disorder

Toss!