No Anxiety Back to School Tips
It’s that time of year when stores have flashy “Back to School” signs with big arrows leading you to the freshly minted school supplies. Schools start sending paperwork and forms to fill out for the upcoming school year, and even a few leaves are starting to change color amidst the 80-degree days. For many parents it’s a bittersweet time. They’ve enjoyed having more time to spend with their children and living at a slower pace, but alas, the school bells call and there is knowledge to be gained! It’s time for parents to start changing gears and prepare for the fall. There’s so much to do! So, first, take a deep breath. Good. Now repeat after me: “I can get everything done at a reasonable pace and we’ll have the best fall ever!” (Rinse and repeat as often as needed to stay sane.) Follow these 6 guidelines to decrease your stress levels and get organized for back-to-school season: 1. Focus on the positive. It’s important to start with your mindset. The school season will be more fun and pleasant if you help set the tone. Kids love summer. Many of us do. It reminds us of our carefree childhood days in warm weather. We’re barbecuing with neighbors, playing at the beach, and there’s no shortage of outdoor fun to be had. But, things are going to change. A mother’s mood is the thermostat of the household. She affects all household members—even the dog. Start the transition process with a positive attitude, and you will have a happier home. You can harness your ability to influence the home and use it for good! Start talking about the exciting things coming in the fall. Intentionally talk about the fun activities they’ll be doing. They may not be “signed up” for anything, but there’s always something to look forward to (brightly colored trees, a trip to the apple orchard, late night bonfires). According to a recent article about positive thinking, “Segerstrom and Sephton (2010) also examined whether optimism predicted positive affect. Their hypothesis that changes in optimism would predict changes in positive affect was borne out, as increases in optimism were associated with increased positive affect, and vice versa. Interestingly, changes in optimism were not related to changes in negative affect. Thus, it appears that optimism is uniquely related to positive affect.” Stay focused on the good that lies ahead as you tackle the following steps. 2. Dominate your calendar. Let me begin by saying there is no “right” way to manage your calendar. There are digital people and there are paper people. If you have a system that works for you, go with it. Quit second guessing yourself. We’re all unique and what works for some of us, may not work for others. It’s important to have a schedule and plan as best as you can to eliminate stress. Take the time to write down every single activity on your schedule. Post your family calendar in a public place or use an app to share calendars so everyone knows what’s happening. It’s helpful to color code the various activities if you have more than one child. Start a list of carpool friends and look ahead for conflicts so you can reach out ahead of time. No parent likes to be informed of tomorrow’s choir concert that you need to go out and buy a new pair of pants for, in addition to having something else scheduled that same night. 3. Coordinate Dependencies. After you feel confident in your calendar, you can determine what needs to get done. Your daughter starts soccer in two weeks, so you need to try on last year’s cleats and potentially buy new ones. Your kids have games that coincide on the same night, so you need to make sure everyone has a ride. You get the picture. There are a lot of balls in the air for parents these days. By planning ahead, you will decrease stress and make all activities more enjoyable for everyone. 4. Purchase school supplies early. Schools mail out lists ahead of time, but you can also find them online before you receive the school notice, so YOU can decide when to shop. Getting an early jump on this is another stress reducer. Busy moms have a low threshold when it comes to running to three different stores to find the required calculator the night before school starts. Because stores sell out, it’s best to get the shopping done as early as possible to make the least amount of stops. Reflect on your previous shopping experience. If you went all together as a family and it was a fun night, great. Rinse and repeat. If not, try a new strategy. Take one kid at a time and make it a “date” night with a special treat at the end. (This is a good time to throw in those positive fall thoughts again.) 5. Gently adjust sleep schedules. Many kids have been sleeping in and enjoying the lazy days of summer. Fall is typically more structured, and therefore can make for a rude awakening that first day of school when we wake up three hours earlier than we’re used to. Yikes! Help your kids gently adjust by reintroducing an earlier bedtime and having them get up earlier the week or two before. Our bodies have amazing clocks that can work for us or against us. Retrain their bodies gently by waking them up 15 minutes earlier each day. It’s kind of like giving up caffeine. If you decrease your quantity, your body doesn’t notice when it’s completely eliminated, but if you quit “cold turkey” you’re likely to have a whopper of a headache. Doing this one simple step will help you have a positive and smooth transition into fall. 6. Add cushion and grace to your schedule. As much as possible add some cushion into your schedule. Don’t overcommit money or time until you’re sure you can take it on. As activities and the school year gear
Staying Afloat On The River of Life
Fall is here. A change of season, a change of schedule, and a change in temperature. If you’ve been on planet earth more than a minute you’ve discovered that we all have to deal with change. Some of us fight it, others thrive. Whether you like it or not, change is inevitable. Weather and schedule changes are one thing, but how do we deal with other changes like job loss, new babies, divorce, marriage, or death. Change can bring with it a swirl of emotions and reactions. When change happens, even welcome change, we can become disoriented, stressed, and scared. There may be unknowns that throw us into an isolating path, or at least that’s how it might feel. You may be wondering what this has to do with the organizing and productivity business? In a word: Everything. As you experience all sorts of changes related to health, relationships, home, career, business direction, and new life stages you need someone to come alongside and help you navigate, sort of like a Sherpa, providing guidance and encouragement to keep going forward. When things change, there is usually a loss. Even with amazing changes like a new baby, there is loss of freedom and being an independent couple who spends as much time as they’d like focusing on each other. Following the loss, we may experience grief. Feelings of sadness can confuse us because the change is positive. On the other side of grief, there is opportunity. A new normal. Something ending makes room for something new beginning. This can be unexpectedly great. In the last few years I have gone through tremendous change. Change I did not want or anticipate. Challenges and change I fought against for years. Change that left me swirling in a tornado of unknown feelings and paths. In my deepest grief, God gave me a spiritual upgrade. The opportunity for growth was there and among the new discoveries were new passions and purpose beyond what I could have hoped or imagined. God is so good. Change has been hard but also fruitful. The River Analogy Life is like a river. The river is always moving, it has long winding paths with twists and turns. And let’s face it, sometimes rapids. Imagine this: You are floating down a river in your own tube. You’re wearing a vest, like a fishing vest, that has carabiners (clips) all over it. Each carabiner has a “thing” about your life hooked on it. Things like jobs, kids, belongings, relationships, feelings, and schedules. Each carabiner represents “things” you’re carrying. As you float down your river, you tend to get more things clipped on your vest. You get a job (add a clip.) Your wife has a baby (add a clip.) You buy a house (add a clip.) You receive a promotion at work. (Yes please I’ll add that clip – and the bigger paycheck, thank you very much.) No one is hired to do your job, so you keep those responsibilities (keep the clip on from your last job.) Your kid starts soccer (add a clip.) You buy a jet ski (add a clip.) Your aunt gets cancer and you want to help (add a clip.) Your dog dies. In theory you let a clip go but if you shove all your dog’s items in the hall closet (even if you’re not getting another dog), you still keep the clip. You hurt your knee, PT or surgery is in your future (add a clip.) Your boss offends you (add a clip.) You remodel the kitchen (add a clip.) As you can see, your vest gets very full and heavy just living life. Many things get added to your vest that add weight, even good things like a jet ski. Because whatever you own, you need to manage. It’s a mix of initiated change and change that happens to you. Oftentimes change adds clips without removing any. It takes intention to remove clips. Change is the constant process of adding and removing things clipped to us. The key to moving forward down the river is not having more clipped to us that we can manage. In order to not get weighted down, things need to be unclipped. If we just keep adding without letting go, we will eventually sink. Now back to the river. Imagine all along the shore, there is a wire that floats just above the surface. It is accessible all the way down the river. You never lose sight of it. This wire is called ‘Not Now, Maybe Later.’ This is a place for clips to live that cannot be discarded right now but need to be taken off your vest in order to adapt to change. An example of this is when my step-father was dying of cancer. My mom had some health complications and my sisters lived out of state, so I was the only close by to step in to help. At the time I was home schooling my two girls. I decided to unclip ‘Homeschooling’ from my vest that year and clip it on the ‘Not Now, Maybe Later’ wire. The wire and choice were still there when I went back to it later. Our ability to make effective decisions about our clips, determines if we’ll sink or keep moving. If you don’t keep floating down the river as you’re supposed to, you won’t be able to receive the amazing things in your future. Things that are down river that you can’t see yet. Things that are good. They are not coming upstream to meet you. You must go down to find them. You vest must have some room on it for your future. How can you do that if you’re stuck upriver weighted down by things in our past? If you are “change- challenged”, don’t worry, there are some things you can do to navigate change differently. Today is a new day. It’s a day for unclipping what’s not needed anymore. Tips to create conditions where
Get Summer Organizing Projects DONE!
Do you have those items on your “to do” list that seem to resurface every summer? You move them from year to year until eventually you scratch them off, undone, deciding you didn’t have time to do them. Sometimes removing our perceived “to do’s” is freeing. Re-prioritizing perhaps. But oftentimes it’s defeating. Maybe it was a task like moving plantings, cleaning out a closet, or cleaning the windows. Sometimes those tasks are optional, other times they need to be done. The problem is there’s no urgency, no fire. So they sit. Staring at you. Reminding you of your good intentions and lack of completion. Making you frustrated. Feeling like you’re not enough. Here’s how to have success in summer organizing: Getting nagging things off your list will inspire you to take on other things in your life in other areas. It frees your mind and creates new possibilities. Life has all sorts of challenges. If you give your challenge areas some intentional thought and get help, you can conquer those tasks that have been weighing you down. You can do it!
What EXACTLY does a Professional Organizer do?
The Organizing industry is truly a hidden gem. I couldn’t believe I didn’t know the industry existed until a couple years ago. Of course, I was actively avoiding places like The Container Store. I knew if I set foot in there it would be all over. Poverty would follow. I knew I would love it and I’d go broke in 6 months. Truly. I had never been in the store until after I decided to go into this profession. And yes, I love it. In the crazy world we live in, there are endless ways to help our clients. Most folks are at full, or over, capacity trying to keep all the plates spinning with their day-to-day lives. How can they keep up? How can they learn all the processes and tricks to manage their lives more efficiently and reduce their stress? How do they know how to declutter a closet efficiently and thoroughly? Enter the organizing profession. You may have wondered how I ended up in this industry. The Business Analyst role did not entirely fit me. The analytical aspect as well as creating order was suitable. Mostly I was motivated with activities such as improving processes, streamlining and documenting procedures, and organizing online data. Then I had a conversation with a friend. We were talking about projects around the house and I was saying that I was doing some organizing and said something to the effect of, “I wish I could do this for a living! ” She said, “You can. That profession exists.” WHAT??!!!! (mind blown) And life has never been the same. During my research, I discovered there are several different national and international organizations that exist to support this industry. Who knew? One of their primary missions of these organizations is to get the word out that this industry exists and how our expertise changes lives. My research initially landed me at the NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) website. Here, as you can imagine, I relished every word and thought I discovered the “mother ship” for my people. Believe it or not, this is worldwide phenomenon. Other countries have national organizations as well like Canada, the UK – even if they spell it “organise”, and of course Japan (as many of us are familiar with Marie Kondo and her book about tidying – which really just means organizing.) There is an organization that supports organizers who are helping clients that are challenged with chronic disorganization. There is even an organization that seeks to unite the various national organizations worldwide called the International Federation of Professional Organizing Associations (IFPOA). Who knew, right? When I decided to become a Professional Organizer, I really didn’t understand the depth of the industry I was jumping into. My decision was based on my business-world skills, my natural bent (thanks Mom & Dad!), and life experiences of figuring stuff out while I managed my life and household. The industry thrilled me but I had to learn exactly what all is involved in helping others with their challenges. I found that there is A LOT more to this career than that meets the eye. The reach of our industry knows no bounds. It reminds me of physicians and how they have many specialties. Many organizers are generalists, but most also have specialties as well: hoarding, closet installs, garages, moves, residential, photos, ADHD/OCD, transition, time management, kitchens, eco-friendly, new moms….the list goes on and on. It’s funny that when you have an aptitude for something, you originally think that everyone must think like you do. I distinctly remember an experience of organizing with someone before I “turned pro”. I was thoroughly enjoying myself feeling pumped as I was getting more organized. I passed them in the hall and said, “Isn’t this fun?” to which they snarled, “No, it’s torture!” What? You may be thinking the same thing as you’re reading this. I get it. You don’t think organizing is fun. You hate it and find any excuse to do something different. We are all created differently. Thank goodness! When I have to do things involving say money, I look for all the distractions I can find. Squirrel! What Do Organizers Do?Some people think Organizers just put things away –like somebody’s mom (sorry I just had to). Others think we are administrative assistants, some think we plan events. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word organize as “to arrange or order things so that they can be found or used easily and quickly : to put things into a particular arrangement or order”. That just barely touches on the industry. Currently, there are two main types of Organizers: Residential & Business. Business organizing focuses on positively impacting businesses. Taking on goals such as gaining efficiencies, streamlining workflow, improving paper and electronic files, and coaching are typical offerings. Residential focuses on the home. For the purposes of this blog, we’re focusing on residential organizing. I recently read an article about getting organized that basically told people the key is, “Things need to go where they need to go.” Well yes, but this doesn’t address the challenge many have in setting up an effective system of where things go. It doesn’t address busy lifestyles, multiple people in the same space, special needs, feelings of being overwhelmed or stuck. I could go on and on. I was really saddened by this person’s lack of understanding and compassion for the challenges of getting organized and staying organized. It reminds me of my bitmoji (app where the avatar looks like you). This brings up a basic philosophy in this industry: No judgment. Compassion and understanding are the tenants on which our industry is built. Most Organizers number one goal is to help. Does a personal trainer look down on someone 20 lbs overweight who wants to get healthier? Of course not or you wouldn’t hire them. Organizing is the same way. We exist to bring about desired change, to help our clients achieve their goals, to watch the excitement as their world expands and the fog lifts.