Tag: NAPO-Chicago

It’s Story Time. The Story Of My Company.

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I was asked to present at the Chicago Women’s Conference this month. When this article comes out, I will have already been on the “Turning Passion to Profits” Panel, and in preparing my notes and message for the conference attendees, I realized that I have never shared publicly, or at least not in my podcast and newsletter, my company’s origin story.

So, let me catch you up to where I’ve been, how I got here, and where I think “Here” is today!

Passions to Profits, let’s think about that! And I love that idea. And I absolutely turned something that I love to do into a business for myself.

So here is the story:

I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and went to the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, for undergrad, where I earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management, with minors in psychology and musical performance. Long term / big picture, I hoped to work in HR some day, helping people to do their best work and live their best lives.

I was fortunate, more fortunate than many of my fellow grads, and had a job offer in my field before graduation. It was the early 90s, and not everyone could find a job.

I moved home to Kalamazoo on a Sunday, bought my first car on Monday and started my retail management job on Wednesday. The pool and spa company where I worked the summers in college had asked me to manage one of their locations, and I did. I worked in retail for a year. I liked the company, and my co-workers and our customers, but I’m not fond of retail. I had continued to take classes at home to expand my administrative skills when the store was closed for the winter, and I became a health unit coordinator, or unit secretary, depending on where you worked. By the Spring, I had two job offers, one at a hospital in my home town and one at a hospital in the Chicago area where my then-boyfriend-now-husband lived, so – that is how I came to Chicago and also to Health Care Management.

I worked as a Health Unit Coordinator for 2 years, and then started at the University of Illinois at Chicago as the Residency Coordinator in the Department of Medicine, handling 130+ internal medicine residents during their residencies. I loved the job and my co-workers and residents, and I was getting closer to what I truly wanted to be doing, helping others to do their best work and live their best lives. In addition, as an employee at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I was able to pursue a Master’s Degree for free. I completed half of the course work for a Masters In Health Professions Education.

Health Professions Education was where I was spending my professional time, supporting the learning of medical school students and internal medicine residents. I was getting closer and closer to what I imagined that I wanted to be doing, and definitely closer to where I am now, espcially now that I am an adjunct professor or visiting instructor at three community colleges, teaching adults in career training programs.

I took a pause on my Masters when I went on a medical leave to have our first child. He’s 27 now. I returned to UIC half time, and within a few years, had baby #2. He’s 24 now.

When we had baby #2, we realized we were outgrowing our 2 bedroom home, and soon bought a new home. We bought the home from an estate, and the family we bought it from left many furniture items behind, telling us we could do whatever we wanted with them – use them, sell them, whatever. I would like to think they were being kind. However, I am smarter now, and would never agree to that again, but I digress.

The Spring after we moved into our second home, we decided to have a garage sale to part with the unneeded items from our old home and the current home. I had never had a garage sale, and I turned to technology. Yes, I went online to research how to have a garage sale. One of the websites I visited said – “If you have a lot to sell, consider hiring a Professional Organizer to help you.”

Say what now?

I said “Professional Organizer?! That is a thing?! I don’t want to hire one, I think I want to be one!!”

I checked out the link to the National Association of Professional Organizers, or NAPO.net, researched more about the idea, and let the thoughts percolate for a few years.

I was working half time in an office in downtown Chicago. Driving or taking the train, my husband and I were both an hour away from home. And as my kids grew, I realized I needed to be home more, and have more flexibility. I struggled with finding someone to take my son back and forth to pre-school, or managing things like the dreaded call from daycare when someone gets sick.

So I decided to start my own Organizing Business, to be home more and have greater flexibility. Now, I realize, as I look back, not everyone would do I would do. But it was logical to me at the time. I would be my own boss, I could set my own hours. I have a degree in Business Management and experience in administration and management and I knew I could manage my own business.

I looked at start-up tasks: deciding what I wanted to specialize in, joining the professional organization, purchasing insurance, purchasing the tools to do the work. There was not much guidance out there at the time in getting started, but our industry is much better now about supporting new organizers in getting started. I had an amazing mentor, a professional organizer in my community, who let me pick her brain for HOURS! I appreciate Pamela to this day and try to pay her kindness forward by answering questions for new and prospective organizers just like she did for me!

In Summer, 2003, I had decided what areas of professional organizing I wanted, and didn’t want!, to specialize in. I ordered my business cards, wrote a letter (yes a lettter!) describing the company I was starting and asking friends and family to help me spread the word. I took a deep breath and mailed the letter and business cards to 70 people (yes 70!). Then we went on a vacation with family for a week. I had calls from my first two clients when I got home, thank you, Rita and Brian. And there is a lot of life and learning in between now and then, but here I am.

I was then and am now aware of my skill set and strengths. I have excellent organizational skills, communication skills and the desire to help others, all three required for the type of career I was proposing. I was also aware of my weaknesses, and managing those is important for sustainable success. And relatedly, I was slow to identify areas that weren’t necessarily strengths or weakneses, but more importantly, were the areas where I need assistance. I have gotten better, but I am still not good about asking for help.

However, circling back to the beginning of this article, I knew, in life, that I wanted to work with people to help them be the best they wanted to be. I wanted to do that with people, for people. And here I am.

Hello,

  • I’m  Colleen Klimczak, CPO.
  • I am an organizational and productivity coach and a certified professional organizer.  I own Peace of Mind Professional Organizing, LLC.
  • Since 2003, I have been helping my clients live better lives through organizing, and organizational and productivity coaching.
  • I support my clients and my community with
    • coaching,
    • in-person and virtual organizing,
    • my weekly Podcast called Your Organized Life with Colleen Klimczak,
    • a free weekly virtual productivity session called Finish Line Friday,
    • a free weekly email newsletter and
    • regular content on Facebook and Instagram. 
  • I also offer presentations and professional development to groups and companies.

If you are thinking of starting a business, here is some wisdom you didn’t ask for but that I want to share with you all the same:

  • Know your skills. And also know what skills you lack. Be ready to figure out ways to compensate for skills you lack, or to learn the skills.
  • Know what you do NOT want to do. Prepare to hold firm to that. I tell potential professional organizers that their first step is to go to the NAPO.net website and figure out what they DO NOT want to do.
  • Look at your industry – how to enter, what barriers to entry you may need to overcome, and what other people are doing.
  • Be ready to find out you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do. But here is the good news, you can figure out almost anything, if given the time and creativity and imagination and resources.
  • Success or failure are not a reflection on your value as a person.
  • Trying to “do it all results” in opportunity costs. You are the talent. You likely cannnot and should not “do it all”. Which leads me to:
  • Who is on the team? Who are your experts? Start thinking like a CEO, and look at what your company needs, even if it is a company of 1. You may fill many of these roles yourself, but every company, big or small, needs:
    • accounting (tax planning, big picture planning)
    • bookkeeping / accounts payables and receivables
    • operations like administration / scheduling / correspondence
    • legal / insurance
    • social media marketing / advertising
    • website creation and maintenance
    • strategic planning
    • HR / hiring
    • Industry specific support like: productions, editing, publishing, or purchasing, manufacturing, packaging, shipping
  • Ask for help, and I mean, employees or services. You needed to ask for help long before you realized you need help.
  • Overnight success takes YEARS!

Thanks for sticking with me, to the end of this article or episode, sure, but more importantly thanks for sticking with me along the path. Whether you and I met in 2003 or before, or any time since, I am grateful to you for being part of my story!

Wellness Check-In, Because That Is The Point.

Let me say – I am not a health care professional, and I don’t even play one on TV. I’m just sharing information, in the hope of encouraging others. In the interest of living our best organized life, of finding Peace of Mind, let’s manage our wellness.

And you should know – to be fully authentic – I had a major cold that turned into an upper respiratory infection when I first started working on this article about My Wellness Check-In, One Year Later. Ironic? Yes, I know.

But here we are. And actually I had a cold last February, too, so perhaps that’s fitting!

Last January, I shared this article because sometimes we need to talk about the things that we don’t always talk about.

Who’s On The Team? (Wellness Edition)

This week, I wanted to do a health and wellness check in a follow-up one year out from my experiences this Month last year. Let’s take another walk back in time:

In November of 2023, I went to a dermatologist and had them look at a spot that I had considered troublesome for a while but didn’t want to get checked. In transparency, it worried me for about 6 months, but my son and daughter-in-law got married in September of 2023, and I was vain, concerned that the doctor would want to do surgery on my nose so I didn’t get it checked out before the wedding. Yes, I delayed, out of vanity. Not great logic, I know, but I called the Monday after the wedding to make an appointment, and a month later, had a biopsy. The spot was determined to be basal cell carcinoma, which, it turns out, since I’ve learned a lot about it since then, is completely treatable and very common, especially with folks like me with my pale Irish skin.

Also, in transparency, I was frustrated! I was frustrated that this happened because Hey! I have worn daily sunscreen for over 20 years! I know it has been over 20 years because I started wearing in when I had a darkening of skin that comes with pregnancy called melasma with my second pregnancy. Since my middle son is 24, I’ve been wearing sunscreen daily for 24 years now! No fair, right?!

I learned that my skin damage was more likely from when I was, let’s say, 10, when we didn’t know about sunscreen and didn’t worry about skin cancer. And I can be as frustrated as I want to be, but that doesn’t change the current situation.

First lesson? Yes, probably.

So, it’s more likely that the damage was done when I was 10. The fact that I’ve been wearing sunscreen for the last 24 years in an investment in future me. I will continue to wear it daily so that 20 more years down the road, I won’t have more damage to undo.

Second lesson? Yes.

Yes, I had the surgery in February. It was far more invasive than I expected, really, than anybody expected. To not be dramatic, “more invasive” means a 12 hour day instead of 6 hour day. Still no crisis. Yes, for a few days after, I looked like I lost a fight. I did not expect two black eyes and all the swelling. But I healed well and appropriately, the way I was supposed to. This update is informational, no drama or cliffhanger here.

And, most of us will – heal well and appropriately, that is. We will go to the doctor without incident, follow-up with specialists without incident, heal as expected. I spoke with a friend today who had hip replacement surgery 6 weeks ago. I remember we talked about it the week before his surgery, and I reminded him then that too often we only hear the crazy stories of things that happen, and those crazy things are very unlikely for most of us. He’s doing well 6 weeks out.

Third Lesson. Most of us will have “unremarkable findings” as our progress notes, and NOT anything unexpected. Just statistically speaking.

But I digress.

At my final follow-up in June for the February procedure, I asked my dermatologist to take another biopsy from another questionable spot because I had a feeling it was the same. And I was right. So, that Mohs Procedure to remove a spot on my tragus near my ear happened in August, and that was straightforward and unremarkable, thankfully.

More importantly, and the point of today’s podcast and article, because of my story last year, people I know have gone to the dermatologist because I talked about it. I can’t take the credit for them being brave. Because, let’s face it, stuff is scary sometimes.

Lesson 4: But, let’s de-mystify the scary. Let’s dispel the unfounded misconceptions or beliefs. Let’s have clear, specific, concise conversations about health care and wellness. Because those conversations inform others and may encourage them to take the big steps and do the right thing.

Which brings me to this February, 2025.

I don’t remember if I talked about it, but I had diverticulitis back in October, which I would wish on no one, it was terrible for a few weeks! And I healed and am fine. And between that episode for me and a family member’s recent related diagnosis, I knew that I needed to take the adulting step and schedule a colonoscopy.

Yep, I said it. A colonoscopy. My primary care physician advised me to schedule a Colonoscopy after I was pain free for a few months. I did a mail-in screening for colon cancer in December 2023 with clear results, but I knew that I needed to schedule one for real, considering my age, my issues in October and my updated family history. That was the first week in Feburary. It was a non issue. I made the consultation appointment six weeks prior for the end of January, they had openings to schedule within a week or two. Prep was fine, procedure was the blink of an eye, and we were driving home and I was drinking a Dunkin midnight coffee and eating a bagel by 10 am.

I’m really glad I did it. For my own peace of mind, I needed to. Because I’m trying to model good behavior to my family, my kids. I want to be able to be honest with them and let them know that I am being responsible with my health for myself, for my husband, for them. I want to set that good example. And, I yes, I just needed to know I’m ok. And I am.

Lesson 5: Because worry and concern drain our energy and our joy and our focus. And some worry and concern is avoidable if we just follow-up on what we’re supposed to follow-up on.

Lesson 6: I have a list.

Of course I have a list. Have you met me? And, you should have a list, too. And at least one loved one should know where it is.

Last week, I had an eye appointment to pick up my new contacts, and set another appointment for 6 months out, and scheduled other routine screenings for later in the summer.

I reached out to my dermatologist office to see if I should go in for my annual screening at the office I went to first or with the dermatologist who did my Mohs procedures who is at a different office.

I updated my personal wellness task list with dates for appointments I need to schedule, like a repeat CT of my abdomen six months after my diverticulitis, repeat labs for levels we are tracking, regular screenings appropriate to my age, and a follow up colonoscopy for 3-5 years.

Also on the list are the current precriptions I take, and the re-order dates for those.

Hooray for adulting. I stopped being bothered by having to do it, and I just do it. And if we keep up on the maintenance of our health care and wellness, we have the peace of mind that comes from knowing where we are and how we’re doing with up-to-date and relevant information.

My health is not perfect. My body is not perfect. I can state both of those facts out loud. But I have assembled a team of people to help me. I have baseline levels or experiences for most of my routine screenings. I have notes in my master to-do list of when my appointments are and what I need to scheduled next. I have links and logins and apps for my various patient portals with various offices and health care systems.

Let’s review today’s lessons, however many I ended up with:

  1. Being frustrated or concerend happens, but that doesn’t change the current situation.
  2. Yes, you likely carry damage from your life leading up to today, and we can’t change that, but we can change our path going forward.
  3. Statistically speaking, most of us will have “unremarkable findings” as our progress notes, and NOT anything unexpected.
  4. De-mystify the scary stuff with clear, specific, concise conversations about health care and wellness.
  5. Because worry and concern drain our energy and our joy and our focus. And some worry and concern is avoidable if we just follow-up on what we’re supposed to follow-up on.
  6. Have a list. (Of course!)

We don’t have to like it, but we have to do it. Because I care for all of you, I encourage you to do these things, too.

Please do. Please know that it’s important. Please automate everything you can. It’s only February. Please put items on your to-do list to contact your healthcare providers that you need to check in with during the course of the year. That may be making the appointments, but also make an appointment to make the appointments to ensure that those regular screenings and follow ups happen.

Peace of Mind is invaluable.

How to Make Habits Stick

I had a conversation with one of my sons the other day about Routines and Habits.

And, for context, my sons are currently 20, 24 and 27. I was recently reviewing one of my first blog articles published in 2010 when they were 5, 10 and 12. A lot has changed since then, trust me! One is in college, and two are professionals out in the working world.

But I digress.

We were talking about routines and habits, and he mentioned that his habits and routines around his professional life are vastly different from his personal life. And hey, that is most of us. No judgement there. Truly, many people find this to be the case. I recall a client early on in my career who created and managed his company’s document retention policies and he hired me to help him with his out of control personal papers.

Sometimes, we are organized in some parts of our lives but not all parts of our lives!

Similarly, I have been reflecting on my routines around home maintenance and business practices, and how I am SO SPOT ON in those areas but… I never get around to working out. What is that about, right? I am highly capable, I know how to do this, and yet… well, you know.

When I journaled about where I stumble, I realized that some of the reasons my habits fail are:

  • Neglecting my habits and routines isn’t outwardly visible. No one but me will know if I worked out or ate healthy or meditated today.
  • And taking care of home and work and liturgy and clients impacts others and is visible, so that keeps me on track.
  • No one is paying me to maintain my personal routines and habits, unlike the business, meaning it is not unprofessional if I neglect them.
  • Neglecting my personal habits doesn’t negatively impact others, at least not directly.
  • And, getting back on track with these neglected habits and routines also doesn’t have quick results, and it turns out, seeing results for my efforts keeps me motivated. (Of course.)

And, I can use this knowledge to devise strategies for making my habits stick, like exercise and healthier eating. And I use myself as an example because I don’t have to ask permission. But enough about me.

In last week’s article and podcast, I said it would be easy to say that “Change is Hard!”. And that unfortunately, change in the, let’s say, negative direction, is deceptively easy! That no, change isn’t hard, but sometimes making positive change is!

And, last week, I challenged you and myself to return to normal, to look at what has worked before and get back to it, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel or make huge sweeping changes.

But how? This week is about the how! How to establish or re-establish good habits and routines, and how to help them stick!

Recognize where and how we ARE organized, and determine if we can use the skills from one area in other areas.

For example, I wrote in October about Recipes and how I have always used them for managing my bookkeeping and backing processes, but only more recently applied the same strategy to planning and writing my content or setting up my choir’s liturgy planning.

I mentioned the long ago client with his paper management challenges. The first thing we talked about was how to use what he knows about document retention policies professionally for his own personal papers, like categories, naming conventions, expiration dates, scheduled maintenance, etc.

If you are a teacher and you’re amazing at creating and sticking with lesson plans, does that translate to planning and implementation in your personal life? And can it?

Note your “Why”.

I find this is especially helpful for habits or routines that won’t yield immediate results. If your habit or routine isn’t fun or instantaneous or easy, well, you might struggle to stay motivated. Keeping a reminder of your “Why” helps us to stay motivated. And since a habit takes at least 3 weeks to establish, we need to keep up the motivation until a habit becomes routine.

And we will talk about learning styles in a minute, so note your “Why” in a way that works for you. Perhaps it’s a few words or an image on your phone’s lock screen. Perhaps it’s a song you listen to every morning in the shower. Perhaps its a short and simple mantra you repeat to yourself while doing some square breathing through out your day. I just sent an affirming text to a friend, for doing the hard things and was reminded to put on my bracelet that says the same (www.Mantraband.com).

Take decision-making out of the action plan.

Decision making is not the same as action.

Decision making is one of our biggest time wasters. And, if decisions are still to be made when it comes to acting on our habits and routines, the decision can always be “No, not today”. So, what can we do to remove decision making from the action plan?

For example, I have 4 wake up times set as alarms in my phone. (Don’t judge, there’s a plan here!) I only use one a day, but I have them preset. 5, 5:31, 6, and 6:33 am. My wise husband suggested I just set one and adjust it every day. However, I find that the already-made decisions, with those times as suggestions for every day, breaks down the decision to which one? instead of what time? I don’t have to re-do the math, depending on how early I need to leave the house or what time my first zoom meeting is? Instead, I look at the 4 options and pick a pre-set.

I’ll use a work-out as example again, set up the clothes and any special equipment you’ll need the night before, know which activity you will partake in the next day (outdoor walk, bike, elliptical, etc.). Decide ahead of time, and be ready to just act.

Stack Your Habits

Author James Clear uses a term called “Habit Stacking”. “Habit stacking is a method to create new habits by linking them to existing ones.” (From https://jamesclear.com/habit-stacking) I heard it from James Clear first, perhaps the credit goes to someone else, I will apologize now if I have given credit incorrectly.

We all have many habits that are very well established. A different son of mine calls it his Default. I wake up at close to the same time every morning, often before an alarm. I make coffee EVERY DAY. I shower EVERY DAY. I check my phone and email EVERY DAY, multiple times mostly. I often get hungry at the same times each day so I am in the kitchen at consistent times.

What do you do EVERY DAY, and sometimes many times a day? Without thinking about it or planning it? Identify those EVERY DAY or EVERY WEEK items in your routines, and attach new habits or routines to those already ingrained habits and routines. In my presentations, I offer the example of my morning supplements. When we remodeled our kitchen in 2017, I made sure that the cabinet where I keep my supplements is also where we keep the coffee. Because while I was not always consistent with my supplements, I’m very consistent with my morning coffee. And as I stand and wait for my first cup to brew, I can take my supplements. Stacking that new habit to the well-established habit made the new habit stick.

Or, what if, every time I walk through the kitchen or stop to make a meal or snack, I drink a glass of water? That would go a long way towards keeping me hydrated (another habit I want to re-establish).

Another example, I have a deeply ingrained habit of sitting down at my laptop to check my email in the morning. I have been working in square breathing and tapping sessions into my day, plus I have these great mindfulness cards that I received last year as a gift and want to start using. At first, I wanted dedicated meditation space to do these things and then… they never happened. So instead, I am working with the deeply ingrained morning habit and attaching a few zen moments to the existing habit and location. I’ll let you know how it works!

Gamify Anything You Can

Per Google, “Gamify means ‘to apply typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to (an activity), typically as a … technique to encourage engagement…'”.

A strategy to help our habits stick is to make the habit fun, competitive, novel, reward centered, and / or social or community based. There is nothing wrong with fun and games! Let’s use them to help our habit stick! Track your metrics, create rewards for yourself, create competition with friends, set your habit to music, phone a friend – the options are endless!

I often share the example of a long-time client and friend, a retired educator, who used a star chart just like a student might, to track her new habits and keep herself motivated to keep up the good work. A star for each day a certain task is completed, and a full week of stars on the chart earns a prize for the weekend (Special outing with a friend, fresh flowers for her home, perhaps a special snack or prize?). This tried and true motivator works for kids AND adults!

A part of gamifying your new habits and routines could also be to set micro-goals, short-term and easy to achieve goals, to keep the bursts of success flowing which keeps us motivated.

Use reminders that play to your strengths.

If you are visual learner, leave yourself lists, post-its, highlighters or REALLY BIG CLOCKS, or have your technology send you text messages. A reminder pops up on my Apple Watch if I haven’t stood up and walked around in the last 50 minutes. Yes, that reminder helps me.

Are you an auditory learner? I am. I learn well by hearing things. Use alarms on your phone, set timers, create a favorite playlist to help you rock your new habits and routines.

Do you learn by doing / touching / moving things around (kinesthetic)? For you (or your family member), the physical act of writing and then checking off habits and steps to your routines may be useful, or using chore cards or magnets or other things that you can move around may help.

Some of us learn by saying things out loud, too. If this describes you or a family member, try describing your habits to others, or creating a mantra or single sentence to repeat to yourself to help you focus on your good habits.

Good Habits may take time and energy to create, but having them and sticking with them will serve you well for years to come.

You know more than you think. You are highly capable in so many ways. If you are looking to create new habits and routines to support a better day, whatever that looks like for you, consider these strategies for helping your new habits stick!

First, Let’s Return to Normal

New Year, New Article!

This article started out as a re-boot of an article from 2018, but I have updated it so much, it deserves a new posting!

Happy 2025! My sons say 2025 is a made up number, that it doesn’t sound real. It’s real now!

I started to write this article a few different ways this morning, and I realized I was stumbling over the perception of “normal”.  I said to a friend last weekend that I am grateful that the breakneck pace of the holidays is winding down. That the last 4 or 5 or 6 weeks had been busier than typical weeks, what with travel and holidays and cooking and gift shopping and wrapping, etc., and that it would be good to take a breath and slow down.

And then, after a moment of consideration, I realized it has been longer than 6 weeks since I have seen “normal”. I have to share here, things haven’t really been normal for me since mid October.  I had diverticulitis in October and then a strong reaction to the Flu Shot, and those knocked me off my “normal” for a solid month, and THEN it was the holidays, etc.

The good news today, for me and you, though, is two fold. 

First, As the pace slows down to a more breathable and sustainable pace, you and I have more space and opportunity to add back in the habits that we know support us.  For me, my habits, when they are consistent, support me to be healthy, calm and energized. They support me to be there for and with my family, to be productive, to help me help my community here in Evergreen Park and beyond and all of you.

And the other piece of good news is that we already know what to do.

This time of year, it would be easy to say, “Know what? Change is hard.”   Saying it out loud, though, I immediately realized that I was wrong.  No, change isn’t hard.

Sometimes, change is extremely easy.  For example, as recently as last month, I was exercising daily and making healthy food choices.  And … then… the holidays happened.  And it got cold. And rainy. Which makes it difficult to take a daily walk.  And there is still holiday food and cookies in the house.  So, changing from healthy eating and exercising to… well … less healthy eating and not exercising was really easy!

While it’s easy to believe the self-defeating statement “Change is Hard”, and therefore unlikely to happen or be successful, that is all it is – a self-defeating statement lacking truth.  We convince ourselves that “Change is Hard”, and then we set ourselves up to fail by:

  • setting unrealistic goals or expectations;
  • starting a new journey without a map or plan;
  • setting the bar too high;
  • pursuing goals that are not right for us right now;
  • not asking for help; or
  • expecting big change overnight.

Back to the good news, though: We now have space and opportunity to do the right things.

And for the New Year, just getting back to what you are supposed to be doing can be a big step in the right direction.

The best part? You have already figured all of this out at least once. You have thought through the process and decided what your positive choices are.  And you’re right!

You have examined yourself and your life. You have identified areas for positive improvement, and you have determined some steps that might help you get there.

Is it health related? Nutrition related? Relationship related? Productivity? Hobbies? It is a good choice to establish and also RE-establish these habits.

Start with just getting back on track, whatever that looks like to you.  Let’s leave the bad holiday habits behind. For me, it’s time to:

  • Get to bed on time;
  • Clear that kitchen counter, and put the snacks out of sight;
  • Take that January list I always recommend making, and add action dates to it;
  • Unsubscribe from advertising emails;
  • Work back in working out; and
  • Re-boot my morning meditation / routine / reading hours, etc.

And from my Facebook community:

  • Ignoring the answers to my question from my brother and his friends, they like to have fun at my expense.
  • For reals: my friends plan to add back in:
    • Lap swims, getting in the pool every day
    • Biking
    • An earlier bedtime
    • One hour a day for me – nails, hair, walk – just for me
    • Morning meditation
    • Spending time with and better supporting my spouse
    • Getting out of bed everyday at the same time. Waking up is consistent, getting up is inconsistent.
    • Nightly skin-care routine
  • (I know such amazing people)

As we look at habits and routines, we need to cut ourselves some slack, too, and remember that this loosening of habits and then reassessing and returning to them is a normal part of their life cycle. 

We can reassess and determine if the habit was good and we just fell away with implementation, or if we need to actually rethink or tweak the habit. This is that opportunity. 

I am so happy for us!  Know why?  WE KNOW HOW TO DO THIS!  We know what to do.

We know what healthy habits are, and how to re-establish them.

We know how to be productive, we just need to get back to it!

We know how to be good to ourselves, so let’s be good!

This year, let’s start the year with returning to what we know.  How about we review our good habits that may have gotten a little lax over the last few months?  Let’s start the year strong, with realistic expectations to build a strong foundation, and then climb from there!

A Routine’s Last Steps Are The Most Important

Recently, a client asked me how I schedule things. And since that means different things to different people, I delved a little deeper and asked a few more questions while we worked.

We were working through a pile of The Smalls in her home office. Do you know The Smalls? Imagine the things that come out of your pocket, like a pocket full of change or receipts or sunglasses or cough drops. It’s the bowl of weird things that ends up on our dresser or by the bathroom sink or in a heap on the table by the door. Safety pins, charging cords, random pens from the bank, tags from a sweater. The odd little small stuff that can drive us crazy. The Smalls.

As we were working through The Smalls, what she really wanted to know about was How to Create Routines. Routines in general, but in this case, a routine for maintenance, for example, better managing and eliminating The Smalls.

So, she was asking how to create routines? And specifically, the Maintenance Part of routines.

I love this question, we should all ask this question. And this particular client asked the question that day, but I have worked with dozens of clients answering the same question for themselves.

And as a refresher – What are routines? Using a morning routine as an example, a routine is a short list of 5-7 tasks that we must complete every morning (or afternoon or evening or when we go to a certain place or do certain things) to survive (sleep, eat, bathe, drink water) and also maintain a basic level of functionality in our life (start laundry, pay bills, buy groceries, exercise).

How do I know she was asking about maintenance? I see this client once a month. When I arrive in the morning, she is always awake, showered and dressed. The cat and dogs have been fed, dogs have been out, and she usually has some laundry started. There are many parts of her routine that are solid. I know she has mastered survival tasks in her routine. If this sounds familiar, I would guess you, also, have conquered survival, the basics, the essentials. So what is missing?

For this client, she was asking about a routine to take care of The Smalls and other clutter in her house before it got to the troublesome level.

Next level, then, is getting good at our routine maintenance tasks. After survival tasks are complete, what are those maintenance tasks we must complete every day, again, to maintain a basic level of functionality in our life?

Unfortunately, since maintenance is often less urgent than survival, we can sometimes let those tasks slide in the rush of our day to day. The danger, of course, is that since routine tasks are tasks we must complete over and over again, we can get lax in the execution and completion of them. And as we relax our standards, we stop maintaining our maintenance. The switch, then, the point is, we need to understand the vital importance of “done” or “complete” in our routine maintenance tasks, and commit to “done” and “complete”.

We need to define for ourselves what done is, what done looks like.

I worked with an adult client many years ago who said that no one had ever explained to him what “clean your room” or “organize your desk” meant, even as a child. And if that is not something that you are used to, or, like this fellow, if it doesn’t come naturally for you, or if that is not the way your brain works, then being told to clean your room or organize your stuff is meaningless.

When my sons were little, instead of just saying go clean your room or go organize your dresser, I talked with them about what steps to actually take. When they were really little, pre-readers, I made a sign with pictures, like a picture of a bed to remind them to tidy up their bed, a picture of a laundry basket to remind them to put their dirty clothes in the hamper, a picture of a hanger to put their clean laundry away, put their books away, make sure the floor was relatively clear before they went to sleep (because who wants to step on a Lego in the dark, am I right?!). When it was clean, we would stand in the doorway and I asked them to take a mental picture of what “done” looked like, so they could get back to “done” on their own some day.

First, we need to know what “done” and “complete” look like and entail.

Another example: We get up and get ready for our day. Great. If we turn around, though, what does our home look like behind us? You know Pigpen from Peanuts, who always had the little cloud of dust behind him? What does it look like behind us? We got up, but did we take 30 seconds and make the bed? We took a shower, but did we take 11 seconds to hang up our towel or put it in the hamper?

What does the bathroom look like when we’re done? “Ready to leave” is one thing, and it is all about us as a body, and it’s very important, but is your space ready for you to leave? Truly “done” or “complete” requires the extra 30 seconds that we spend in the bathroom before we finish in there in the morning, where we hang up our towel and we straighten the shower curtain and we wipe the fingerprints and the dirt or anything off the sink, and we have put all of our stuff away that we use every day. Those last few steps are what maintains that minimal functionality in our spaces.

Because we’re going to have to do it all over again tomorrow.

Those last steps are also part of the routine tasks. We have routines around times and events to make them run more smoothly, and to set ourselves up to succeed next time, too. And those last steps are vital to that end.

In my presentations, I talk about my routine around taking my supplements every morning. I mention that I used to forget to take my supplements, but I anchored the supplement habit to my morning coffee habit and now I always remember to take my supplements. Adding a few details here, I take a few supplements that need to be on an empty stomach, and as I start my coffee, I take those right away. Then I leave the other batch, the later with food batch, on the counter so seeing them will help remind me to take them. Later, when I am headed out the door for my day, a glance at the counter while I grab my second cup of coffee will remind me to take the rest if I haven’t already. “Done” and “complete” look like a clear counter. Maintaining the maintenance, and also leaving a clean slate for the rest of my day. Because I am going to have to do it all over again tomorrow.

Another global example: Bill-paying. Your bills are paid – awesome! Hopefully, you have a routine around paying bills on time, a date in the calendar to take care of those! Again, awesome! And yes, that is an achievement we can celebrate! And… did we file the papers that were left after the bills were paid? Or empty the overflowing paper recycling bin in the office, or run the handful of papers that need shredded through the shredder? Or look ahead at when we are set to pay bills again and put that on the calendar, too? These final steps of the routine task of Paying Bills often get overlooked, and then their neglect adds to our mess or disorganization going forward.

Other places we can put this idea into practice:

Managing The Smalls by identifying them as smalls and setting our space up for maintenance. Add a garbage can nearby to toss everything you can, keep a jar there for loose change or an envelope for receipts. And take the 5 seconds to toss the trash and file the receipts.

Your work space at the end of the day? Set a timer for the last 5 minutes of your work day and set yourself up to succeed tomorrow. Done looks like cleared and waiting for us and tomorrow’s work.

After traveling, unpack completely and put the suitcase away. AWAY. Complete.

Making dinner and eating dinner, sure, but also cleaning up after dinner. Because tomorrow morning, we’re going to need to start the cycle again and a clean kitchen is a better place to start our day.

I worked with a different client the other day, and the timer on her phone went off when we still had 15 minutes of our appointment left. Because … she is wise and she knows we need to put stuff away. We made a few last labels with my label maker, put the bins of clothes in the closet, took out the trash, loaded the bags of donation into the back of my car, talked about what her next steps are to continue to making progress. We do the work, and then we have our routine around maintaining maintenance. Taking those last few moments to set ourselves up to succeed next time.

Consider your routines this week, and determine what Done and Complete look like for you, and then commit to maintaining the maintenance and setting ourselves up to succeed next time!

This Week, Clear Clutter and Prepare for Cold Weather!

The day this episode comes out, the day this article and newsletter drop, I am hosting a free “Clear the Clutter Webinar” via zoom, check my website, socials or newsletter for the link!

I want to talk about clearing clutter today.

Clearing clutter reaps benefits beyond a clearer surface. We live lighter, we’re less distracted visually, we are safer in our homes without things in our way as we walk and without clutter gathering dust, mold or mildew, germs and small critters. Taking positive action to improve our physical spaces provides positive boosts to our mood and energy level as well.

I feel like it’s time to clear some clutter. We don’t need a reason, but there are good reasons to clear clutter this time of year!

Yes, it is the change of seasons.

Yes, the clocks have changed, and the evenings are getting darker and darker earlier. And we’re nesting, as we spend more time inside our homes.

Yes, the holidays are approaching, but I am not going to focus on those today!

So, for cooler weather, for wellness, for the holidays, because it’s the right thing to do! Sometimes, we need to move physical clutter to create movement in our brains and calendars and energy, and now is as good a time as any!

As though in support of this topic today, I received an email from an author I follow (Jon Acuff, if you know you know!) that a great year in January starts in November. (I am paraphrasing, but it resonated with me!)

Let’s do this!

I started writing this article on November 1.

That morning, I put away the Halloween Decorations and washed my front door, because – ew. Lots of little finger prints and such from our visitors the night before. I also sent a bag of candy in to Greg’s office for the communal candy jar because we DO NOT need all of that candy in the house because we will just eat it. I intentionally enjoy the clear and undecorated look of November before adding Christmas decor on December 1, so after all the surfaces were clear again, I smiled and took a couple deep breaths.

So, de-decorate from Halloween if you haven’t yet.

Next up, the kitchen cabinets. Shelf by shelf, category by category, review the food in your cabinets for expiration dates. Toss anything that is expired or stale, then put stuff back grouped by category so you can find it again when you’re looking for it.

Now do some Pantry shopping. What is Pantry shopping? It is what it sounds like. It is intentionally using up what you have on hand, in the pantry, before going to the grocery. As you review your items in the cabinet, take note of items you already own that you can use in your menu plan for the next few weeks. Clear some cabinet space and save money by using foods you already own. In addition, with a few thoughts ahead for your holiday cooking, use this as an opportunity to inventory and plan your holiday food shopping.

Next stop – your refrigerator and freezer! Did you know, November 15th is National Clean Your Refrigerator Day? Let’s tackle the fridge and freezer like we tackled the cabinets! Start with the easy and obvious. Review your food, and toss anything that is expired or even questionable. Make note of any prepared food that you need to use up, and add the foods in your fridge and freezer to your menu plan for the next week to make some space and save some money. And, make note of what you might need to replace or stock up on.

Now that the kitchen is looking better, we can turn our attention elsewhere.

Let’s get clothes and shoes ready for the Cold.

Have you switched your clothes and closet for the season yet? Sadly, it is time to put away those summer items and bring out the sweaters. If your dresser and closet are crowded, the easiest way to make some space is to pull out strictly summer items and store them until Spring. For storage, tap underutilized storage space like the closet top shelf or under your bed.

It is also a great time to do a final check – clean your summer bedding, if you have it, and pack it all away until Spring. Or, take items to the drycleaner and set a reminder in a few weeks to pick them up.

How about your landing and launch pad spaces, front or back door? I just checked out the baskets by our back door. In warm weather, the baskets contain baseball caps, rain ponchos and umbrellas. I tossed anything that needed to go, brought out the hats and gloves and scarves, and put away the baseball caps and ponchos. The door where we come and go from is now ready for cooler temperatures.

Also, as you swap out the warm weather shoes and outerwear at those landing and launch spaces, or in your closet for colder weather items, now is a great time to collect any summer shoes or sandals, in my case, check them over and take them in for repairs now so they will be ready for you in 6 months!

Whew. Kitchen is looking better, areas where you come and go look better, your bedroom and closet is looking better, too. And… moving on…

Get your house ready for the colder weather:

  • It’s time to switch all the ceiling fans to clockwise for colder weather. Clockwise pushes the warm air back down.
  • By the time this episode drops, we will have checked the smoke detectors because we change the clocks this weekend.
  • We, or I will say, my hubby put away the patio furniture, rain barrels and gardening paraphernalia weeks ago. And the air conditioning unit got tarped until spring.
  • Now is the time to clear the outdoor walkways, and get your sidewalk salt ready!
  • Get your car ready for the cold, too – find that snow brush and ice scraper, and add some granola bars and a blanket to your car!

A few final words about recycling! In addition to Clean Your Refrigerator Day, November 15th is also America Recycles Day!

Cardboard – can we just talk for a minute about recycling your cardboard? We had boxes stashed on two different shelves, saving them for “later”. We had WAY too many and almost all of them went into the recycling bin. My typical answer about the question of cardboard is that more will always come. We can confidently break down and recycle what we have, because more will always come.

Anything else easy and obvious? Return items that need to be returned, drop off those bags of donations.

Spend some focused and dedicated time this week clearing clutter in important spaces, either in small bursts or one or two longer sessions, and reap the benefits for weeks to come!

Get Good At Transitions: Intros & Outros

I am going to start this article with the end in mind.

The last line is: “Get good at transitions with clear and consistent communications, a plan and focus, respect to timelines and occasional flexibility as needed.” And you will soon see why.

In addition to being an organizational coach and certified professional organizer, I am a liturgical musician. I have the supreme honor of enhancing worship with and for my community. In addition to enhancing worship, I also have the supreme honor of supporting my community in times of transitions, experiencing joys and sorrows at weddings, funerals, sacraments and holy days.

Recently, I had the true joy and privilege to sing at a wedding. The bride and groom were happy, the families were happy, the weather was perfect, there was a lovely feeling of celebration in the church. It was great. The benefit to planning for and singing for a wedding, as opposed to other sorts of liturgy, is that we have a lot of time to plan. I sat down with the bride and groom 7 months ago to review the order of the ceremony and fill in items like the readings. We also reviewed where in the ceremony there are opportunities for music, either instrumental or vocal or both, and discussed if they or their family members have specific requests and favorites. Since then, we texted, emailed and spoke, checking in again with the couple, their families and the deacon performing the ceremony.

Communication happened, everything was smooth sailing. The few hiccups that did occur were quickly managed.

Then it was the Saturday morning of the 2:30 pm Wedding. And everything was still fine, and continued to be – there is no cliff hanger here. I am not leading up to some big blow up. Everything was still sailing smoothly. But what occurred to me that day was, with months of planning for a 45 minute ceremony, that we needed to get VERY CLEAR on the 10 minutes before the ceremony began.

All the planning, all the rehearsing – and oh yes, I did rehearse – if my neighbors weren’t also singing the songs in their sleep after listening to me rehearse for the 2 weeks prior, I would be surprised. All the planning and all the rehearsing were for the ceremony itself, and we were super prepared. But success is often measured for such things as the ceremony, of course, but also how smoothly it begins and also ends.

It comes down to a few minutes, and then the moment. And… But?… And… we were ready. We had a clearly defined goal, laser focus on the goal, clear and consistent communications around the goal, and everyone did their part to prepare for the event. We were ready, AND I needed to nail those 10 minute leading up to the moment the bridal party stepped off.

It’s funny, because your perspective absolutely changes from six months out, reviewing the time line and checklists, hiring an accompanist, purchasing the sheet music, rehearsing, etc. Down to those last 600 seconds.

Shall we start playing the three minute and 47 second song at 2:24 as a prelude? But we have to make sure that the bride can hear it, because that was the one request she made to me via text the morning of the wedding. Or, as I thought about my chat that afternoon half an hour before the wedding with my friend, the mother of the bride, and how she mentioned that the only song that was specifically her choice was the song we were playing as the Mothers are seated. I had considered cutting it short (it also is 4 minutes), but she loves it, it was her only request, so guess what – yes, we played the entire song.

So, we had a goal and deadline and parameters, but the whole point of the day was to love and support the bride and groom and their families, so we made it all happen in that very short amount of time. We nailed that transition so the rest of the event could flow smoothly.

Similar thought process – soon after, my choir and I were warming up to sing at Mass and for whatever reason our Sunday morning rehearsal started late. We usually try to run through every song once in that Sunday morning rehearsal, but that day, we didn’t have as much time as we usually do. And when that happens, we focus on rehearsing the intros and outros. I don’t actually know if outro is a word, but if you talk to a musician, they know what intros and outros are. An intro is, for example, the first four measures of a song before the vocals begin. And the outro is how you plan to end the song – you vocally end with a whole note, then the instruments do another couple of measures, for example.

We know how the songs go, we aren’t worried about the middle. We just need to know we will start and end the same. Clear communications, a goal and focus, a clear plan. We need those intros and outros to be clean. If there is going to be a mistake, it is likely at those transition points and not in the middle of a verse. If we start messy, sometimes it throws us off and we miss other things in the song. And no one wants to finish rough because often, no matter how amazing the song was, people are going to remember the last 10 seconds and how you finished.

We focus on transitions, whether it is the few minutes before or after an event, or the first or last few seconds of a song, because those matter. Those are the most likely places to stumble, so we practice those even more than the rest.

This is not a music lesson, though it may sound like one. It’s a life lesson, with musical examples because I am me. Let’s look at how to apply solid intros and outros to life.

Our work or school days are predictable, for the most part. We know how to do our work and we know how to go to school. Our commute to and from work or school is relatively predictable, though sometimes we hit traffic or some other complication.

The more likely places we are to stumble in our day, the places that might stress us out or make us late, are the intros and outros, the transition for sleep to awake, from home to travel, the “leaving the house in a timely manner and well prepared” part.

Driving our car to school or work, and even doing our work isn’t where we stumble. Getting out of the house to drive, or leaving work on time to be ready for the rest of our day – that is where we stumble.

So the actual trip is no big deal, but if we don’t get our acts together, and so therefore don’t make it out the door in a timely manner and therefore we’re late for the rest of it, that is where we’re going to stumble. Right. Transitions. Transitions. Transitions are where we have the greatest opportunity and greatest incidents to stumble.

Let’s get really good at transitions.

Last week, I prepared to present at an event at a local community college. I love these events, it is great to go out and meet people! And I started my planning a few days before to make sure my transitions were solid. I made handouts ahead of time just in case my printer got cranky and I needed a Plan B. I purchased my promo materials months ago, and it’s all packed with my gear. I loaded everything into the car a day or two before, to make my day easier for the actual event. Anticipating the actual work, I had no worries about presenting or networking – those are easy. The potential transition that could slow down or mess up my day was changing out of client appointment clothes and into more snazzy presentation clothes, so I packed that bag ahead of time as well. And I knew how long the commute from my client appointment to the event should be, and allowing some cushion, I knew my hard stop time to get me where I needed to go.

Get good at transitions. We want to make sure we are as prepared as possible for those transitions. I’m never worried about my client appointments, but sometimes I’m worried about the commute, getting there, ending on time to get to my next appointment, and home again.

Let’s consider how we can practice those intros and outros even more. Keeping the analogy, when we practice intros and outros, we communicate ALOT beforehand about how we are going to start and finish, we imagine the song in our head, we set a tempo, we take a deep breath and then we begin.

“Get good at transitions with clear and consistent communications, a plan and focus, respect to timelines and occasional flexibility as needed.”

ADHD Awareness Month: Aware In Many Ways

October is ADHD awareness month.

If you know me at all, you know that I like to play with words. And ADHD Awareness, those two words together, have multiple meanings for me.

ADHD Awareness could mean “I am aware of ADHD. I’m aware of its definition, some of the top behavioral traits that go along with ADHD in children, or in adult males or adult females”, etc.

That could be one way that we are aware of ADHD.

This first part, the “I am aware of ADHD” part, may seem unnecessary to you, but I experience ADHD resistance from people regularly. Because it is invisible, I hear that “ADHD isn’t real”, or “that person doesn’t have ADHD, that person needs better self control or to just try harder”, or, from older generations, “ADHD didn’t exist when I was a kid, so it doesn’t exist now”. Yes, it did exist, we just didn’t have a name for it. And we do have a name for it now, and we know more now, thank goodness.

We cannot deny ADHD exists, or that a person has ADHD. And in terms of awareness, unless you are a clinical psychologist, we also cannot diagnose somebody with ADHD.

I have also heard the complete other end of this spectrum, instead of ADHD doesn’t exit, I hear “Well, we all have ADHD sometimes”. Or “aren’t we all a little ADHD?”, as if that was possible. While this may seem like a more accepting stance than “ADHD doesn’t exist”, it still doesn’t yet respect the impact “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” can have on the folks who have it.

Disorder.

Disorder.

There are external behaviors or characteristics that we all may have that people with ADHD also exhibit. Our focus may wander, we may act impulsively, we may have high energy, we may struggle with time management. I have talked about the characteristics of ADHD in other articles and podcasts. From time to time, we all exhibit what may be characteristics of ADHD, but what determines ADHD is how long we exhibit them, how often, to what extent, how they impact our day to day functioning, and with what other behaviors and characteristics. So to respond to “we all have ADHD sometimes”, or “we’re all a little ADHD” – Yes, we all may exhibit the behaviors we expect from someone with ADHD, but how much do those negatively impact our lives? If we are neurotypical, if we do not have ADHD, for example, we are much less impacted.

The first step of awareness is to realize that ADHD exists and what it means. And the next is to find out how it shows up. “ADHD Awareness” can also mean awareness of how ADHD shows up in ourselves and others.

The current data shows that more than 11% of the child population has ADHD (per the CDC website), and that number accounts for only the diagnosed cases. Because ADHD is invisible, and because some people with ADHD can become adept at managing their ADHD on their own or masking their challenges, the actual number is definitely much higher.

So we can be aware that it exists, and we can be aware that we definitely know someone with ADHD. Using that 11% or more of the population statistic, if you know 100 people, at least 11 of them likely have an ADHD diagnosis. If you only know 10, it’s likely at least one has ADHD.

Now, here’s what’s interesting to me in what I do. I’m a certified professional organizer with specific training from Coach Approach for Organizers and the Institute for Challenging Disorganization in helping clients who have ADHD. I help them, through coaching, to find essential structures that support them in the midst of ADHD, to help them to be the best they can be.

And because of who I know and who I work with, and because people feel comfortable enough with me to share, far more than 11% of my circle has ADHD. I find that interesting but in no way negative. It’s noteworthy but not in a bad way. It exists. It exists for a lot of the people that I know, and I have ways of helping them.

A long time member of my community asked me to write more about ADHD, especially Later In Life Diagnosis. There has been a swell of ADHD diagnoses in adults over the past few years. Pre-pandemic and pre-lockdown, many people with undiagnosed ADHD got by and made things work. But the loss of external support structures and the added demands and stresses that came with our home and work lives during pandemic and lock down made many people realize there may be problems that exist that have never been addressed.

And as mentioned before, there are strategies that help all of us and also people with ADHD to get more done, be more productive, manage our responsibilities, manage our stress. I look forward to helping my clients, neuro-typical and neuro-diverse. That’s the answer for me.

In this ADHD Awareness Month, let’s gain awareness of ADHD a little more locally, then, as in “I am aware that this family member or this coworker has ADHD, and I will spend time in October exploring with them what that means for them. If I am in a supportive role for that person, how I can best support that person?”

At the conference I attended last month, we discussed a really powerful and simple tool for working with a neuro-diverse person, like someone with ADHD or that may be autistic. And truly, I think it is a great tool to use for communication with anyone. We ask – what is normal for you?

(And recall, I just talked about normalizing in a recent podcast episode!)

For example, I could say to a client or family member or co-worker,

“Some people like to listen to music while they work. Does that work for you? And if so, what would be your normal music to listen to?”

Or,

“Some people like to use timers to remind them to wrap up a project and move on to their next appointment. Sometimes that works for me. What is your typical way of transitioning from one task to the next? A timer, a visual cue, a verbal reminder from me? Do you have a typical way? What is your normal?”

Ask others “What is your normal?”

Normal movement, temperature, conversation level, work schedule and rhythm, etc.?

These are examples of organizational coaching questions, and I am a professional who works with clients with ADHD. These might feel formal to you, but perhaps you can think of some on your own to open up these topics of conversation with the people around you.

And, my friend, you are allowed to ask for these questions and solutions for yourself, too.

Using myself as an example, because I don’t have to ask permission: if you asked me what my normal is:

I like a visual calendar with blocks of color. I like a digital calendar because I can maneuver the info quickly and easily.

I don’t like being hot, it makes me feel physically ill.

I do not like to listen to music while I work, mainly because I am working with words and I find it hard to have the words I am working with conflicting with the words I am hearing. In a conversation with my husband recently about working with music on, he mentioned he likes music and it works for him because he is dealing with numbers. I appreciate that insight.

I appreciate patience from a person who interrupts me for me to catch up with what they are saying because it takes my brain a moment to switch over to them.

I don’t like to be late, it makes me really anxious.

Those are parts of my normal. What is your normal? Once you know it, can you ask for it? And can you ask others how to support their normal as well?

In this ADHD Awareness Month, let’s understand that ADHD exists, and what that means. And let us gain awareness around ADHD in the people around us and even in ourselves.

Other articles of mine on ADHD:

https://peaceofmindpo.com/2021/10/13/adhd-awareness-month-for-yourself-and-for-others/

https://peaceofmindpo.com/2023/10/23/october-is-adhd-awareness-month-more-than-just-awareness/

Getting Specific With Quarterly Planning

A client asked recently:

“I’ve been thinking about your recommendation to do quarterly planning. I’m consolidating my to-do lists and thinking about how to restructure my categories. And I like the concept of quarterly planning. If you haven’t written a blog yet about your process, I’d really like to learn the specifics of how YOU go about planning quarterly.”

I just love this. Thank you, dear client, for asking the question. You know who you are.

I wrote about quarterly planning back in January, check out the article here. I have other articles on planning, as well, if you’d like to know more, head over to PeaceofMindpo.com, click on the Blog tab and add Planning in the search bar.

I don’t always get too specific about me in my articles and podcast episodes, but this is one topic that probably should be specific! And a reminder, as in all things, I am sharing what I do as AN example, of one way of doing something. It is not a requirement or demand – EVER. Just an example, and perhaps a suggestion!

I like setting quarterly goals because, for me, setting a yearly goal sometimes seems too big or too long, and anything less than a month seems too short. Let me rephrase – I do set annual goals, but I like to break those broad goals down into more manageable pieces, and an every three month planning cycle with 6 week to three month goals works for me.

Conveniently, this client asked this question as I plan my fourth quarter of 2024, my Q4. For me personally, at least, planning in Q4 is a great illustration of the importance of quarterly planning.

Q4 starts with October and ends in December. I am in shorts and a t-shirt as I write this. My window is open, the breeze is blowing in. My birthday is at the beginning of Q4, and the next holiday on my horizon is Halloween. (note to self, put up Autumn decorations)

But, as a certified professional organizer, board of education member, planner of family functions and Catholic liturgical musician and human being, I know that the calendar for the next three months is going to fill up FAST, and the to-do list will as well! Soon and very soon (a song reference!), the focus will shift to Autumn, to Thanksgiving, to Advent and to Christmas. Just this morning at Mass, my music director mentioned that she would like to put together an Advent Concert the first week of December. And I, of course, said “Sure!”

All things seem possible when you start planning them months in advance!

Back to the original question: How do I actually quarterly plan? Let’s do this.

Grab your calendar, digital or paper.

  • Me personally, I am sitting here at my laptop as I use Google calendar, and I have my bullet journal, my phone, my to-do list and a cold beverage.

Check out what is already on your calendar for the next three months, personally and professionally.

  • For Q4, I already have many recurring events on my calendar in my many Focus areas, and I bet you do, too.
  • I have regular client appointments, meetings and coaching calls.
  • My choir has our rehearsal and Mass schedule set.
  • The Board of Education has monthly meetings and committee work on the calendar.
  • I also have non-recurring events in my calendar already like presentations, concerts, doctor appointments, etc.

Reflect on your Focus Areas:

I talked recently about Focus Areas, and we need to have them in mind as we do our quarterly planning, or any planning, for that matter. As reported, mine are my business and my different income streams, my family, my home and wellness, Board of Education work and church ministry.

What are yours? Make sure you keep them in mind as you plan!

The next step is to weave in the set plans.

And this step is why I said Q4 is a great illustration of quarterly planning.

Because, as an example, every year in Q4, we have many set plans around our holidays with our families.

I have a planning list that I pull out and activate on October 1 regarding the holidays. According to the list, in the next week, I will check in with my side of the family regarding when we want to celebrate our Christmas together. I will check in, too, with my sister-in-law for dates for my young niece and nephew’s Christmas concert for school. (Typically a Thursday evening in early December). I will check in with my college student around when he wants to come home for Thanksgiving and what day in December he will likely be done with finals and need a ride home from college. All of those tasks are already on my to-do list as I fill in those big flexible events and make sure they are on the calendar.

You may not personally be thinking December thoughts right now, but a whole lot of people are! For example, here in Chicago, in late September I received the email from a local news agency that reservations are now open for The Walnut Room, a holiday tradition for many! Yes, it is time to plan!

Work in some flexibility and grace.

I am getting better at weaving in prep time ahead of and re-entry after the big events. For example, my husband’s company throws quite the holiday event every year. And, every year, I seem to scramble to get ready and downtown in a timely manner. This year, I blocked the afternoon before the event from client appointments so I don’t have to rush. Similarly, I have my annual Illinois Association of School Boards conference mid November. It is already on my calendar for November 21-24. AND, there are a lot of other things that go into that conference, before and after. So I just blocked time the day before and the day after for some flexibility and rest.

Now, let’s talk Goal Setting. Any incomplete goals to roll forward from last quarter? Now is the time!

Check in around your Goals from the last quarter, how did they work out? If you need to roll something forward, now is the time! A reminder, way back in January when I talked about quarterly planning, I recommended that you dole out your achievements over the whole year. So you may have goals for 2024 that you haven’t completed yet, and that is ok. We can still get a lot done while also respecting the fun and festivities of the holidays – we just need to plan ahead and that is why we set quarterly goals!

Planning and Goal Setting go no further if we don’t attach the necessary actions.

As you work on your plan for your fourth quarter, plan the actions and steps associated to your quarterly goals.

I will use Thanksgiving as an example. We know Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 28. (action) My family and I will figure out the menu and who is bringing what dishes via text over the next few weeks. And then, as other examples of actions, I will start adding shelf-stable grocery items to my weekly shopping list for the foods I am assigned to bring, I will start a bag of things to take with me and I will block some time on the calendar that week for shopping / packing / prep.

What if, in addition to work and life, you are also a crafty person and want to make holiday gifts this year by hand? Commendable, and I love it. AND you have to put all of those tasks and time and actions on the calendar and to-do list NOW so you aren’t caught unprepared in a few months.

Make sure to leave time and energy for the actions attached to your Q4 plan! And put them on the calendar and to-do list now!

Honor your own season and cycles.

Be reasonable, and adjust your expectations.

Yes, Q4 is here. Fall, holidays, travel, school events, yes – I get it. AND, that means different things to different people. In transparency, my birthday is in early October. So this time of year, in addition to Q4 planning, I am always thinking big strategic planning ideas for MY next year, MY next 12 months towards my next birthday. I think in cycles like that and I find it helpful.

I love Fall. Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you struggle with less and less daylight this time of year, and you need to factor in more rest or adjust your to-do list expectations down a bit. Honor your own season.

A final note – you may be listening to this in October of 2024, or maybe you’re listening some other time in the future. You are not late to the party. ANY day is a good day to plan. And then ACT, of course, but first plan. Let this day be whatever you need it to be, but be intentional and do your day on your terms!

Learn New Things Then Make Them Your Own

I am a member of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, and I attended their annual conference last weekend. It was amazing, and I will share more soon.

In an activity with a fellow participant, we worked through a new time management tool that I CANNOT wait to introduce to all of you! But I digress.

The tool walks us through a project, helps us identify potential roadblocks and how to deal with them, and lets us imagine our reasons for and how we will feel when we achieve our goal and / or complete the project. For the activity to learn to use the tool, we chose a goal or project to focus on, and mine was “how to ensure I worked through my conference notes this week” And my answer to my table partner was, “Because otherwise, WHY DID I BOTHER TO GO?!”

Going to the conference was not simple. The conference was in Minnesota, a beautiful state from the little bit that I got to explore when not in sessions. It was a 7 hour drive to get Bloomington, MN right next to Minneapolis-St.Paul, and the same to get back, though that was in the dark and in the rain. (My husband is a rockstar). It required money and planning and research and packing and a million other little tasks. It required that I take time off from paying clients to instead pay money. It required that I attend a conference I have never attended, that I step into rooms where I knew no-one. It required many leaps of faith, to just jump into a situation and do my best. And it was absolutely worth it.

I visited new places and saw new things. I learned so much. So much that will help me in my business, in my work with my clients and also me personally. I hugged in-person people who I had only met in virtual programs before now, I met amazing new people and made new friends.

Similarly, I presented at a conference the week before. And, I would hope for all of those attendees that they took some time to review and internalize and revel and relish what they learned at their conference and then started to put that new knowledge into practice, too.

As part of my working through the content this week from the conference, I want to write about it and then I will do it! It’s time to process what I learned, follow up with many people and incorporate what I learned into my real life. Because, again, otherwise, WHY DID I BOTHER TO GO?!

If you, too, have the opportunity to learn new things, here are some things to think about!

Be open to learning because there are always things to learn.

First, can we just appreciate how awesome it is to have the opportunity to learn new things? There is always more to learn, either expanding on things we already know or learning new topics and ideas entirely.

When we get back from learning, Unpack, and I mean physically unpack.

I have worked with dozens of clients who have bags still packed with logos on them from conferences or workshops they attended 1 and 5 and 20 years ago. In addition to the knowledge learned going no further than that bag on a shelf or under the desk, logistically speaking – what about the half-eaten granola bar or dirty tissues – ew!

Please, unpack your bag and delete or recycle the easy and the obvious. When it comes to storage, bags are almost never our friends. Liberate the stuff and the learning, bring it back to the daylight!

As an aside, when you attend a conference with other professional organizers, some of us admit to emptying the swag bag immediately, getting rid of what we don’t want and sharing it the next day with fellow participants, and clearing out the excess before we even pack to go home!

Also as an aside, at a conference for professional organizers, programs start on time and sometimes even early!

Next, and very importantly: Act on the new knowledge while it is still fresh!

One of my accountability partners asked a great question the last time we spoke. She asked if I had a plan, or what was my plan, to work through all of my notes and follow-up from conference.

I want to review my notes this week because I can easily recall exactly what I was feeling and thinking when I heard the content. I can remember what time of day it was, I can remember who was sitting at my table with me. Reviewing the content just a few days out means that as I reflect on the content, I can fill in my note with even more ideas, I can recall thoughts I had then that I might not have had time to capture at that moment, I can start to move the knowledge from short term memory into long term memory, and I can make plans for changing my behaviors around what I learned.

If I waited weeks or months or years, that reflection piece would take me nowhere fast. And I would miss the opportunity to make the knowledge my own and incorporate it into my own best practices.

Relatedly, as I review my notes, if I want to reach out to someone I spoke with, they will also be more likely to remember me now than in a few weeks or months from now.

In addition to knowledge becoming un-refreshable to us, remember that Knowledge Expires. If you have a backlog of content or binders or books from long ago professional development, please consider that Knowledge Expires. Yes, knowledge expires.

Here’s an example: Years ago, a friend said how proud they were of the medical journals on the shelf above their desk. They liked to see the journals, the journals felt like visual proof of how good a doctor this friend is. And this friend is a good doctor. AND, I reminded them that I would not want to see a 20 year old medical journal above my doctor’s desk, I would rather see recent certificates and updates and achievements. Because, in some industries, like the medical profession, some knowledge expires.

I would not want to see reference books for outdated software on my IT department’s shelf. I do not want to see educational theory books from the 1950’s on a teacher’s shelf.

Looking ahead, Make A Plan for Yourself to Learn New Things

As I reflected on presenting at a conference and then, a week later, attending a conference, I am reminded that, as I stated earlier, there is always more to learn. My suggestion to you and to myself is to come up with our own education plans.

Once we are out of the academic environment, it would be easy to stop learning. But in the first line of my content for my recent presentation, I stated that “If we aren’t growing, we’re either standing still or we’re wilting and withering”. Those are our options.

We can choose to grow, we can stand still or we can wilt and wither. Of course there are some days I am not striving and growing and reading and pursuing. But those days of rest are part of the plan, too. An educational plan guides our steps.

I don’t know what that educational plan looks like for you. I don’t know what lights you up or what you’re interested in. But maybe you know.

There’s so much information available to us these days. There has never, never in the history of the world, been so much information and so readily at our fingertips. Never before. Of course, we need to make sure we are critical thinkers and are consuming actual knowledge from trusted sources.

But there’s so much out there to learn and know about. So much. And it’s all available to us.

For me, personally, I am going to work through my notes from my conference. I am also going to review my non-fiction “reading pile”. I put that in quotations because while I call it my reading pile, it is not a pile. It is a part of a shelf full of books I own but have not read yet, and also a back log on my kindle app on my Ipad. There were books and authors mentioned at conference and I know I own some of those books but I have not read them yet. Establishing a more consistent non-fiction reading habit sounds like a positive step in that Education Plan!

At writing time, I completed some easy first steps yesterday afternoon.

  • I unpacked my conference bag, recycled any papers I won’t need again, put things away in my office that have a home.
  • I entered into my phone contacts all of the business card information from fellow attendees who shared with me.
  • I submitted for and received certificates for all the Continuing Education Unit that I earned by participating this weekend.
  • I processed my bullet journal notes from the last 4 days. I still need to prioritize the notes and action steps, but they are in Evernote so that now, when I have a few moments, I can start assigning the ideas and tasks to the appropriate list – ideas like blog topics, client follow up, etc., or schedule time to complete tasks like the errands I will run tomorrow.

On my agenda for this afternoon and tomorrow morning are to review the handouts from each of the presentations. I will reach out via email and thank the speakers for their presentations. I will subscribe to newsletter and follow on Facebook or Instagram.

I will read the articles that were recommended for further reading, I will email follow up to my fellow participants. For example, a fellow participant asked a question during one session regarding working with a client in a hoarding situation who is struggling emotionally, and I offered to share information regarding Mental Health First Aid Training.

I will continue to share out the new knowledge gained in the coming months, as I internalize it and make it my own!

More about Learning new things:

In October, I will begin hosting webinars on topics such as quarterly planning, menu planning, clearing clutter (that was a specific ask, Sandy I heard you!). Some will be free, and some will have a small fee attached. I look forward to you and I learning more together!