In person! Fun!

Since Inspired Home Office classes are offered by phone, I don’t do a lot of teaching in person… but I love it. Last night, I got to speak to a full house of local artists about creating an inspiring studio space at The Art Department (a really sweet local business in Salem). What a blast!

There were moments of seriousness and laughter as we talked about the challenges of letting go of treasures. We dreamed about the environments that would make our hearts and creativity sing. I hope those who attended had as much fun as I did!

Masquerading projects

The distinction between a task and a project was a revelation for me years ago. When I added a project to my to-do list, I felt really frustrated that even though I had worked on if for a good while, but couldn’t get a “check mark” because it wasn’t done. Taxes are a good example. Write “do your taxes” on your to-do list and just wait — it’ll be on there forever.

Last night I shared that a task takes about 15-20 minutes to complete. If it takes any longer than that, it’s really a project. Projects are a collection of tasks.

The reason why it’s so hard to have a project on your to-do list is that it’s too big. What it really needs is to be broken up into smaller tasks before you begin. Even if you just write down the next 3-5 tasks (under 20 minutes), you now have action steps you can follow. Your brain can wrap itself around the idea of a few tasks, but it boggles at whole projects.

Removing the mask — practical ideas for your projects

One of the women who attended my talk last night followed up with a question by email:

I usually think something is just a task and will only take a short time and lo and behold it is really a project!  Like cleaning my quilting space…I thought oh I can get this done in a day and 8 days later it was done!  What is your method for figuring this out…any ideas are appreciated. 

I’m a big fan of writing things down — it’s visual, it’s kinesthetic, and (if you talk to yourself) it’s also auditory. Your brain revels in having all of these sources of input seeing, touching, and hearing your ideas.

So I suggest grabbing a p0en you like and blank sheet of paper. Write the name of the project (or suspected project) at the top and underline it. Then, underneath, do a 3-minute brainstorm listing all of the steps you’d take to accomplish the project. This is the exact same process that we use in the Office Spa Day class.

Cleaning My Quilting Space

Find the scissors and tape measure
Go through the box of fat quarters
Put cutting mat back
Put quilting frame away
Research containers for projects in process
Pick up dropped pins

With this hypothetical brainstorm list, you’d review it looking for things that would take more or less than 20 minutes.

To aid yourself visually, you could put a T next to tasks (less than 20 minutes) and a P next to projects (more than 20 minutes). “Researching containers” would likely take longer than 20 minutes. “Going through the box of fat quarters” might also (what fun!). When you notice which of these items are actually projects, you can either ignore them for now and just work on the tasks for the main project (clearing the quilting space) or make a new sheet of paper and list the tasks for the projects you discover on your list.

How to make it inspiring

Doing this process helps you prevent being surprised by lurking projects. My favorite part is that as I work through the list of tasks, I get credit for all the small things, not just the finished product. This encourages me along the way. I also delight in adding unexpected small steps to the list as I do them, which just gives more evidence of my progress!

The more you do this process (or any variation on it), the better you get at recognizing projects. You get better at guessing how long a task will take to complete. Within a couple of months, you become the Master/Mistress of Projects and they no longer surprise you. It’s pretty awesome to feel some control over the things you take on!

Have you encountered a recent task that turned out to be a project in disguise? I’m curious! Please feel free to share about it below.

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Farewell to January

It’s almost the end of the month (thank heavens!)

If it were up to me, I’d give everyone the month of January off. I’d wave my magic wand and clear every calendar, enforce regular nap times, and pay all bills due. Yep. A whole month of vacation. Wouldn’t that rock?

Now that the resolution hoopla is finally over, the pressure’s off! We can recover from the January hype and urgency — and settle into a healthy pace. Whew! So glad THAT’s over for another year.

Truthfully, I’ve been grappling with mild depression all month — and I think it comes from a combination of insufficient sunlight and battling off the January “shoulds”. January is an INNER month. A reflection month. A store up starches so that we can bloom like crazy in springtime month.

It’s okay to be introverted. Especially in January. I’m making peace with this and learning to plan accordingly.

Planning organically for the upcoming year

While I’ve been playing at hibernation the last few weeks, I’ve also been planning like a crazy-woman and loving it. At this point, I have nothing to show for all this planning. There are at least 4 calendars in my office — some big, some small — all of them are helping me figure out how I want to spend my work and personal time. It’s totally awesome.

If I had any advice to share for the end of January, this would be it: Allow planning to be enough in its own right. Recognize the inherent value of contemplating your future before you step out into it.

What does your spirit cry out for?

Now through the month of February, immerse yourself deeply in this question: “What do I want?” And do something radical like really listen to what comes up when you ask it. This is your spirit’s longing speaking.

Knowing what you truly want this year does more than just help you create it. It helps you recognize what is expendable. Knowing what you want helps create the desire to release anything that doesn’t serve you — whether it’s clutter, or old books, or unhealthy beliefs, or soul-sucking projects, or people who don’t give you the respect you deserve. Knowing what you want makes saying “no” possible.

Discerning what you want is a powerful, precious gift that only you can give to yourself.

So I ask you: What do you want this year? Now that the January pressure is off, what is your spirit craving?

Do share your ideas below. I love hearing from you.

xo,
Jen

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Hello, dear one!

It’s January!

Oh, yay! Oh, no! Did you get that excited feeling in your belly on January 2nd – quickly followed by a sense of dread? The possibility! The work!

Yesterday, I shared the following message on Facebook –

Public service announcement from the heart: You are not behind. You do not need to catch up, or hurry up, or do anything different — other than be who you are right now. Welcome to 2012!

47 people responded to it.

What to do with January dread?

Idea 1: Question January advertising

In case you happen to be blissfully insulated from our media-saturated culture, retail advertisers would like you to purchase stuff. Now.

As if the holidays weren’t enough of a drain, they would like you to whip out your smoking plastic and purchase resolution-themed products. Buy exercise equipment! Start that diet! Organizing all your stuff with these handy boxes!

Is it true that you can buy your way into a better life?

Question this. Question the message.

Idea 2: Question January expectations

When you’re just coming off the holidays and just getting back into the swing of work again, be careful of putting expectations on yourself. You’ve just hauled yourself through the holidays (which, by the way, counts as two stress points whether you observe them or not). You’ve just spent a lot of time balancing life and family. You’ve spent money in ways you don’t usually all the rest of the year.

You’ve tried to be merry, and thankful, and optimistic. Now, it’s time to just stop. January is time for some serious stopping. Put the resolutions on hold for now.

Do you really have to be raring to go already? It’s only January 3rd!

Idea 3: Go with the season

Last year, I learned from Waverly Fitzgerald that this month was named for the god, Janus. Dude has two faces: one that looks backwards (into the past) and one that faces forward (into the future). I love this image.

Because of this, January is a month for reflection. If you want a sane, restful January, try on your Janus-hat. Gently look backwards and forward. Don’t do much, just look. Take stock of the last 12 months. Peek into what the next 12 might hold. Contemplate. Cultivate curiosity. Dream.

You have a whole juicy 12 months ahead of you. Take your time.

Idea 4: Make peace with the backlog

Because your life has been full the last few weeks, you are likely to have a backlog. There’s only so much time in the day, so you’ve put aside the non-urgent email, mail, and tasks until normalcy returns. You are not behind. A post-holiday backlog is normal.

Look around at your space and notice (gently and without judgment) what’s been on the back burner for the last few weeks. If you want to do anything this month, take your time catching up on the backlog. Gently. Remember, you’re not behind.

You’re okay.

You’re exactly where you need to be.

Welcome, friend, to 2012.

Warmly,
Jen

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Sentry Safe Guardian Storage Box

Not to spook ya, but somewhere in the dark recesses of your filing cabinet are documents you know you want to have better protected.

Your office inventory — the one your insurance agent told you to make just in case the whole place burns to cinders — is filed away in a folder marked “Office Inventory.” This inventory lives in a cabinet which will melt to a puddle of blistered beige goo if the unthinkable happened. Ditto your tax returns, your Microsoft Stocks, and your 11th grade yearbook signed (with love and kisses) by Danny Hammond.

You might not need (or have room for) an honest-to-goodness safe, but most of us do have things which ought to be kept in a place slightly more secure than the usual cardboard accordion folder. Here, then, is a dandy answer!

Well, technically, it’s the red thing under the cat.

The Sentry Safe Guardian Storage Box is small enough to fit in my office closet (above), under your desk, light enough to carry, and works incredibly well as a footstool in a pinch. It has the same capacity as a regular storage box, but astonishingly, can withstand up to 1,200 degrees for up to twenty minutes.

I own one because the nice people at Sentry asked me to review it on my blog! How generous!

The downsides:

You can’t use hanging files. I tried. When you put the lid on, no closey.

See?

If you’re crazy about hanging files and their sticky-uppey plastic tabs (like I am), it’s an odd sensation. You mean, organize without tabs? It’s like going out in public in my bathrobe.

But I tried it.

Proof that organizing doesn't have to be perfect to be effective.

And it wasn’t awful. What I did was cut a few hanging files in half and removed the metal hangers. So there are still dividers. As long as the box is mostly full, it works pretty well.

The upsides:

I’ve been meaning to do this for years.

Technically, the IRS wants you to keep 3-7 years worth of original tax records and receipts. Not bank statements, not credit card statements — original receipts. If they burned up in a fire (God forbid) and I got audited (God further forbid), well I’m sure I’d find a way. But, ugh.

Someday I’ll scan everything (the IRS likes scans), but in the meantime having everything in there and protected makes me feel much better. I like that feeling a lot.

The really cool thing? Receiving the Guardian also motivated me to downsize two file boxes worth of old papers. It took me a weekend, but wow! I love that kind of motivation!

An inspired organizing tip:

If you leave the lid off this box, it’s useless — at least as far as fire protection is concerned. Unless you think you’ll really replace the lid consistently during regular use, plan to put touch-once-per-year archives only in here. Birth certificates. Passports. That way the lid goes right back on and you don’t have to think about it again.

Once you get the hang of putting all those important documents in here, you won’t ever have to frantically search for your passport ever again before leaving for Europe. (And when you do, will you take me with you?)

My summary

This storage box would be better if it copied its non-fireproof cousins and accommodated hanging files. Other than that, it’s pretty darned great! And I’d say the same thing even if the nice Sentry people hadn’t sent me one!

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Is your office a little Grinch-y this Christmas?

With space at a premium, we home-officers wouldn’t dream of putting up even a tiny holiday tree (or would we?). With a bit of creativity, the holiday spirit can find its way into even closet-sized offices.

With just one little string of white lights, you can bring Christmas spirit in out of the cold.

Oooo! Shiny!

String your white lights around your office door or inter-twangle them (that’s an official term) among the branches of your ficus tree. Add an ornament or two or make a paper chain out of the contents of your shredder bin. Live it up.

Perhaps just a little garland, and a ribbon or two, and you’ll have a festive space to be proud of!

Be merry!

Care to comment?

It’s the time of year for high expectations. Whether you embrace or reject those expectations, you can end up feeling exhausted trying to manage it all.

So here are some gentle reminders from the heart for the last two weeks of December 2012.

You are enough.

You are okay as you are right now.

You are not behind. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

There is nothing else you should be doing except what you’re doing right now.

Be where you are. Inhabit the space you’re in. Know that you are safe.

Those shoulds don’t have to run you. They’re all just stories — and are therefore negotiable.

Take a breath and remember this.

You can choose.

You can choose what you say yes to and what you release.

You are powerful.

And your time on the earth is precious. So, you can choose to use your time to love yourself. And others. You can choose to do only what you love.

You are worth it. You are worth the effort.

May you resolve to be completely, wonderfully, and unapologetically yourself this season. May you unwrap and discover the gift that is you.

Much love,
Jennifer

Care to comment?

National holidays can inspire!

Do you ever envy postal workers, bankers and teachers for their days off? Okay, no one envies bankers right now, but they do get an enviable amount of days off! How do they do it?

Simple: structure. When you’re working for yourself, nothing dictates the structure of your days — unless you do it yourself. It might seem a little odd, but it is possible to set some inspiring time off by copying what federal and state workers do.

How to get all the major holidays off

Ready for a little project? Here’s what you need:

• A calendar that you like (paper or electronic)
• A pen in a fun color that reminds you of holidays (or font color if you’re electronic)
• A list of national holidays observed in 2012

Step 1:

Look over the list of 2012 U.S. national holidays (Canada’s here) and decide which ones you want to observe:

Monday, January 2: New Year’s Day
Monday, January 16: Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 20: Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 28: Memorial Day
Wednesday, July 4: Independence Day
Monday, September 3: Labor Day
Monday, October 8: Columbus Day
Monday, November 12: Veterans Day
Thursday, November 22: Thanksgiving Day
Tuesday, December 25: Christmas Day
Tuesday, January 1: New Year’s Day

Step 2:

Add them to your calendar.

Do it inspiredly. Add them in a fun visual way that reminds you to take them off. For example, I use my pink watermelon-scented marker and put a lovely stripe across the day. When I see it there, it reminds me not to plan anything. And it smells fruity.

On my Google calendar, I create an ‘event’ that takes up the entire day and I label it. Again, seeing this so visually reminds me not to plan anything and hold it as a precious day off.

Step 3:

Define what you want and won’t do on your days off.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Have you ever had a day off that, by the end of it, it didn’t feel like a day off? You filled it up accidentally with stuff you didn’t enjoy? Me too. We don’t want that to happen.

What you want to do:

Clarify for yourself: Write a list of ways you’d like to spend your days off. Set an intention.

Ideas? I like sleeping late, long stretches of reading, playing with Inspired Cat 1 & 2, making yummy food, crafty projects, doing jigsaw puzzles, laughing with Inspired Spouse, and going on adventures. I often like planning nothing at all and deciding moment-by-moment what to do. I like flirting with boredom — it’s a great contrast with my work life.

So, write for yourself how you’d really like to spend that day. Don’t just read this article. Seriously. Pick up some paper and write down what you’d like to do with your days off. You’ll be amazed at how freeing and fun this is.

What you won’t do

Also, define what you don’t want to spend that day doing. Me? No work-work. No bookkeeping. No email. Often no internet. No desk-clearing. It is a day off, after all.

What are your boundaries? Add them to the page. Brainstorm the kinds of things that you want to be free from on that day.

Reality may strike and you may have to pay the bills (like I will on MLK Day) or other random to-do, but the rest of the day will remain yours. Sacred. Nourishing.

Step 4:

Communicate it.

If you were a post office, everyone would know you’d be off on national holidays. But deciding to observe them yourself will take a little educating.

Think of the key people who will be impacted by your decisions to take time off — and give them notice so they can accommodate. Post it on your website, email people you interact with frequently, and mention it conversationally.

Communicating it is helpful to others but it’s especially great at helping you stay accountable for taking the time off.

That’s all there is to it!

1. Choose the holidays
2. Write them down
3. Define what you will and won’t do
4. Communicate it

This is all it takes for teachers, government workers and bankers to get their days off. You can too! But wait…

Bonus Advanced Step

Schedule your vacations.

While you’ve got your calendar open, why not think about when you want to take vacation time this year. Crazy? I know.

If you want to take a vacation, the best way to get it is to set it. This is an advanced skill because most self-employed people are accustomed to going without, pushing through, nose to the grindstone forever.

Look over the year. When do you want to be off for a longer period of time than a single national holiday? When does your family have time off? When are your clients or customers on vacation themselves (and thus not responsive to your product/service anyway)?

Write in your vacations — and start the delightful process of deciding how you want to spend them. Wouldn’t it be great to start the year already knowing when you’ll get a break?

Inspired to try it? Made you think? Feel free to share your thoughts below!

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These days, for the sake of our planet, we want our take-out burgers in cardboard, not plastic. We carry our own bags to the grocery store. We write our notes on recycled paper and we dutifully carry our old computer monitor to the local electronics recycle-guy when it finally gives up the ghost. Then, we dump our fizzled writing instruments into the trash can where they finally end up choking the local land-fill with plastic parts destined to lie around forever.

Papermate, an old and respected name in writing systems, takes its responsibility to the future of our planet very seriously. These days, the company makes many of its products from bio-plastic parts which are completely biodegradable and will de-materialize within one year of introduction to the land-fill. Papermate also has an aggressive recycling message which accompanies its other instruments some of which are made from 70 to 100% recycled materials.

Next time you find yourself in the market for writing tools, consider following Papermate’s lead.

What recycled or recyclable products do you use in your home office and what motivates you to use them?

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 Introducing the amazing, versatile stair step folder holder thingy! Isn’t she a thing of beauty?

Each of us has something like a stacker on our desks which holds work-in-progress folders, as well as the “to be read when I have a minutes and/or want to impress somebody who happens by” folder, and, of course, the “I have no idea what to do with this, but if I wait long enough I might have an epiphany” files. Sadly, these little organizers do little to actually organize us. Generally, they effectively hide the folder labels because they are all on the same level and cannot be easily seen.

 Ahhh, but here we have the perfect office accessory. This is the little black dress in the world of home office-ers. Not only is it inclined upward from front to back, making it possible to actually SEE what you have stored there, but it’s also made of 30% recycled materials! The best ones have high dividers that prevent papers from flopping over.

The only down-side I can find to owning your own amazing, versatile stair-step folder holder thingy is that you might find some nasty surprises when you clean out your old stacker.

“Huh. I thought I’d sent that form to the Internal Revenue Service MONTHS ago.”

Don’t like black? Try these on for size!

 I use this exact one in my own office.

Do you use a graduated file holder? If so, what do you put in it?

2 comments

You may have heard that the Northeast got an unexpected 16″ of snow at the end of last month — October. It knocked out power to millions of people far longer than anyone anticipated. My Connecticut family got caught in it and lived without power, heat or running water for nine days.

When the lights went back on and the furnace started up again, I asked my brother what he learned from the experience.  His email was so insightful and inspiring, I just had to share it with you. Enjoy — here are some wise words from my favorite (and only) brother, Mark Hofmann.

10 lessons from 9 days without power

1. We got lucky

Contrary to popular culture, our true basic human needs are not Starbucks, Tivo, and Facebook – it’s water, food, and shelter.

Our family was not prepared for this storm, but we were lucky. Lucky that we had enough water, food, and shelter to last all nine days. We were lucky that we were on city water and sewer. We were lucky that we buy way more food than we need, and we were lucky that the weather cooperated, by not dipping too far below freezing. We were lucky that it snowed so much, because we were able to use the snow in the coolers when no one had ice within a 50-mile radius. We were lucky that we finally trimmed most of the branches that hung over our house two months ago. It could have been much, much worse.

2. You need food, water, and shelter

We have an electric stove, so we were lucky that we had a gas grill with a side burner that had propane. I’m not the most diligent person, and I’m in charge of the grill. So it even shocked me that we had a reasonable amount of fuel when the power went out.

Have something you can cook with. If you don’t have something you can cook with, make sure that the food you stock pile doesn’t need to be cooked. You can subsist on dry pasta, but it’s not fun. We were amazingly creative with the grill, too. One morning we made eggs, bacon, and toast on the grill (but the eggs kept running through the grates). No seriously, it was the pancake batter that kept running through them. Had the power outage gone on another day, I would have tried to bake bread on the grill.

3. Enjoy your food before is spoils (or be forced to crunchy pasta for 10 days!)

When you’re out of power for this long, no amount of coolers and bags of ice is going to save what’s in your refrigerator. So don’t feel guilty about eating the stuff that you can. It’s going to get thrown away, anyway. The aforementioned morning I made a pound of sausage, 6 fried eggs, and a few slices of toast (made with more butter than I care to admit) Hey, if you’re going to be miserable, drawn your sorrows in some good food. It was a great breakfast, and gave us the juice to clean up a few yards, cut up some branches, and reorganize the wood pile.

Nutella sandwiches can be a treat, however we found that below a certain temperature, it is impossible to spread. It is, however, still delicious eaten right out of the jar. One family cooked up an entire beef tenderloin and shared it with their immediate neighbors (mental note: I need to make friends with those people). Once we could get to a grocery store, we shopped and ate like the Europeans – buy only what you’re going to eat for that day.

4. It’s going to be cold, but you’ll get used to it

Some physical changes happen, too. You get used to the cold. I mean, really used to it. When you’re used to an average temperature of 50, walking into a house that’s 70 is a shock. No matter how many layers you shed, you’ll sweat and your cheeks turn bright red. The act of washing your hands in cold water becomes routine… well, eventually. And with a little bit of gallows humor, we quipped that we should give out “frozen tushie” awards to all the families that stayed in their homes without power. You have no idea how freaking cold that toilet seat is. By the end of 10 days, though, you get used to it. We knew someone was going to the bathroom by the audible yelp they made when they sat down. By the end, even I was hardly even letting out a girlish squeal. And if you want to get warm during the day? Do something. Move something heavy. It is amazing how just a little bit of strenuous physical exercise can keep you much warmer than a bunch of layers of clothes.

5. Take care of your basic materials

Some fireplaces are built to keep the house warm and some are just there to look good. Mine was built for looks. In order to raise the temperature in the room the fireplace was in, I had to cut the pieces smaller and burn the fire hotter – which meant that we went through our wood faster. A stack that was 3′x4′x1′ lasted approximately 18 hours and should have lasted much longer.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing – if you have fire wood, take care of it. At least half of my wood pile (which was beautiful red maple) was ruined because I didn’t take care of it. I let it rot, because I didn’t always keep it covered and let it get exposed to the elements. The point here is, have an alternate fuel source that can keep you warm through a certain period and maintain it.

6. Wool is your friend

Body heat is an amazing thing, but modern bed coverings suck. Getting into bed at night was one of the worst things of the day, but spending the next 8, 9, even 10 hours next to someone warm was the best. I can’t explain it, but out sheets felt so cold and I never figured out why. But we were given a nice wool blanket for our wedding, and using that was like someone turning on the furnace. Having a warm body next to you sped up the process greatly.

7. Have plenty of batteries on hand

You need batteries. Why? To power all of the portable electronics you need to occupy your kids with! (Just kidding) For light, mostly. There are some surprisingly dark places in our house that were unusable without a flashlight or lantern. (Oh yeah, you should have both of these.) You also need batteries to power a radio or portable TV, so you can understand what’s going on in the world. After you have no TV or internet access for a day or two, you realize exactly how cut off from the “real world” you feel.

8. Make sure your emergency source of information works

We have really refused to upgrade to the whole TV, flat screen, HD craziness over the last 10 years. This caught us off guard, though, since our portable, battery powered TV was the old analog tube type. Imagine our surprise when we could get exactly zero TV stations. They had all converted to digital.

And don’t count on your cell phones to save you. In ice and snow events like this one, it can take out the power and/or the link to the cell. We went two days without cell service, and it wasn’t quite right for almost a week. Calls couldn’t get through, internet and email didn’t work, and only the occasional text messages get through.

9. Take advantage of the time together

Most of all, the people you live with are close to you, both physically and emotionally. Take advantage of this time together. It will draw you closer if you work as a team, communicate well, and take the time to care for each other.

Play games, take hikes, do yardwork – any of this will draw you closer. The pettiness of day to day falls away when there’s water to boil for washing the dishes and making breakfast, and prepping for meals, and getting the fire going and, and, and… Doing these things together brings you together in a way that nothing else will. At least it did for us.

10. Everything takes 3x longer than you think it should

Relax and enjoy the process (cause you’re not going to make it go faster!).

Have you been without power? Any insights to add or share? Please feel free to add your thoughts!

4 comments