DrDeClutterBlog.com

Week two into January, and counting!

Are you back to yourself yet? Are you undecorated and into this new year?

Each persons experience during the holidays is relative of course… but many relatives can be exhausting and frustrating to be around for too long!

It usually takes me until the middle of January to defog my head from my encounters-of-the-family-kind and my family-hangover!… I love them dearly, and, whew!

So, one pile at a time . . . and, back to focus, to

• reorganize your home after your joyfilled present wrapping extravaganza,
• get back to eating better and lose those extra pounds (again),
• get thank you’s written and sent,
• photos processed, up or downloaded, attached and sent  and distributed to family and friends,
• photo albums scrapbooked,
• reoganize the decorations and wrapping supplies storage area,
• back to your own routine again. Whew!
• Oh, and start to use up those Gift Cards one by one!! (Thanks Suzi, I used your annual gift to me today –  Panera Bread GCard!)

FOCUS TIP: Don’t take too long to get all these kinds of things done as they will keep you from being focused and back to your necessary life and flow.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold,
it would be a merrier world.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy  

It’s too easy to go through a rushed holiday season and forget to keep track of what was really good, awesomely yummy and something you want to bake, cook, or create again next year.

RECIPE AND MEMORY KEEPER

Create a simple Holiday Recipes notebook, scrapbook or index card holder where you can keep all of your recipes in one place, share with others and hand down to your children in the future.

Be sure to add your personal handwritten notes to them too! Those are  great to read by the generations to come.

SCRAPBOOK THEM!

Embellish with photos  of your family and friends enjoying them too! Make it really fun to look at and use every year. Keep them clean buy using clear plastic sheets or laminate them.

Happy Holiday Cooking!

Back up your computer into the ether-net. Why? If you use a physical backup on your office, and you are hit with fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, theft, spilling a juicy box on it!… or other mayhem , you’ll have lost it all.

Mozy is an extremely affordable backup system, I use it.  Mozy also lets you tap into your harddrive from anywhere in the world. You can’t do that with a physical hard drive sitting at home in your office.

You don’t even know it’s backing up several times a day.

Find out more at Mozy Online Backup

My nephew, Colton, is a great artist - has been so since he was a toddler! For part of his recent high school graduation gift I took three of his doodles and had them imprinted onto new white t-shirts! What a fun gift to give!

My older brother and my mom want the dragon picture on t-shirts for themselves!

Go through your kid’s and grandchildren’s art and doodles and see what gems you find to have imprinted onto t-shirts, tote bags, etc.!

I had them imprinted at Instant Imprints in Longmont.  Owner, Forrest Fleming will be glad to help you!

These and similar shops are somewhere near you as well. See the FIND A STORE at the top of their site.

This is very cool!

I’m not great at using photo manipulation software as I don’t take, send and use photos that much, or if I do, I don’t crop and change them, they have to work as is.

Well, hallelujah! Here is a cool site that makes tweaking our photos more than fun! You can crop and type words on a photo and frame them and all kinds of stuff for free – and for fee if you want more, better, bigger doodads. Awesome. Thanks, Picnik! Go to http://www.picnik.com/, click on GET STARTED NOW bar and have fun!

Okay, you’ve taken three million digital photos on your vacation, at the wedding or birthday party. Now, you have to print them, right?

Whoooooaaaaaa!

Don’t print your digital photos without this . . . without taking the time to think through which ones you will really use!

Why?

I’ve watched my clients pitch hundreds of photos they’ve taken the time and money to print out. What a waste of paper, ink and time! ACK!

DO THIS:

1. Sit down and go through your photos on the computer, deleting all those that are not that great and aren’t scrapbook worthy.

2. Now, walk-away-from-the-computer! Wait a few days to a week before printing.

3. Go over your photos in your computer again . . . and delete more!

4. Prune your choices down to a very choice few that are really great, worth showing others many times in the future, really represent the event and what you want to remember.

5. Now, walk away for another few days!

6. Okay, come back. NOW choose from these and print away!

7. DO NOT leave in a pile! Send off, put in a scrapbook or “ready to scrapbook” container and schedule the time to actually scrapbook them!

8. Enjoy your memories

9. Now, go take more pictures!!  Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS16GSDHC6E [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

It can be worse, much worse, than packratting paper in respect to numbers. Collecting free information (stuff) and ebooks, pdfs, photos, clipart and info-data from online and your own braindroppings . . . it can all become a blur of e-clutter and overwhelming. If the amount of data in our computers was recreated in paper form, we’d have to move out of our offices several times over!

Right up there with “I wish my house would burn down so I don’t have to deal with it,” is “I wish my computer would just crash so I don’t have to figure out what to do with it all!”

The reality is, you’ll never see, use or need over 80% of the paper you have. This is just as true for digital data files and folders, i.e., you can only utilize and look at so much information that you collect in one lifetime! 

So, it’s time. It’s time to take control of e-clutter, simplify and get organized. Here’s what to do:

1.  Plan and Purge.

30 – 45 minutes a day is a good starting point. Schedule uninterrupted time to do this and stick to it. It will feel great when you’re done. You’ll feel lighter and relieved!

2.  Change habits for more open space and a simple digital life.

To keep your computer lighter in the long run, free of e-clutter and e-junk, you’ll have to stay vigilant to collecting and saving as… again.

Just as with material items you need to ask yourself:

- Will I ever use, look at or read this again? (Or, for the first time!!)

- If so, how and when?

- Can I find this online again or somewhere else and not keep it on my computer?

- If my computer crashed and it was gone forever, would I even remember it and miss it? If so, why?

This is about being more conscious and awake to your gathering and collecting information. Use your delete key more often! 

3. Develop purging routines.

Maintaining a clutter-free life means developing new routines and habits, which means planning in regular e-house cleaning of your digital files. 

- Target one folder at a time. Some folders can have many sub-folders, so one at a time can be a big job. To keep from overwhelm, set aside some time each day for mini-purges. 

- Really focus in and choose only the important stuff, and delete/trash the rest.

- Sort out the important files and put them in a separate, temporary folder. After you’ve deleted all the non-essential files put the essential ones back where they belong and delete the temporary folder.

4. Put purging reminders on your calendar for new jobs and maintenance.

Thank you, Leo Babauta for some great ideas.

Make sure to take those memories on film or with digital clicks this summer!

And, when you scrapbook them, write down as much as you can that will describe it so that tomorrow and decades from now anyone can know what the event was, where you were, the date, names, ages, what people were saying, funny things that happened, etc. 

June 21, 2009: My friend Suzi and her 13 year old daughter Laura from Nebraska. They came up to visit with husband/dad Myron to Estes Park. This photo is at Celestial Seasonings in Boulder. We took the tour; the Mint Room cleared our heads! This is Sleepytime Tea Bear in the tour video show room before the tour.

Why write all this? There is simply no way that you or they will remember those details if they are not recorded in some way, especially when on vacation when time gets blurred and neat fun factoids get lost and forgotten.

Don’t miss out on a great experience touring the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory and Gift Shop when you’re near Boulder, CO. The Mint Room is awesome!

Can there be too many digital photos on your camera, phone, disks and on your computer?

Technology is good and it is bad . . . depending on if you know how to use it or feel overwhelmed by it. But, no matter if you know how to use it or not, taking digital photos means you still have to organize them somehow in order to use and enjoy them.

I’m going to give this subject over someone who’s done the digging on it and loves it – Tony Northrup, writer, Internet engineer, and digital photography enthusiast has a great article Microsoft.

Just do it!

Och! Sorry, but that’s the answer!

Gather your photos and embellishments, clear a space on your table and DO IT! Why? Because if you don’t you’ll have that constant nagging voice and feeling about not having it done. And, Why? Because you’ll not have all those great memories for your family, kids and grandkids to sit and remember, laugh at and grow upon.

JUST DO IT!

KEY: It doesn’t have to be perfect, just finished. One page at a time. One event at a time.

TIP: Get with a few friends and share all your embellishments and scrapbooking stuff while laughing, sharing, strengthening your friendships while getting pages completed. A win/win/win!

Here is a poem that might help to motivate you as well.

This book is like a comforter,
 A quilt with many parts,
A keeper of our memories,
 A place to warm our hearts.

The fabric are our life’s events,
 Those things we want to keep ~
The programs, stubs and photographs,
 Placed here ~ not in a heap!

The scraps all stitched together,
 Held fast with love and care,
Create a family legacy,
 A gift for all to share.

This book is like a comforter,
 A quilt with many parts,
A keeper of our memories,
 A place to warm our hearts.