Thank you so much for your interest, comments and support in the short time the Get Organized Blog and Get Organized Tips newsletter have been going. Stay tuned for heaps of great tips and strategies ahead…

Here’s to a happy and organized 2009!

Ciao for now,
Michele

Has your living room been hidden beneath clutter so long you’ve forgotten what your coffee table looks like – or whether you have one?

Hint: If you’ve been contacted for an Oprah Horror Hoarders taping then the answer is probably oh yes.

During the festive season people like to entertain, visit family and friends, share meals together. Such socializing requires the ability to locate seating not allocated to ancient magazines and to talk to people, not teetering laundry piles.

If neither has been feasible in your living room since the late nineties, yet you find yourself unable to see how to improve the situation, then you may be suffering from a common malady known as clutter blindness.

Clutter Blindness

Clutter blindness is defined in your better medical journals as ‘continual clutter exposure causing the eyeballs to lose all ability to perceive the source of, or solution to, said clutter’.

Fortunately, clutter blindness tends to target certain items, so you can attack the known offenders even without recognizing their clutterly quality.

15 Targets for Clutter Blindness

Here are 15 of the most common sources of clutter blindness and suggested solutions.

1. Excess furniture – return it to the proper room or get rid of it
2. TV in dominating place – see if you can rearrange your sofa and chairs to create a relaxing space for conversation
3. Computer or laptop – return it to your office or workspace and remove from your socializing area
4. Work projects – ditto
5. Exercise equipment – if you don’t use it then sell it, return it, etc; if you do, then move it to a corner or other room so your guests have some space
6. Games consoles – place in an entertainment cabinet or other storage space when not in use
7. Paperwork – create a space (in your office, ideally) where you can store papers out of sight and in an orderly way
8. Toys – back to the kids’ rooms they go
9. Uncared for plants – if salvageable, offer to friends, otherwise let them go
10. Pet clutter – consistently place pet paraphernalia in a corner of the laundry, kitchen, etc
11. Too many books – keep a few books around if you like, but return the others to your bookshelves or the library
12. Too many magazines – keep the current issue of magazines you genuinely read, recycle the rest
13. Newspaper piles – unless you’re planning future activity as a serial killer, recycle the lot
14. Tossed bags, coats, etc – hang in the wardrobe
15. Laundry/ironing – place in baskets in the laundry till ready for ironing, folding, etc.

It might take a little time to de-clutter your space, but you’ll be rewarded with a lovely, welcoming living area. And you’ll once again be able to welcome family and friends into your home this festive season.

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At this time of year people are thinking about food – planning Christmas meals, facing too much festive fare, or resolving to have better eating habits in the new year.

I can’t help you with the first, since I shop in the domestically-disabled section (near the Who Are You Kidding faux frypans).
But if you’re looking for eating behaviors to tame over the silly season or to drop in 2009, here are 10 definite duds.

The Top 10 Diet Mistakes

Andrew Cate, personal trainer and author of several books including The H Factor Diet, says these are 10 of the most common diet mistakes.

1. Skipping breakfast
2. Large portion sizes (even of healthy foods)
3. Liquid kilojoules (including fruit juice)
4. Failing to plan your meals in advance
5. A food-only approach to health and weight loss
6. Not eating enough fat (or more specifically, the right types of fat)
7. Cutting out carbohydrates (especially low GI carbohydrates)
8. Not drinking enough water
9. Overindulging on weekends
10. Thinking short-term

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We all know times are tough – at least compared to the recent past.

Let’s be honest, though. For most of us computer-addicted, latte-sipping, iPhone-using Chicken-Littles, the impact of the falling firmament is not as dramatic as the lamenting and sighing and woe-is-me-ing would suggest.

But how do we keep perspective when everyone around us is crying cataclysm?

Get Organized for Recession-Proof Happiness: Using Humor to Change your Perspective

When I’m in danger of thinking I’ve got big problems, I find humor the quickest, most direct way to show up my skewed perspective.

Here are three of my favorite humorific reminders*:

1. Teenage affluenza is spreading fast

Although this video isn’t new, it’s certainly timely in prodding us to see the dire economic situation from a different perspective. It’s worth the five minutes, I promise!

2. The Indignities of Coach Class

Humor is also how David Rakoff’s essay collection makes a point about our culture of excess. The title is all you need to get that jerk of realization:

Now, Don’t Get Too Comfortable:
The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems.

First world problems? Urban Dictionary defines them as:

Problems from living in a wealthy, industrialized nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at.

What was that? Oh – just the sensation of boot hitting butt.

3. Once more with feeling

Lastly, a little technique I use when thinking I have it tough, is to say aloud, in the whiniest voice I can muster, one of these:

• Why is life so cruel!
• Why must such terrible things always happen to me!
• How can I be expected to go on!

It never fails to yank me back to reality.

So consider vaccinating yourself against recession-gloom with a little injection of perspective-shifting humor.

Disclaimer

Now I’m not saying our economic problems aren’t real – plenty of evidence suggests they are.

I’m simply suggesting that for most of us, the sky will still be there.
And compared to much of the world, it will remain very blue.

Question: How do you keep your perspective when everyone else is getting their gloom on?

* If my long-term readers are feeling a bit deja vu-y, it’s because I previously referenced the first two items in my Happiness Strategies post: Happiness Life Strategy: Recognize that most of your problems are first-world problems

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If you want to remember something, how do you remind yourself?

By telling yourself ‘I better not forget…’?

Yelling ‘Hey [person you're with], remind me to…’?

A note in a diary? A post-it on your screen?

These reminders ignore how your mind works. You don’t check your reminder repository before everything you do, so things get forgotten.

A better system is to use ’smart reminders’ - reminders placed where you’ll see them when you need to do the reminded action.

Use Smart Reminders

Here are some examples…

• Don’t want to forget your water bottle when you go to the gym, but right now the dishwasher’s running? Turn your gym bag upside down.
• Gotta take something with you? Leave it in front of the door.
• Several calls to make? Put the callee names on post-its and pop them on the phone.
• Keep forgetting to use your gift certificate? Put it in your wallet - in front of your credit card or cash.
• Wanna stop night-time snacking? Put those motivating photos right on the fridge/pantry door.

You get the idea. Whenever you think of something you want to remember, take the extra step of putting your reminder where you’ll be prompted at the right time.  Voila! Instant memory improvement.

Question: What effective reminder techniques do you use?

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