Harmony At Last, LLC

Plans can be great… you can schedule appointments or anticipate working on a specific project. Planning helps you think about what you’re going to do and when you’d like to actually do it.

Now enters the issue of “control”. There are some things within our control and somethings that are outside of our control.

When we are engaged in the planning process, ideally we are anticipating things that we can control that would impact our plan if something went awry. We might even develop a contingency plan to account for potential problems.

Even with the best created plan, there is the possibility of something happening that is outside of our control. When these challenges occur, it is up to us on how we deal with them- we can become angry and frustrated or we can choose to embrace flexibility. Flexiblity allows us to better roll with life’s surprises and deal with them in the best possible way that the situation allows. After all, our thoughts are usually not as clear when we are angry, resisting what is, complaining that our productivity is impacted, all because it’s not what we want it to be.

A palm tree in a hurricane can provide a great visual image of the benefit of flexibility. Instead of resisting the strong winds and snapping in two, a palm tree has the ability to withstand the winds by bending. It’s ability to be flexible allows it to survive and to resume it’s stately posture once the winds have passed.

It’s great to make plans. When life happens, let’s take a lesson from the palm trees and embrace flexibility to weather the surprises that come our way.

Alphabet Soup Part 1… I achieved my Certified Professional Organizer® (CPO®) designation in January 2008 from the Board of Certification for Professional Organizers (BCPO^SM). This required me to have completed over 1,500 hours of paid work experience and pass a written exam. I was excited to be one of the first to receive certification in the organizing field.

Alphabet Soup Part 2… In April 2008, I achieved my Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization® (CPO-CD®) through the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD). This achievement culminated 80 hours of specialized study, training, and directed coaching in addition to passing a peer review board over an 18 month period of time.

Right about now you may be asking… so what?!?!?

I am now one of less than 10 individuals in the United States to have achieved both certifications (and I’m the only one in the state of Vermont). More importantly to my clients, though, is my continued desired to learn and develop myself professionally. I’m passionate about helping people say goodbye to chaos and hello to calm in their work, home, and life. Continuing to develop my skills adds value to my clients every day as I can share new learning and ways to approach challenges.

My clients are my inspiration and I’m thankful for each of you in allowing me to support you on your journey. Thanks!

Julie Cubino was recently featured in a Lowe’s For Pros article by Dennis McCafferty entitle “For the Record, Yes, You Should Consider Hiring a Professional Bookkeeper.”

Check it out to get tips on when to hire a bookkeeper and how to utilize them effectively!

“Fuzzy goals, fuzzy results.”- Julie Cubino

I really like this quote because too often we meander about, not sure of what we really want and yet somehow we seem surprised when we get random results.

To really achieve your goals, you need to know what you want. Some questions that can help you to refine your vision are:

* What do you want?

* Why do you want it? (ie What’s motivating you?)

* How important is it to you to achieve it?

* What actions are you willing to take to achieve it?

Here’s a workplace scenario that you may be familiar with…

There is so much to-do during the workday and you can’t seem to get it all done. So you dutifully pack up your laptop and a stack of papers to bring home with you each evening. You end up some days carrying home several bags and they can get pretty heavy. Some evenings you end up getting some things done. On other evenings, the work simply lingers in the bags as the evening unfolds. You have so many other things going on in your evening that you just can’t seem to get to all the professional work you thought you would. The next morning arrives and you carry those same bags back to work. You feel guilty that the papers didn’t get touched. The to-dos weigh on your mind (and on your back as you carry them back and forth.) The cycle repeats. And repeats. And repeats.

How many bags do you carry back and forth to work? How frequently do you get to all of the work you brought home? How weighed down do you feel about the lingering to-dos in your bag? How would you rate your ability to get your work actions done efficiently?

Let’s lift the weight from your shoulders (both literally and figuratively)!

Try a simple step. In any given evening, decide what (if any) tasks that you are sure that you will complete. Be realistic. Some evenings it’s just not going to happen. (Your spouse is running late from work, you’re in charge of picking up the kids from childcare and then preparing dinner… you get the idea.) Other evening you may just choose to complete one or two tasks. Only bring those tasks home and leave the rest at work. Then make time to actually get the tasks you brought home complete. Find success in doing what you committed to yourself to do rather than failure at what you didn’t do.

Now try an even bigger step. Periodically give yourself the opportunity to leave your work at work. No bags, no papers, no to-dos. Total freedom for the evening. Does this step scare you? If you decide to give it a try, take note as to how it feels.

If you feel like delving even deeper into getting to-dos done efficiently, we’re offering a teleclass this Thursday, March 6th from 8-9pm EST.

Today was a snow day in Vermont. More specifically, we had a winter storm and preschool was closed. For me that meant that I was home with my two very active preschoolers. About halfway through the day, my husband was able to free up his schedule to give me about an hour of time to check emails and return phone messages. Great!

Well, I had been in my office under five minutes when one of my children began knocking on the door (it sounds more like banging) and saying “let me in, mommy”. I open the door to find him holding a hand-made Valentine’s Day card. He proudly says, “This is for Daddy. I need help wrapping it. He can’t peak at it.” I couldn’t resist how excited he was to be making a gift for his dad so I helped him put the card in a gift bag, place tissue paper around it, make a gift tag (I cut around it with the fancy zig-zag scissors and he wrote the name) and then tied curling ribbon on the handles of the bag. The curling ribbon had to be curled appropriately “Just like my curls on my hair, right Mommy?”

Thinking that I finished this project, I commended him and went back to my work. Two minutes later, he’s back with another card. Now this card is for me and needs to be wrapped as well. To sum this up for you, I have two kids, a dog, a cat, and a husband. Everyone of us got a hand-made card in a bag. Of course, both kids decided that this was a fun project so they each did it. (Thank goodness I had saved all of those extra gift bags to reuse.)

Needless to say, my hour went by very quickly. They were so joyful in their project that I chose to put my work aside and to give my attention to them. I may have sent out 2 emails during this time. I am sure that I’m not the only parent that understands the juggling that occurred in this situation.

Interruptions can be a huge factor in getting things done in a workday. In fact, in my work with clients, I commonly hear challenges of difficultly getting work done because of frequent interruptions. Some key concepts that can help you to balance the need to support others with the need to get your own job done are listed below…

1. Keep in mind what your job responsibilities are. Many jobs have interruptions as part of the typical day. This is not just for those in administrative assistant roles. In you are in one of these jobs, you may be able to reduce interruptions although it would not be possible, nor helpful for the business, to have them eliminated completely.

2. If interruptions are a part of the job, you’ll need to plan for them as part of the day. That means if a task will take you 1 hour to complete with no interruptions, it may take twice that long (or more) when you consider the impact of the interruptions.

3. Allow a bit of open time in your schedule. When your calendar is packed so tightly that one minor blip can throw off the whole day, you may want to add a bit of buffer to your appointments. You decide what you need to keep the flow of your day going smoothly.

3. Create a system to help you remember where you were. When the interruption occurs, it is okay to say, “Just one moment please. I want to jot down a thought.” You can write a quick note to yourself on where you left off in order to help you recapture that train of thought in the future.

4. “You’re lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part.” (author unknown) I’ve seen this sign posted in offices. You’ll want to assess if the particular interruption is one that you want/need to address. And if you’re one of those people who leaves things undone until the last minute, you may want to consider modifying your style in order to reduce the impact of your last minute requests on your colleagues.

5. Stephen Covey talks about an “Urgent/Important” matrix in his book, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. You may be frequently asked to play “firefighter” by people who claim that something is urgent. When the task evaluated against other business priorities, it might be not very important. Minimize time spent on urgent/not-important tasks.

6. Shut the door. Although the banging on the door by my children was very distracting, many colleagues will respect that you need to have some focused time when they see the door closed. You’ll need to work within your office protocol for this one. The idea gets a bit tricker when in a cubicle.

7. Work at home. Some offices allow a bit of opportunity to work remotely at least some of the time. If you can take advantage of that, you may find that you get more accomplished when you do so.

With all of the push to getting more things done, it’s easy to pack a schedule so tight that there is no time for any relaxation. I came across an interesting quote recently about the need to take the time to play. Maybe this will even encourage you to take a break (or more!) from rigid time management.

“It’s more than the shoes, the raquet or bike

It’s more than your swing, the fish, or the hike

It’s more than the skis, the skates, or the snow

It’s ignoring the work and deciding to go. ”

By: Kristen Sheldon

I was able to experience this myself just this evening. After dinner, when it was precariously close to my kids bedtime, they requested to go outside on a night time walk. (We just received 14 inches of snow over the last two days and it was beckoning them outside.) My first thoughts were, “Ugh, I don’t really want to go outside right now. It’s cold and dark. I’d rather just get them ready for bed.” Their little (and persistent) pleas won out and outside we all went. It turned into 20 minutes of sledding, two very happy kids, and a joyful mom. Thank goodness for play!

We invite our readers to ask us their organizing questions. If we choose to respond to your question on our blog, you’ll receive $5 off your next Harmony At Last online purchase.

Question from Angela:

“I am a very visual person. Most organizing tips want everything in boxes and file folders. I have found that these type of systems do not work so well for me because once somethings out of sight; it is also out of mind! (I am most specifically referring to paper clutter: school, mail, coupons, flyers, etc.) Do you have any specific suggestions for those of us who are are so visual.”

Harmony At Last responds:

While it may seem tricky to be a visual person and be more organized, it doesn’t have to be. You’re right that many organizing tips advise you to “put it away”. In it’s most basic form, that advice can be positive. If you have too much out, things can be very cluttered and it’s difficult to find what you need, when you need it. On the opposite side, if you put it away, you feel that you have hidden it for good!

There is a gotcha associated with leaving papers out. The first paper you leave out can be very helpful in triggering you to do something. You see it and you take action. As more papers get added to the pile, you inadvertently hide the actions. The papers (and actions) at the bottom of the pile are hidden by the paper (and actions) at the top of the pile.

Paper itself is a big topic. I’ll cover the basics of paper associated with actions in this blog. If you’re eager for even more depth of paper and getting to-dos done knowledge, there will be telephone classes offered on the topics. Check out “Getting To-Dos Done at Home” and “Organize Your Home with Harmony” for more details. As always, more personalized support is available as well.

Let’s first focus our attention on “limbo land”. This is the area where the piles are located. The papers are in limbo because they are identifying something you want to do, may want to do, need to ask someone about, need to think about, need to save, are not sure what to do, etc. You get the idea. The paper is waiting for you to really assess it, decide what to do, and then move it to is rightful spot.

When you identify a paper that has an action associated with it, there are three steps that you need to take. I call this the “Route To Success Flow”.

1. “R”ecord- Create a master list- you can use a piece of paper, PDA, sticky notes, index cards, a dry-erase board, cork-board, etc. You simply need to write down what the action is and keep all of your actions in one place. Being visual, you will probably enjoy having this placed somewhere that you’ll see it. For example, one option is to use one sticky note per action, place on a dry-erase board, and hang the board in the kitchen. Review the board daily, and as tasks are completed, throw away the sticky. There are always multiple options- if this one doesn’t strike your fancy, don’t give up! Start with the concept of a master list and let your creative juices work out the details.

2. “T”ime- For those items that have time sensitivity to them, place the action in your calendar. For example, if your child will participate in a school Valentine’s Day celebration, you may have actions to buy the cards, make cupcakes, and attend the school party. You’ll want to note the day/time of the party in your calendar and track the actions as described in step #1 (Record). If you want to buy the cards and make the cupcakes on a specific day, you can choose to add that to your calendar as well. You decide what is time sensitive and what is not.

3. “S”tore- It’s finally time to put away the paper until you need it again. You can place them in a container that you choose. File folders are just one option. I’ve worked with clients who liked binders, clear envelopes (the accordion kind with a flap), even ceramic bowls! You’re going to want to keep this container near the area where you have displayed your list. When you review the master action list (and calendar) and notice it’s time to do an action, simply take the paper out of the container.

Here’s the secret… notice I did not tell you to put away the paper until step #3? That’s because if you store it before you do the “Record” and “Time” steps you will hide the paper. Also, if you forget to store the paper after doing steps #1 and #2, you’ll lose the paper even though you are certain you have an action (because you see it on your master list).

Through this process, every action will have an “invisible string” that connects the visible action list with the paper it is attached to. No matter where the paper sits in the storage container, it will be simply found with one tug of the string!

“Mastering time management is more than simply about scheduling each minute of your day. It’s about leaving time to pause so that the creative inspirations can come through.” Julie Cubino, Certified Professional Organizer, Harmony At Last

Harmony At Last just started two new phone groups to help you reach your goals from the comfort of your own home. These groups have been in development for awhile and we are so excited to be announcing them (finally)! Julie Cubino, Professional Organizer, Coach, and Owner of Harmony At Last will be the facilitator for each of these groups.

Organize My Home with Harmony Group:

To help individuals organize their home and keep it that way in a friendly, supportive group learning environment. Flexibility and convenience are built in through periodic phone meetings and a private, moderated message board. Virtual Organizing made simple! (2nd and 4th Monday of each month from 8-9pm EST)

Rejuvenate with Harmony Group:

To inspire and support women as they develop and implement their personal plan to create more balance in their life. Participants in this group will also explore the components of work/life balance and time management in a small group setting. Guest speakers will also be invited to some of the meetings to share their knowledge on inspirational topics. Flexibility and convenience are built in to the supportive group environment through periodic phone meetings and a private, moderated message board.

Register now to begin your journey!