Archive for Uncategorized

woman reading book while sitting on a wooden dock beside a small body of water

Productivity Tip: Recharge, Rest, Rejuvenate, Reset

Posted by Carolyn on

September 4, 2023

Is Summer Vacation Productivity Time?

How can doing less, rest and recharge help us all be more productive?

It’s summer time in the northern hemisphere. For many people that means a chance to take time off, kick back maybe at the cottage, beach, on a dock or just in the backyard with a barbecue. Or as I heard last night in a move “put your feet in the sand and relax”. Sounds like a great idea.

But how does that help us be more productive?

But I’m Too Busy to Take Time Off

In today’s fast-paced world, the notion of taking time off for a vacation might seem counterintuitive to productivity. However, research and real-life experiences consistently highlight the vital role that vacations play in supporting and enhancing overall productivity. Contrary to popular belief, taking regular breaks and immersing oneself in leisure activities can have a significant positive impact on an individual’s work performance and overall well-being.

A Change is as Good as a Rest

The saying, “A change is as good as a rest” originated in the Victorian era. This was before computers, electronic calendars and the potential for instant video conversations around the world. Our lives have sped up and become more complicated. The need for a break from our day to day stress is more important that ever. Vacation can provide that change. It might be anything from a staycation to an exotic trip. The bottom line is that you are not doing what you do when you are not on vacation.

The Benefits of Vacation

The folks at Allina Health in the USA found seven benefits to planning and taking a vacation. Interestingly, even planning for the vacation can boost our mood. Meanwhile MacMaster University suggests that vacation provides an opportunity rest, relax and recharge. This in turn boosts productivity since individuals have a chance to unplug from the day to day stress.

Additional benefits include:

Improved physical health. By reducing stress we reduce the risk of stress enhanced ailments such as coronary artery disease. Individuals who are more physically fit may be more productive with high endurance.
Mental Rejuvenation. Vacation allows for a feeling of calm and rest. This in turns allows the body and mind to renew and recharge. Returning to work with an improved mood helps increase focus and productivity. The media mogul and television personality Oprah Winfrey is known for taking regular vacations to recharge. She often talks about how these breaks help her refocus and maintain her high level of productivity and creativity. Arianna Huffington, the co-founder of The Huffington Post and author of “The Sleep Revolution” is an advocate for work-life balance and the importance of taking breaks.
Increased Creativity. Stepping away from the day to day through vacation or a mini retreat, allows our brain to see things from a new perspective. Without the day to day stress, with a change in routine, creativity is stimulated. Richard Branson disconnect when he goes on vacation in order to recharge and enhance his creativity. Branson claims to be able to new insights into old problems.

So if you have vacation time coming here are a few tips to help you recharge and come back renewed and rejuvenated.

First up, take your vacation time.
Try and arrange a change in scenery and change in schedule.
Build in lots of down time for reflection and relaxation. Think read a book, swim or whatever is relaxing for you.
Unplug. Spend time without your phone or email.
Build in time when you return to prepare for your return to the normal day to day life. That way you aren’t rushed to find clean clothes and the car keys.

We all need time to recharge to be more productive. Vacation can help improve physical being, improve mental and emotional outlook and thereby improve productivity. So take your vacation. And enjoy.

Micro Tasks

Posted by Carolyn on

June 26, 2023

Micro Tasks Challenge the 15 Minute Declutter Routine

Could it be that micro tasks could be even more successful than a daily 15 minute declutter routine? I say yes; I think they can and that we ought to all jump on this bandwagon. Micro tasks could possibly even replace the 15 minute declutter routine.

How it Started

Mindlessly, I was stared at the shelf beside my desk. I had done so countless times before, while thinking through yet another online tech challenge. I have no recollection of sorting out the tech issue. It was clear there were things on the shelf I had not used in years and was never likely to use. In a split second, I decided to clear the shelf, wipe it off and remove to a donation pile those things I would not use. Like the audio CD for learning Spanish. I no longer have a CD player on my computer or portable device to play it.

In less than 5 minutes I had a clean shelf that was now half empty, a small bag of denotable items and a few items in recycling and garbage. The result of my micro task was a very satisfying declutter. The shelf is half empty, clean and can be used more effectively.

Micro Tasks

I soon determined that micro tasks could be done almost anywhere, almost any time. I’ve made a game of it. Just this morning, while waiting on the front door step for my son to load the car before leaving, I clipped back the trailing plants in the planter. The micro task took 5 minutes. Later while waiting for a video clip to upload, I wiped the windows sill, rinsed the stained-glass ornaments, took away the ones I no longer wanted and put everything back. Another 5 minutes.

I’ve defined micro task as a 5-10 minute task that can be completed with little or no additional equipment and contributes to clutter free living. Two days ago I took the ski jackets out of the front hall cupboard, inspected for rips and tears and transported to our off-season storage rack in the basement. I’ve got my eye on a shoe rack with 5 pairs of flip flops that haven’t left the rack in awhile – maybe 2 years. While waiting for the kettle to boil, I can scoop up the flip flops, inspect for integrity and bag for donation. This last task makes use of the concept of time layering along with micro tasks.

The Game

Try it.

Look for 5 minutes either between other projects or activities or while waiting for something else to happen (standing in line)
Look around for a 5 minute task that is super easy to accomplish. For example, while waiting for the pasta water to boil, take the cutlery out of the cutlery tray, wash the tray and replace the cutlery.
Make a game out of finding a micro task that doesn’t require any extra equipment (except maybe a cleaning cloth).
Make sure that the task contributes to either decluttering or getting something done. For example, I filed the top few items on my paper filing pile waiting for yet another video to upload,.
See how many of these you can do in one day.

The Benefit

Five minutes may not seem like alot of time. Those 5 minute tasks, however, all add up. The paper requires filing. The shelf requires decluttering and the flip flops require a new home. Add all those micro tasks together, all those 5 minute games, and eventually, you have a clutter free house.

Try it, and let me know how it goes.

Declutter Organizing Strategies Productivity Uncategorized

My Favourite Strategy

Posted by Carolyn on

June 19, 2023

The Reality

Faced with the magnitude of a project on the weekend, I realized that I refer to my favourite strategy, either productivity and organizing, more often than I realize.

There I was staring into the bilge of my baby. She’s not a big yacht. She is just big enough to require lots of work and weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual maintenance. You may have heard the expression “a boat is a hole in the water to throw money into”? Yup, that about sums it up. That picture is the water lines in the bilge beside the galley.

In this case it wasn’t the cost of the project, it was how to do the darn thing. I knew what the end result had to be: tank and lines flushed and filled, inside wiped down with vinegar, dishes and cutlery cleaned, cupboards cleaned out, water filter check, floor washed.

I was struggling with how to get there. What was the sequence? Why didn’t I write it down last year? Where were last year’s notes anyway? Why couldn’t I just go sailing….?

The Challenge

Frustrated and discouraged, wondering if I ought to have stayed home and worked on my year end finances, I went out to the cockpit. My task list notebook was waiting for me, never far from reach. As I stared at the empty page in my notebook, I thought “this is what my clients maybe feel like before we work together”.

The water system needed to be drained of the potable antifreeze from the winterization. The inside of the boat had to be wiped down with vinegar (my anti mold weapon). The cushions needed airing, other things needed washing. I scribbled away.

The Solution

Break it down. Then break it down again.

This is by far my favourite organizing and productivity strategy. I wrote everything I could think of that needed to be done. Then I did my best to try and sequence the steps. Some were two person jobs. I reassessed what I could do alone, and where I needed someone else to help.

Even just seeing the list made me feel better. The tasks seemed more concrete and less overwhleming. The project seemed doable but maybe over two days instead of one. The extra set of hands would have to wait for the second day.

Throughout the day I checked in regularly with the list. This kept me on task. Yes, I strike out what is complete. This keeps me motivated and energetic. And if you followed my Instagram account, you know I had to take a break at lunch to reassess progress again.

Here’s a peak at the list IMG_3821 after day one.

The Result

Everything got done right down to washing the dishes and setting out the sheets not the berth. Fresh water in the tanks. Filter clean. Fresh dish towel on display – ready to sail and entertain.

My favourite organizing and productivity strategy came through again.

What’s your favourite strategy? Do you have one. Feel free to borrow mine. It works.

Organizing Challenges Organizing Sports Gear Organizing Strategies Productivity Uncategorized

Tags : organizing strategies, productivity

Your Clutterfree Journey

Posted by Carolyn on

November 25, 2019

Being Organized is a Journey

When I first meet a new client, they frequently talk about “getting organized”. Often, clients are looking for that perfect organized state that will never need any further work..

“What do I need to do to get organized?” they may ask. They look for that perfect tool or piece of furniture or perhaps the perfect filing system for their office. There is one organized way to set up a wardrobe or closet and if they could just figure out what it is, they would never again be disorganized.

My experience demonstrates that in fact, getting organized is a journey. It’s not the perfect closet set up from the magazine or the perfectly labelled jars from a social media platform. Labelled jars and beautiful closets might be a stage of the journey.

Your Clutterfree Journey Changes

There is a natural ebb and flow of things throughout our life . Objects come into our life, they spend some time with us and us with them. Their role in our life is complete at some point. Objects naturally move on to another life with another individual because we no longer need them.

For some that Journey is one that twists and turns with many hills, valley, mountains and bridges. The Journey is harder at some times in our lives than others because of the nature of objects. For example, some mothers have alot of trouble parting with their babies clothes or toys. Some individuals have more difficulty avoiding accumulation than others. Some individuals have more trouble parting with objects. Even those living a minimlaist lifestyle have a Journey with twists and turns. Sometimes the journey take alot of concentration and othertimes, hardly any attention at all.

Thoughts and Actions Can be Clutterfree

It isn’t just the objects that make up clutter. Our thoughts can have clutter. Our activities can have clutter. Ever get to the end of a busy, exhausting day and wonder why your top priority for the day didn’t get done? Hmmm, maybe some clutter got in the way on your To Do List! A Clutterfree Journey can include an action-oriented List. An action-oriented To Do List gets stuff done.

More Information, Tips and Strategies

I invite you to come back and share your Clutterfree Journey. This blog is designed to help you navigate it successfully. You can look forward to information, tips and strategies and some company on your Journey.

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Tags : Clutterfree Journey, To Do List

How to Stay Sane and Organized for the Holidays!

Posted by Carolyn on

October 29, 2018

Enjoy Organized Holidays

The Holidays are Coming!

Wow, how did we get here so fast? It”s almost Hallowe’en and right behind that is the Holidays. Overwhelmed? Totally normal. Staying organized for the holidays is challenging and overwhelm is common for many people.

Don’t panic. An organized holiday schedule and plan is possible.

Stay Organized using the Breaking Down Solution

Try the breaking down solution. Do you have an overwhelming job at hand? Grab a piece of paper and pen/pencil and start writing down, in no particular order, all the small tasks that go into the larger project.

Stay Organized with Verbs

Verb up your list of To Do’s. If your children will be trick or treating, it might include: buy children costume, brainstorm costume ideas with kids, schedule trip to thrift store to buy costume pieces, buy candy, rebook meeting for Oct. 31 evening, decide on supper for Oct. 31.

Stay Organized by Ordering

Next, give a number to each task depending upon the importance and order that each needs to be done. For example, scheduling the trip to the thrift store and rebooking your appointment for the evening of Oct. 31 might need to come before brainstorming with the children.

Stay Organized by Estimating Time

Finally, estimate and assign an approximate time to each task. It doesn’t matter if the estimate is perfectly accurate it just has to be close to accurate. This will help you recognize how your time will be used by the items on your list.

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Great Day for a Website Launch

Posted by Carolyn on

February 13, 2017

What better day than Valentine’s Day to launch a new website. Have a look around and leave a message. Sign up for tips, tools and strategies on getting clarity, doing more with less, getting focused, and productivity.

So glad you stopped by. Check us out also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Caldwell Evolution News Uncategorized

Letters to Clutter: Tell it how you Really Feel!

Posted by Carolyn on

February 5, 2017

Send me your letters to clutter. Does this sound like you?

You’re standing in front of your desk, staring at the stacks of paper, frustrated and overwhelmed. “Why are you still here? Why can’t you find a file to climb into and make yourself available when I need you? Somewhere in there is the invoice I’m trying to get paid for – how will I ever get paid if I can’t even find the invoice?”

You open the closet door and glare at the contents. “I hate you and I love you. Ugh, how am I ever supposed to make this closet work when a bunch of you don’t fit, some of you I don’t even like and I don’t even know what’s at the back?!”

Your youngster is finally in bed and hopefully soon asleep. You return to the family room and flop into the chair realizing you can’t even walk on the floor any longer because of the piles and piles of toys. “Just put yourselves away, why don’t you! [bctt tweet=”Can’t you find a nice basket or box and do the Mary Poppins thing – jumping right into them?” username=”@wellrich”] And while you are at it, sort yourselves out and take the toys that no one has played with for the past 6 months to the donation centre. I’m going to bed.”

If you’ve ever talked to your clutter, or think you might like to say something to it, I’d like to hear from you. Consider writing a letter or letters to clutter and tell it how you really feel.

Why Letters to Clutter?

You letter or letters to clutter will be considered for inclusion in a project being published later this year. Your letter doesn’t need to be long, 200 – 400 words is perfect although longer or shorter is also welcome. Start your letter off with “Dear ________ (item or items of clutter i.e. Paper, Baby Clothes, Garden Tools), What am I going to do with you?” and tell the clutter what you are really thinking.

Types of Clutter

Your clutter might include one of the following items or you might have your own version of clutter.:

Costume jewelry
Inherited jewelry
Inherited dishes, flatware, glass/crystal
Paper
Sports equipment
Particular sports equipment e.g. A bag of balls, an old croquet set, a bag of hockey equipment
Clothes that don’t fit
Clothes that aren’t liked
Clothes in general
Childhood books
Memorabilia
Photographs
Someone else’s items e.g. a spouse’s sports gear, clothes or other items
Tools
Leftover renovation material e.g. tiles, paint, fabric
Craft goods

How and Where to Send you Letters to Clutter

Identify yourself only by your initials and your town of residence. Individuals will not be identified in their submissions and any particular identifying information will be removed.

Send letters to me, Carolyn Caldwell at [email protected].

Looking forward to receiving your letter or letters to clutter and seeing what you have to say to those trinkets collecting dust on the shelf.

Organizing Challenges Organizing Resources Organizing Strategies Uncategorized

Tags : Accumulation, Clearing Clutter, clutter, Letters to Clutter, managing mess, managing overwhelm, Overwhelm

Keep Small Business Organized: 5 Strategies

Posted by Carolyn on

September 23, 2015

5 Strategies to keep a small business organized

Stay clutter free to keep a small business organized

Is Your Small Business Organized?

We live in a changing world where small businesses must stay nimble of foot and focused on their goals. Sometimes those imperatives seem to contradict each other. How can we stay flexible, nimble and organized as a small business while staying focused on goals and strategies for business growth.

Its probably easier than you think. There is, however, no room for clutter in a successful small business; no room for extra stuff, tasks or costs. Here are 5 strategies to help keep that business clutter to a minimum and your small business organized for success.

Make “clutter free” a priority for the business. By letting employees know this is important, you set the performance expectations for your staff.
Be clear how you define clutter. Unnecessary paper is one thing but unnecessary emails is equally distracting clutter. The same goes for unnecessary meetings.
Be a role model and set the standard for your employees. If your office is a pile of disorganized papers, your employees will believe that’s an ok standard for your business organization.
Give staff the tools they need to be organized. Include shelves for vertical storage and immediate access to a blue box for recycling. If you aren’t sure what is missing or why an employee is so disorganized, consider having a professional organizer conduct an assessment of the work environment. There may be more complex organizational issues that the employee is struggling with.
Schedule a semi-annual clear out day. The rules for the time are simple. Everyone participates in a clear out of their work space on this day. Order lunch.

Office Organizing Organizing Challenges Uncategorized

Tags : Clearing Clutter, Filing, Goals, Leadership, small business organization

Re-used Bags and Kon Mari’d Socks

Posted by Carolyn on

August 21, 2015

Take a pile of socks….

I’ve read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up; I’ve helped clients find joy and packed up non-joyful items in my own home. Since I am usually spending my organizing time with clients taking items – lots of them – out of their homes, I am reluctant to try any new method of organizing that requires the purchasing of new gadgets or tools. Recently, however, I had the chance to try out a KonMari Method technique and was pleasantly surprised at the results.

My client and I were sorting through several drawers of socks, stockings and pantyhose. The pile of non-joy-inspiring items was growing into two bags headed for Goodwill while the cherished, comfy, favourites awaited return to the drawer.

… use scissors and a clothing store bag….

I remembered Kondo’s guidance about socks, rolling rather than turning down the tops on each other, and wondered if we might try the strategy. We had previously liberated a dozen or more better clothing store, rigid bags which I retrieved from their home. Using scissors, I cut down the bags to just shy of the height of the drawers and inserted several into each drawer. The shortened bags fit perfectly into the drawer and were narrow enough that we had enough for each colour grouping of socks.

You can see the result in the drawer.

…and voila. A joyful, organized sock drawer.

Unfortunately you can’t see how pleased my client was to be able to see her socks, laid out by colour, making her dressing experience easier. The technique worked very well in this application and I like to think the socks were happy too.

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Congratulations to Angelica Man, winner in draw for mentoring.

Posted by Carolyn on

March 6, 2015

Congratulations to Angelica Man who was the winner in the draw for 3 hours of professional organizer mentoring with Carolyn Caldwell at the recent POC Toronto Chapter Vendor Marketplace.

Business mentoring is an excellent way to accelerate your business success by keeping your focused on your goals and shortening your ramp up time.

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Archive for Uncategorized

Is Summer Vacation Productivity Time?

But I’m Too Busy to Take Time Off

A Change is as Good as a Rest

The Benefits of Vacation

Additional benefits include:

Micro Tasks Challenge the 15 Minute Declutter Routine

How it Started

Micro Tasks

The Game

The Benefit

The Reality

The Challenge

The Solution

The Result

Being Organized is a Journey

Your Clutterfree Journey Changes

Thoughts and Actions Can be Clutterfree

More Information, Tips and Strategies

The Holidays are Coming!

Stay Organized using the Breaking Down Solution

Stay Organized with Verbs

Stay Organized by Ordering

Stay Organized by Estimating Time

Why Letters to Clutter?

Types of Clutter

How and Where to Send you Letters to Clutter

Is Your Small Business Organized?

Looking for more tips and strategies? Sign up for Caldwell Evolution Newsletter.