Organization Quest

How to: Plan and Organize a Term Paper or Project

When I was a student, I always loved the beginning of the term, perhaps because nothing much is due in the first week or two, which makes it easy to imagine  unbridled, effortless success.  Somewhere around the 4th or 5th week, it would suddenly dawn on me that I was supposed to be working on some big project that I hadn't yet started, and my straight A dreams would quiver and vanish on the horizon. 

The good news is that the key to success--by which I mean increasing the likelihood of creating a worthwhile and maybe even fun learning experience for yourself, in addition of getting the best possible grade--is incredibly simple:  start early.

Since not much happens in the first week of the term anyway, it's the perfect time to start brainstorming possible subjects for the big paper or project.  It's important to find a topic, focus, slant, treatment, or subject that interests you, even if the course itself is a core, a pre-req, or not in your major.  Once you have an idea of what you'd like to do, make an appointment with the professor or drop in during office hours to get feedback on your idea.  It's usually a good idea to have a backup idea or two, just in case the prof has serious concerns about your first choice.

Once you know what your topic is, you put in motion The Law of Attraction so that you are more likely to be in tune with your topic, and  become increasingly aware of books, articles, ideas, quotes, images, internet sites, connections, reviews, and other information that will support your project.  Bookmark the pages as you come across them, and start compiling the materials you find useful, along with the URL, the web site name, and the date you accessed the information for later use in your bibliography.  I've always found pulling together a bibliography to be vaguely pleasurable--sort of like playing solitaire--but only when I have plenty of time to spare.  In contrast, last-minute bibliography writing is aggravating.  Avoid this needless annoyance by formatting your bibliography as you come across your source material. While it's always good to have an old-fashioned style guide, I quite like this online style guide at Purdue's Online Writing Lab. 

Lastly, planning ahead allows you to put all kinds of fun, value-added extra touches to your paper or project.  For one paper that required analyzing how well a public space accommodated people with disabilities, I took pictures which I uploaded into Photoshop and drew attention to problematic spaces with arrows and brief descriptions of the infraction.  For another paper, I found applicable quotes to introduce each section.  For a presentation, I once designed a mock "test" to "quiz" the class on the concepts presented.  When you innovate, you make things fun for yourself and you set yourself apart from your peers. But such above-and-beyond approaches require time.  Do yourself a favor and start early. 

Above: Extra credit paper on Mies van der Rohe; the prof had said, "please don't make it a 'he was born in this year in this town' sort of thing," so I asked if a "Top 10" list would work. Throughout the quarter, I'd spend a few minutes researching van der Rohe's accomplishments and would note where I found what information, (see the bottom page, above) which made writing the footnotes and bibliography a breeze.  Even if you take a risk with a light-hearted approach, it's still necessary to document your sources. 

How to: Prepare for class

As a Freshman in college, I thought I knew what it meant to “study.”  What I didn’t understand was when professors would lament on occasion that I was “unprepared,” (or once:  “woefully unprepared”) when we didn’t even have a test that day. 

Later, teaching Freshman Composition at a state university, I had plenty of opportunity to appreciate the irony of gazing at 22 puzzled faces as I asked how one could possibly come to class so completely, so totally, so . . . woefully! unprepared. 

So what does it mean to actually be prepared? Here’s a short list, roughly in decreasing order of importance:

• You’ve completed any exercises, assignments, studio- or lab work that is due at the beginning of the class period.
• You’re up-to-date on any reading assignments noted in the syllabus or mentioned in class, and you’re prepared to discuss what you’ve read and its relevance to the course of study.
• Decisions and research regarding the subject, focus, scope, or approach to an assignment or project have been made as requested.
• You’ve reviewed class notes from the previous class.
• Any questions arising from the reading or lecture, or questions about upcoming quizzes, tests, assignments, and projects are noted and ready to be asked.
• If you’ve missed the previous class, you’ve gotten class notes from a classmate, as well as notice regarding any changes the professor may have made to the assignments, projects, or the syllabus.
• You are able to correctly use the vocabulary words introduced in the reading assignment.
• You’ve made appropriate progress on any term-long assignments like notebooks, sketchbooks, journals, and the like.

Being prepared, like being fit, or being able to draw well or argue persuasively or perform lab work with skill and efficiency, is its own reward.  As with so many things, a positive momentum builds when you stop avoiding and start investing yourself and your time in what you need to do.

 

 

 

How to: Create a Study Schedule

 

At the beginning of any new term, there are new teachers or professors, subjects that are either new or more advanced editions of old ones, and any number of other factors that make it difficult to assess how much time, exactly, it takes to do homework.

In order to accurately schedule and portion out your study time, it’s important to figure out, as soon as possible, how much time on average it takes to do the activities required in your classes. 

 What’s worked for me is that the first week or so I track how long various activities take.  Sample activities might include how long it takes to:

• read a chapter
• review notes
• do exercises or problems
• memorize vocabulary
• maintain a sketchbook
• write a response paper
• draft a floor plan

Organize

Keep a list of all your assignments in one place; this is important because you need to see the entirety of your homework in order to prevent anything from slipping through the cracks. 

Account for Everything

In my experience and observation, there are two types of homework that fall off students’ radars:  the first is the small, daily things that need to be done--reviewing class notes, making timely additions to notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and lab books that are supposed to be done daily or weekly but are rarely checked, etc. 

The second type of homework that tends to be forgotten until it’s too late is planning or preparing for the really big projects or exams.  Once you know you have a big project to do, schedule time early on to brainstorm options and do initial research.  Likewise, each week should be spent reviewing past readings, vocabulary, and quizzes in preparation for the midterm or final exam.

Estimate

Culling information about how long things have taken you in the past and how difficult the task is before you, make your best estimate as to how long each of the activities will take. 

Prioritize

Prioritize your assignments based on how much they impact your grade.  Work out the time you need to complete a midterm project worth 50% of the grade before fitting in study time for a weekly quiz worth 5%.

Schedule

Give your prioritized assignments prime study time--the time when you are most alert, able to best concentrate, and are least likely to be interrupted. Work backwards from the due date, starting, whenever possible, with the day before the assignment is due, to allow for any last-minute emergencies.  This means if a report is due Friday, try to have it finished by Thursday. 

Schedule in time for meals, breaks, sleep, class, work, commutes, and anything else you may have to do.  Consider using an “unschedule,” designed by Dr. Neil Fiore  and described in his book, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play.

I tend to be able to work for several hours without a break, but after the three-hour mark, my productivity drops and I often switch to a 45 minutes on/15 minutes off routine.  Experiment and see what works for you. By working out the kinks in your schedule early in the term, you’ll hit your stride long before midterms, and will reap the rewards of an efficient and productive study habit. 

 

Resisting Resistance By Planning To Plan

 
This week was supposed to be Spring Cleaning Planning Week, a little trick that worked like a charm.  There's nothing like saying, "the idea isn't to do something" to feel like doing it.  So I resist my resistance to action by forbidding the action, and then use the momentum of the action started to keep going.  Pretty clever, huh?

I found a good place to get started was the supply cabinet under the sink, which would give me the chance to take stock of the supplies I have on hand while making tracks on this year's big Spring Cleaning Kitchen Chore, cleaning and organizing the kitchen cabinets. It was also a good place to start in that it was relatively easy; last fall, we had a leaky faucet that necessitated clearing everything out of the cabinet, thus learning the hard way what unhappy business it is to wait until an emergency to get things organized. 

Having gotten rid of 10 year old flea spray and other such relics in the fall, clearing out the stuff was pretty painless this time around.  I'd already washed all the rags and cleaning cloths the week before, so that didn't need to be done, either.  All told, it took me 48 minutes to clear everything out, wash and dry the liner I'd put in after the leak fiasco, wash the trash can inside out, wipe everything down and put everything back. 

 

 

 

Spring Rejuvenation and a Challenge

 
Okay, it's official:  the first day of spring.  We can finally get moving on that Spring Cleaning business without seeming hasty.

The best thing about spring--rejuvenation--also applies to spring cleaning. According to the merriam-webster dictionary, "rejuvenate" alternately means "to make young or youthful again: to give new vigor" or "to restore to an original or new state". Washing away accumulated dirt and grime, restoring order, mending a cherished quilt, rediscovering the lovely texture of wood grain in freshly polished furniture, or reclaiming a chandelier or a window to sparkling splendour are all what I call "double-duty rejuvenators", in that they rejuvenate one's spirit as much as the physical space we inhabit. 

I have a confession: after nearly three years on The Quest, I've never actually committed to an honest-to-gosh Spring Cleaning Extravaganza. I'm making my committment now, and I invite you to join me. There's thirteen weeks until the summer solstice, which gives us one week to plan and twelve weeks for spring repair-replenish-and-rejuvenating action.  I'll post my projects and progress, complete with--yes!--Horrifying Before and Inspiring After pictures!  And the O-Quest Pig Scale!  If you'd like to share your own goals and progress, I encourage you to do so in the comments section. You might inspire yourself and others as we move through the season of exciting change, growth, and rejuvenation.

Photo of wild flowers by Alpay Ulku. Used with permission.

Replenish to Reap the Rewards of Spring Cleaning

 
When you think of the term "Spring Cleaning," visions of floor-scrubbing, kitchen cabinet cleaning, and linens-on-the-clothesline come to mind.  And sure, that is or can be part of it--one part.  But the annual ritual involves more than deep cleaning.  Along with an out-with-the-old/in-with-the-new momentum, there's also a desire to take stock, and in doing so stock up on what you need to make good on your plans. 

Replenishing as a part of Spring Cleaning can mean anything from buying in bulk to save money, to making plan-ahead purchases so you have the supplies you need when you find you have a few minutes to shine up the silver or polish a piece of furniture or two.  Using the products that work for you--and getting rid of those that work against you--is one of the small pleasures and rewards for undertaking the great Spring Cleaning ritual.

Kicking off Spring Cleaning with Repairs

 
"Spring Cleaning" is another of those terms that really should be revised. "Spring Projects" seems more applicable, as the point is to tackle all those niggling little things you've avoided during the cold winter months when motivation runs as low as the temperature outside. 

Repairs are a great way to kick off a Spring Projects Spree, in that they can make a big difference in relatively short order.  Oiling creaky hinges, insulating a drafty window, or smoothing stain over scratched wood can provide an almost instant pick-me-up, and alleviate an energy-sapping annoyance.  My yearly ritual is to go through the house and make a list of all the stuff that needs repairs--paint that needs to be touched up, areas that need to be re-grouted, nail holes that need to be filled. It makes it easy to identify the supplies I'll need, and, if costly, to schedule their purchase. 

 

Martha Stewart Provides Attitude Check

Sometimes, I think I make cleaning harder by thinking of it as yucky, time-consuming, and boring, and so it was no small stroke of luck that I happened upon Martha Stewart on the Oprah Winfrey Show last week.  Her job when she was in prison was cleaning carpets and waxing floors.  "It was so dirty!" she exclaimed.  "But you know, that place was sparkling when I left."  It was the first time I actually envied prisoners. 

Forget the elaborate cakes and hand-made crafts; what I really want to know is how, exactly, Martha Stewart came to have such a good attitude about what any sane person would find intolerably menial.  "I had the best time!" she said when describing how she learned to run an industrial rug cleaner. 

This weekend, I tried a little of Martha's attitude on for size.  Instead of draaaaaaging myself up and lamenting every minute spent wiping the counters and mopping the floor, I said to myself:  I'm having the best time! I didn't entirely fool myself, but it did make it a little easier.

 

More Inspiration for Countertops

"Surfaces are quick, easy, and very visible, so they provide more 'bang for the buck' than emptying an entire closet or sorting through the stuff in your basement," writes Sarah Coffey for the wonderful Apartment Therapy website. 

The article includes pix from five "real homes" like the one above and appeared under Apartment Therapy's "Weekend Inspiration" column.  Indeed, clearing off a countertop is an easy, low-pressure weekend project and is a great way to kick-start some organizing momentum.

Photo credit: Faith Durand.

The Key to Maintaining Progress

Last week I wrote about how a simple daily habit--loading the dish washer at night and unloading it in the morning--coupled with re-thinking how we use our space led to our recent organizational breakthrough.  But I’ve found that in order to maintain that progress, there’s a few things I need to do a couple times a week:

• Sweep the floors
• Mop the kitchen floor
• Do the laundry
• Put back things where they belong

That’s it.  It doesn’t even take that long to do.  I’ve made the habit of picking up something that needs to be put away  whenever I head in the direction of where the object belongs.  It really doesn’t take long to toss a load of laundry in the washer and fold it up afterwards, and doing a couple loads every few days prevents things from backing up.  Having crumb-and-cat-fur free floors is worth the 10 minutes it takes to sweep and mop the kitchen. The sweeping in the livingroom is pretty constant--this is the Windy City, after all, and dirt blows in from the potted plants on the balcony--but it doesn’t seem all that cumbersome.  I haven't decided if this is because I'm just getting used to it or if I'm getting better with practice.

Sure, life would be easier without flowers or kitties.  But wouldn't you rather have love and beauty in your life?

 

 

 

 

Time for a Treat: Aisling D'Art's Clutter Journal

  
 

One of the strongest motivations for getting organized, I think, is a yearning for beauty: the way the light hits gleaming hardwood floors or gem-colored bottles on a window ledge;  how a sheaf of scrapbook paper or box of watercolor pencils neatly arranged by color arouses one's creativity. Order invites expansion, enjoyment, and relaxation. It makes it easier to assess, reflect, experiment, and play, whether at the drawing board, in the kitchen, or in the garden. 

When I need a little beauty to kick-start my motivation, I love to look at home-made art journals.  You can imagine my delight when I discovered the wonderful Clutter Journal by artist and teacher Aisling D’Art.

The Clutter Journal is a mixed media extravaganza:  part collage, part traditional journal, Aisling combines found objects (found, no doubt, in the decluttering process) with writing, drawing, painting, rubber stamping, torn images and pasted text from magazines. 

Filled with quotes from such disparate icons as organizing luminary Karen Kingston, financial wiz Suze Orman,and humorist Quentin Crisp, the Clutter Journal is at once hilarious and heartbreaking. It offers a visually compelling record of one woman's organizing odessey during a time of great personal upheaval.  

All images used with permission, copyright by Aisling D'Art.

 

 

Back on Board with the New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

All right, so it's been, let's see . . . .let's just call it a while. The Short Version of What Happened is:  I went back to school.  Remember the Back to School series I wrote in September?  In doing so, I pulled out old textbooks, notes, projects, and binders to photograph in order to illustrate the concepts, and in the process I began, in the manner of packrats everywhere, to re-read and look through everything, which is when it struck me:  wow, I really loved studying design.  And:  I wish I was the one going back to school, which led in turn to: why, exactly, wasn't I in school?

I did recall withdrawing from one of my courses that last quarter, after the instructor told me, in front of the class, that I was "unteachable."  What I couldn't remember is why I would believe him.

Other people may have control over any number of things in our lives--from our salaries to when we are able to catch a bus on a particular corner--but they don't get to decide our character. My former instructor had indeed been unable to teach me.  But that didn't mean I couldn't learn.

What I love about January is the renewed hope and promise of a fresh start the new year brings.  No matter what your goals, the focus of new year resolutions is in the present and the in future. All transgressions are in the past--instructive, perhaps, but ultimately irrelevant. 

The New Year is carte blanche to reflect, hope, plan, and prioritize.  What do you want for yourself this year?  Dream big! Dare to defy the limitations you place on yourself and those others place on you.  It's a new year, a new decade.  Take a few minutes this weekend and ask yourself:  who do you want to be, what do you want to do, how do you want to live in the years to come? Decide on one tiny step towards that goal--whether it's replacing chips with celery for a snack, doing a load of laundry every day until you get caught up, making a point to work in a walk a few days a week, or looking into getting your GED, Associate's, Bachelors, Master's, or Ph.D.  The first step in getting what you want is realizing that you want it. 

PS I took the same class--perspective drawing--this quarter with a different professor.

I got an A.

 

Fighting the All-or-Nothing Approach

I once had a co-worker tell me that, while not suicidal, she couldn't wait to die.  "I just think it will be a really interesting experience," she explained, while I groped for a suitable reply. 

It was one of those conversations that you know, while you're having it, your brain is running through a quantity of cells in order to burn the moment in your long-term memory. When I'm 90, I may not remember what I had for breakfast, but by golly, I'll still be trying to figure out if the aforementioned colleague was a nitwit or really was a genius after all.

More recently, I had a conversation with a different co-worker, this one an unambiguous genius, that's given me plenty of food for thought.  I admitted that I've been down for the count on the Organization front.  "It's Just Too Hard," I said, quite as if going through a box of old papers or folding the laundry on a regular basis was akin to training for an Iron Man event.  At high altitude. In, like, July. 

Somehow, my organization efforts stalled out this fall due to what I call the "but first" syndrome: I need to organize my papers, but first I need to get a new file cabinet, but before I do that I have to decide where it goes, but first I need to clear some space, which would mean going through some papers. . . And just like that, I've painted myself into a neat,  little,impossible corner.

I tried explaining this to Emily, but she wasn't buying it. "Sounds like you have an all-or-nothing thing going on," she said.  In one sentence, she described exactly, precisely what's been going on, and why I've been stuck in organizational slo-mo for the last month or more. 

The All-or-Nothing Approach is offspring to that productivity killer, Perfectionism.  Does it really matter if I find exactly the same type of label for my spice jars that I used the last time I made new labels a couple years ago?  Must I really use the same font--or re-do all the labels as my punishment? Because that's what it feels like at times, punishment. What's the point of that? 

So this week's mantra for me  is: something's better than nothing.  "A little" is just fine; it creates a foundation on which progress builds, one step at a time. 

Photo by Alpay Ulku

The Universal Trait of the Persistently Tidy

 

A while back when I wrote about the whole dishwasher dilemma, I talked to--who else?--Stacy, the Designated Neatnik where I work.  I thought I'd get points for being all concerned and worried about how to effectively convey whether the contents of the dishwasher were clean or dirty, a fantasy that faded as Stacy furrowed her brow in bewilderment.  "What's there to 'convey'?" she said, a little petulantly I thought.  "Wouldn't it just be easier to put the dishes away when they're clean?"

Obviously, she just didn't get it. 

Or could it be:  I'm the one who doesn't get it?  And I realized that I'd stumbled upon the the Universal Trait of the Persistently Tidy:

Neatniks Are Simpletons

I know:  I'm misusing the word "simpleton"here.  Oops!  But you know what I mean:  Neatniks keep it simple.  They don't make e-l-a-b-o-r-a-t-e strategies for, say, indicating whether the dishwasher is clean or dirty.  They unload the dishwasher and move on.

They have a do-it-now approach.  They don't assume they will have "more time later" to do the task at hand.  In fact, they feel the opposite:  they don't know when they'll have another chance to do the task before them, so they figure they might as well do it now.

Neatniks are results oriented, rather than process oriented. They aren't interested in comprehensive "systems" or rituals that require time and energy to maintain. They don't have to have an item on their "To-Do" list (written on special paper!  or input and categorized on their Blackberry!) to do the chore. When bills come in and they have the money, they write out a check and deduct the amount from their account, simple as that. They don't require special pens or stamps or for their desk to be perfectly tidy in order to do the job. 

They don't backtrack:  if they do something that's not on their list, they don't go back and write it down so they can cross it off. The Naturally Tidy that I know aren't interested in keeping logs and lists, schedules and who-did-what-when-and-how-much record-keeping.  Because they keep things simple, Neatiniks don't build up a huge store of dread about doing what needs to be done, which in turn makes chores easier to do.  

Contrary to popular belief, Neatniks aren't perfectionists.   They value timeliness over so-called "perfection."  If they don't have time to shop for the perfect gift, they give a gift card.  If they don't have time to pull out all the furniture when vacuuming before guests arrive, they vacuum the heavily-trafficked areas nonetheless.  Neatniks avoid an all-or-nothing approach.  They figure something is better than nothing.

The idea that being organized is actually easier than being a slob is perhaps the hardest to swallow and yet that's exactly  what professional organizers like Regina Leeds promise.  Certainly if you are not among the blessedly, naturally tidy, you have struggled enough with this issue. If you're like me, maybe the break-through you need is to think of getting organized as finally abolishing pointless routines, non-value-added rituals, and over-stringent standards.

--

Photo by Alpay Ulku.

Reverse Psychology or: How I Finally Broke Through My Organizing Rut

Funny how taking the pressure off suddenly makes things a whole lot easier, especially when it comes to chores and tasks you'd just as soon not do.  As soon as I gave myself "permission" to enjoy the summer and not worry about making tracks on various cleaning chores and organizing projects, I've been cleaning and organizing every since.  For instance, today I:  gave both bathrooms a super-through cleaning, cleared my desk and wiped it down with the holy Magic Eraser, organized five chest drawers, dusted and polished the furniture in the bedroom, tossed catalogs, did a load of wash, cleaned up after some kitten mishaps, and straighted a few drawers in the craft closet.  It felt like I got more done today than I have in months.  

Psychologists have long suggested that substituting "I have to" with "I want to" is essential for success in making progress towards goals.  I didn't "have to" clean the bathrooms today; I wanted to, the better to free up time this weekend to do fun things.  Last weekend I didn't do any chores, but I didn't enjoy the result--yucky bathrooms and an oppressive awareness that I was procrastinating.  It felt so much better to just bite the bullet and clean the bathrooms, which then supplied the momentum for the rest of the day. 

My To-Do list is still perilously close to triple digits, but you know what?  I'm gonna give myself a break and devote the weekend to scrapbooking.  It's supposed to be sunny, so maybe we'll take the bikes out and pack up a lunch and go to the harbor read, write, play backgammon, and feed the ducks. Perhaps in doing so, I'll continue to find the motivation to make progress on that To-Do list. Wish me luck!  And good luck to all of you!  Whatever you end up doing, I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Procrastination Experts to the Rescue! Finding the Time to Exercise (or do anything else)

One of my very first posts on the Quest had to do with procrastination--and referred to a book by psychologists Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen of the same name.  One of the fascinating ideas Burka and Yuen explore is the way procrastinators experience time.    They offer a number of strategies that are specifically designed to address common misconceptions, pitfalls, and time-wasting patterns that are common to procrastinators. 

One such strategy is the "un-schedule,"  a method developed by psychologist Neil Fiore and detailed in his book, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play.  "The un-schedule is a weekly calendar of all of your committed activities," explain Burka and Yuen (B & Y).  One of its main advantages is that by honestly assessing how you expect to spend your time, you can see how much time you really have available to work towards any particular goal.

I've found that the "un-schedule" is  useful for things I don't want to do and am thus absolutely, positively convinced I have no time for--like exercising.  Convinced I don't have a single hour in an entire week to take a swim, lift some weights, or take a yoga class, I made a quick spreadsheet and started filling in the time. 

Following the direcitons in the book, I wrote down everything I could predict doing in the coming week, no matter how trivial. "If you always watch the evening news, Monday night sports, or other favorite television programs, put them down, " B & Y advise. I don't watch the evening news or any kind of sport, unless you count watching Patti Blagojevich, Sanjaya, and a couple of the Baldwin brothers hang by their arms until they fall in an attempt to get immunity on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!  "Remember, we are not asking you to write down what you should be doing," B & Y write, which means I can actually feel virtuous admitting my Celebrity addiction. True, this meant I had five hours a week to watch has-beens, also-rans, or, in the case of Patti, a never-ran, bicker and eat live bugs. So?

In the end, even after taking into account time toted up watching Celebrity, as well as surfing, sleeping, and the rather ambigious "fun weekend activities" in addition to working, writing, commuting, eating, and doing (rather minimal) housework, I still had a good 7 hours available to schedule in some exercise.  Guess it's time to start looking into that yoga class, after all.

 

Above: The shaded areas indicate potential time to work on a particular goal--i.e. exercising.

Below: Download  your own "un-schedule" (pdf reader required)

Download Unschedule blank

Learning from the Experts: What Vacationistas Know

I work in a place where people take the most amazing vacations: not only do they go all over the world--New Zeland and Australia, Scotland and India, Turkey and the American Badlands immediately come to mind--they find incredible deals and ways to pay for them.  One man basically gets his vacations free by leading scuba diving groups; another's week-long fishing vacation in remote waters cost all of a couple hundred bucks, including the gas to get there.  I shamelessly plead for all details:  itineraries and routes, names, numbers, and addresses of outfitters and guides, restaurants and hotels.  Seeing pictures just whets my appetite; what I really want to know is what they did and what they regret, what they loved and what they wish they'd done.

Here's a few commonalities I've noticed over the years among experienced vacationistas:

They Research Their Options

Knowing what is available, where, and for how much allows them to comparison shop and be able to recognize value for the money.

They Know Their Budget and Keep To It

Because they've done their research, they know how much to expect to shill out for any given component of the vacation.  This brings us to perhaps the most important skill the successful vacationista develops:

They Prioritize Their Resources

Knowing what you can afford is not a constraint, but helps ensure you get the biggest value out of the money you spend. 

For me, the most important thing is the accommodations.  I know, there are people who think this is a total waste. "Why spend the money on where you stay, when all you do is sleep there?" is the reasoning they employ; suffice to say I'm not one of them.  The truth is, I'm not particularly interested in testing my skills or endurance, meeting people, or discovering a fragment from a lost civilization.  I could care less about adventure, exploration, sports, excitement, partying, or romance. When I go on a vacation, it's about playing house. 

The "house" can be a tent in a National Forest where we don't see another soul for days, or it can be a four-star hotel, a country cottage, or sweet little bungalow, but I'm not good with make-do in-betweens.  I will gladly put on a pack and hike a couple miles to be away from people, for instance, but I don't do campgrounds--that's just me.  Likewise, I am perfectly fine with skipping vacations for several years running or preparing all or most of the meals when renting a cabin to offset costs, but, gosh darn it, if I'm going to pay the money to rent a cabin, it had better be cute. 

Some people will gladly accept middle seats on an itinerary with 5 connections in order to splurge on a transatlantic trip they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford.  Others prefer more frequent get-aways or days filled with sports or cultural activities that carry their own expenses.  By directing your funds to reflect what's most important to you and your family, you set the foundation for satisfying experience.

They Budget Their Time and Energy as Well as Their Money

On my recent trip to Seattle, the hardest thing was being in the vicinity of several good friends I desperately wanted to see but knowing I didn't have the time to do so.  With three full days jam-packed with family activities--including last-minute shopping, a family brunch, two surprise parties, a district track meet to see one niece compete and a local Irish dancing exhibition to see another niece perform--it was all I could do to make it back to the hotel room without falling asleep in the elevator on the way up.  This, of course, again gives rise to the question of "why spend the money on where you stay when all you do is sleep there?" But waking the next day in a pretty room with a view was still worth it.

 

My two favorite kinds of vacations: city-center like this past weekend, above, and completely isolated, below.

The Great Makeup Cleanup: Round 2 (and Practically Painless Progress)

Sometimes when I have a big project, I find it helpful to think of it in terms of a boxing match.  You know: Round 1, Round 2, etc.  I'm not sure how many rounds boxing matches have, but whatever.  The point is to break up the project into smaller parts, the better to celebrate small victories, which in turn provide motivation for more action.

Earlier in the week, it took over two hours to clear off the top of my old-fashioned vanity, so mid-week I was looking for an easy victory to cheer me up and give me a little boost without sapping too much energy.  Using the Ground Zero Approach, I decided that now that the vanity top was cleared, what  bothered me the most was the tiny masterbath counter.  Apparently I'd decided to take the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach and apply it to the sink in the bathroom.

To minimize the effort of clearing the counter, I decided to use my Pass-By Approachby which I pick up one item every time I pass by a particular location (i.e. the masterbath counter) and then put that one item away. In this manner, the area was completely and painlessly cleared without dedicating more than a minute or two at a time each time I passed the counter.  As you can see from the picture below, the "before" shot wasn't pretty:

 

After putting everything away, it took me all of 16 minutes to wipe the counter, scrub the sink, and polish the mirror.  I don't have an "after" picture yet because I forgot to take one at the time and I can't take one right now, Alpay being an early-to-bed-early-to-rise type and I can only imagine his reaction if I broke out the camera, turned on the lights, and obsessively lined up the tubes and bottles remaining on the counter, turning them this way and that in the attempt to discover the most photogenic angle for facial scrub. Marriage is nothing if not compromise.  Judging by the "before" picture here and elsewhere on the Quest, my guess is that Alpay would whole-heartedly agree.

Paperwork Associated With Tasks: An Alternate Approach

Last night I outlined the new process that I've been using that seems to  work in terms of getting things done and not losing paperwork associated with tasks.  While I stand by my new system of keeping a limited number of unlabeled files with the thought of going through them regularly (i.e. at least three or four times a week as time permits) one of my goals with this blog is to try to generate additional approaches or ideas that might be useful to others. 

I can definitely see the appeal, for instance, of creating permanent "to-do" folders with set categories that are labeled accordingly.  I've tried this approach myself a number of times, but for me what happens is that as soon as I've "filed" something in that way, I experience it not as a "to do" but as "done".  What I like about  my new approach is how the striped-pattern folders hold a special meaning for me, specifically, "this is something you need to do."  And I like going through the folders often--at least every other day--and seeing what I can do in the time I have available.  This is altogether a different approach than the old "standing folders" strategy, which I'll outline below.

The idea of "standing to-do folders," is to identify those categories that you often encounter in terms of tasks or to-dos.  You then make folders accordingly.  One advantage of this approach is that since these folders are permanent--unlike my new system where the content of the folders is undergoing a constant turnover--you can actually label the folders, which is nice. 

To help you get started, here's a list of categories I might use, if I was using the standing to-do folder approach:

• Calls
• Correspondence
• Events
• Files to Make
• Numbers to Input
• Review
• Read

Even with this list, however, it's interesting to note that several items mentioned in yesterday's post don't really fit in any of these categories (i.e. the need to enable a PIN or to order airline tickets).  The refusal for such tasks to fit into easy categories is another reason why I think the standing to-do folder technique failed for me.  If any readers have had success with this technique, I would love to hear your story.

Task Files In Action: A Demo

When I went through the piles of papers on my desk, on my hatboxes, and tucked in three boxes this past weekend, I discovered a mountain of coulda-woulda-shoulda's; some, like filing my '08 flex spending claims by the April 30 deadline, weren't too late to do.  But the close call got me thinking about how I need to come up with a better way to manage my tasks so that they actually get done.

Yesterday I wrote about  the importance of separating out paperwork associated with tasks from that associated with archival records, and that I decided to use a limited number of pretty folders to help me organize the tasks at hand. To give you an idea for what kind of tasks I'm referring to, here's what ended up in the first round 12 task folders:

1. An explanation of benefits spanning February through March of this year, detailing a service I didn't recall getting.  I also had a question about the dates of coverage for the particular insurance.
2. A phone number to call to provide a reference.
3. A PIN number sent some time in March with instructions on how to enable it.
4. Paperwork that reminded me that I'd intended to write a thank you note to someone in early April.
5. An outdated list of my planned vacation days for this year.
6. A few numbers I intended to record regarding a goal.
7. A business card, several phone numbers, an email address, and two holiday card envelopes with return addresses, all of which all need to be written into my address book.
8. A scrap from an old notebook with information about an old  account I'd been wanting to check but forgot how to access.
9. A credit card bill from March that I'd been meaning to look over.
10. Things for which permanent files need to be created.
11. Notes on airline tickets I need to get.
12. An invitation to a charity event, a brochure from the ballet on next year's program, and a brochure on a summer outdoor concert series.

These are the items that I came across first when going through the stacks of paperwork.  I actually ended up with perhaps 30 more tasks that do need to get done at some point, but none of these other tasks were particularly pressing, so I kept to the first 12 folders I created.  In each, I added a piece of copy paper and wrote a quick note as to what, exactly, to do, (i.e. for #5, I wrote: "print updated list and input dates in planner." I then set aside some time after work on Monday to devote to the task pile.

In a little less than an hour, I called my insurance company (task #1, above), provided the promised reference (task #2), enabled the PIN (task #3), wrote and sent the thank you note (task #4), checked the old account (task #8), and decided which events I was interesting in going to (task #12) so I could hand the event file to Alpay for him to look at. In all, I completed items in half of the folders, which I then cleared out and filled with the paperwork associated with other tasks that were in danger of being overlooked before I had a system in place to capture them.

 
I actually decided to keep the files on my desk, in the place where I used to jam paper without first looking at it.  The difference:  this area is now reserved for task items, with priority to those in the folders (task paperwork not yet assigned to a folder is tucked behind the folders, as seen in the picture, above right).  As I make my way through the tasks in the folders, the paperwork is either tossed/shredded or filed, making room for new tasks to be transferred into folders.