happy, happy monday

I know this is going to sound like workplace kool-aid of a hallucinogenic sort, but I have come to really love Mondays.  In my still-new world of independent consulting, I have been testing and trying and balancing.  I've been time managing and retrofitting my week.  I've been sorting.  Culling out the unnecessary and unmanageable.  All while maintaining a sense of an integrated, reasonable life as a whole.  And sometimes this journey isn't smooth.

I don't get all excited about typical work hours - or even days, anymore.  I work either when necessary or when inspired.  So if that's 9pm on a Sunday evening, or 6am on a Tuesday morning - or any random time in between - so be it.  And if I need to scoot out for groceries, a client meeting, happy hour with an old friend, my precious time at the gym, well then I do that too.  I work when my clients need me (or need something from me) and I work when my brain is on and the productive juices are flowing.  If I'm stuck or having a less-than-creative day, I stick to billing or financial models.  Or I go for a bike ride to reset.  And when I'm "on" I try to stay in the groove and follow it.  Which doesn't always work out.

But I've also found that my fondness for working with small, entrepreneurial clients has necessarily led to engaging with more of them simultaneously.  So I'm learning to develop that fine balance between rainmaking, base touching, networking, info gathering, relationship managing...and actually doing the work.

I won't say that all that old "traditional corporate workplace" mentality has bled out of me yet, but in the past 10 years I've worked for companies that have started to realize the importance of flexibility and adaptability in our jobs.  With all the travel, conference calls with folks in other countries, and other whacky things in today's work world, we either get integrated or go lose our minds.  And the other key?  I think many company leaders - including me, in my tiny little company - have learned that productivity doesn't directly correlate to a 40+ hour work week.  You don't get 8 quality hours out of an employee every day just because they "show up for work."  You get quality, creative output when workers are energized and ready to work.  Oh and whether I'm working for me or for someone else, 4 hours of meetings a day talking about the work doesn't offset the actual work that still needs to get done!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for dedicated work time and dedicated personal time.  It's just that I've come to believe - at least for me - that these times don't necessarily have to be scripted and consistent.  On the other hand...

...recently I've come to adopt Mondays as my revered and fiercely-guarded "productivity days."  And I've found this exponentially important as summer has hit and our weekends are as rushed and busy as our weekdays.  Otherwise we end up arriving at Monday, feeling as if we need a vacation from our weekends!  So I've blocked my calendar and started focusing on what's most important for setting up a solid week.

Mondays now look like this:

• 7ish - wake up, throw in a load of laundry, put on the kettle and deal with the dishes that were ignored yesterday
• tea, email, google reader, review social media for myself and clients, switch laundry
• SHINY OBJECT: reorganize junk drawer, sort through mail and take out the recycling
• 9ish - Starting to really wake up and get going.  Refocus on the week ahead, aka go Post-It crazy.  My technique includes:
• Post-It Calendar - one section for each: clients, boards, bus dev/ops, and personal.  This calendar is a giant pad where each week gets ripped off at the end of the week.
• Post-In Notes - one standard-sized note for each client, stuck all over my desk underneath the Calendar
• I review my Outlook calendar for the week and note on my Post-It calendar the appointments I already have scheduled - client meetings, networking, social, gym.
• I sort through my notes & emails from the previous week, jotting down all the to-dos - by client - on their sticky note. Then I assign these tasks to a day  the calendar when I know I can sit and do.  
• Sometimes I just do the work quickly while I'm jotting it down, giving myself that oh-so-satisfying checked off item.
• (I've just found that this system works best for me, as most time management techniques fail miserably in my world.  I've figured out that I'm way too ADD, multi-tasking, free-association, and overscheduled for something much more complicated.)
• 10ish - more laundry, email, a smoothie.  But by this time, I'm hitting the productivity apex.  So I'm starting to dig into client projects like crazy.
• 5ish - by this time I've done the rest of the laundry, given a light buff to the bathrooms and the kitchen, eaten something resembling lunch (though around 3pm so it's starting to feel a little dinner-ish), and been horribly hard-working with my client deliverables.  I'm truly in "the zone" at this time and am running at full stride.
• If I don't get wrapped back into my client projects, I'll take time to walk over to the studio for a 6:45pm yoga class.  But honestly, the past 2 weeks I've completely missed it.  At 7pm I look at the clock and realize I've blown right through the start of the class.  Bummer, but I value the uninterrupted productivity on this one day so I SCHEDULE the workouts on the other days.  Again, it's about finding a system that works.
• And then sometime around 9pm, I grab a glass of wine and maybe either watch a Law & Order re-run or take my Kindle to bed and am asleep by 11.

And you see what's missing?  No meetings, no clients and - if I've done it properly - no leaving the house, with the possible beneficial exception of going to yoga.  Just a good solid 12 hours of being industrious, productive and effective.  Sure, I go to sleep at the end of the day with the all-day-at-the-computer stiffness in my shoulders and neck, but that's okay.  It's worth it to me to carve out this day of work - for all aspects of my life - in order to stay dedicated and present.

I have actually started to look forward to Mondays now.  What a difference it can make when you joyfully anticipate settling in and being successful in your efforts.  It brings a whole new definition to workplace productivity - one that I've defined for myself and one that I can continue to edit and refine and adapt.  And I will...because I just realized I need a half hour for blogging...

a little spring clean up

Fully 2 1/2 months of the year have passed us by already...how did THAT happen!?  More and more over the past 3 weeks, I've realized how completely disorganized my life has become.  While embarking on serious relationships with both my health and a new fella (old fella, well, it's a long story) - which are both going amazingly well and feeding my spirit - I have completely lost the rest of my way.  Sure, there's an issue of balance going on here but there's also the (wonderful) issue of being busier than ever with Segnavia Creative.  So, this is me not complaining...well, maybe just a bit.

If nothing else, the past few weeks have made me step back, look intently at how I'm spending my time and then hone in on how to be more productive and less frenetic.  Instead of taking things as they come (my natural and slightly procrastinating state of being), I need to find a way to get more proactive.  Gain some semblance of control.  You know, if that's possible.

And there's no denying that spring is the time to consider things such as organization, fresh starts, clean ups, clear outs and generally making life a bit tidier.  And since this is a blog that's about my work/life integration, you can bet my entire world is fair game.  Here's what I'm thinking about:

• Generally detoxing my home.  I wrote about this for Simple, Good, and Tasty (a website about local, sustainable, organic and fair trade food and the people who love it) back in January which you can read here:  kitchen, bath/laundry, rest of the house.  And I'm happy to say, I've taken a lot of these steps including reducing the number of non-homemade cleaners I use around here, adding plants to the house, using up old candles to make a complete switch to all-soy, getting organized (a bit more about that in a second), and re-enlisting many things around the house to serve new & improved purposes instead of just buying new.  There's constantly room for improvement, but I'm feeling good about just getting started.
• Putting better organizing systems in place, which inevitably has to start with some purging, recycling and an honest consideration of what my needs are.  I know there are a bunch of things that either aren't working or weren't well set up when I re-launched my business last year.  And you know, you just feel like, "Eh, I'm not that busy.  I'll figure out a "real" system once I have more to organize."  So many flaws in that logic, I can barely type it without blushing.  So I'm re-dedicating my dining room as my office (no really, this was an intentional decision last year as I realized that I honestly hated working in my office...and quite frankly, everyone gathers around the kitchen island to eat, anyway) and finding better systems for sorting out business operations,  typical home stuff and an awful lot of recipes.  My curse and my joy.
• Being more and more paper-free.  I sit on two boards and, let me tell you, we produce a lot of paper.  As the boards are becoming more dedicated to sending out digital versions of our minutes, agendas, and other materials, I'm just going to haul my laptop in and read through things on screen.  It's not brain surgery, but it does make life a bit less complicated when all of these theories align to keep the paper down.
• Treating my body to a regular cleanse and also a shift in my eating habits.  I started off the year with a month-long detox; I'll probably continue to do that detox once or twice a year because it's my old standby.  I know it works for me, and I know I can choose it without feeling deprived.  Next, I'm test-driving a 3-5 day juice cleanse from Organic Avenue in NYC.  Well, I wish I lived in NYC because you can just buzz over there and pick up your day's worth of juices, shakes and food to line up with whichever cleanse you've chosen.  But from spring thaw-y Minnesota, I'm going to follow the version publicized by Gwyneth Paltrow in her GOOP newsletter.  (Sure.  She's always going to have that air of "my life is infinitely better than yours" but I think that's mostly because her's probably IS better than mine.  And 99% of other humans as well!  But I can't hate her because she's talented, happily partnered and raising beautiful children, fit & healthy, drop-dead gorgeous and connected.  I (*gushes*) sort of love her even more for it.)  Anyway, she was kind enough to use her connections to get a download on the program, the recipes and after I read this NYT piece about another woman who gave it a go, I decided I'd try it too.   I'm only on Day 2 so I'll spare you any half-baked reviews at this point.  If you get real excited, you can follow Organic Avenue on Twitter here.
• Carving out time to write.  This is one of my true passions and is also an area that needs practice and refinement.  I get that - first and foremost - from just sitting down and writing.  This blog, my personal blog, whatever.  I also get it from writing for my clients (Simple, Good, and Tasty being my biggest blogging commitment at the moment).  But I'm also hungry for feedback, so I have a couple of classes in mind from The Loft in Minneapolis.

Most of all, I'm looking forward to spring.  It's - by far - my favorite season and the continuation of my January 1st fresh start is warmly welcomed.  I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings.

controlled chaos?

For those of you who aren't familiar with this rather unproductive, panic-inducing method of cleaning, a.k.a "A.D.D. Cleaning," you will find the process below to be entirely counter the advice given by experts on such matters. Behold:

1. take all contents of bathroom cabinets out, spread along dining room table and living room floor. earnestly begin the process of separating out what needs to be combined (lotions, hand soap), donated (unopened samples of god only knows what), and tossed. make progress but become overwhelmed when lipgloss and eyeshadow depths are understood. take 2 days off.
2. reinvigorated by a weekend guest's pending arrival, reduce and sort bathroom goodies into well labeled boxes, similar things together (much as experts would advise).
3. brew batch of iced Passion tea. leave to cool on counter.
4. realize must unload dishwasher, do so. reload while here and handwash a couple of items.
5. remember came to kitchen in the first place to ... what was it again?...
6. start much needed loads of laundry. fold and hang clean clothes - leave in utility room.
7. change air filter, god, when was the last time...?
8. magazine-induced anxiety strikes. sit on floor with cup of tea and weed through first stack. back hurts, must move again. leave piles.
9. put next load in dryer and look intently at the area where the dryer filter goes. gross. grab chopsticks and pull out random lint that doesn't stay in the filter.
10. take on clothes closet, as clearly must make room for clean clothes. start another big pile of clothes that really. must. just. go. dust surfaces, realize that some dust isn't coming out without vacuum attachment.
11. hmm. vacuum quite dirty and clogged-looking from drywall dust and abuse from contractors. take filter part apart (thank gods repeatedly for Dyson), and bang out all of the icky stuff. multi-use chopsticks grab most of the leftover gunk. need dental scraper pokey thing to push the remaining clogs out. satisfied...
12. ...switch loads...
13. hang boots and put shoes back into nice storage boxes. will vacuum hallway when back and forth is done, which is convenient as vacuum still sitting here.
14. put bathroom towels away in newly cleaned shelf area. pretty. remember artwork sitting in hallway from painting, rehang.
15. return to closet. vacuum and then clean floor with lovely Caldrea Basil Blue Sage All-Purpose cleaner. take large bag of to-be-donated to utility room intending to add more as stuff comes out of the dryer. feeling particularly ruthless now.
16. start attacking entry closet and decide to part with 1 winter coat and will hang others in main closet for the season. but need to wash coats first. clean out pockets of random change and tissues, toss into utility room. difficult to pass through here again, but return to pulling clean clothes, towels, etc and putting them away.
17. stop to blog
18. realize starving, haven't eaten since rice krispies at 11:30am. think about making pasta for dinner...

So you can see where this is going. But I'm so used to my horribly bad habits that I'm actually feeling really good about everything. Each project (magazine recycle, closet clean out & clean up, laundry, put laundry away [yes, for me, this is a separate project entirely], bathroom/toiletry reduction, etc) is underway and each is at a differing level of doneness. But each will get done between now and when my girlfriend arrives tomorrow. And I can already taste the sweet satisfaction of my tidy, pretty home...which, now that I've had a little sit, I'm energized to attack once again.

...now, why did I come back into the kitchen...?

how oxo saved my kitchen

I've been in a bit of a declutter/organize/sort/purge mode this week. As I'm putting the final touches on my business, I'm also trying to make sure my office is moving in the direction of a room that inspires me. We have a ways to go. But I have made progress and found additional inspiration from the recent Oprah episode about the "Clean Up Your Messy House Tour" and the cute clutterbuggies. So I'm trying to use some of their tips (not that these are revelatory or anything, but sometimes practicality escapes our best intentions) and set aside a small amount of time each day to deal with a little project in there. It's going well! But more on that later.

For now, I'm reminded of the one room that works pretty darned well in my home: my kitchen. I love cooking and I love kitchen gear. (I may have a little obsession with Penzey's spices too.) And it's not perfect but by all accounts, I know where to find things and I feel like everything has a place.

Last fall, I started investing (and I do not use that term lightly) in some better storage for the things in my pantry. I fell in love with these OXO Pop Storage Containers and picked up a few to try them out. Then a few more. Then even a few more after that. Before you knew it, I had thrown out a bunch of old staples and sorted the rest into the proper sized containers. Like Oprah's guy recommended, I got the similar items stored together - not 4 kinds of rice spread between 2 cabinets. DUH! My cabinets looked beautiful AND I'd managed to "find" a bunch of available space while I was at it.

Now my 4 kinds of sugar have a home (bakers sugar, powdered sugar, coarse sprinkling sugar and this nifty powdery stuff that I brought back from Switzerland...my kind of souvenir!); the flour doesn't go all over the place when I open it up; crystallized ginger doesn't turn into little ginger rocks; the extra spice bags all cram in one tall container waiting to refill their glass jar friends. Pretty frickin' slick.

But I'll warn you: the price point isn't for the faint of heart. I watched diligently for sales and the lowest prices. Crate and Barrel seems to have the best everyday prices, Cooks of Crocus Hill and Sur La Table both put them on sale for 20% off, and although limited, Williams-Sonoma carries them as well making for an overall great assortment and selection. I'm considering more. I'm also considering a second mortgage to help pay for them. Sigh.

The containers themselves are cool - the top fits snugly so you don't have stale cereal or rock hard brown sugar. When they're sealed, they are stackable to the moon. And the majority of the container is dishwasher safe, just a twist to get the top apart and away you go. So simple all around.

Loft living means being creative with your square footage, a lesson I'm learning and relearning on a daily basis. Trying to be more green, I like to buy things in bulk when I can. Worthwhile storage solutions are key. I must say that stumbling on these nifty containers really has helped make my life a little easier to manage. And who can't use a little of that in their world?

Now back to my office...