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SLT029: Beginning Our Simple Journey, & Finally an “About Us” Video Jun 06, 2013

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Honestly, we had other plans for this week’s show, but we got a bit sidetracked. Here’s how: We finally got around to doing our “About Us” video for the website! When we first started the show 6 months ago, we put in a placeholder that said something like “we’ll be doing a About Us video soon.” Well,“soon” apparently is relative! If you can’t see this video in your RSS reader or email, then click here. We had a “found” day this week as we were supposed to close on selling our land but the closing date fell through…now we’re scheduled for tomorrow. So, we figured, let’s do our About Us video! And as we worked through what we wanted to talk about, the whole back story of how we got to this point came flowing out. Our Combined Topic: Beginning Our Simple Journey Now, we’ve talked about some of this in some of the really early episodes of the show, but we thought it was time to cover the whole back story. We thought maybe some of you would find it interesting to know how we got here and maybe some of you would see your story as a lot like ours, in some ways. Besides, as much fun as we have with the show, we want it to be more than just “The Tech Guy and Organizer Show.” That stuff is great and has its place, but there’s more to living a simple life in the modern world than that. And there’s more to us, too. So we figured, let’s tell our story. The “Lead Up” So, this is how it goes: We’re a retired military family That included lots of moving, our schedules dictated to us by the mission, etc That said, we wouldn’t change our lives in the military for anything! We both have experience in the corporate world We were living the typical American consumer-driven lifestyle. You know….that typical “deferred retirement” lifestyle where you work until you’re 65+ then hopefully are still healthy enough to enjoy retirement. You work 5 days or more straight to pay for your 2 days off…dreading Mondays so much you get the Sundays night blues. Note: Learn more about “deferred retirement” and planning your lifestyle from Tim Ferris’s fantastic book The 4 Hour Work Week Started our lifestyle businesses: Vanessa is a Professional Organizer, Dan does business development for select clients. Still, we were on that deferred retirement track. But in the meantime, we subconsciously had been downsizing and simplifying our lives based on life events…like getting married…having another child….going to a single income household by choice so I could stay home with the baby…moving twice…etc. Beginnings of Change: But even though we were making some positive changes… We were still following the deferred retirement rules. We had dreams for our big Dream Home We even bought the perfect lot to build it on overlooking a state natural area! It was going to be big and beautiful! And it was going to have all the latest stuff…we were going to do our part to help boost the down economy! But in the backs of our minds the wheels were already turning. It’s Out There! And it all changed one day on a trip to Portland last year for a conference. As we were on final approach into PDX flying right over the river by the airport, I leaned over to Vanessa and said….”I’m not sure what we’ll take back from the conference this year, but I know this… I really, really want to simplify our lives.” And there it was….verbalized…out in the open….and we were both on board! From that point on we really started to question and evaluate our life together and what it could look like. And that’s why we shot our About Us video in Bandera, TX along the Medina River. We love to go there and just float in the river, with the cypress trees providing us a little shade and a cold drink to quench our thirst on a hot Texas day. One day as we floated in the river we decided we wanted more days like this…where we could just drop what we were doing, grab some tubes and enjoy. It’s hard to do that while running the Rat Race…so we opted for something different. We planned our work around our lifestyle, not our lifestyle around our work. Really Getting Started: As we began to reshape our Life Plan with a focus on simplicity in our lives, we wanted to find a community of people to learn from and share with. But honestly, we felt sort of “caught in the middle.” On one side we have the vast majority of the Western World which is caught up in all out consumerism On the other side there’s minimalism which we feel some attraction to but just aren’t there yet. We fall somewhere in between. We do like “stuff”…but good quality stuff, and not in excess. We like…simple! The Start of “Simple Life Together” So that’s why we started the show and the website…. To share our journey with others interested in simplicity What goes right, what goes wrong Share tips, help each other out along the way, motivation, inspiration We can challenge each other with things like Edit and Forget It Expect Some Bumps in the Road: So, if you’re getting ready to simplify, know this: Others won’t get it: Check out the “Crabs in a Bucket” story in SimpleLifeTogether.com/004 Example: Bank insisted on planning for long-term retirement, not understanding that we ARE retired They wanted us to save long-term for our “dream home” Our reality is paying cash for our “dream home” in 5 years! Don’t be surprised if people tell you “You’re missing out on the best money making years of your lives.” Who says? We work with great clients who we choose to work with because we believe in them and their cause, they pay us fairly and it’s on win/win terms. We decide our schedule and my commute from home to our World Shedquarters is 19 steps. We’re there to take the kids to school, pick them up, go to their important life events…and just be present. And we can do family fun time when we want. Feels like to us we’re getting to enjoy the best years of our lives now! And we have enough money to get by, thanks! I’m sure some of you have heard this before. It’s an old parable from an unknown author about business and living what some might call a version of the American Dream. For those who’ve heard it before, bear with me. For those who haven’t, here goes: The American Dream An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” The American asked. “Only a little while.” The Mexican replied. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked. “I caught enough to support my family’s needs, señor.” the fisherman said. “But,” the businessman then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine or cerveza and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.” The American scoffed, “I have a Harvard MBA and you sure could use my help. Here’s what you should do. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat and hire a crew. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats.” “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “If you work hard enough, you could do it in 15-20 years.” “But what then, senor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public! You’ll become very, very rich, you would make millions.” “Millions, senor? Then what?” The American said slowly, “Then you would retire and enjoy life. Maybe move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and cerveza and play your guitar with your amigos…” Now, we’re an All-American family…but that’s not what we’d call our dream. But that story does kinda sum up why we’ve chosen to live the way we do. And so, with “simplifying our lives” as a lens, over the past year, here are some of the results so far: We’ve: Really focused on the 5 Pillars we’ve talked about in earlier episodes: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Future Made things more within reach. In the deferred retirement plan we: Planned for a someday retirement in our (then) big dream home Actually bought land for our dream home at $35K per acre Now under our current lifestyle we: Have definite and defined goals and timelines within 5 years Sold our land (actually closed tomorrow) and using some of the cash for short term business goals, some for medium-term personal goals Have gotten used to the fact that essentially we’re “working retired”…doing what we want to do. We’ve designed our work around our lifestyle and not out lifestyle around our work Even just having that mentality takes some adjustment. Now that’s not to say we’ve done everything right! So let’s discuss some victories and some challenges… Things we’ve done right: Begin with the end in mind… Why? Because you can define your goals and develop a roadmap to reach them! Paying off debt Edit and Forget It…really helped us rid of some of our excess. Reached 2013 things and still going… Struggles: That feeling that we “should” be working or doing more. Is that just programmed into us??? Not finding a lot of people that understand our goals and desires Vanessa: Trying not to brag about how good it feels! Dan: Overcoming the “man thing” that I should be working at a job bringing home the “big bucks” Vanessa: Feeling drawn to minimalism but knowing that I still like “new stuff” Dan: Wanting to go smaller and smaller. I’ve been hooked on watching videos of “tiny houses” and smaller homes. So, I guess that’s why it’s called a journey as we’re having little adventures along the way. For all of you who’ve joined us here on the show, it’s great to know we’re not as alone as we felt at the beginning, that’s for sure. It’s great to have like-minded folks to share with and learn from. That’s the backstory. Hopefully if you’re considering your own journey it’ll give you some insight, understanding, or maybe even some inspiration as you chart your course. Thing Segment Vanessa’s Thing: Spending time with family floating on the river! Dan’s Thing: Our British Berkefeld Water Filtration System, aka “The Berkey” It’s this stainless steel urn system where you pour water in the top and goes through these ceramic filters and the lower urn fills with fresh, purified water. We use it at home and we’ll be taking it camping, too, so we’ll always have fresh water. They claim you can even fill it with pond water, etc, and you’ll still have fresh, potable water. Best of all, the family loves the taste of the water and especially Sunshine (our lil girl) seems to be drinking lots more if it! You can check out our new About Us video here! Announcements: Google Drive Tutorial Yay! The Google Drive Tutorial is now available for purchase! This tutorial is just over an hour long and focuses on all the fundamentals of how to use Google Drive for creating, sharing, and storing documents using Google’s free, full-fledged office suite. This tutorial will be available at the discounted price of just $7.99 until 30 June 2013, when it will increase to $9.99. Either way, it’s a bargain! In this introduction, you’ll learn how to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and even forms and surveys! So, don’t wait to pay full price! You can have immediate access to Dan’s 1 hour+ windshield tour of Google Drive right now! Simply click here or go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/GoogleDrive. Plus, if you’re not completely satisfied I’ll give you your money back. So, no clutter and no risk…simple! Links: Support Charity Water Through Your Amazon.com Purchases British Berkefeld Water Filtration System, aka The Berkey Google Drive Tutorial The Edit & Forget It Challenge The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris The Crab’s in a Bucket Story Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks!

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT 028: The Cost of Clutter & Managing Passwords with 1Password May 30, 2013

Show notes

The Cost of Clutter and Managing Your Passwords with 1Password Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks! Google Drive Tutorial Yay! The Google Drive Tutorial is now available for purchase! This tutorial is just over an hour long and focuses on all the fundamentals of how to use Google Drive for creating, sharing, and storing documents using Google’s free, full-fledged office suite. This tutorial will be available at the discounted price of just $7.99 until 30 June 2013, when it will increase to $9.99. Either way, it’s a bargain! In this introduction, you’ll learn how to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and even forms and surveys! So, don’t wait to pay full price! You can have immediate access to Dan’s 1 hour+ windshield tour of Google Drive right now! Simply click here or go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/GoogleDrive. Plus, if you’re not completely satisfied I’ll give you your money back. So, no clutter and no risk…simple! Vanessa’s Topic: The Cost of Clutter In preparation for my Certification at the end of June, I’ve been doing a little bit of reading, studying and freshening up on my professional organizing skills. Well, during my studying I came across some articles and books that talked about the cost of clutter. I’ve talked quite a bit about clutter in previous episodes and I’ve mentioned here and there some of the costs of clutter, but I thought I’d bring all those thoughts and some additional ideas about the cost of clutter together in one discussion. Now, as a reminder let me define what clutter is: Clutter is anything we don’t need, want or use that takes our time, energy or space and destroys our serentity (Clutter’s Anonymous definition). With that definition and with the various things I’ve read, I think there are 4 Main Areas Where Clutter Costs us: It can cost us in regards to Money It can cost us Time It can cost us our Health And it can cost us our Sanity Let me explain a little more… In regards to Money: 10% of American households rent storage units which can cost between $600-1000/year. 23% of Americans are late paying their bills because they lose the statements or just plain forget to pay their bills altogether. And of course, late payments result in late fees. Even worse, repetitive late payments can even cost you your credit score! (Which by the way can cost you time as it may now take longer for you to pay off your debts)….oooh…clutter can be a vicious cycle! Let’s talk about food: You know what happens to us when we don’t have a plan for our weekly dinners? We end up going out to eat right?! Which cost 2-3 times more than if we ate at home! Food can also cost you at the grocery store when you don’t know what you have at home because your pantry is a mess and you end up buying duplicate food items or throwing things away because they’re expired! That’s one of my peeves at home….I do not like to waste food! Ok…so this also happens with other things in the home like office supplies, cleaning supplies, toiletries, light bulbs, batteries etc. When your home is cluttered and you don’t have homes for these things, it often results in them being misplaced….and increases chance of duplicates being purchased….because you can’t find them! At work, clutter has the potential of costing you a promotion because clutter can result in disorganization, missed documents, missed deadlines, and so on. Now, let’s not forget about digital clutter: Having to buy more memory for your computers, or more storage space on the cloud…or what about apps that you purchased and never use? All that digital clutter can cost you money! And of course, another way clutter can cost you in regards to money, is having to pay an organizer to help you get organized! Although I’d like to think of a professional organizer as more of an investment…I know at least for me…I’m usually transferring mad organizing skills to my clients! Ok…so let’s talk about how clutter costs you Time: According to NAPO, the average American spends 1 year of their life searching for lost documents or misplaced items. Yikes! Too much clutter means more time you have to spend cleaning or managing your things. For example, a lot of my clients have a lot of properties and vehicles….which is totally cool. Even though most of them pay someone else to trim the trees, clean the house, take care of the lawn and service their vehicles….they’re still responsible for their stuff and still have to manage all of those accounts…or pay someone else to. Clutter also costs you time when you have to constantly go to the store because you can’t find what you’re looking for! And it can also rob you of time you’d rather spend with your family or friends…or just relaxing. Now let’s talk about how Clutter can cost you in regards to your Health: Too much clutter can result in dusty, dirty and moldy environments. There have been a few occasions where my eyes and sinuses came under attack by all the dust and allergens that were kicked up when I was organizing at a clients house. There was even a time where I visited someone for a needs assessment and after only being in the home for an hour, my nose burned and I coughed for about 4 hours after the appointment. That was only an hour…can you imagine how the health of the children were effected by living there day in and day out? That gives you something to think about. Another thing is that critters like clutter. And when critters get in the house…they like to leave little gifts like…their poop, pee, fur and germs….which of course aren’t necessarily good for your health. Folks lemme tell ya…being an organizer is not all Martha Stewart and making pretty labels on jars in the kitchen. Most of the time I’m playing kick the dust ball, running from live dusts balls (aka…rats) or dancing to La Cucaracha…not the song…the actual critters! Yes…I actually had a Texas sized cockroach jump on me while working in a closet! And a final thought in regards to your health…is the cost of medications to treat your health due to your clutter and that you’ll have to spend time going to the doctor and pharmacy as well as pay money for seeing the doctor and getting your meds. You see that? There’s that vicious cycle of clutter again. We’re talking about health but it can affect your time and money! Moving on to the last area, let’s talk about how clutter can cost your in regards to your Sanity: Clutter can be overwhelming. For many folks clutter makes them anxious and they have a difficult time concentrating. Clutter can be very stressful. Imagine how frustrating it is when you can’t find something? And the stress it puts you under because now you’re running late for work. Stress can lead to serious health problems like anxiety, depression, ulcers, headaches, and high blood pressure to name a few. Did you catch that? Again, it’s a vicious cycle. Clutter can affect your relationships and cause unwanted emotional turmoil….making you feel like a bad spouse…a bad parent…a bad friend…or a bad co-worker. Which can then lead to low self-esteem….which isn’t a place I wish anyone to be. Bottom line, everything has a cost…especially clutter. Not only does it rob you of your money, time, health and sanity…it robs you of your life and your dreams. So getting organized and ditching the clutter can help you not just with saving you time, money and stress…but it can help give you space to breathe…to think…relax….and build your confidence and your self-esteem. It’s not about being perfect…far from it. It’s about controlling your space, your time, your health…your life. A Few Random Things A real paperless success story! Check out our friend and SLT listener Chris Jeub’s post on ChrisJeub.com titled My Paperless Plan Thanks for all the notes of concern from the last show where I spoke about my Mom passing away. You guys truly are amazingly supportive. Again…sorry I kind of left you hanging there for a couple weeks, but it sure is nice to be missed! We changed a category in the iTunes listing and it sure would help if you took 2 minutes and give us a rating and review in iTunes. The more positive ratings we get the more likely people are to find the show because iTunes promotes shows based on your ratings and downloads, so it really helps more than you can imagine. Just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/iTunes, from there click “view in iTunes”, then click Ratings and Reviews” and you’ll be able to click the stars to rate and leave us a comment to review. Thanks for doing that for us…it means a lot. We also wanted to say thanks for all the comments recently. We’ve been getting some great suggestions for future shows about topics such as photo organizing, more recommendations for apps that help simplify life a bit like HomeZada and others, and a topic that always comes up…what if you’re into simplifying and your significant other isn’t. Hmmm, lots of stuff to look into. So we’ll be exploring those topics and lots more in the episodes to come! Finally, for those who took the time to reply to the survey about the Simple Life Together Community… you rock! We have learned so much about what you want in the show and more. If you haven’t had a chance to take the survey, please go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/survey, take one minute and let us know your thoughts on whether you’d like to see an SLT community, more tutorials and products, or take part in an SLT Mastermind Group. We don’t want to go in a direction that you don’t want or need, so we’re counting on your feedback. Dan’s Topic: Managing Your Passwords with 1Password If you recall back in the day, you probably had to remember two passwords. Actually, they weren’t even passwords, they were combinations. One for your school locker and one for your gym or PE locker. If you were lucky, you probably had a lock for your bike, too. That’s it…you were probably maxed out on your own personal RAM at that point. Fast Forward to today…EVERYTHING has a password, a PIN, security questions…yada, yada, yada. So how do most people handle it all. Typically, people use simple passwords such as names, dates, some type of easy to remember (and unfortunately, easy to hack) combination of the two. Or, they use the same password for everything! Well, today I’m going to talk about what we use to manage our passwords and yet still have rock solid security for our vital digital information. Yes there are other password managers out there, but this is what we use…so let’s get started. So what is 1Paswword? 1Password is a full-featured password and identity manager. 1Password has powerful desktop client programs for Mac OS X and Windows, as well as mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, 1Password gives you a more secure and convenient online experience, no matter where you are. For brevity’s sake I’ll just be covering 1Password for Mac and Windows. We’ll leave the mobile app for another time. But trust me, once you start using 1Password for your desktop or laptop, you’re going to want it for your mobile devices, too! So the vast majority of the info I’m going to cover today come almost word-for-word from the Introduction pages for 1Password. So, what I don’t cover here, you can find on the 1Password website. Let’s Start with Features: Here are some of the features that make 1Password an indispensable tool for managing all your passwords, online IDs, and personal information and for streamlining many aspects of computer use: Automatically Save and Fill Web Site Logins True Integration With Web Browsers Support for Popular Web Browsers Super Strong Password Generator Advanced Security Securely Organize Your Digital Life With Wallet Items Secure Notes Stay Organized Get Access to Your Data Anywhere Automatically Keep Your Data in Sync on PCs, Macs, and iOS devices Automatically Save and Fill Web Site Logins 1Password allows you to quickly save new Logins from within supported browsers. It detects when you are logging into a web site, and if it notices a password you have not yet saved, 1Password prompts you to save the new Login in your secure, encrypted data file, for later use. When it comes time to log into a site, 1Password makes it easy with your choice of browser buttons and keyboard shortcuts. You can also use their innovative Go & Fill feature, which in one fell swoop opens your default browser at a site’s login page and enters your saved login credentials, optionally submitting the filled login form. True Integration With Web Browsers Many applications provide safe storage areas for your private web information, but you often need to add your data by hand, then manually copy it back out when the time calls. 1Password is designed to work directly with your browsers. When you need to log into a site, create a new account, or generate a strong new password, the capability is just a click or two away, and your information is always stored in an encrypted data file. It’s a great combination of security and convenience. Support for Popular Web Browsers The password, identity, and personal information tools that come pre-bundled with web browsers are specific to those browsers. Such as on a Mac using Safari, you have what’s called a keychain. Well, your data is locked up in each browser, forcing you to find a way to migrate your passwords—if that’s even possible—every time you switch browsers. With 1Password, your information travels with you. 1Password lets you truly integrate with your browsers through browser extensions. As we mentioned on earlier shows, browser extensions give your browser increased functionality. We’ll get into that added functionality in a minute, but know that these extensions give you instant access to your passwords and personal information that you have loaded in 1Password. Supported Browsers for Windows version: 32-bit Internet Explorer, 32-bit Firefox, Chrome, Safari Supported Browsers for Windows version: Safari, Firefox, and Chrome Strong Password Generator As the Agile Bits website says, “Let’s face it: the days of using your pet’s name or your anniversary as a password are long gone.” While 1Password remembers all your passwords so you don’t have to, it also has a great tool called the Strong Password Generator for creating really strong, unguessable passwords to keep you safe online. What I like is that you can choose whether the password includes numbers or symbols, whether it’s pronounceable or not. Even the number of characters it uses. Really, lots of flexibility here. 1Password’s Strong Password Generator creates unguessable passwords for you. With the Strong Password Generator you can quickly create complex passwords on the fly, save them to your encrypted 1Password data file, and automatically fill them in on website login forms. This protects your accounts from prying eyes, and also gives you protection from keyloggers, as 1Password never types your password and does not rely on the Clipboard. And all you need to remember when it comes to unlocking your data file and using your information is—you guessed it—your one password, known only to you. Real, No Kidding Security I want to preface this with this…in my opinion NO system is foolproof and I wouldn’t trust anyone or any company that says their system is. But with 1Password, all of your confidential information is encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES. This is the same state-of-the-art encryption algorithm used as the national standard in the United States. 1Password uses 128-bit keys for encryption, which, according to 1Password’s developers, Agile Bits, claims would take millions of years for a criminal to decrypt your data using a “brute force” attack. So, I did a little checking and found out that according to ScienceDaily.com, the effort to recover an AES encrypted key is huge: the number of steps to find the key for AES-128 is an 8 followed by 37 zeroes. To put this into perspective: on a trillion machines, that each co…

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT 026: Spring Cleaning Your Home, Life & Tech May 02, 2013

Show notes

Spring Cleaning Your Home, Life & Tech Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks! Vanessa Topic: Spring Cleaning Your Home and Life Spring cleaning is all about de-cluttering, deep cleaning, and prepping for the summer! ceiling and floor vents ceiling fans and baseboards gutters washing the windows and window sills clearing out and wiping down the inside of drawers de-funkifying the inside of your oven and degreasing the stove vents sweeping and moping under appliances, couches, beds, etc. decalcifying your water fixtures Spring cleaning can also include other things like: switching out seasonal clothing and home decor testing fire alarms and replacing batteries Fire alarms checking fire extinguishers for their expiration date service your lawn and gardening equipment How to prep lawn equipment for Spring service your vehicle and stock up on vehicle emergency supplies before a summer road trip. get your AC unit serviced too I also like to include a little planning and prepping for summer and fall: Sign your kids up for summer camps Summer Fun Activities for the Kiddos Plan out your trips and vacations (Vacation Travel Preparation)…you can use Travel Checklists to keep you organized. Enroll your kids for school; get their records, immunizations and physical taken care of now! Or at least have it on your radar. Back to School Tips Sounds like a lot of stuff right? Your Spring Cleaning List is manageable if you keep these things in mind: You don’t have to do it all at once! You can do a little bit at a time everyday First: Identifying ALL TASKS you need or would like to do in priority order Second: Assign a reasonable amount of time to complete each task And finally….make a date and don’t break it!!! That means schedule it on your calendar. Remember…A TO DO item is actionless unless you attach a date to it! Book your priority tasks first. Save big tasks for days that you have more time to dedicate to them. Smaller/easier tasks can be listed on a daily basis. Now, if your list is still looking too long then consider spreading your tasks out throughout the year instead of just at springtime! And don’t forget about delegating tasks to family or other members of the household… Or even hire someone else to do it for you! Sometimes it’s worth outsourcing help!!!! I mentioned getting others involved…but what if others in the family aren’t “into it”? Well, here are some tips to help get Spring Cleaning “buy in” from others: Communication is key. Explain why certain tasks are important to get done and that you really need their help. Start with a small task. Then move to a team oriented task. Keep it fair too…everyone should be involved not just the oldest child. Give them ample notice of a cleaning project…don’t just drop it on them at the last minute! When all else fails bribe them or threaten them! That’s what I do! Just kidding. Let’s talk about some popular spring cleaning projects around the home (Note: I’m just going to mention the more unique tasks) Kitchen: clean out ovens and vent hoods; edit and organize your pantry tossing all expired items; clean out the inside or your fridge as well as sweep and mop under it; may need to defrost your freezer and wine fridge too; and decalcify your coffee maker Living Rooms: clean sofas and chairs; wipe down remotes; edit and organize media like DVDs, CDs and video games; edit magazines and newspaper collections Bathrooms: wash shower curtains and shower mats; dust vents; throw away old and expired jams n jellies and medications; srub away lime deposits on your water fixtures. Garage: service lawn mowers, move winter supplies, bring out sport equipment; you may want to check out: 17 Secrets to Organizing Your Garage and 7 Steps to Organize Your Garage Closets: switch seasonal clothing, edit old, unused clothing, rearrange, organize How to Store Seasonal Clothing and Closet TuneUp and How to Edit Your Clothes Quick Tip and SLT Episode 20 How to Organize Your Closet Kid’s rooms: clear out old toys, clothes and even papers. Be ruthless! Switch out seasonal clothes and bedding. Home Office and Papers: great time to edit papers, especially after Tax Season Simplify Your Taxes. Clean out old files and spruce up current ones with nice file folders and labels. Consider using an action file to keep up with daily influx of mail and papers. Maybe even think about going paperless like we’ve talked about numerous times here on the show (Episode 06). Outdoors: windows, gutters, power wash siding and sidewalks/driveway, check faucets and hoses, mulch, weed and fertilize. How to prep lawn equipment for Spring. Clean your BBQ grill. Dan’s Topic: Spring Cleaning Your Tech Take a few moments to go through your RSS reader and pare down some of those feeds you’re no longer interested in or add some that you’ve been meaning to When it comes to feeds, digital simplicity is about having the RIGHT feeds, not just FEWER feeds. The same thing goes for your podcast subscriptions Look through the podcasts you subscribe to and consider which ones you really listen to. With nearly 50% of podcast listeners listening on smartphones, keeping your subscription list well pruned is more important than ever. Even if you’re streaming versus downloading, stick to your favorites and check out the others on an individual basis Speaking of podcasts, here’s something I did just yesterday: I realized that some of my workflows hadn’t kept up with technology. Specifically, my old workflow for listening to podcasts was like this: subscribe in iTunes, download episodes to my laptop, sync my iPod to my laptop, and once or twice a year I’d go through the shows in my iTunes and delete old episodes. Well I realized that workflow was outdated because I no longer use my iPod, I listen to 90% of podcasts on my phone, and about 5% each on my iPad and Apple TV. With streaming, there is no need to download them. I was taking up tons of unnecessary space because I never adapted my workflow to my habits or technology changes. The same goes for my music in iTunes It was taking up huge amounts of disc space yet… I paid for iTunes Match, so my music was in the Cloud and ready to stream or download any time. Knowing I have my music library safely backed up on an external drive, I deleted all my music in iTunes that was already matched in iTunes Match. I did have about 300 songs or sound files that weren’t available in iTunes match that I kept in iTunes on my laptop, but that’s a lot better than many thousands of files! Inbox cleaning: Back in Episode 12 of the show, we did an episode on The Art of Inbox Warfare to help you battle your email Inbox I covered lots of tips there but one thing I’ll mention is making good use of your “unsubscribe” button for mailing lists you’re no longer interested in, and maxing out the use of filters if you’re a Gmail user. A little time spent “spring cleaning” your Inbox can help you throughout the year! Take some time to go through your Evernote Notebooks and Tags In tags view, see if you have duplicates that you can delete or combine with other tags. Often you’ll have singulars and plurals of the same Tags. Pare those down. Same goes for Notebooks. If you can combine notes into one Notebook from similar Notebooks, give that a shot. If you haven’t tried Stacked Notebooks, that, too, can help you organize your Evernote database visually. If you’re new to Evernote and need some help getting started, go back and check out Evernote Simplified Part 1 in Episode 17 and Evernote Simplified Part 2 in Episode 18. If you spend a lot of time on the computer, it’s just as important to have a clear digital space as it is to have an organized and clean home. Edit your desktop, apps, and menu bar items down to those you use the most. If others that you don’t use tend to get in the way, they’re probably not helping your productivity much. I covered the ones I use most (and why) back in Episode 21. You might recall that two menu bar apps I use quite heavily are PopClip and ScreenFloat. Since then, Vanessa finally tried both of those (PopClip and Screenfloat) and has now become quite addicted. Take some time to go through your Contacts list. First, do you have a system for updating them? Are the ones you have current? How about those old numbers and addresses…is it time to edit those? Personally, I use Contacts in Gmail and love it. Your mileage may vary. Remember “back in the day” when you got a new phone and had to re-enter all your Contacts? If that’s still you, maybe it’s time you hopped on the technology bandwagon. And Spring Cleaning time might be the perfect time to review your digital backup plan, too. Way back in Episode 3 I talked about backing up your digital information Follow the 3 S’s…Make your backup Simple, Seamless and Solid. Simple…so you don’t have to think about it, it just happens in the background. If you do have to think about it, set reminders in your calendar. Remember, it needs to be simple but complete… On site backup to an external drive. Cloud backup off site. Seamless…if you have regular backups to an external drive, make sure that drive is also backed up off site. Initial backup to the Cloud can take up to a couple weeks, depending on your connection speed and how much data you have, of course. Solid…evaluate that your system works. Try to download files from your backup system and see if there are bottlenecks or barriers to your system. How easy would it be to do a complete system restore if you lost your hard drive? Thing Segment Dan’s Thing: Asana, a task management tool Vanessa’s Thing: Prepping for her Certified Professional Organizer Board and Decision Making with a little help from Parkinson’s Law Links Real Simple Spring Cleaning Shortcuts How to Clean Floors Walls Mrs. Meyers Clean Day Green Cleaning Supplies by Green Cleaning/Goodhousekeeping How to Store Seasonal Clothing How To Organize Your Pantry Organizing your Home Office 17 Secrets to Organizing Your Garage 7 Steps to Organize Your Garage Like With Like Closet TuneUp How to Edit Your Clothes Quick Tip Travel Checklists Fire alarms Back to School Tips Summer Fun Activities for the Kiddos Vacation Travel Preparation Simplify Your Taxes How to prep lawn equipment for Spring Asana Project Management Would you like to help us help Charity Water? If you make purchases on Amazon.com through this link it will be applied to Vanessa’s Charity Water Campaign Give directly to Charity Water Through Vanessa’s Campaign To Create An Action File Quick Tip Paper Piles, Paper Piles…Here’s An Easy Way To Control The Clutter Working with Hanging Files and File Folders Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks!

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT 025: “Someday” Isn’t On The Calendar & An Interview With Kerry Reifel Apr 25, 2013

Show notes

“Someday” Isn’t On The Calendar & An Interview With Kerry Reifel of The Simple Year

Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks!

Dan and Vanessa’s Topic: “Someday” Isn’t On The Calendar

As we traditionally do when we have a guest interview on the show, the two of us will do a joint topic. We’ve hit our 25th episode, and so we thought we’d reflect back on where we started and throw some ideas out to our listeners about where we might be headed with Simple Life Together. Here are the things we reflected on and discussed:

Made the decision to simplify our lives and for us that meant somewhere between consumerism and minimalism...not exactly sure how to define it other than “simple”, but now we know it’s not consumerism, not minimalism, not raising our own chickens and sewing our own clothes. Nothing wrong with that…just we’re not at that level!

We looked for a community but couldn’t find one!

Dan wanted to start a podcast for years and said he’d do it “someday.” Well, no matter how many times he looked on the calendar, he never found “someday” there.

We decided that maybe the community we were looking for was looking for us, too. So, Dan floated the idea to Vanessa for a sanity check and she was all for it…and Simple Life Together was born.

Dan brought some tech simplicity and military techniques to the mix while Van brought the organizer background to the mix.

We’ve been amazed at the number of people who felt just like we did and joined us!

Not that episode 25 is some magical number, but we’re having some pretty strong feelings about the show and the future of the show. We think a lot of people listen to the show and take some positive steps in their lives…not because of anything we say or do, but just because they know they’re not alone in the fight. We’re thinking of some logical next steps and we really need some help and advice from all of you on where we go from here:

Considering a community site for more interaction, videos, tutorials, forums to share experiences, arranged by topic, etc.

We’re also considering doing products for the community, too. Dan has already been asked numerous times to do a video screencast to go along with his Evernote Simplified Parts 1 & 2.

It will be an investment on our part if we do it. If there is enough interest in the community, Dan may stop doing client work or seriously draw down on it to support the community

In the end, it’s not about what we want, it’s about what you want! If you just want the podcast and that’s it, that’s fine, but if there is an interest on a full community then we’re considering that too.

Dan create a survey that we ask you to please take 1 minute to click some boxes so we can gauge the level of interest.

No commitment on your part or our part…yet…but we wanted to ask you what you’d like to see.

So, please go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/survey to take a 1 minute survey to share your thoughts with us. We won’t make any decisions about the community’s future without your input. Heck you ARE the community! So please, share your thoughts with us. It’s just 4 Questions, 4 clicks and and one block to share anything else that’s on your mind. We really need your help on this one! Thanks so much and we look forward to your input, thoughts and ideas as we go forward with SimpleLifeTogether.com!

Guest Interview: Kerry Reifel Of The Simple Year

We were so lucky to have Kerry Reifel here on the show! Kerry is a middle class, working mother of two young girls and wife to an active duty military officer. One year ago on April 24th 2012, just as her husband took off on a 6 month long deployment overseas, Kerry set out on her own exciting adventure of not buying anything new for one year.

Although her family had the means to buy the things they needed and wanted, she realized much of it they really didn’t need. So in an effort to cut down on the waste (environmentally and financially speaking), she set out to do one thing….live simply. And so she decided to chronicle her journey, adventures, and challenges on her Blog: The Simple Year.

We first heard about Kerry through Joshua Becker’s Blog Becoming Minimalist and were immediately drawn to her incredibly funny and inspiring story. Kerry’s story resonated so strongly with us and we KNEW it would be a perfect fit for Simple Life Together listeners!

We highly recommend clicking on the “play” button above to hear this fantastic interview! Here is a look at some of the questions we asked:

Questions:

Who are you and how are you making lives simpler?

What was the impetus for starting your blog the Simple Year?

Can you explain your rules for yourself for this challenge? Were there any special considerations for your family…kids and even hubby who was deployed?

What was the most surprising thing or realization you discovered about yourself during this challenge?

What about your kids? How did they adapt?

Can you share one of your most challenging experiences or close calls you had during this challenge?

How has this challenge affected the way you live? Any new habits or life-style changes that you’ll keep?

So you’ve reach the end of your one year adventure…can you sum up your feelings on the consumer society we live in and will your experiences guide you in your future now that you’ve met your goal?

So what’s the next step for your blog?

We also discovered that Kerry is “handing off” her blog to an aspiring blogger who would like to chronicle a year-long challenge themselves. She has built up a healthy following of readers and would love to give someone the opportunity to share their experience too. For more information please check out her Handoff Page on The Simple Year.

Thing Segment

Dan’s Thing: Google Docs and how useful, functional and sharable this program is!

Vanessa’s Thing: NAPO 2013 Conference in New Orleans and a video titled Dove Real Beauty Sketches that was featured on Storylineblog.com

Links

Would you like to help us help Charity Water? If you make purchases on Amazon.com through this link it will be applied to Vanessa’s Charity Water Campaign

PLEASE TAKE ONE MINUTE TO TAKE OUR COMMUNITY SURVEY. THANKS!!!!

Give directly to Charity Water Through Vanessa’s Campaign

The Simple Year

The Simple Year Handoff page

Storyline Blog

Dove Real Beauty Sketches YouTube video

SLT 024: Simplicity Can Be Complicated & Tackling Piles of Files Apr 18, 2013

Show notes

Simplicity Can Be Complicated & Tackling Piles of Files with Smiles Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks! Dan’s Topic: Sometimes Simplicity Can Be Pretty Complicated One of the major topics people talk to us about is how it seems that a good portion of society has given up or lost their way when it comes to choices they make and and even seems like they’ve given up on taking responsibility for shaping their lives. On last week’s show I mentioned Stephen Covey’s classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey addresses at the beginning of his book that responsibility is our “ability to respond.” When it comes to living out our decision to pursue a more simple life, we exercise our ability to respond in the choices we make. Choices on what to let into our lives, and choices on what to let go of. In doing that, we exercise that responsibility at many levels..first in our choice to live simply and then with each decision we make to support that choice. Simplicity is a completely personal choice. No one, including us, has all the right answers on how to make your life simple. Like most things in life that are truly important, there is no: magic pill definitive blueprint roadmap or treasure map to find the simple life that perfectly suits you. The answer can only be found by truly contemplating your desires, formulating your life plan and tweaking it along the way as you get wiser. Matter of fact, listening to gurus and experts will often run contrary to your goals because it limits your ability to respond…to be response-able. Responsibility is a like a muscle, if you don’t exercise it, it will atrophy over time and you won’t be able to use it. That is the path a huge part of society has chosen to follow these days and their decision muscles become more and more atrophied every single day. So how did this happen? Well, I’ve thought a lot about it and wanted to share some things with you. So, as you’ve heard me mention before, many sources tell us that the average adult is exposed to as many as 5000 advertisements per day. Now, I think this number might be a little high, but who knows. I’ve done some research on it and to me there’s definitely a ballpark figure range from 1800 to 5000. Still, the crux of the matter is that we’re inundated with advertisements, and heck, traditional media for that matter, that are designed at their best to influence our decisions, and at worst, to replace our decision making process all together! Advertising tells us what we’re supposed to drive, what we’re supossed to look like, wear, live, what medicines we need to take if we want to be 70 and hold hands with our significant other as we sit in separate bathtubs after a long day’s motorcycle ride. If you’re new to simplifying your life, I just want to reinforce the decision you’ve made to give this a shot. I wanted to start out by just going over what decision making was like back in the day and what it’s like now. I’m not going to get into what’s better and what’s not…just sort of present some realities and how our options have changed. Like “stuff” in our lives, more options isn’t always better. So let’s compare some available options of a few things between an era we’ll call “back in the day” to now: First off, television. Back in the day we had about 3-4 TV channels to choose from. If you’re like me and lived near Canada, maybe you were able to pull in 2 more, and maybe your town had a VHF channel to watch reruns of shows that were off the Big 3 here in the States of ABC, CBS, and NBC. If you lived outside the States, then maybe you have even fewer options. If you wanted some advice about what to watch, you asked your friends. The sample was small and just by asking a handful of friends would give you all the info you needed. The advertising model was a holdover from the radio days. Products sponsored shows and trusted spokespeople told us what products were right for us. But even then you were exposed to so few Ads that you could discern for yourself whether coffee A was better than B, or if more doctors really did smoke Camel cigarettes. Today, most of us probably have access to 300+ channels We say there’s still nothing on There’s no way we could ask friends to sample all the options. Many people just accept at face value the advertising they see as true. They suffer from analysis paralyisis and have just given up. Sure, it’s easier…but it won’t lead to the simple life you’re trying to build. Tip: As a minimum, we should try to crowdsource our feedback by doing things like reading reviews on Amazon, checking site like Consumer Reports, and yes…still asking friends that we trust are informed. But taking things at face value from ads? No way! Tip: I’d be pretty skeptical that the celebrity spokespeople actually use these products. Here in the States you see a lot of ads for reverse mortgages that are hawked by celebrities. Do you really think they’re using a reverse mortgage? Doubt it. Now when it comes to food it gets even more deceptive, and I’m just going to hit a couple examples and I’ll have reference links in the shownotes at SimpleLifeTogether.com/024: Did you know that here in the States, the Food and Drug Administration has no definition for “natural” or “organic”? The US Dept of Agriculture does have an organic program which specifies how organic items are supposed to be grown. So even taking for granted that labels such as natural and all natural lead you to healthy choice may not in fact be the case. And that’s where sticking with your simple goals can get tough. Advertisements by companies can be even more deceptive. Remember, these are publicly traded companies and their boards have a fiduciary responsibility to make more profit. “Trust but verify.” Here’s an example…here in the States we have a popular “healthy cereal” (put that in air quotes) called TOTAL. Well, Total came out with Blueberry Pomegranate cereal. Sounds delicious right? Well, the truth is, it contains no blueberries and no pomegranates. Seriously! Here’s a quote I verified the ingredients right from the box labels on Amazon: Quote from NaturalNews.com: “Yet it is called “Total Blueberry Pomegranate Cereal” and positioned as a highly nutritious cereal with the words “100% nutrition,” “Blueberry” and “Pomegranate” appearing prominently on the front of the box, in a very large font size. While the cereal contains no actual blueberries or pomegranates, it does contain eight different sweeteners: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Barley Malt Extract, Brown Sugar Syrup, Malt Syrup, Sucralose, Molasses and Honey.” Another thing I want to address briefly about advertisements and reality is this…how can a teenage girl compete with the advertisements that show what she’s “supposed to look like”? I don’t want my daughter to spend her life trying living up to an impossible standard that has no basis in reality. So, more options have given us a lot more to juggle around in our minds and have put the responsibility…like it or not…where it always has been, on our own shoulders. And when it comes to our self image, we need to know ourselves and help others see that if they’re going to measure themselves against someone or something else, be sure to use the yardstick of reality and not the Photoshopped version of reality that no one can compete with. Since any rant should include at least one dead guy quote, I think Teddy Roosevelt’s comments that “Comparison is the thief of joy”, apply pretty well here. And I think the most insidious thing is that, because there are so many options, because it’s hard to know what decision to make without taking the incredible amount of time it takes to research every option, people just give up. They opt to relinquish their ability to respond, set their decision processes to “Receive Mode” and simply accept as truth what these media sources feed the. Worse yet, they typically take the next logical step and adopt a victim mentality when something doesn’t go their way. Why wouldn’t they? And that’s when things really start to break down for us…when we accept we can’t do anything about our circumstance. Well for those new to the show, I can tell you this. You won’t find that mentality here from other listeners or from Vanessa and me. Sure, we all have our moments, but if you take some time to read through the reviews on iTunes, comments on the blog, or if you’re an Edit & Forget It Challenge member on the Facebook Page, what you’ll hear is people taking control of their complex lives and making them simpler for themselves. Nobody’s doing it for them…not me, not Vanessa, and certainly not society. They’re doing it themselves and we all care enough about each others’ success to offer some help, advice, tips and shared experiences…but certainly not the blueprint or the magic pill. When people send us notes they don’t say Dan or Vanessa can you tell me how to, “whatever.” They ask, “What are your thoughts on this?” or “Do you have any recommendation about that?” And of course, we’re happy to share what works for us. If it works for them, too, then great! The folks over on the Edit & Forget It Challenge page have been the same way…generously offering options and experiences so others can choose. And that’s awesome. So when it comes to simplifying your life, the decisions you make during your life planning will help you limit the seemingly endless options you have. For instance, if health and fitness is one of the pillars of your life plan then it should follow that the food decisions you make are in line with that goal. Instead of having to choose between the 31 original flavors of ice cream, maybe it’s easier to be true to your goal and decide to stay away from ice cream all together? So in the end, which is opposite of “back in the day”, yes…sometimes it’ll take a little bit more effort to find the answers or a trusted source for yourself, but one thing’s for sure…take the recommendations of conventional experts, gurus and advertisement with a grain of salt. But please, just pick a salt…because if you ask the “so called experts” which salt to pick you’ll have to decide between: Rock Salt, Fleur de Sel, Flaked Sea Salt, Crystalline Sea Salt Kosher Salt, Table Salt, Pickling Salt, Sel Gris, Grey or Celtic Coarse, Gale Grosso, or Gros Sel, Hawaiian Sea Salt Smoked Salt (in every wood variety), Seasoned Salt Himalayan Salt, Truffle Salt, Black Salt, Lemon salt Iodized, Popcorn Salt Or you could choose products like No Salt/Lite Salt/ExSalt, which aren’t salt at all. But don’t worry, they must be good for you, they’re labeled “all natural” and are made out of pure MSG. Vanessa Topic: Tackling Piles of Files with Smiles So, with our Edit & Forget It Challenge, there’s been a lot of buzz about folks digitizing their paper files. I think after Episode 6 Going Paperless with Brooks Duncan and Episode 15 Living Without a Printer…folks got totally motivated to banish their paper piles. I think it’s great to get those old files digitized. And if you haven’t listened to Episode 6 with Brooks Duncan, you may want to go back and get some basic tips on how to organize your digital files. You know what’s really neat is how liberated folks feel after letting go of piles and piles of files! I have to tell you, paper clutter is one of the most common complaints I get from my clients. Everyone has to deal with paper and sometimes folks just get lost in it! One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes, folks will get super motivated and get their digital and paper files all organized….but then they struggle with managing the daily flow of new papers coming in! Because isn’t it crazy how much paper we deal with everyday? Well, guess what? I’ve come to the rescue. I got some really easy tips here to help you out. And regardless if you’ve already gone paperless….or if you are trying to go paperless…or if you’re still keeping the hard copies which is totally ok…I’ve got a few ideas for you on how to control and maintain your daily influx of papers. Because like I eluded to earlier, the fact of the matter is…we deal with paper on a daily basis and we’ve got to come up with ways to control it before it controls us! So, here’s what I’m going to discuss with you today: I’m going to talk a little about creating an overall paper plan. Then I want to discuss some tips on how to slow the flow of papers and stopping them at the source. And lastly, I’ll wrap up with a step by step guide on how to create a simple…but oh so powerful…daily paper management system called…an Action File. Creating an Overall Paper Plan. Just like every other project or goal, what is it that Dan and I always say you have to start with first? Yup! The End State! It’s that end state that’s going to drive your action steps and routines to manage your paper. Please note….I’m just talking about one facet of paper organization. There are books solely dedicated to managing paper alone, so just keep in mind I’m tackling just one facet of that today. Think about having two general categories of paper: Permanent and Temporary. Your Permanent Files are files you want to keep permanently and be able to reference later. These are the ones you keep in filing cabinets or bins. Then you have your Temporary Files… which are things you have yet to go through or things you need take action on right? Like bills, RSVPs, to-dos, appointments to make, etc….some of which may become permanent files later. Yeah….these are the ones that end up in little piles all over the house like the kitchen counter, dining table, coffee table, end tables and dressers, right? Well, don’t worry, we’re going to solve that problem a little later. Permanent Files: I want you to think about how you envision organizing them? Do you want primarily digital files or paper files? Or maybe you need both? How and where do you want to store them? In your office, in your kitchen, out of the way, locked up, in a pretty cabinet, cardboard boxes, plastic bins? Just think about it because all of these factors are going to affect how you set up your routines, how you organize your storage space and how you setup your action file….which we’ll get to in a bit. Again, really think through that end state so that you can properly plan. Temporary Files and Slowing the Flow. Again, these are things that you have yet to get to or need to take action on. The thing about temporary files…especially the mail…is that half of it is junk! It’s stuff that we really don’t need…and most of the time didn’t even ask for yet it’s made it’s way into our lives for us to deal with. Well, the good news is that you can help slow the flow by stopping it at it’s source. Stop all those credit card and insurance company offers by going to OptOutPrescreen.com. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance even if you don’t initiate it. But the FCRA provides you the right to Opt -Out (how nece of them). Now this is good if you no longer want or need those offer. If you opt out you can always opt back in. Stop unwanted magazines and other mail by going to DMAChoice.Org. DMA choice is a on online tool developed by the Direct Marketing Association to help you manage your mail. It allows you to manage catalog, magazine, credit card and other mail offers. I always choose to unsubscribe to all of them, but you can be selective Unsubscribe from email. Yes, once you order something from Harry and David just as an example…even if it was an online order….you’re bound to get a magazine from them. So unsubscribing from email offers is helpful too. Other ways to cut down on the paper in our lives is to do auto bill pay, cut down on printing and don’t give your information out to the cute guy or gal at the register. Let’s Create an Action File. Ok, let’s t…

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT 023: Simplicity “Traps” & There’s an App for That! Apr 11, 2013

Show notes

Simplicity “Traps” and There’s an App for That! Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks! Vanessa Topic: There’s an App for That! I often get asked about how I stay so organized…a natural question I suppose since I am a professional organizer and all. Well one of the things that keeps me organized is using technology via my iPhone and iPad. As a matter of fact,I affectionately call my iPhone my “Mini Command Center.” It’s got everything I need (or think I need) right at my fingertips. Like Dan has discussed in the past, our iPhones have replaced so many other physical gadgets...a camera, a vehicle GPS system, a Garmin wrist watch, an iPod/MP3 player, and a calculator just to name a few things. I thought I would discuss some of my favorite apps. My main purpose it to get you to think about apps that may help you too. You may not pick the ones I discuss and use, but hopefully when you’re wondering if there’s a better way to track or do something you’ll say, ”Well, I bet there’s an app for that” and then go I searching for one. Let me first talk about apps that Dan and I both use. Now, he’s already mentioned them back in Episode 21 when he talked about Menu Bar apps on his desktop but I figured I would share with you how I use them on my iphone and ipad. 1 Password: This is a password management program that does more than store all of your passwords. You can also store other important information like ID card numbers, membership numbers and credit cards. It’s also very helpful when you need access to a variety of other important information…like a family member’s social security number, a student id number, bank account and routing information, business EINs, etc. We even have our bike locks combinations in there! Evernote App: Yes…I am a fan too. Maybe not as big of a fan as Dan being that he’s done two back to back Episodes on Evernote in Episode 17 and Episode 18. On my phone, I use evernote to capture pictures, notes, emails, etc. It’s especially handy at meeting and conferences. Speaking of conferences…I save all pertinent information (notes) regarding my conferences in a notebook where I can quickly reference it….like flight information, emails, itineraries, conference programs, e-handouts, slide presentations, contacts, etc. Dropbox App: I’ve been using this one more and more. Especially since Dan downloads our episode recordings for us to listen to before posting on iTunes. We share our dropbox account and so we also store things like our eBooks, etc. Google App: I pretty much do everything in Google….GMail, Google Plus, Google Calendar, YouTube, Google Drive, Picasa, and Google Reader (although that’s going away soon..boo). I’m a huge fan of one-stop shopping and so this app allows me to access all of those programs instead of cluttering up my iPhone screens with separate apps for each of them. Other apps that I use and love: Biz Expense Tracker: Actually I used to love this one but have been having issues lately. It tracks my mileage, expenses, and time. Although I was totally in love with this app…we’ve been having issues with syncing and sharing. So…we’re still using it but we’re keeping all of our receipts until we figure out a better app or get better confidence in it. Pandora: Music app where you pick a favorite song or artists and they build channels with similar music around it. I use it when workout…we also listen to it in the office. Only bummer is the commercials but honestly…they’re so short that I don’t find them a nuisance at all. I’m sure there are other music apps out there but I picked this one and have been happy with it. Nike + Running app: Running app that tracks all of your runs by distance and time. It even calculates your fastest and longest runs and keeps a running tally of the total miles you’ve run. You can set speed or distant alerts and also share your runs on Facebook. I love that it replaced my big bulky Garmin GPS watch. Google Maps and Mapquest: Both of these are great map apps but I’m using Google Maps more lately since they’ve made great improvements like voice navigation and syncing with my contacts which is totally sweet because I don’t have to waste time typing in an address. It also keeps track of previous destinations. Square Credit Card App: I love this app for my business. It comes with this little 1 by 1 inch square that plugs into the headphone jack on your mobile device and where you swipe client credit cards. Clients or customers can swipe their card, sign with their finger on the touchscreen and then Square will send you and the client a receipt. Easy peasy. There is a nominal fee per transaction (2.75%) but there are no monthly fees. S Grocery Gadget: This is a grocery app that allows you to build several grocery and shopping lists. What’s nice about this is that you can email single lists with others or create a group lists where everyone in the group has instant access and can edit. You can build your lists and take pictures of specific items plus it will do a running tally of your costs, calculate tax and even divide your list into categories or aisles. Dragon Dictation: With this app you can speak into your mobile device mic and whatever you said will be dictated into a message that you can then edit and either email, text, copy or send to FB or Twitter. Bank Apps: I’ve got apps for both my personal and business banks. I love that I can check my account status and more importantly….deposit checks or transfer money from home….or wherever the heck I am!!!! Trip It: This is a travel app that works with several travel and booking agencies to gather all of your itineraries (and even those of others who share theirs with you) in one spot and lists them chronologically for you. I like that this app keeps track of multiple trips and will even send you reminders about upcoming trips. Essential Travel Checklist: This is an app that lets you build checklists for different types of travel…I’ve built separate checklists to remind what to pack in my toiletry bag, carry on bag and kids’ overnight bags and for other things like camping, flying, road trips,conferences, meetings, etc. Food Substitutions (by Gormaya) and Epicurious for delicious meal ideas: Food substitutes is great when you don’t have the right ingredient and don’t feel like going to the store to get it. Epicurious is great for finding delicious meals. Measures Lite (Neuwert Media): converts measurements like volume, mass,length, temperature, speed, time, power, energy, fuel consumption, time, angles, torque, force, acceleration, pressure, area…I mean…who needs to think or use their brains anymore?!!!! Pace Calculator (Log Your Run): Because sometimes I have idea how to figure out what my pace was for a half or full marathon! Handy Level (iHandy): It converts your phone into a level. This has actually come in handy…go figure…at home and with my clients. Dan’s Topic: Simplicity “Traps” Well if you’re listening to the show then no doubt you’re interested in simplifying your life a bit. I’m a bit biased, but in my personal opinion, simplifying your life is the one thing you can really do that will have a complete positive ripple effect throughout your entire life. A life of simplicity gives you the margin you need to focus on areas of your life that are in line with your life plan. For instance, and I’ll just hit this very broadly here, excuses we have for not taking action on things often fall back to excuses such as “I don’t have time” or “I don’t have money” or “I don’t have room” or “I don’t know how”, etc. Sometimes the excuses take an even more insidious form…”if I had this”, “if I won the lottery”, “if someone gave me this or did that…”. Well as you simplify your life, the foundation of those excuses begins to erode. Eventually, those excuses become absolutely baseless. And throughout the initial phases of simplifying your life, you’re susceptible to traps. Kinda like Indiana Jones on all his adventures. Today I want to talk about some traps that you might encounter as you search for the holy grail of simplicity. And for today’s show I’m going to just focus on two very common traps that have probably snared every single one of us at some point, but for some reason we keep stepping into them. Ok, so here’s the first one…and it has two parts. If possible, avoid “unitaskers.” If you haven’t heard that term before, unitaskers are those gadgets that only do one single task or function. Erin Doland on her blog Unclutterer even has “Unitasker Wednesday” where she features some crazy unitaskers that companies sell and worse yet, people actually buy! A great example is the iPotty I saw at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas in January…I talked about that back in Episode 11 (SimpleLifeTogether.com/011). This is a little potty chair trainer where the kid can play on the iPad while they’re trying to go to the bathroom. I almost died when I read the very first review on the screen. Here’s the link: iPotty review Now, no doubt this wasn’t a serious review…but it goes to show you that since some people will buy anything, companies will make anything. Or maybe it’s the other way around. If you happen to be a foodie, you’ve probably seen TONS of these! We’re inundated with kitchen unitaskers and entire so-called high-end stores are shrines to cooking unitaskers. You have an endless supply of things such as apple corers, strawberry stem pullers, salad shooters, tomato slicers, the stainless steel avocado pit removers. That’s not to say that all unitaskers are bad or you need to eliminate all unitaskers to simplify your life. There are some things that need a specialized tool, and if you use it all the time, then by all means you should keep them. For instance, our Breville Juicer does one thing only and one thing well…quickly makes fresh juice from vegetables and fruits. I’m sure you have examples of unitaskers that work great for you and really do simplify things. In line with unitaskers I’d like to talk about Apps, too: While apps don’t take up any “physical space”, single purpose apps that don’t play well or integrate with other apps can add complexity to your workflows. That’s one reason I like this program called Evernote and other programs like it so much. They play well with each other. You can get your info into them and out. They’re mutually supportive. So, just like other unitaskers, you may have a few stand alone apps that are just the absolute best tools to do the job. But in most instances, try to look for apps that integrate well with more than one dimension of your workflow and you’ll be able to streamline your digital space just like you simplify your physical space. The next thing I want to address is what I call the “productivity paradox.” Now, I know this is going to sound a bit heretical to some of you, especially coming from me, but I often caution people about getting wrapped up in “productivity” programs. I’ve found that much of the time, people get so involved in setting up and managing their productivity system that they don’t actually get anything done! Yes, their to dos, and tasks may well be organized, but in my experience programs like Getting Things Done, or GTD as most refer to it as, can become attention sucks that keep you from actually getting things done! Many of these “systems” lead you to being really good at juggling a bunch of things that you shouldn’t have taken on to begin with or should eliminate from your life. So my first suggestion would be to focus on eliminating things that aren’t important to effectively executing your Life Plan. A good place to start is Vanessa’s Power of Saying No segment back in Episode 9. So, taking a hard look at what things are really important will save you a lot of time trying to juggle all your tasks in a system to try to fit them all in. It’s a lot like organizing…the key to simplicity is editing first and organizing the important things that are left. Same goes for your time and productivity efforts. To truly simplify, do you really want to: – “Do more in less time”? What are you going to do with the time you supposedly “saved” – Are you going to do more busywork or tasks that aren’t related to your life plan? Some “systems” such as David Allen’s Getting Things Done can be keep you busier organizing to dos than actually getting things done! Interestingly enough, GTD focuses on doing tasks now versus doing things that are in line with your life plan. I much prefer the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey since it is end-state focused rather than David Allan’s “now focused” system. I also like Leo Babauta’s Zen to Done system. So the bottom line on this is that, like anything, there are traps along the way. And just because you side-stepped the quicksand once doesn’t mean you’re not going to encounter it again. That’s why there were so many sequels to the Indiana Jones movies…because life, and simplicity, are a series of adventures. You may have avoided the bottomless pit at the Temple of the Craft Room, but just around the corner is the home office with the piles of files. And while you should avoid multitasking activities as much as possible, seek out multitasking tools. Thing Segment Vanessa’s Thing: Siclovia and Being Able to Park Her Car In Our Garage Dan’s Thing: My 4 Year and 20 Minute OODA Loop Links Getting Things Done 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Zen To Done Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks!

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT 022: Life’s Spam Filter & Simplicity for a Lifetime Apr 04, 2013

Show notes

Life’s Spam Filter and Simplicity For A Lifetime Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks! Before we get to the topics…we wanted to let you know that we had a terrific Skype visit with Mohamed Tohami of Midway Simplicity not too long ago and he posted it up on his website, MidwaySimplicity.com. Of course we have links to Tohami’s site in the Simple Living Blogs section of our Recommendations page here on the website. You can also go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/midway and that will take you right to our Skype video. We had such a good time talking with Tohami and if you like to see us in video action, check it out! Heads up though…Vanessa’s face is cut off in the video. It rendered full screen during the interview but for some reason Skype software cut her off on the final render! Dan’s Topic: Life’s Spam Filter Alright so you know I love my Gmail, and I have all of my email accounts setup come into my Gmail account. I’ve had my Gmail account since it first came out in ‘by invitation only’ Beta back in 2004… and it’s done nothing but get better and better, and more powerful. One of the best things about Gmail is its incredibly efficient spam filter. It’s very seldom that I get spam in my inbox because long before I check it, my spam filter has already done what it does best…keep all the junk that I don’t need to deal with out of my inbox so I can focus my attention on the emails that are truly important to me, including the ones that you send (which we love to get, by the way). Occasionally, I do go back and check my spam folder just to see if something got filtered out that shouldn’t have been. I’ve only had this happen a few times and I can tell you that in none of the cases was this catastrophic. It might have been a minor inconvenience to me, or more importantly, to the sender. But it never really caused any issues that couldn’t easily be resolved. I also go back and check my spam folder from time to time…not regularly…just once in awhile, out of curiosity. It’s interesting to see the junk that goes in there! As of today….I have 3,576 junk emails in my Gmail spam folder. That’s from less than 30 days ago. Apparently I’m missing out on all sorts of opportunities! Loans, inheritance from afar, opportunities to help the Nigerian Finance Minister with that country’s accounts…countless pharmaceuticals to make some of my body parts bigger and others smaller, and apparently I’m pretty irresistible to foreign women from lots of different countries (but especially Russian women) and the ideal candidate for instant credit! And adding up just the totals on the first 2 pages I have almost $450 dollars of unclaimed Wal-Mart gift cards. I have so many offers for Lasik surgery that I’m starting to think they’re from listeners of last week’s show who heard me tell my story about petting ODC’s tail, aka the watering can. Suffice it to say, I really appreciate all the hard work my Gmail spam folders do for me. It’s just something that is too easy to take for granted but really saves me a lot of time and effort. Well, you might be thinking this topic is about Gmail or tech. But the reality is, as I checked my spam folder the other day, something hit me. As I scrolled down…and saw the thousands and thousands of things that I didn’t have to deal with anymore because my filters did it for me, I realized that SIMPLICITY is the spam folder for my life! Simplicity helps us deal with the physical manifestations of the spam emails we all get. If we let it, it helps us immediately discern what’s important and what’s not…what’s in line with our life plan and what’s not…what’s congruent with our faith, our morals, goals, aspirations, dreams and relationships. Just as spam filters protect us from following links that lead to trouble such as scams, malware, viruses, deception…so simplicity protects us in our everyday lives from the false promises of more, better, bigger, limited time offer and “but wait there’s more.” Simplicity filters out much of the negative so we can concentrate on the positive. Because the reality is we’re so much happier in a world where less is more, we love what we have, and subtraction nets a greater sum than addition. Choices become easier and we don’t have to triage how we spend our time because we’ve taken on too much. With simplicity we can afford the finer things because we’re not spending on frivolous things. With simplicity, we have the latitude to channel our effort, energy, finances, time, and emotions on all that we’ve determined to be important to us in our life plan. Simplicity can be our lens, our filter, and our focus. So, if you’re a regular listener you’re likely well on your way to simplifying your life. But if you’re just getting started, I’d like to share a few lines from a reply to a very gracious note we received from listener just the other day. In the note, they mentioned that their lives were becoming “incrementally simpler.” I think that’s the perfect way to effect true life changes. In reply I mentioned my thoughts about that. I wrote: “I think making small incremental changes like you’re doing is right on track. It seems like a lifetime ago, but “back in the day” when I used to jump out of planes for a living, we had a saying when inspecting parachutes and rigging for drops: “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.“ While the context certainly is different I think the same guidance applies to any changes we make in our lives. Slow and steady wins the race.” So if you think you’d like to simplify your life a bit, don’t feel like you have to make changes overnight. Sure, take action, that’s how things get done…but don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” you own, the stacks of files, the digital clutter, and lack of white space on your calendar. Take some time to visualize how you want your life to look. Make small incremental changes. Be confident that low and steady wins the race. Keep plugging away. Make lots of little positive decisions and changes. Over time, and before you know it, simplicity will become a spam filter for your life too. And things will become so much easier. Trust Vanessa and me…you CAN do this. It is so worth it. And we’d be happy to be able to help out along the way. You can reach us through the comments or email us at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com or Vanessa@SimpleLifeTogether.com Vanessa Topic: Simplicity For A Lifetime Recently I’ve worked with a client who is managing the estate of a loved one she lost. She loved this family member dearly…I mean…truly loved and admired her. It’s been an emotional time just dealing with the loss. But making matters very difficult, is that she’s now having to manage the estate…the estate of a hoarder. If you’ve seen shows on television (Hoarders or Hoarding, Buried Alive) you can see how challenging it can be to live with someone who suffers from hoarding. It’s painful, frustrating, and heart-wrenching…especially when it’s someone you truly love. And it’s just as frustrating…or even more so after a person passes away. Not only are you grieving the loss of a loved one…now you’re faced with mounds of reminders of their life. Some good, some bad. You start to ask why? What were they thinking? What were their intentions for all this stuff? Why did they hold on to all this junk? And why is all this really cool, valuable and sentimental memorabilia stuffed under mounds of trash? Then the hard realizations start to set in….why did they shop and collect so much? Did this stuff make them happy? Were they truly happy? Did they really plan on living their life in and under all this clutter…sharing it with rodents and their feces? Oh gosh...was all this stuff a way to fill a void in their life? How did I not see it before? How could I not help them? Dammit…why didn’t I help them!!! And then you’re left with filtering all that stuff. All those reminders…spending hours, days, weeks and often months trying to discern what to keep and what to let go of. Trying to put the pieces together to finalize wills, financial documents and what to sell, give away, or trash. It’s exhausting! But there is a silver lining here…a bright side if you will. One of the greatest things that comes out of dealing with a situation like this is that you put your own life in perspective. You start to analyze how you want the end of your life to be…not just for yourself…but for your loved ones. So what I thought I would do is share some of the recurring mistakes I’ve seen folks make that lead to difficult end of life experiences and offer some ideas to make it smoother. Regardless of if you’ve had to deal with the loss of a loved one or not, I think there is a lot you can learn on how you can deliberately live your life and potentially alleviate a lot of heartache and pain for your loved ones. 1. Start with the End State: We foot stomp this practically every show but it’s sooooo important! I see this as one of the major things missing when it comes to dealing with these types of situations. How do you want your life to look in the end? How do you envision your loved ones handling your estate and affairs? I’m sure most of you don’t want to be an inconvenience right? I know I don’t want to be a burden or inconvenience to my loved ones. I envision the executor of our wills/estate being able to access our most important information in one spot that answers as many questions as possible so that there’s not a lot of “thinking” to do on their end. Our wills outline our intentions with our things and our bodies. All of our account information is in one spot (banking, savings, investments, property, vehicles, insurance, other valuable property, etc)….and any other important info like special notes or letters to loved ones are there too. One-stop shopping….that’s key! Still thinking about the end state…I also don’t want my home to be a burden when it comes to selling it. Let me just tell you…if two homes were identical as far as having the exact same items and number of things in them…a home that is unorganized and cluttered is a heck of a lot more difficult to prep and sell than one that is organized. A loved one is going to have to invest a lot more time, energy and money (like my client) prepping it to sell. Is that a burden you want to pass on to a loved one? Probably not. 2. Evaluate Your Multiple Streams Of Clutter: Often times we have too many streams of clutter flowing into our lives but little to no streams flowing out. We have streams of clutter flowing in in the form of gifts, mail, flyers, schools, paperwork, holiday gifts, shopping excursions, hobbies (oh the hobbies), awards, travels, hand me downs, freebies, etc. But rarely do we have streams flowing out. There are a couple of ways to navigate these streams. You can ONE…dam a couple of them up to stop the flow! Or TWO, create new backwards/outward flowing streams to get clutter out. Dams can be in the form of budgets (not allowing yourself to spend outside your means)…limiting exposure to advertisements on the internet (FB) and television…or limiting yourself to random shopping trips. One example of creating a stream to flow out some of your clutter is practicing the one-in-one-out rule. They can also be clutter busting routines like systematically editing your mail and paper clutter on a daily basis or organizing different areas of your home on a monthly or quarterly basis. 3. Establish Clear Boundaries For Yourself: How many hobbies can you possibly have and truly enjoy? I see this time and time again where people have a need for a creative outlet (which I think is incredibly important), but have too many hobbies. I can’t tell you how many empty scrapbooks I’ve come across…or shelves of unused tools and supplies (like sewing material) in the homes I’ve worked in. Try and pick just a couple at a time, and if you want to start a new one…have a system of evaluating what stays and goes…it may be a hobby altogether. You can also establish boundaries physically…like actually enjoying the “white space” or “margin” in your life like Dan refers to. You don’t have to fill your calendar with events to stay busy…or fill every shelf and wall in your home. Leave time to breath and relax. How about setting boundaries with gifts that you receive. We’ve started doing this with our families. We tell them we’d much rather enjoy an experience rather than a “thing”…like dinner at a nice restaurant… or a play or sporting event….or just plain cash is nice! Express your boundaries to your loved ones…it’s ok….if if they don’t understand… put it out there anyway. Boundaries for gift-giving. Again, I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve been in where clients have closets…sometimes rooms full of items intended to be given away as gifts. It’s like it’s an excuse/justification for buying that post-holiday bargain! Don’t do it. As with any shopping whether it be for gifts, clothes, or groceries…shop with a purpose. Don’t get things just because it’s a great deal…or maybe you could use it someday…or that you’ll need it for your future hobby…or that you might sell if for a crazy amount of money on Ebay. Be mindful with your shopping. 4. Establish Defined Homes For Your Things: Like I said earlier. If you don’t have homes for your items…you’ll end up purchasing the same things over and over again because you can’t find them. That’s what I notice time and time again with many of my clients. Because they can’t find what they are looking for they go out and buy it again. You can save loads of time and money if you create zones and homes for you things. Having defined homes for your things is also very beneficial when it comes to managing an estate. Even if you have a lot of stuff, if it’s organized…it’ll be much easier for your loved ones to know exactly what you have and they’ll be better equipped to make speedy decisions on what to do with things. I spent hours sorting through items that were scattered throughout my clients home and property. Just when you thought you had all the pottery and dishes together, you’d find 10 more boxes in a shed. Or all the family photo albums…then you’d find a random box or album in a box of miscellaneous items. Too much time and effort will be wasted. And even worse…you risk the possibility of something valuable or sentimental being thrown away because your loved one gets fed up and just decided to toss it all! So, those are just a few things to think about as you look ahead to your future and the future of loved ones. None of us like to think about end of life…it can be sad. But reframe your thinking about it…think about how you can live your life now with a plan and with a purpose. No, you won’t see the benefits immediately but you will see them as you drift along on those uncluttered streams of life...leading a course for your loved ones to navigate easily on. I don’t know about you but I’d much rather be remembered as someone who loved and cherished her life and loved ones…not just in the moment but even in the end. Life should be celebrated not just at birth and in the middle…but also in the end. Thing Segment Dan’s Thing: Simplifying My Wallet and CardStar App Vanessa’s Thing: The Truth Hurts But Can Lead To Positive Action and the movie Hungry For Change Links Midway Simplicity Belkin Travel Surge Protector Vanessa’s Charity Water Campaign Hungry For Change Movie Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks!

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT021: Menu Bar Apps, Browser Extensions, and Helping Others Edit & Organize Mar 28, 2013

Show notes

Some things just make life easier. When it comes to working on your Mac or PC, menu bar apps and browser extensions are like little superpowers that give you lots of additional capabilities. We’ll share some of our favorite with you to make your computing experience a little simpler. Speaking of superpowers, being organized can be a superpower in it’s own right! Vanessa shares some tips on how you can help others get organized. it can be a little tricky, so this is some good stuff! Read more… Dan’s Topic: Menu Bar Apps & Browser Extensions I thought I’d cover just few tools in my toolkit for working on my Mac and in the Chrome Browser. Even though many of the Apps are Mac specific, the Chrome extensions I’ll tell you about work across the Chrome Browser platform. Apps that I operate in my Mac’s Menu Bar: Text Expander Text Expander is a Mac only app, but there are other programs for PC that function similarly. Just Google “Text Expander for PC” and you’ll find some. Check out the reviews for these as I don’t have any experience with any text expander programs for PC. Automatically expands text using little short codes or “snippets.” From a single line signature to paragraphs or a full page of text, just make a little snippet and you’ll save tons of time as you type! Use it for signature blocks, code, email addresses (D.D), web addresses (for instance our SLT.C our HSLT.C snippets)…you name it! I even use it for common spelling mistakes that I make! For some reason, every time I type podcast it comes out podca-t-s! So, I made a snippet that automatically corrects that with Text Expander! Available through this link in the Mac App Store for Mac at $34.99, and through this link in the App Store for iPhone and iPad at $4.99 Dropbox It’s available for Mac and PC. Adds another folder on your computer that acts as a virtual drive. Use to supplement a good backup plan by storing docs there. More about that in Episode 3. Load it on your PC, Mac, smartphones, tablets, etc, and have everything synchronized on every device. If you change/edit a document in Dropbox while working on your laptop, it will automatically update everywhere else. If you’re on someone else’s device, you can log in to your Dropbox account on the web and access your information. My service of choice for synchronization of other programs, too. I use it to sync the Text Expander account, our BizExpenseTracker app and our 1Password account. You can even share documents or folders with others so they can have access, too. Done seamlessly…on the Cloud. Free and they give you 2Gb to start out with. You can sign up at SimpleLifeTogether.com/Dropbox. Evernote Brand new to the Evernote arsenal is the new Quick Note function. Quick Note feature lets you create a note at any time, no matter what you’re doing on your computer, by clicking the elephant in the menu bar at the top of your screen or using the keyboard shortcut Control-Command-N. To create the quickest Evernote notes ever, simply pop open Quick Note and start typing. Once you’re done with your thought, click Save to Evernote or Command-Return, then continue doing what you were doing. If you don’t save to Evernote, then your content will stay in the Quick Note window waiting for you to add more stuff. Create audio notes and screenshots by clicking on the relevant icons in the Helper. Just mouse over the icons in Quick Note and you’ll see text that explains each icon’s function. You can also add images or attachments by simply dragging them onto the elephant icon in the menu bar. Every new item will be added to the same note until you save it to Evernote. As Evernote says, “It’s the perfect on-the-go complement to your normal Evernote use, and once you get the hang of the keyboard shortcuts, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it.” You can get Evernote in the Mac App Store for Mac, App Store for iOS, or at Evernote.com Alfred Alfred is a keyboard-driven productivity application for Mac, helping you launch apps and search your local computer as well as the web with great speed. I have it set up so that when I key in Command + Space I can search for everything that Mac’s Spotlight normally lets search for and much more. For instance, if I wanted to search SimpleLifeTogether.com for Occam’s Razor, I’d simply hit Comamnd/Space, type “slt Occam” and it automatically searches our site! Available for FREE in the Mac through this link in the Mac App Store Screenfloat Screenfloat is a Mac app I use to create screenshots of the relevant portion of your screen. ScreenFloat and it will float above all windows…. always visible, no matter which application you’re in. It’s much better than just a screenshot because a screenshot will still be pushed to the background unless thats the program you’re working in. You know how when you’re trying to transcribe something, or use it as a reference and you have to keep switching back and forth between views because the application you’re in defaults to the top of screen? Well, with ScreenFloat your captured portion of the screen…FLOATS! Available in the Mac through this link in the Mac App Store Flycut I mentioned Flycut as my Thing segment back in Episode 8. Flycut is a terrifically simple clipboard utility that puts what you copy to the clipboard into a stack. Every time you copy or cut text, FlyCut stores your “clipping” in a temporary stack for later retrieval. FlyCut lives in your menu bar at the top of your Mac screen. You can access your recent “clippings” there, or you by using keyboard shortcuts. You copy text just like you normally would (by right clicking and selecting copy or by using the keyboard shortcut Command-C). Every time you copy or cut text it’s stored in FlyCut’s stack. To paste an item from FlyCut, just placing the cursor where you want your text to appear. Then you can access your stored clippings by clicking on the menu bar icon or by using the shortcut Shift-Command-V. When you use the keyboard shortcut, a Heads Up Display appears. Use your arrow keys to cycle between the stack items. Hit “return” to select the stack item you want and it will automatically paste itself where your cursor is located. Here’s why I like Flycut…it saves me tons of time as I am a pretty heavy “copier/paster.” I used to copy/paste on to a text editor file or s digital sticky note, but Flycut totally replaced that. Fast and better than the standard Mac clipboard in every way. Another great feature is that you can synch your copy stack between devices by using the optional Dropbox sync feature. If you don’t have Dropbox yet you can go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/Dropbox to learn more. FREE through this link in the Mac App Store For Windows users, you can check out: Spartan Lite Multi Clipboard M8 Free Multi Clipboard AirServer I use it to mirror my iPhone and iPad screens onto my desktop to do tutorials/“how tos” for client and training videos. It’s a great little tool that I can record each step in using an app, navigation, demonstrating, etc. Lot’s of gamers use this extensively to mirror on to a big display Here’s a link to the Airserver website. PopClip $4.99, but you can get a free trial. Lets you do some amazing things easily with text. Forget the old standard cut and paste, when you highlight a block of text, PopClip automatically pops up and gives you lots of options for what you can do with the text. Options you can choose from depend on what extensions you have loaded into PopClip. You can have up to 22 different extensions loaded into this one little app! Some standard uses are to copy, cut, paste, change formatting of text such as Bold, italicise, underline, send to Evernote…I even have mine tell me how many characters I selected so I know if it’s “Tweetable.” You have lots of different option to choose from besides these. There’s a great write up about PopClip on Lifehacker and I have a link to where it’s available for the the Mac through this link in the Mac App Store. Extensions that I operate in my Chrome browser (extensions give a browser more functionality that just website surfing). 1Password Password and identity manager for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. We manage all our passwords through the 1Password app. We also use it for our credit card info, and for automatically filling out forms, etc. Both of our info is in one account, synced through Dropbox with all our machines and mobile devices. It has a built in password generator that is amazing. When it comes to password management, it all depends on your comfort level, for sure. Although we sync via Dropbox, some might prefer to sync over their own wifi. Some might opt to print out all their info to keep a hard copy somewhere as a backup. I’ve had a few folks ask about password management lately and this is what we use. I’m considering doing a full segment on this so if you’re interested in that send me tweet, I’m @DanielHayes on Twitter or just shoot me an email at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com. Note: Here is the App Store link for 1Password for Mac. Once you purchase the App, the Chrome Extension is FREE in the app. Google Voice Make calls, send SMS, preview Inbox, and get notified of new messages (US only). I use it to get my business number on my iPhone, so both my personal number and Google Voice number ring there. With this Chrome extension, I can make/receive calls and text messages from my browser using my Google Voice account. Evernote Web Clipper Use the Evernote extension to save things you see on the web into your Evernote account. It suggests a title for the new note, and gives you options to save the whole article, a selection, the PDF doc (if applicable), the URL, or the full page. If you click on the web clipper in Chrome, double click on the upper-left corner of the box where it says Evernote Web Clipper, it will open up the web version of your Evernote account and you won’t have to re-sign in. Note Anywhere With this text, you can make notes on any web page, any position. When you open that page again, the notes get loaded automatically. It’s like having a digital stickie not on the website! Very cool! SpeedDial 2 Speed dial 2 is a fast and clean extension which creates a dashboard for your favorite pages and quick access to your apps, bookmarks and browsing history. It uses “visual bookmarks” called “dials.” You can keep as many dials as you want, or even organize them into different groups. The only thing you need to create new dial is its URL address. After you specify an address, you can customize it with one of predefined logos, custom image from the internet or you just visit the page for a first and let Chrome to create its thumbnail. It creates a neat dashboard you can use as a launchpad for your web browsing. The best part of SpeedDial is the hidden sidebar function. Every time you open a new Tab in Chrome, your SpeedDial dashboard appears with all the icons of your favorite sites. But if you move your cursor over to the right of that tab, a panel slides out that has 3 columns: Applications (note: Chrome applications), Bookmarks, and Recently Closed Tabs. The Recently Closed Tabs function really comes in handy! Goo.gl Link shortener Shorten url with goo.gl, the Google URL shortener, and share with many different services! Works great when you don’t want to have a long domain name take up all your space in Twitter, Text Message, or blog post. Evernote Clearly Clearly makes blog posts, articles and web pages clean and easy to read. Save them to Evernote to read anywhere. It takes out ads and other distractors and is really meant for article type websites versus sites with lots of small teaser stories such as news websites. OneTab As much as I love the Chrome browser, it really saps the virtual memory on my Macbook when I have a few different tabs open. I keep my Mac’s Activity Monitor open in the dock and and I can literally see how much memory is being eaten up by my browser. Well the OneTab extension for Chrome you can save up to 95% memory and reduce tab clutter! Whenever you find yourself with too many tabs, click the OneTab icon to convert all of your tabs into a list. When you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once. When your tabs are in the OneTab list, you will save up to 95% of memory because you will have reduced the number of truly “open” tabs in Google Chrome. All of the extensions I talked about today for the Chrome Browser are FREE in the Chrome Web Store. Take some time to browse around the store and discover lots of extensions that might make your browsing experience a little easier or better. To get to the Chrome Extension Store, just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/Chrome. Enjoy! Vanessa Topic: Helping Others Edit and Organize Editing Our Garage: When we first announced our Edit and Forget Challenge Dan was really nervous. He had his doubts on if we would actually be able to achieve that goal personally in our own home. I on the other hand….wasn’t the least bit nervous about it. I wasn’t sweating it one bit! We’ve mentioned this before…our home isn’t cluttered. We even have a couple of empty drawers, bins and shelves to spare in our somewhat modest 3 bedroom, 1800 square foot home that’s shared by a family of four…so I could see where Dan would be nervous. But I knew there was a treasure trove of things waiting to be sifted through and edited….it was in our garage!!! I knew that the garage alone would be enough for us to accomplish our 2013 Edit and Forget It goal. But for some reason Dan had his doubts. I’m not sure why but he did. You see we’ve organized this garage at least half a dozen times. It like it’s in a constant state of flux. While Dan was assigned overseas in the middle east for a year, I spent an entire day clearing out unpacked boxes. When we got married and consolidated. After our first renovation to fit all his new DIY tools. When we moved back from Tampa….moved have a way of making you organize a space. And this last time for Edit and Forget It Challenge And this time was different. We weren’t organizing our garage…it was already organized. This time we were on a mission to deliberately and ruthlessly let go and edit. So I’m sure that had something to do with Dan’s apprehension. I also figured it had something to do with the fact that Dan had a lot invested in our garage. Not only did it house his tools where he spent countless hours building, creating, sweating, cussing and maybe even shedding a few tears to make our cookie cutter home more unique…but it also housed nearly 30 years of dedicated service in the Air Force in the form of military memorabilia, awards, uniforms and equipment. That garage embodied so much more than just mere stuff. It embodied dedication…evident in the bags of military gear spanning from the late 1980s to 2010 It embodied hard work…evident in bin after bin of awards and accolades he received throughout his military career And it embodied the spirit of creativity…believe me when I say he’s touched every room in our home! I’m still in awe over how he’s transformed our home with his own two hands. But it also embodied frustration, burnout and overwhelm. So knowing this, I didn’t pressure Dan to work on the garage right away. I knew we had to work up to it. I wanted to make sure this time we were both on board and ready to edit the garage. And we did so with pretty good success. We let go of over 2000 items! That was pretty cool! But this project also taught me some lessons and helped solidify some concepts and tips that I think are helpful when working with someone and helping them edit and organize. Tips and Lessons Learned on Helping Others Edit and Organize: You have to have patience….on both sides. Patience with getting started. Patience during the process (we had to do the garage 2-3 times). I like to go all-out and do full day organizing projects….Dan was good doing a little at a time. Respect, Respect, Respect. Respect one another. Respect o…

Full show notes at the publisher

SLT 020: Organizing Your Clothes Closet & Mentoring Your Younger Self Mar 21, 2013

Show notes

Organizing Your Clothes Closet & Mentoring Our Younger Selves Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks! Vanessa Topic: Organizing Your Clothes Closet Since we started the Edit and Forget Challenge, there are a couple of things that I’ve noticed: A lot of folks love the idea of editing, but they’re having a tough time convincing their significant others to jump on board. So the biggest piece of advice we give them is to listen to Episode 11 With Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist, where he shares some tips on how to work with your loved ones. Basically he recommends to start with your own stuff first. I also noticed most folks start with editing their clothes. I guess it just seems like a natural place to start because most of us have our own clothes that we don’t share with anyone else. I also think folks start in their closets because you can make a significant impact visually…letting go of 20 pieces of clothing frees up a lot more space than 20 pieces of paper or 20 paper clips. Well one of the side effects to all this editing that we’ve encouraged, is that I’ve gotten a few questions about what to with the clothes that are left behind and how to organize these newly freed-up closets! I’ve already talked about how to organize any space back in Episode 12 As a quick recap, I use a four step process: N…A…P…O – Determine your Needs – Assess your space – Edit your space – Organize your space For the folks out there who have already edited…I recommend going back to the previous two steps: Decide if your NEEDS have changed….and Re-ASSESS your space to decide how you’ll now utilize it. If you haven’t edited yet, then you may want to listen to Episode 12 to learn about my 4 step process before you start organizing your closet. Or go simplelifetogether.com/organizeanything to get access to my Organizing Series of blog posts. Ech closet is different and each person has different needs for utilizing their closet. Here are some TIPS on how to organize your clothes closet: Sort your clothes: – By FUNCTION: work clothes, dress clothes, casual, seasonal – By TYPE: t-shirts, polos, long sleeve, sweaters, pants, skirts, dresses, jackets – By COLOR use the colors of the rainbow as a guide when sorting your colors ROYGBIV…red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet (with white in front and black at the end) – Or a COMBINATION. For example, I sort by type and color within each type (sleeveless shirts from white to black) Dedicate space for each person. After you edit and have a better idea of how many clothes you have left, you can better establish the space required for each person. Don’t get too hung up on hangers! I prefer to use the same type of hanger to keep a streamlined look in the closet. For example…I don’t like plastic tubular hangers with my non-slip felt ones. But my felt hangers aren’t the easiest to use especially on cotton crew neck tee-shirt. So here are some tips with hangers: – If you want a streamlined look but need to use different hangers…try using the felt hangers along with the clear plastic hangers like you get from a department store. Both usually have a silver metal hook, which is mostly what you see as you look across the clothing rod. – For heavy jackets and coats…use wood or thick, wide plastic hangers specifically made for sport coats, and blazers etc. – To save space and/or prevent your clothes from sliding around, use the slimline/felt/flocked hangers. I like these but because they are so thin they tend to break easily…not recommended for heavy coats and pants. They work great however for spaghetti strap shirts and keeping light pants from sliding. – For slacks and skirts….I find the clear plastic hangers with the metal hook and clips work best. The same as you see at department stores. – For easy slip on and slip off hangers….your basic tubular hangers work best. The downside to these is that they are slippery so sometimes shirts (especially womens shirts / spaghetti straps) fall off and pants that are folded over and hung on them tend to slide and scrunch up and wrinkle your pants. Another tip is to face all of your clothes in one direction. Have all of your clothes facing one way so that you can easily sift through or file through them. Most sweaters should be folded and stored on a shelf or in a drawer. The reason is because they are usually pretty heavy and bulky and tend to get shoulder nipples if left on a hanger too long. If you stack them on a shelf, try not to stack them more than 3-4 high (max 5) so they don’t unravel or topple over when you grab one from the middle of the stack. You can also use sweater bins or slide on shelf dividers to keep them in place. Use containers. There are a ton so let me just throw out some ideas to help you think about what might work for you: – Open bins and baskets are great for storing baseball caps, gloves, scarves, bulky belts, or winter caps. – Boxes are great for shoes. I prefer clear stackable shoe boxes. I also prefer them either at eye level or high on a shelf because they’re easier to see. – Canvas lidded boxes are nice to spruce up the look of your closet and keep it more streamlined. – Wide open tubs (wicker, metal or even plastic)are nice for tossing thin shoes like sandals and flip flops. Use containers to take advantage of vertical space: – Stackable shoe boxes – Stackable drawers (shoes, or other clothes) – Stackable sweater bins – Stackable cubbies (for shoes or purses that can either sit on the floor or on a shelf) – Hanging shoes cubbies (shoes, rolled t-shirts, rolled swim trunks) – Hanging shelf cubbies (great for bulky sweatshirts, sweaters, scarves, etc.) – Hooks on the wall for scarves, robes, belts and purses – Over the door shoe organizers (shoes, belts, gloves, clutches, bangle bracelets, panty hose, socks, swim suits) – Over the door hooks – Belt and tie hangers or hooks – Hook on hanging rod to had more hanging space Storing boots: either put them in stackable boot boxes or stand them on a shelf using a wine bottle or rolled up magazine to keep them upright or a foam pool noodle cut to size. Of course you could also invest in a custom closet system…designed to fit your needs and take advantage of as much space as possible. Most have the following features: – Adjustable shelves – Adjustable clothing rods – Slide out drawers – Valet hooks – Thin pull out drawers for jewelry Seasonal clothing: If you don’t have enough space to store current and out of season clothing, then you’ll need to have a system of switching them out. Here are just a couple of tips: – Before storing them away, dry clean natural fibers and delicates, wash all other clothing, don’t starch because critters like it, fix and mend clothing beforehand, and get a few humidity control packets or sachets and cedar balls to store in garment bags or boxes. – You can use a variety of containers and garment bags. Space bags are nice if you’re concerned about space and not so concerned about wrinkling your clothes. Garment bags (not dry cleaners bags which should be removed right away) are nice for keeping out the dust and hanging either in the far corners of your closet or in another room. – You can store your boxed up or bagged seasonal clothing under the bed or in your less frequently used areas of the closet like tucked down low in a corner or up high on the shelf. You don’t want it taking up prime real estate. Plastic bins in the attic should be fine. Just make sure the lid is tightly sealed with your sachets and humidity control packets. – For old, valuable or sentimental items you may want to consider getting archival boxes that will better protect them and store them inside or in a climate controlled area. My last tip is to Maintain your organized closet: – Label your bins, boxes, shelves, drawers and even your clothing rods. – Don’t get the case of the ‘dropsies.’ Put your laundry in the hamper, put your shoes back on the shelf or in the box, and hang up your clothes. – Use clear bins when possible. – Have a good laundry routine…which should include folding and putting your clothes away right away. Don’t let them pile up or get mixed in with the dirty clothes. – Edit frequently…seasonally is nice…annual at the very least! Dan’s Topic: Mentoring Our Younger Selves How cool it would be and what you would say if you could go back in time to talk to your younger self. Geez…I’d give myself an earful! We have an entire generation right now that, unlike many previous generations, has graduated college and a couple years later is still working in entry-level jobs, many still living at home with Mom and Dad, and they’re just dying to begin their lives. Unfortunately, for most of them, their frustration is probably compounded because they have this consumeristic vision of what life is supposed to be like: Graduate college, get offered amazing jobs immediately Start at a good salary and reaching 6 figures in a couple years Buy the big house, get all the toys…maybe get married or just move in with their significant other… This has essentially become the contorted consumeristic model of what people where we live call the “American Dream” Trouble is, we can’t go back and mentor our younger self Maybe we can mentor others instead...our surrogate younger selves? While we can’t impose our beliefs on them, we can help them see that they don’t have to get to the point of having too much stuff and then trying to simplify. Imagine how much more beneficial it would be if they didn’t have to get to the point of having too much. What would it be like if they could embrace simplicity NOW, proactively, instead of reactively LATER in their lives? So maybe if we could take the time to mentor just one young person it could make a difference. Maybe it’s a family member, maybe one of your friend’s kids, someone at the office, or even one of your own kids. You could forward them something that inspires you, a blog post you read, a good book you found, a podcast you listen to, or best of all, a personal story. Throughout history, some of the most profound teachers use allegory and parables to get the point across. Our lives, our victories and our mistakes, make great fodder for that. So pass some of that on. Granted, they may not be eager to listen…I know I wasn’t…but we should at least try. So here are a few things I’d tell my younger self if I could…not just about simplicity but about other stuff, too. I could go on all day, but I’ll just limit it to just these: All those mistakes you make in life that you beat yourself up for and are secretly embarrassed about…that keep you from trying them again or something like it? You’re the only one who remembers them, so get over it. If you have to buy it with credit, you probably don’t need it. Never tell a salesperson “I just need my monthly payment to be no more than $XX” because you might just as well write “I’m a Sucker and have no concept of what interest or amortization is” across your forehead. Many people are drawn to drama like moths to a flame. Don’t be a moth. Drama is clutter. Tell the truth…it’s a lot easier. Lies and deceit are clutter. Don’t get me wrong, they work short term…but they ALWAYS come back to bite you in the fourth point of contact. Besides, once you compromise your integrity, it takes a long time to grow back. Remember after boot camp how good it felt to be able to fit everything you own in a duffle bag? Well, be careful what “stuff” you let into your life. You don’t own things, things own you. Learn to eat better now. You know how that “winter weight” just seems to melt away every Spring? Yeah, well, it’s stops doing that when you turn 27. You know how much fun those half marathons are? Especially when you don’t even have to train for them? Well, again, learn to eat better now because after 37 you won’t be able to do any more running… Even the Jones’s can’t keep up with the Jones’s. The Jones’s have been brainwashed by marketers. They actually believe all that stuff makes them happier. There are gurus and there are experts, but AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE anyone who calls themselves a guru or an expert. There is no magic pill, no easy button, no master blueprint. You have to find the answers for yourself. No one will give them to you. They’ll help…but you have to find the answers that are right for you. Too much of any good thing has the opposite effect. It doesn’t matter if it’s money, oxygen, togetherness, solitude, water, exercise, food….and yes, even money. It’s just a rule. That’s how it is. Speaking of money, be careful with it. Respect it and use it wisely. Best of all, share some with those who really need it. Remember and contemplate often Occam’s Razor, the Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law (you can learn more about these in Episode 4) There ARE some shortcuts to difficult things in life. But shortcuts are seldom easy. If it was really shorter and really easier…it would just be “the way.” The last one for now…pick your friends and those you love wisely. They may never fully understand you, but pick those that will be there to support you and, as we say in the military, those that have your “six.” So, although we can’t go back and mentor our younger selves, I think we can make the world a little better by taking the time to mentor someone else. Still, it’s exciting thing to think about it from time to time. So if you have a few spare moments, think about what is that you’d pass on. What unique experiences to you have that someone just starting out would be better off knowing. What do you wish you knew back in the day? Maybe it’s time to share that. Maybe in the end, we can change someone else’s history by helping them plan a simpler future, starting right now. Thing Segment Vanessa’s Thing: Gushing over my daughter. Started her own little Bible Study with her stuffed animals. Decided all on her own that she wanted to give away her stuffed animals to a kid that doesn’t have any. I was definitely proud of her but it was also confirmation of the things I teach about how you can teach your children to embrace certain beliefs, values and concepts if you stay dedicated to teaching them and being consistent. IT WORKS FOLKS! Dan’s Thing: Our New AeroPress Espresso & Coffee Maker! We had a regular drip coffee maker and then we switched to the Keurig when all the cool kids were doing it. The we realized just how expensive the coffee was for the Keurig and switched back to the Krups drip machine. But…ok, and I know this sounds picky…but it tastes kinda bitter. We have some long-term plans to be doing some serious extended camping. When we camp we use either: A percolator…which I can’t stand because the coffee gets full of grounds… Or those little Via packs from Starbucks, which require a home equity loan with a co-signer to purchase. So…while looking for a coffee maker solution for camping, I at first thought about a sturdy French Press…but still, clean up is a pain. Then I remembered hearing about the AeroPress! The AeroPress is this super simple clear plastic tube that, candidly, looks like something Austin Powers would order from Sweden but say “it isn’t even my bag, baby.” It makes the perfect espresso, the perfect cup of Joe, at the perfect temperature. It’s about $25 bucks, super easy clean-up, and we’re using it not just for camping, but we’ve put the drip machine away. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen…is my thing! Links Amazon.com Link to Support Charity Water Austin Powers Swedish Device AeroPress Velvet/Flocked Hangers Clear Hangers Canvas Shoe Hangers Canvas Sweater Hanging Shelves Over-The-Door Hook Tie and Belt Organizer Clear Shoe Drawers Bins Purse/Shoe Cubbies Shelf Dividers Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thanks!

Full show notes at the publisher