The Senior Organizer Book (Sale!!)

The nice folks at Delphi Health Products Inc. just informed me that they are having a 40% off sale (until December 31, 2009) on their products if purchased from their website. Visit their site here:
http://www.biobinders.com/#

In their own words...  

"Delphi Health Products, Inc. products are aimed at the large, "graying" baby boomer market. Our initial line of BioBinder products provides groundbreaking simplicity in "organizing" and "immediate" access to life's vital information"

I am most familiar with their book The Senior Organizer. This is a workbook of sorts to fill out with all your (or the senior in your life) important information–like medications, legal info, financial information and locations of accounts, etc.

It's a well-organized book and can be filled out by the senior or with the help of an adult child if needed. It's all valuable information to have at your fingertips even just on a trip to the doctor's and especially in the event of an emergency. Just remember, you (or a loved one) might not be conscious during a health emergency or accident, and this will help everyone involved know critical information and understand what your wishes are.

Think about it...I know I have several credit cards, while I use only a few of them. I'm the bill-payer in my family and keep track of all that stuff myself. If I suddenly wound up incapacitated for a time, my husband would be thrilled to just take a look at this one book and know all of our accounts. And visa-versa–he keeps track of all our retirement information, and if it was all listed here, I wouldn't have to search through his desk and closet and wonder if I'd found all the paperwork.

This would make a nice present to give to a mom or dad–along with the promise to spend time with them to help them fill it out. (Word of advice–if your parents are anything like mine, make sure you do fill it out with them to make sure it gets done. My own dad had a little "My Memories" book I asked him to fill out years before he passed away. I found it afterward, and he had only filled out a few pages.)

In fact, one of the authors, professional organizer Dorothy Breininger, remarks that she wishes she had had this before her own dad passed away in order to make the ensuing time easier for everyone.

Once the book is purchased, they advise you to fill it out in pencil since information changes, copy the pages and put them in a binder or download the forms available on their website–all great bits that increase the usefulness of this book.

Product/Service Disclosure
(Delphi Health Products provided me with a free review copy of The Senior Organizer. I receive no compensation from Delphi or the authors for my reviews or recommendations.)

I Care Village

 I'll be posting more information in the next few days, but I am very excited to announce my affiliation and the launch of this new site dedicated to helping those who are caring for the elderly.

Visit now for a site preview! The site is up and running, and some links will become active later this week.

www.icarevillage.com

I am listed under the "Ask the Experts" tab under "Personal Organizing." I have written a number of articles for the site and will continue with fresh content, articles, reviews, videos and more. Launching soon is a new feature where you can set up an appointment with me (or one of the other experts) for a real-time consultation.

Let me know what you think!

Margaret Pearson Pinkham, CPO-CD®
Organize in Harmony

I love my touchless soap dispenser!

I managed to find this dispenser at my local Ross for about $20. I just bought one to see how it would work. I love it! With cold season coming on and Swine Flu (H1N1) on everyone's lips (and hands), this is a nice little answer to having to touch something several times a day that everyone else in your family also touches. (Especially if one of your family members is an 8 year old.) And since I filled it with watered down dish soap, I can also quite easily get some soap into a dirty pan while holding the pan in one hand and the scrubber in the other.

This one from Simple Human retails for $40, but if you can find these puppies for less, I say they are a deal and an asset to your kitchen. I'll get a couple more--one for our guest bath and one for our own.


Product/Service Disclosure
(I paid for this item myself and receive no compensation from the maker.)

Come to the SFBA Regional Confernce on Saturday November 7!

If you are a professional organizer, you should be in San Rafael this weekend! You can still register for the NAPO-San Francisco Bay Area Regional Conference. Tell them Margaret sent you!

http://www.napo-sfba.org/seminar_.cfm

Organizing is like a bowl of oatmeal

This post is something akin to
"Life is like a box of chocolates."

Let me explain...

My husband eats a bowl of oatmeal almost every day. However, he rarely finishes it before he leaves for work and he finishes it on the way. That means the bowl sits in his car all day before he gets home and sets it in the sink.

You know what that bowl is like 10 hours later, right? The difference between dried oatmeal and superglue is minuscule at this point. That bowl has got to soak for hours in water before it can be cleaned (by hand). There's no point in putting it in the dishwasher, which seems to only multiply the superglue effect of dried oatmeal.

My point here around organizing is this: it's often much easier to get to (and complete) a project or task right away, rather than letting it "ripen."

Those bowls or any other dishes, when newly dirty, are often extremely easy to clean. A moment of swishing a bowl with water and a scrubber will clean them well enough to set in the dishwasher for a thorough cleaning and sterilizing.

However, if you let dishes sit to dry and harden, it not only takes time to let them soak, but then more water (a precious resource in in drought-prone California), more effort (elbow grease) and more time (scrubbing, soaking) to get an item clean. What might have taken seconds and very little water, is taking minutes and gallons of water and energy just because you didn't rinse an item right away.

Now, is this an essay about the rewards of doing your dishes right away? (Yes and no.) For some of my clients, creating a habit of cleaning the kitchen is something we work on together. But really, I'm looking at the bigger picture here.

What other tasks are you putting off that cost you more in time, effort, energy and possibly money (since time is money)?

I know I've got a couple of overdue library books racking up some fines. (Actual dollars there.)

If I let the laundry go too long, then I suddenly have several loads to wash, dry, fold and put away. (And in the same vein, if I let the laundry sit in the dryer too long, I then have a load of wrinkled clothes that will now cost me time (and electricity...$) to iron.

If I don't open my mail and put all the bills in the "bills to pay" folder, I might miss a bill, have to pay a late fee ($) and possibly harm my credit.

If you can nip anything in the bud, then you will keep it from overtaking you and putting you in "overwhelm." Often, "overwhelm" isn't because we have so many things coming at us (well, for some people it is), but it's because we've let so many things get away from us and they become wild and unruly like spoiled children. Kids don't come out of the birth canal spoiled. Parents that have neglected to set rules and boundaries create spoiled children. Omissions rather than an actual act of trying to spoil kids. A lot like our omissions of not getting to tasks.

(In truth, a child does come out of the womb spoiled. They have had everything they have ever needed fed to them through a tube or encased around them. Heck, they haven't even had to chew and swallow. And I do believe we should "spoil" them for quite awhile after they enter the world with all that they need: food, sleep, clean clothes and diapers and love and attention. At some point, though, gentle boundaries are taught and they begin to assimilate into a world with other beings. But I think I have digressed a tad...)

All I am saying is this...the next time you are about to procrastinate on a task, think down the line a little. How long will it take right now versus how long it will take tomorrow or next week? Is there a price to pay? The price you pay may be in dollars, time, effort, another person's hurt feelings, your reputation or your credit score!

What's it worth?

Oh, and those oatmeal bowls? I think I'll encourage DH to eat toast...