Changing lifestyle, changing priorities

**This post was originally published in my monthly e-newsletter, Lelah's News. Don't subscribe? Sign up here!

There has never been an undertaking that has so drastically changed my life as having a baby, and he hasn't even arrived yet! Getting married was a drop in the bucket compared to the way my life is changing with a child on the way. Physically, the changes are obvious. I can’t do everything I did before. Professional organizing is a very active job, and it was a bit scary to have limitations placed on my physical work. Mentally, the changes are different. I have to limit my commitments and make sure I have time for the most important things. I am reprioritizing. I’m planning even farther ahead in some areas of my life (meal planning, stocking up on supplies) and not planning at all in others (leaving entire days free so I can be rested enough for the demands of pregnancy and motherhood). All in all, it’s been a challenge, which is something I actually appreciate. Life should be challenging, otherwise how we will grow and learn?

For me, the biggest key to this transition has been realizing that it is just that, a transition, that it takes time and I have to give myself the room to make mistakes and learn from them. The rewards of doing so are great, I find, even as I miss certain things about my old lifestyle. I'm used to being able to take on a lot and accomplish it with energy to spare. But pulling back and taking on less is showing me that I don't need to do it all in order to find satisfaction or success.

**Update: My son was born April 9. Life is changing every day in even more incredible ways than I could have imagined.  Stay tuned to this blog and my newsletter as my organizational approach is informed by being a new parent!

The state of my closet

As I write this post, my clothes closet is something of shambles. The top shelf, meant for purses and hats, is a jumble of both of those plus a few scarves for some reason.  The main clothes hanging area, usually organized by color and then by article of clothing type, isn't too bad, but more than half of what is hanging there isn't currently in circulation, due to my pregnant state. The bottom, which has a built-in shoe incline, looks the worst, with an errant overnight bag vying for space with a dozen jumbled pair of shoes, again, only two of which I'm actually wearing at the moment. I'm lucky in that I have a dedicated deep cupboard above the closest that is perfect for luggage storage. The overnight bag usually lives up there, but I've been using it semi-frequently and putting it away, which involves getting my step ladder from another room, seems more trouble than it's worth lately.

Why am I sharing my closet woe with you? Well, I think it's always nice to hear someone who is supposed to have organization down to a science admit to imperfection. Professional organizers are people too. But this story also illustrates how easy it is for a well-conceived system to fall apart when you don't spend the time to maintain it.Your clothes won't put themselves away by color and type. If that's how you want them, you have to put them away that way. And in the last few weeks, a meticulous closet hasn't been at the top of my priority list. That's okay. The good news is that even though I haven't been maintaining it, because I do have a system in place, it will take me much less time to return it to its organized state than if I was starting from scratch.

You'll notice I only included the "before" picture. Closet maintenance will rise to the top of the list one of these days, so until then, you'll have to imagine the "after" shot.


**An exterior shot:

February calendar

February has always been one of my favorite months. It's short, to the point and is always full of fun activities for me, as it contains both the anniversaries of my business launching and being with my husband, as well as my half-birthday, which also happens to be Valentine's Day. This year, I'll be having a baby shower in February as well, plus it's a Leap Year.

I celebrate my third year in business this month, and have to say that it feels good to get there - lots of small business struggle in the first few years of business, if they last at all. I've had a steep learning curve while being in business for myself, but it has been tremendously rewarding. I'm thankful to so many people for helping me along the way, from my family and friends and local solopreneur contacts, to my amazing colleagues in the professional organizing community here in Los Angeles and around the world.

Entrepreneurship isn't for everybody, but it has most definitely been a positive path for me. I highly encourage people who aren't happy in their careers or who are under- or unemployed to consider creating a job for themselves.

Have a happy and productive month, everyone!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by epSos.de

Lelah with an h is growing!

**This post was originally published in my monthly e-newsletter, Lelah's News. Don't subscribe? Sign up here!
 

I have some exciting news: my husband and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in April. We're thrilled to be expanding our family, and I wanted to finally share the news with my amazing clients and supporters.

Impending parenthood has a way of putting thing in perspective, and it has tuned me in to physical and temporal limitations that I've never had to consider before. Therefore, I'll be transitioning away from hands-on organizing work at the end of March, for a while, at least. This means right now is a great time to put into action all your plans to get organized! After April, I will be growing my business in other ways. I plan to maintain my blog, newsletter and social media profiles, and I have wonderful, talented professional organizer colleagues to whom I will be referring new clients when I am no longer able to take them on. I'm always learning about new organizing methods, trends and theories, and will continue my education in this amazing field. Also, I'm hoping to expand the speaking area of my business, so I can share my knowledge with a greater audience.

Thanks for your support as I navigate these changes to my life and business!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Carly Franklin

Lelah's News

I share news, organizing specials and short essays about organizing on my monthly enewsletter, Lelah's News. If you don't already receive it, sign up here.

The next issue will be out this week, and will contain a very special announcement!

Get a professional organizer's expertise!

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Get Lelah's News

Paperless tips

Here are a few paperless tips in preparation for my paperless organizing workshop, Take the Paperless Plunge, which I'm teaching Saturday, February 4, in Sherman Oaks, CA, through the Professional Organizer's Learning Academy of NAPO-LA.

• Don't have time to enter a business card into your contacts, but don't want to keep the card around until you do? Take a snapshot of it with your digital camera or the camera on your mobile device and save it to Evernote, or extract the data later at your convenience.
• Getting too many catalogs in the mail? Catalog Choice is a free service that can help you easily unsubscribe from catalogs.
• Paperless doesn't have to mean high-tech. Stop printing things. It will make a huge difference. 

Get a professional organizer's expertise!

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Get Lelah's News

Tax season special!

Tax returns are due on April 17, 2012. To celebrate the unique organizational opportunity that filing one's taxes creates for us every winter, I'm offering a special organizing rate to help you get ready to file on time.

Lelah's 4 Hour Paperwork Prep Special: $239

I can help you sort your paperwork, find your receipts and assemble the documents you need to file your taxes. This will make you and your accountant extremely happy, and save you time and money. Invest in your sanity. I can help you get this done!

Details: One 4-hour office organizing session with an emphasis on getting your tax documents together is normally $300. From now until March 1, this rate will be only $239! Applicable to new and returning clients in Glendale, Pasadena and surrounding areas. Applies to one 4-hour session. Additional sessions may be needed and regular rates may apply. I am not a tax professional, but I can get you organized before you see yours!

Call or email today for more information and to schedule your session. Don't wait until the last minute. Get this off your mind today!

www.lelahwithanh.com    818.269.6671    lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Ken Teegarden: www.seniorliving.org

Lelah With An H on social media

It's been a while since I posted my profiles to the various social media outlets that I belong to. Let's get connected on the ones you use, too!

Facebook: Lelah Baker-Rabe, Professional Organizer
Twitter: @lelahwithanh
LinkedIn
Goodreads
My website: www.lelahwithanh.com
YouTube: lelahwithanh's channel

Are you suffering from social media overload?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Get Lelah's News

Review: Partners in Crime

I read a lot, and one of my favorite genres is romance. I also love Christmas, and I've been binging lately on Christmas-themed romances which seem to be in abundance at my local library. One story,  Partners In Crime by Cait London, is about a professional organizer who gets involved with a undercover cop on vacation and a string of burglaries of Christmas presents in her small town. It was a cute story, but the way the author portrayed her main character, Cecilia Lattimer, as a fairly OCD person who thrust her unwanted organizational solutions on everyone from business owners to the hunky cop-who-she-thinks-is-a-drifter was a little off-putting.

I suppose I'm overly sensitive, being a professional organizer in real life, but it was hard to see her try to give advice to everyone about how their lives could be organized better. I would never presume to do that, since part of being a professional organizer is being non-judgmental about people's situations and stuff. By offering to "fix" their space for them, the character in the book is implying that there is something wrong with them, which is not only presumputous, but insulting and it doesn't get her very far with any of these characters, anyway. 

So, the takeaway for me is that even though it was neat to see the main character in a short novel share my profession, it made me wonder how others see the job I've chosen. I certainly hope they don't think I'm a nosy person who wants to fix their space whether they like it or not!

Want to learn what a real professional organizer does?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Get Lelah's News

Clutter Carnival

I'm so happy to be one of the participants in this month's Professional Organizers Blog Carnival, hosted by the very talented Janet Barclay of Organized Assistant. My classic post Common clutter areas and what to do about them is just one of two dozen helpful and insightful blog posts all on the topic of clutter presented in the carnival.

Read and enjoy!

Need a professional to help you clear your clutter?
Call Lelah at 818.269.6671
or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com
Get Lelah's News

Lelah's Email Coaching Special!

Email plagues us all. It's a wonderful tool but can be an enormous drain on our time. As a person who doesn't like to leave things unfinished, an email inbox filled with messages is a distressing thing, so I have a system for getting my inbox down to zero, every single day, and I've shared this system with many clients.

If you'd like to reduce the amount of time you spend processing your email, spend two hours with me; you'll make the time back tenfold after we implement a new, improved method for dealing with your email.

I will come to your Los Angeles area home or office for two hours of intensive, email-specific productivity coaching. Virtual sessions for those outside the Los Angeles area are also available. This is a special offer at a special price and is for a limited time only. Applicable to both existing and new clients. Call 818-269-6671 now to book!

Lelah's 2 Hour Email Coaching Special: $135

Need a professional to help you manage your email?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Get Lelah's News

1000 Twitter followers and a special offer

I’ve reached 1000 Twitter followers and I feel like celebrating!

For a limited time, any new client who books a 4-hour session will get a 25% credit toward a future session! The subsequent session must occur before 12/31/11.

Sessions are immediately available. Call 818-269-6671. Visit www.lelahwithanh.com/packages/ for more information.

What would you like to accomplish this month?

• Get the stacks of paper off your desk
• Finally figure out how to use your smartphone to help you save time and paper
• Get help figuring out the boxes of bills, receipts and mail that have been accumulating over time
• Make your kitchen functional again
• Be able to park your car in your garage
• Unstuff your linen closet
• Get your guest room guest-ready

The sky is the limit when it comes to how organizing can improve your quality of life in just a few short hours.

I have never done a promotional event like this one before. Take advantage of it while you can!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

It's okay to ask for help

Sometimes I hear from my clients things like, "I really should have been able to do this organizing project on my own," or, "I don't know why, but it's so much easier to do what I need to do with someone else here." The first statement is said apologetically, the second is said with surprise.

The truth is, that even people with good organizational skills or tendencies need guidance and help from time to time. And it's always easier to go through one's stuff when you have someone impartial there as a supportive presence.

Professional organizers often act as "body doubles," standing by while our clients sort and make decisions about things. We often say nothing, just stay and encourage with our presence. It sounds simple, but it makes a world of difference to our clients, and it isn't that easy. Energy flows between organizer and client, and the more decisions that are made about the stuff, the more energy gets used and renewed.

There's no shame in asking for help and in many ways it's a more efficient use of time, money and energy to hire someone to help you get a project finished than try to struggle through on your own and never complete the task.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Escape from the storage unit

In June I went to Maine charged with the task of eliminating the need for three 10 foot by 20 foot storage units. It took three days. At the end of the three days, three enormous truck loads of items had been removed to the dump or for reuse or resale by the junk man. One smaller truck load of items had been taken to auction. Several silver items had been sold for cash to the auction man. A cargo crate of forty oil paintings had been shipped across the country. 27 small boxes had also been shipped across the country for one client's new home. A fair amount of things had been integrated into the other client's nearby home. And there was no more need for the storage units.

It looks so innocent.

One of the storage units on the first day.

The key to our ability to that quickly pare down to just a few items being shipped to my client's new home was all in my clients' frame of mind. They no longer wanted to pay for the storage units. They were starting life in a different state, and did not want or need the physical items they'd had in the past, so they were ready to let a lot go. That attitude combined with the wonderful auction man and his amazing associate, the junk man, who were ready to take away everything on our schedule was what made the quick turnaround possible.

A lot of trash.

Deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to let go of.

It was physically exhausting work, even though the long Maine summer days were complemented by truly perfect summer weather (no bugs!), and it was mentally and emotionally draining for my clients to continually make decision after decision all day long. But at the end, there was a palpable sense of relief at having accomplished our goal and a sense of freedom at being able to start a new chapter of life unburdened by the objects of the past.

A small pile of boxes to ship.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Volunteering at Chrysalis

A few weeks ago I volunteered with some other members of NAPO-LA at Chrysalis in downtown LA to help them organize their inventory of professional attire. They provide professional clothing, shoes and accessories to people in need when they interview for jobs. The project was a lot of fun to work on, and Chrysalis, which is dedicated to helping people by helping them find jobs, is amazing. Here are some photos from the project.

Me sorting ties.

Organizing tools.

An "after" shot.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Your paperless business

Today I'm honored to be a guest blogger at Janet Barclay's excellent Your Organizing Business, a blog primarily directed at professional organizers. My post is on the reasons for moving one's business paperless. Click over to read how it can help propel a business forward!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Busy is a four letter word

Being busy is a constant. The word means little due to overuse. We use busy to connote a full life, one that we can explain to other people with a shorthand term that everyone can understand. In today's world, over-saturated as it is with information, experiences, options, busy is practically not optional. And for many of us, busy is a good thing. Busy means jobs, school, family, life. It means we have something to show for ourselves. We might say to a friend, "Oh, I'm so busy," with a hint of regret, as if we wish things were different, but what we're really saying is that our lives are full and therefore not failures.

What would it mean to be not busy? Would we be not productive? Would we be failing at life? A part of me thinks that if you said you haven't actually been that busy lately, other people might judge you, as though you aren't making the most of your time or you aren't working hard enough. But that isn't true. Being busy doesn't automatically mean being successful, happy or fulfilled. And having free time doesn't mean you're lazy, apathetic or lack goals.

Though I too use the word busy as a shorthand to communicate to others that my life is full, I don't shy away from free time. I think free time is imperative to living a complete life, and I should probably be more vocal about its validity in my schedule. What are all our time-saving productivity tools about anyway, if not to create a chunk of real time that can be spent in idleness, or at least reading a trashy romance novel, instead of returning emails, getting the car washed or looking for your favorite lipstick.

I'm not going to strive to be busy. I'd rather strive to be complete.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

It's 8 a.m. Do you know where your keys are?

If you identify with this card from Mina Lee Studio, then you might need a professional organizer.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Day in the Life

Monday, February 21, 2011.

Though it was President's Day and a holiday for many, a self employed person can work on such days if it suits her, which it did me yesterday. I woke up at 6:45 and did my morning routine on the computer, checking email, updating Twitter and Facebook, catching up on the feeds in my Google Reader and reading some articles on the Los Angeles Times website. I also ate breakfast and prepared for the day's client.

At 7:45 I left the house and drove to meet my 8 am clients at their home in a nearby mountain community. In the car I caught Steve Inskeep's interview with Lisa Cholodenko, writer and director of The Kids Are All Right, a movie I really enjoyed. She was recommending movies and it was cool to hear her espouse the virtues of Ordinary People, Chinatown and Y Tu Mama Tambien, three movies I love, too. Then I arrived at my clients'.

It was our first session together, so I familiarized myself with their needs and spent a solid four hours sorting papers and getting a filing system set up. As I told my clients, I could do that all day long. I'm not sure they believed me, but it's true. My brain loves to categorize, sort and put away. However, the session was over at noon, so I returned home and fixed myself lunch while going through my email inbox for the second time that day.

I spent the next three hours on my computer promoting my upcoming workshop. It's on March 12, and I'm hoping there will be a good turnout. Getting free of paper in one's office seems impossible, but it isn't, and I think it's something that can really help people's state of mind and productivity. Plus, the workshop price is like getting 3 hours of intensive coaching from a professional organizer for the price of a single hour with that same organizer in your home or office. Anyway, I created notices for the workshop on a number of online bulletin boards. I also emailed a few clients to follow up on their progress and updated Bento with my recent income and expenses information. I also started this blog post.

I took a break to catch up with a relative on the phone. We talked about writing, and I got inspired to set myself a new goal. I write fiction, and have been plodding along in the middle of a novel for months. My new goal is to write ten thousand words in the next week and a half, hopefully getting me over the hump and into the final stretch of the story.

Realizing it has been a while since I hosted a Biznik networking mixer, I also set up one for two weeks from now, on March 8th. It will be at Bokado in Studio City and you can find all the details here. It's amazing to think that I've been hosting these on and off for over a year now!

I spent some time polishing up an article I'm writing called "Taking the Paperless Plunge." I'm sending in to the San Diego chapter of NAPO to see if they want to publish it in their online newsletter. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I'll probably publish it here in the future.

Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.

After a light dinner and an episode of Murder, She Wrote on Netflix Instant (my favorite corny TV show and a good palate cleanser for my brain), I turned to my book. I'm writing a romance and I feel like I've been writing the same scene for days. I got in almost 1,000 words, which is really good for one sitting for me. I then did the dishes, made sure my work kit was ready for tomorrow's client, and finished writing this post.

So my day was productive, if a little unexciting. Now you know what a day in the life of a professional organizer* is like!

*I got the idea to do a day in the life of a professional organizer post from Bay area professional organizer Amanda Kuzak.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

My egg-breaking moment

My friend Susan Baker, aka The Escape Hatcher, has a wonderful series on her website where she profiles local business people and asks them to share either an "egg breaking" or "lemonade making" moment from their business lives, so others can learn from the tough decisions that they had to make. I shared one of my early egg breaking moments with Susan last summer, but never posted the video here, so here it is.



Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com