Author Archives

Daniel Hayes

Posted on

SLT 006: Going “Paperless” and Making the Most of a Small Living Space

by

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Going Paperless & Making the Most of a Small Living Space

Main Topics:  

Going Paperless: Guest Interview with Brooks Duncan from DocumentSnap

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

We had a fantastic interview with Brooks.  There’s no doubt he’s way out front as a lead expert in the field of going paperless.  Here is a list of questions we asked Brooks (you definitely should listen to the podcast because he gave some great answers and advice!):

So, Brooks…who are you and how do you make people’s lives simpler?

Is it really possible to go paperless? What about…

    • Tax paperwork (Brooks sent IRS guidance, too.  Links below.)
    • Receipts
    • Contracts
    • Other docs that people have been “married to” forever?

How do you recommend people get started with going paperless?

What does the workflow look like, or are there lots of different workflows?

Your article “We Are Our Own Worst Enemy When Going Paperless” is fantastic! Can you describe some of the challenges people face when going paperless?

What equipment do you recommend and why?

    • Mac
    • PC
    • Scanners
    • Mobile device/apps
    • Etc…

Your Paperless Document Organization Guide and it’s an amazing value…do you have other courses?

How can people sign up for your newsletter?

What is the best way for people to reach you?

Website: documentsnap.com
Twitter: @BrooksDuncan and @DocumentSnap
Facebook: facebook.com/documentsnap

Dan and Vanessa Discuss Tips for Small Home Living

  • Planning Our “Dream Home”…five years of planning
  • Taking Action…designing, saving, paying it off and then…
  • Oooops! Rethinking Our “Dream Home”…reasons for our change of plans: affordable green living, time to travel and visit family, not wanting to be slaves to possessions

Intro to Cece Reinhardt + Brenda Daugherty from the blog “On the Green Road”

    • Downsized their lives
    • Totally eco-refurb’d an Airstream remodel and lived full-time in their RV
    • Now they’re transitioning to a 500 sf house and planning a complete eco-refurb of that, too!
    • They blog about health, travel, self-sufficiency and as they say, “anything else that blows our skirts up.”

Guest Post on On The Green Road from Katie White from the blog DIY Mother: “DIY Tricks to Make the Most of a Small Living Space” (Note: We added some tips, too! Our additions to this are Italicized)

The main theme was:

  • 
Reducing your footprint doesn’t have to be uncomfortable

She also pointed out some of the advantages of living in a Small home. They are :

  • Use less land and raw materials
  • Cost less to heat and cool
  • You’ll be less tempted to fill them with things you don’t need.  Ties right into the spin off of Parkinson’s Law we talked about back in Episode 004…“Storage requirements will increase to meet storage capacity”

Kitchen Keypoints:

  • Small kitchens can be noisy, crowded little pressure-cookers, breeding hot tempers and short fuses.
  • Paint your kitchen in light, cool shades to help everyone relax, and if possible, coordinate the entire kitchen in two or three colors to avoid a busy, disorganized vibe.
  • Another simple trick to increase the visual space in your kitchen is to try open shelving instead of cupboards.
  • We have raised Euro-style cabinets off the floor so you can see under them…it adds visual depth. Also, a mix of solid frosted glass cabinet doors help, too.
  • Tall upper cabinets really max out your vertical storage space.
  • Pull-out lower drawers, versus standard cabinets are a lifesaver.
  • Forego “uni-tasker” appliances and opt for multitasking appliances.

Living Room Lessons: The easiest way to open up your living room is to get things off the floor.

  • Instead of a clunky bookshelf, try wall-mounted shelves.
  • Small house plants and lighting can also be placed on the walls or ceiling (Hanging plants are especially good for small living rooms).
  • Just like in the kitchen and bedroom, light penetration is everything.
  • Remove sofa skirts, try a translucent coffee table, and hang a nice mirror or two to really expand the visual range.
  • If you need new furniture, steer clear of round, rolled arm and back pieces—they fill up a room like nothing else.
  • Again, use multitasking furniture that doubles as storage like coffee tables and ottomans.
  • Try wall-mounted televisions and hanging lamps instead of floor or table lamps that take up a lot of room.

Bedroom Basics: The simplest visual trick to open up your bedroom is to make your baseboards visible.

  • Stilted furniture, wall-mounted shelves and light fixtures, and a skirtless bed frame can all increase the visual range in your bedroom and make it feel larger.
  • Colors such as a single accent wall painted in a bold, darker color can “stretch” your bedroom visually, especially if it’s the smaller wall.
  • Paint the other three walls in light, airy colors that complement the accent wall. The room will feel more open, and it also adds a personal, expressive touch.
  • Again, use hanging lamps or wall mounted end table lamps to free up space. We also have a platform bed that makes the room look larger.

Bottom Line in the Bathroom: Plumbing makes bathroom renovation a tricky proposition, but you can swap out a bulky vanity for a pedestal sink without too much damage to the delicate habitat of your sink fixtures.

  • Make up for the loss of your drawers with an extra set of wall shelves, or a deeper medicine cabinet.
  • To increase the light-penetration in your bathroom, swap out your shower curtain for a clear glass door (or a frosted privacy screen) to create wall-to-wall visibility. We agree with the the light penetration, but we’re advocates of no shower doors or curtains.  The water is so hard here and creates lime deposits on glass…but if your water is ok, then glass works great!
  • Textured wallpaper in a light color can also create illusory depth that makes a bathroom feel bigger; and finally,
  • To avoid a sense of clutter, limit your bathroom décor to “singles”—one piece of art, one rug, one towel per person, etc. 

Storage Suggestions: The key to using your storage space efficiently is to think in three dimensions

  • Get rid of the junk drawer, use a shoe organizer
    • Put a link to vanessa video on http://getsimplifized.com about shoe organizers.
    • Use on your pantry door for odds and ends. It’ll keep your drawers and counters clear while leaving scissors, batteries, and pens accessible. We use an over the door shoe organizer in our hallway closet.  Vanessa even did a video on it!
  • Consider a tankless gas water heater
    • Much more energy efficient, saving you money and energy.
    • Makes room for storages space for tools, home repair supplies—anything that you’d otherwise store in a shed or garage.
  • Keys to storage:
    • Only store things you really need.
    • Look for ways to exploit unused areas and vertical space.
      • We’ve found dozens of square feet of space by building cubbies in wall cavities. Consider this if you’re handy. Link to http://getsimplifized.com cubby post.
      • Use containers to max out small areas. Link to http://getsimplifized.com container post.

Thanks again to Cece + Brenda of On the Green Road for their inspiration…and to Katie White for her guest post at there, as well. Katie is a writer and handywoman from DIY Mother @ diymother.wordpress.com where she blogs with 4 other gals about DIY projects around the home.  I checked it out and it’s a great resource!  Each post is laid out in steps to follow…”easy…breezy, lemon squeezy,” as our little girl Jordan would say!

The “Thing” Segment:

Vanessa: discussed a section from Enough, by Will Davis. Basically…we have waaaaay more than enough!  Need to appreciate what we have.

Dan:  Discussed his “Facebook Fast” and the new Google+ Communities

Listener Feedback:

  • Gilbert: He loves the show and gave us great feedback! He even gave us an idea for a future podcast.  Thanks!
  • Augusto: He’s all about the idea of simplifying and having “enough.” He also sent us some free tips (link listed below) that are worth checking out.

Closing Thoughts:

If you like the show, please subscribe and consider giving us a good review in iTunes

If you know someone else who might enjoy the journey too, send them a link to SimpleLifeTogether.com

There are links to our Twitter and Google Plus profiles and other contact info on the left side of the website. We’d love to hear from you !

Be sure to leave comments below, send us a voicemail from the little microphone icon on the right side of the page, or you can go “old school” and email us!  Comments, questions, thoughts, ideas, suggestions…they’re all welcome and we’d love to hear from you!

Links we mentioned in the show:

Brooks Duncan from DocumentSnap

IRS Bulletins from Brooks; Guidelines for Businesses and Guidelines for Individuals

Cece Reinhardt + Brenda Daugherty from On The Green Road

Katie White from DIY Mother Blog (BTW…love your tag line, “Not afraid to use power tools in a dress”)

Free Tips From Augusto Pinaud

Organizing  book by Peter Walsh “It’s All Too Much”

Get Simplifized! Links:

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

Posted on

Simplify Life Using Pareto’s 80/20 Rule

by

All things being equal…well, they’re not! You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. But when was the last time you really took “inventory” of the things most important to you? Not just the “physical” things, but relationships, careers, time…all the intangibles that are the real treasures of life. OK, and your “stuff”, too. Have you lost a little bit of focus on what’s truly important in your life? Maybe it’s time to sit down and do some evaluation. But where do you start? What you need is a sharp Italian guy!

No, it’s not what you think! I’m talking about Vilfredo Pareto. You’ve likely heard of his work even if his name doesn’t ring a bell. The Pareto Principle, often called the 80/20 Rule, states that the 80% of effects likely come from the 20% of causes (see Figure below). Pareto noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. He also noticed while walking through his garden that 20% of the pea pods produced 80% of the peas. So where is this going…am I asking you to count peas? No, honestly I can’t stand peas, but I am recommending that you evaluate the things that have the biggest impact on your life. As you do, think about Pareto’s 80/20 Rule to see where it meshes with what you find.

So, using some questions and suggestions, let’s just scratch the surface and look at how Pareto’s 80/20 Rule impacts three areas of your life; Organization, Productivity, Personal Technology:

Organization- You certainly don’t use all your “stuff” every day. Hopefully you’ve organized the things that you do use daily so they’re where you need them, when you need them. It’s no surprise that all the controls needed to fly an airplane are in the cockpit where the pilot needs them, right? Do you keep the 20% of the things you use almost every day in logical places to maximize your efficiency? Are the other 80% of your belongings getting in the way when you don’t need them? Maybe it’s time to look at how much stuff you really need, identify your vital 20% and pare the other 80% down a bit? I know someone who can help!

Productivity- When it comes to productivity you need to think “systems.” Look at the vital few tasks you do that have the biggest impact. Do you have a system in place for your “to do” list, paying bills, buying groceries, filing important documents, home and vehicle maintenance, etc. Take a hard look at your routines and see if they are really systems. If not, work on developing some Standard Operating Systems (SOPs) so you can have a greater impact with less effort, like in the figure above. For example, if you were asked to produce your Birth Certificate would you know exactly where to go to get it? Would it take you less than 2 minutes? If not, you likely don’t have a true system, you have a routine. Here’s another huge tip: batch tasks! Checking email 30 times a day is counterproductive, especially if you take action on every email as it comes in! Batch checking your email (and probably Facebook, too) down to twice a day. The bottom line is to strive to have the vital 20% of your tasks systematized.

Personal Technology- Technology promises to make things simpler…but does it? Are you really using it to your advantage or has it become part of the 20% of things that cause 80% of your frustrations? Sometimes we tend to “over do” it, even with the best of intentions. If you’re a smartphone or tablet user, what are the 20% of apps that you use 80% of the time? Are they on your home screen? Do you actually use all your apps? You can find the top apps from my home screen and why I use them here. My iPhone has replaced my GPS, the clock on my nightstand, my watch, my little book of passwords/logins, my answering machine, home phone, notebook, pen, calendar, still camera, video camera…and that’s just with the apps on my home screen! What part of the 80% of your “stuff” that gets in the way can you cut by maximizing your vital 20% with technology?

The key takeaway here is that it’s often a small percentage of things that have the most impact on your life. It may not be exactly 80/20, but it is likely skewed in that direction. Have you done all you can to become more organized, productive, and use technology to your advantage? What are the things that really matter and bring the most happiness to your life? Your challenge is to figure those things out and focus on the fabulous. And our old friend Pareto’s 80/20 Principle is there to help!

Posted on

Why Organize At All? Benefits To Organizing And Having Less

by

I first posted this over on my organizing website at Get Simplifized! but I wanted to add it here because it is so relevant to the podcast and I knew you’d want me to share it with you here. So, here goes:

Did you know, the average home in the United States has doubled since the 1950’s? Did you also know the number of household members has decreased? Yet, 1 in 11 households has to rent a storage unit. So basically…houses have gotten bigger, families have gotten smaller, yet we still don’t have enough space for all of our stuff and have to find additional storage elsewhere…yikes!!! Here’s another staggering statistic…the average 3 bedroom home has 350,000 items in it. What?  Really?!!!! That just seems insane, doesn’t it?  And that’s a heck of a lot of stuff to manage and take care of.

In my last post, Why We Can’t Let Go Of Our Clutter, I discussed some of the sociological and psychological reasons why we have so much stuff. In this post, I’m going to suggest we combat those urges to have more stuff and offer you some benefits to organizing and having less.  Are you interested?  Ok…here we go:

You’ll save money! It’s pretty simple: less stuff = less money you’ll have to spend…especially on off-site storage rentals! Also, knowing what you have and where things are located you’ll save money because you’re not rushing out to the store to buy duplicate items of things you have but weren’t able to find. You’ll also save money on going out to eat if your kitchen is organized and you’ve planned your meals in advance. And how about this? You’ll save money on late fees and intrest rates if you have a good system of tracking and managing your bills.

You’ll have more usable space. By having less stuff you’ll be able to properly utilize desktops, counterspace and your dinner table. You can have adequate space for your children to play and do homework instead of having to search and clear a space for them to use.

You’ll help avoid “analysis paralysis.” When you have too much stuff, sometimes it’s difficult to make decisions. Take clothes for example. When you’ve got too many clothes sometimes you waste time figuring out what to wear. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about don’t you? Yes, I’m stereotyping but I know some of you have spent 1-2 hours planning for a trip because you couldn’t decide what to wear and pack in your suitcase. Am I right?  Hey…I’ve been there too. And what about your kids? Give them a hundred options of what to play with and they’ll be frozen trying to decide. Give them only 3 and the choice is pretty simple.

There’s less to clean! I used to have a lot of knick knacks and a lot of plants. Those extra things used to cost me time and energy having to clean, dust and maintain them. I don’t know about you, but I am not a fan of dusting. Yes…it’s necessary, but I don’t enjoy doing it. So the less I have to dust the quicker I can get on with cleaning and the quicker I can finish!

You can invite guests over without hesitation. Most of us love spending time with friends and family. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have them over to your welcoming and comfortable home without feeling embarrassed or in a rush to clean it up? Well, you can have that. By getting your home organized and by setting up simple systems and routines to maintain your organized home, you can easily have guests over without breaking a sweat!

You’ll be more productive. By having systems in place like a weekly schedule of chores, a dinner plan, allotted time to run errands, a combined family calendar, and clutter cleanup routines, you’ll know what times are reserved for specific tasks and what times you’ll have to work on other priorities in your life. Sporadically running errands and doing chores makes it very difficult to manage your time. Instead, if you have a firm grasp on your time, you’ll be a heck of a lot more productive.

You’ll  have better concentration. I would say for most people, clutter can be very frustrating and very distracting. That’s probably because those piles of papers, heaps of laundry and sink full of dishes are haunting you and reminding you of all the stuff you still have to do. Personally, I cannot concentrate on work when my office is a mess.  In college, I vividly remember my sister and I cleaning our apartment before we studied for exams because we couldn’t concentrate. Clutter is a concentration killer!

You’ll save time. They say the average person wastes about 55 minutes per day searching for things…keys, files, tools, clothes, etc. That’s a lot of time over the course of a year! One of the key components to being organized is having “a place for everything and everything in its place.” By knowing exactly where things go you won’t waste time searching for items.

You’ll have a sense of control.  Control = Confidence = Nicer You! Professional organizer, Elizabeth Hagen has a book and gives speeches about how to, “Organize With Confidence.” She tells a story about how disorganized she was at one point in her life and how that disorganization really affected her self-esteem and her relationships. She admits she wasn’t a very pleasant person to be around. But once she started to get organized, she noticed she had more confidence and was a lot more pleasing to be around.

You’ll have a feeling of calm and peace of mind. In one of my graduate courses, the professor asked all of the students to introduce themselves and tell everyone where their favorite place in the world was. Folks rattled off places like the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Swiss Alps, Ireland, Japan and so on. When it was my turn I simply said, “my home.”  No matter where I lived…an apartment, a dorm room or a a house…I’ve always been able to make it a beautiful, comfortable and relaxing place to be. My home has always been my sanctuary…my escape from the hectic jobs and life I lived outside of it. The last thing I wanted after a 10-15 hour day at work was to come home to a place that caused me more stress and anxiety. So I made it a place of peace and calm…that’s what having an organized home is all about.

So there you have it.  At least 10 reasons and benefits to organizing.  And if that isn’t enough, here’s one more reason:

It’s better than sex!!!  According to a New York Times article in 2001, IKEA did a survey of customers in which 31% reported they were more satisfied after clearing out their closets than they were after sex. Hmm….I’m surprised there aren’t more clutter-free closets out there!!!!

photo credit

Posted on

Save Time with Text Expander on Mobile Devices

by

I’m a huge Text Expander fan. Call it genius or call it laziness, but nothing beats saving a little effort when you’re typing info on your mobile device.

!n case you’re not familiar with text expansion, it’s simply a way to type a short abbreviation (called “snippets” in the Text Expander app and simply called “shortcuts” in iOS) and it automatically expands out into full versions of the text the code represents. For instance, if I want to text someone my email address I simply type d.d and it automatically spells out daniel.hayes@dahava.com. Matter of fact, I had to disable my text expander to be able to type the code as I was writing this! One of the default shortcuts in iOS in “omw” which expands into “On my way!”

I use the Text Expander app quite a bit on my desktop and laptop to create shortcuts when I’m writing. Sadly, the mobile app’s functionality didn’t cross over to iOS devices in the mobile version. But later updates for iOS devices (iOS 5 and beyond) text expansion is built right in!

Save some time. Take a look through your sent messages and see which ones you send frequently and create a shortcut for yourself! Here are some quick shortcuts I’ve developed for my iPhone that you can start out with:

– Each of my email addresses
– Address and gate code, to my house for visitors. I use the complete address so it will pop up as a link
on their device to their Maps/GPS function. I add my cell phone number just in case so they have it handy.
– Salutations to the people I text the most (Hi Mom!, Hey Baby…etc)

Once you get the hang of it, it’s so easy that you’ll probably use it for regular emails or texts you send often, such as:

– “Great working with you today…”
– “Looking forward to our session tomorrow…”
– “So glad we were able to help…”
– “If you find the time, please comment on my Google+ page at…”

You see? You’re limited only by your imagination…and I’m sure you have lots of imagination! So give it a shot and save some serious time with tech!  Just a note, you might be tempted to use this function to save your passwords but I wouldn’t recommend it. Just sayin’…

So, how do you get in on all this goodness? It’s really simple.

On iOS devices: Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Shortcuts.

On Android devices:  There are Apps you can install such as Smart Keyboard PRO (the best text expander I’ve seen for Android so far).  You can also use an alternate keyboard like Swype to add custom words to a personal dictionary for faster typing.) For Android 4.1 users (JellyBean) and beyond use the native app. Go to Settings > Keyboard and Input > Personal dictionary.

On Blackberry: Go to Options > AutoText and enter text expansions.

On Windows Phones: Go to Settings > System > Keyboard > Typing Settings.

For iOS users, here’s a quick video to get you started…enjoy!

Posted on

SLT002: How Routines Can Simplify Your Life, Simple Ways to Get the Most out of Search and Research

by

Well, we got past our first episode and in Episode 2 we discuss how using routines can help simplify your life, and some simple ways to get the most out of search and research.

Routines and Search

Routines help make things predictable, let you better plan you time, and make things more efficient. So, we’ll be sharing some tips on how to tap into that power so routines can simplify your life, too! When something is new to you or you need more information, most people turn to Google to find answers. But are you using Google as effectively as you could? We’ll share some of our tricks to help you become a wizard at search and research! Read more…

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS