The Savvy Life

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. – Eleanor Roosevelt

If only I had every minute I spent looking around my apartment and my life wishing it was better organized, less cluttered, and purposeful. All that time could have just as easily been turned back into developing a plan on how to create organization, eliminate clutter, and have purpose. A plan guides action so the action isn’t wasted. A plan might help indicate areas of inefficiency, or stumbling blocks in the process.

Sometimes creating the plan itself is a trying process, but one very simple method is to jot down a simple definition of how each area of the living space is to be used.  For example, I love to cook, so my plan as it stands is to focus on making my kitchen more efficient and better able to store the staples of cooking.  Even with this simple plan in mind, I am able to better address the organization.  Since my goal isn’t to make it look pretty, I can do things that aren’t aesthetically pleasing but are pragmatic for the chore of cooking.

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go till you come to the end; then stop.” – Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

Where to start is one of the hardest decisions to make when the goal is a full scale makeover of a living environment and the life that goes with it. The first thing to do is establish the priorities. Is there one area or another that is crying out for attention? Is the kitchen close to condemnation? Would Mom find the bathroom offensive? Is there little distinction between dirty laundry and clean laundry? Speaking of necessary distinctions, are the floors distinguishable from the ground outside? What about odors? Is there a lingering not-so-fresh scent that might indicate something is rotting in the couch? Identifying the key problems helps in developing a plan of attack.

Order is never observed; it is disorder that attracts attention because it is awkward and intrusive. – Eliphas Levi

It may be hard to determine the key problem areas. Consider the areas that play heavily on the mind. The areas that draw attention are quite possibly the areas in need of organizing, cleaning, or something. This trick works best when, unlike my apartment, the living space is mainly in an ordered state with only some adjustments needed to get it all aligned. This tip also helps in identifying areas to focus on during weekly cleaning.

I’m not fortunate enough to have this problem regarding my living space, but it does happen with my life. Like right now I spend a lot of time thinking about a friend of mine whom I’ve neglected to call for a long time. When I look over my entire life, while there are a lot of things I need to fix, this is standing out. This bit of social neglect on my part is causing me the greatest anxiety and needs to be addressed before all else.

I know that if I don’t, all other successes I have fixing everything else will be dwarfed by this huge failing.

We adore chaos because we love to produce order. – M. C. Escher

Last weekend I found a tiny bookcase in the alley behind my apartment. One of the benefits of living in Chicago is people throw out furniture all the time. The tiny bookcase was too small to really help do anything for my books, DVDs, or stuff like that, but it was perfect for putting in this area in my kitchen that is underused. I took several of my appliances that don’t get used often, like my blender, toaster, and coffee maker and put it on the shelf. I also emptied my cupboards which are in short supply to free up space for the items I use every day. So the cans of pureed tomatoes, cartons of oatmeal, and all sorts of other stuff got relegated to the bookcase. Since the location is slightly inconvenient, I had to make sure I didn’t put anything I use often there. Without all the appliances cluttering my main counter I find I have the workspace to do more things. Creating that order out of the chaos was remarkable and was so rewarding that I really wanted to create order in other places of my apartment, which led me to this whole sorting out my life thing.

Find a quick victory and it will fuel the desire to continue.

The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they’re organized for. – Laura Ingalls Wilder

I know I’ve misappropriated this quote but I felt it was quite apt to the process of organizing my life.

In creating order out of chaos, it is important to remember the purpose for doing it. Having a neat and ordered kitchen means I can step into it and begin creating almost immediately without first having to look for the right tools, clean the dishes I need, clear off a work space, or wonder if I have all the right ingredients. The same goes for my desk. Getting it organized and cleared up isn’t just to make it look pretty for guests, but so I can actually use it for the purpose for which it is designed. Nothing is more annoying to me than sitting down at my desk, reaching to get a book or paper and having a cascade of crap that I’ve piled up fall behind the desk. I do know people who focus so much on keeping things neat and tidy that entire rooms sit unused for fear of creating any sort of muss and fuss. I’m sorry, but I’m not wealthy enough to devote square footage to a showcase room. I live a pragmatic yet hedonistic life, which means I need to use my space and ideally have such usage be a pleasurable experience.

I often will walk through office supply stores and become enamored with bins, crates, and all sorts of things that I convince myself will solve all my organizational problems. The tools of organization do not create an organized life. In fact, getting too many of them means they are something else that will need to be organized. Also, I find that I use the ‘tool thing’ as an excuse not to organize. I will convince myself I need a label maker to do a project correctly, conveniently ignoring that a sharpie and masking tape is a perfectly acceptable labeling system.

The topic of untangling the complexity of life has been one that I’ve been struggling with lately.  It isn’t something I’ve mastered and is definitely something I want to get done.  Everything from how I keep and clean my apartment, to maintaining relationships, how I do my job, to my finances, and my health all need to be sorted out and properly managed.  I thought that this sort of project is exactly the kind of thing that deserves to be blogged, yet, I struggle with the idea of how to start.

I was blessed today with two great starting points.  The first comes from Threadbangers Decor It Yourself on Cleaning Your Closet.  Now this episode of this video show was released awhile ago, but I don’t keep up on the vidcasts as much as podcasts, so it is just happenstance that I watched it this morning.  The general concept of cleaning out your closets is to first empty your closets.  This is also the way the show Clean Sweep makes people deal with cleaning out the junk in their houses.

Once the closet is empty, the next step is sorting.  What wasn’t covered in the vidcast I linked to is the important element of getting rid of the stuff that is no longer used or needed.

The other fortuitous bit of information that came my way today is from The Simple Dollar on Making and Maintaining a Master Information Document.  For the last couple weeks I’ve been morbidly considering what would happen if I up and died.  I’m in my late 30’s no family who lives nearby, no significant other, no one that is established within my life who would know what all I have and what to do with it.  Then I realized that I right now don’t know what to do with all of my stuff.  Now I’m not talking about just the physical stuff, but the financial stuff and the simple commonplace stuff as well.

The article is brief but touches upon all the important elements I know I need to consider.

Using both of these projects, closet cleaning and Master Information Document creation, I think I have a good start on which threads to start pulling in order to untangle my life and begin the process of sorting it all out.

I’m in the thick of it now. Cocktail parties on my left, dinner parties on my right, stuck here in the middle with you. Or not. There are plenty of suggestions out there on how to throw a good party but only a few covering how to be a good guest. Friends, family and acquaintances go to a lot of effort to create a festive environment and make their guests feel welcome and warm in their homes. They provide copious amounts of food and beverages to sate even the most gluttonous appetite. What can I, the guest and recipient of such great holiday largesse do to acknowledge the effort or to at least minimize the effort?

1. RSVP
Répondez s’il-vous-plaît The most important thing I can do as a guest is to make the person who invited me aware of my status as a guest as soon as I possibly can. Was that too confusing? Let me try again. That phrase RSVP isn’t fancy French for ‘please ignore this invitation and then show up at the last minute’ or ‘don’t bother indicating you won’t show up’. Telling the host whether or not I will be attending allows the host to plan appropriately. The sooner I tell the host, the better it is. I may think that my presence one way or another won’t matter but it will. Unless the event is very casual, such as a holiday cocktail party, the host needs to make sure there will be enough of everything for all the guests without ending up with leftovers for the month of January. There is enough pressure in hosting a party and the least I can do as a guest is not be one of the people the host is worrying about.

2. Come Bearing Gifts
The host/hostess gift is a long held tradition that extends back to the days our ancestor’s dwelt in caves. When Og and his lovely wife Igg invited the neighbors over to their cave to feast upon berries, the neighbors made sure to bring shiny pebbles, sharp rocks, and maybe one of those melons that grow near the mammoth run as gifts of Og and Igg. I don’t have to be so extravagant as to risk my life getting rare fruit, but a simple gift as an acknowledgment of thanks to the host is always nice. Real Simple has 20 Clever Hostess Gifts to spur the imagination as to what to bring when you are invited to an event. All the items listed have one thing in common and it is the one thing I and anyone bringing a host/hostess gift needs to consider: it is a consumable. Imagine what it would be like to invite twenty people to a party and each person invited brings a trinket for which the host has no real use? Yes, that little crystal angel looks adorable, but unless the host collects such things, it will most likely end up in the spring’s garage sale. I need to make the gifts small, of minimal cost, yet meaningful to the host. Some of my friends are big tea drinkers, so gifts of tea are very much appreciated. Others like smelly things, so small fragrant hand soaps make great gifts. And yet, some of my friends are impossible to determine what they actually like and in those cases, a bottle of Canadian Club Classic usually goes over pretty well.  Do not bring food or drink and expect it to be served at the party.

3. Timing
Timing is a tricky thing. If the invitation says the event begins at 8pm, do I show up at 8pm on the dot or 8:30pm? For cocktail parties, it is okay to be a bit loose on when I arrive. In fact, showing up right when the party begins is generally reserved for the host’s closer friends. For dinner parties, though, punctuality is key. Dinner may not be served until all the guests have arrived, and while the good host will have built in buffer time between the start of the party and when the meal is served, if people are still arriving up until the time the meal is served, the host is put under extra stress taking care of the new arrivals and trying to get the dinner served. Even at informal affairs don’t show up at the very end of the party. While I may think that popping in at the end is doing the host a favor, I may be walking in right as the party has wound down and the host is trying to clean things up. Sometimes being on time is the best gift a person can give another.  Knowing when to leave is also important.  Don’t overstay your welcome.  Leaving early is better than leaving too late.

4. Temperance and Moderation
Attending a lavish affair brings out the bon vivant in all of us. Yet, these are holiday parties to share festive moments with friends and loved ones. Seeing someone get drunk and stumbly isn’t exactly the best of times. Sure, the person who has over indulged may be having a great time, but everyone else is simply praying their coats don’t get puked on. As a guest, it is my responsibility to drink moderately and make sure the host doesn’t have to concern him or herself over my indulgence.

5. Help the Host Host You
If I’ve been invited to a dinner party and I have very specific food requirements, such as allergies, religious, health, or ethical issues, it is my responsibility to politely alert the host of these issues. How to alert the host is the hard part. I came across a suggestion at About.com, “When you’re invited to a holiday party, inform the host immediately of your food allergies and offer to do what you can to help out. One extremely considerate option — and one that can ultimately make life easier for you, too — is to offer to cook or bring one or two of the dishes….” From personal experience, it makes the host feel really bad when he or she goes to the effort to prepare food and then having a guest who can’t eat anything because of an allergy or religious/ethical belief.

I work bad hours. I don’t get home until 7:00 at night and I don’t have a Suzy Homemaker Wife who has a meatloaf coming out of the oven as I walk through the door. It is one of the downsides of being a bachelor, I know. So menu planning is critical for me. I need to know before hand what I’m going to cook so I can get to it the moment I get home. Every minute of hemming and hawing means a minute later in the night that I will be eating dinner. Quite honestly, having dinner after 8:00 at night makes me really grumpy and I down right refuse to eat processed garbage: tasteless yet sodium filled microwave dinners.

The only way out of this trap is planning and prepping everything I can before I actually make dinner. An article over at organizedhome.com provides some guidelines on how to plan a menu and prepare shopping lists.

One of the best bits of advice from this article is the following:

Menu plans aren’t written in stone. So you’re dodging cramps on the “big” cooking day? Swap it out with Pizza Night and go to bed early with a cup of herb tea.

A posted menu plan promotes accountability, but family members will forgive you, as long as they get their postponed favorite a day or two later.

Build flexibility into your plan and serve the aims of thrift with Cook’s Choice Night. Traditionally held the night before grocery shopping, you can slide a neglected dinner into Cook’s Choice, or chop up the contents of the refrigerator for a clean-out stir-fry. Either way, you’ll feel smug at your frugality and good planning.

Never let a plan stand in the way of reasonableness. There are nights when my commute home takes a lot longer than usual and it throws my planned meal into chaos and I end up ordering take-out Chinese from the place across the street. Adaptability is key. Sometimes I’m just not that hungry and will be satisfied with some buttered noodles and peas. Other times I may be ravenous and the leftover pork chop isn’t going to be enough to sate my appetite – so I will have to whip up an extra side dish of some sort.

I am not the kind of person who carries photos of people around with me. Just for the record, I’m also not the kind of person who has photos of my car in my wallet. I have two pictures up at my desk of friends, and I even feel weird about that because it seems obsessive. Why those friends? Are they particularly close to me or did I just put them up so people at work don’t think I’m a loner psycho? Well, if I ever decide to carry photos with me there is a new gadget that will make my life easier. No more stuffing photos in my already stuffed wallet. Digital Foci Pocket Album is a keychain with a 1.5″ LCD screen which holds up to 74 pictures (8 MB storage). Luckily I don’t have that many nieces and nephews… I think. It has been awhile since I counted. If I did though, I would be set. For $39.95, it seems like a pretty decent device to me. Especially since it can also act like a watch. It is charged via USB for extra convenience.

Speaking of high tech pictures, the eStarling E-Mail Enabled Wi-Fi Photo Frame at ThinkGeek is a wireless digital frame that can take pictures from Flickr feeds or receive pictures emailed to it from outside sources. Can’t wait to see the spam that will start to appear on these frames! Oh, not to worry, the frame can be set up to receive pictures from specified email addresses. This is a pricey gadget costing between $149.99 and $269.99 representing three different models with different resolutions.

A little secret about me, I really love steampunk kind of stuff, yet Target doesn’t really sell steampunk designs. Yet. Instead of shaking my fist angrily at the sky I can shell out $59.95 for the Lightning Alarm Clock from Physlink. Instead of an annoying beeping noise, the clock supposedly wakes the sleeper through electrical buzzing. I don’t know if I would necessarily trust it to wake me up on those dark cold winter mornings, but it looks so dang cool!

Wait.  Is it Thursday already?  But I just wrote a Gadget Thursday post last week?  Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future.  The Savvy Life is not meant to be just a gadget blog but I seem to forget to write about the other aspects of The Savvy Life.

Okay, enough with excuses let’s take a look at what I think are some of the better gadgets that came along in the last week.

Power is attractive.  Or so I am often led to believe by television and movies.  Maybe this is why I am enthralled with the 400-watt Power Dome EX.  For $159.99 The Power Dome EX is a portable generator.  The stats on this device are impressive.  2 AC outlets and 1 DC, 260 PSI air compressor, 600 amp jump starter for cars, and a high intensity LED light.  The Power Dome gets its power from a rechargeable high grade sealed lead acid battery.

While we are on the topic of power, when was the last update to the power outlets in our homes?  I suspect the bold move from two prong outlets to three prong outlets was the last innovation and seeing that a lot of apartments here in Chicago still have just two prong outlets, this necessary innovation still hasn’t reached everyone.  Due to this, the following technological miracle will probably take some time to become a common feature in homes across America.  Luckily we can buy it.  I’m talking about the 360 Electrical Outlet, of course.  As more of our plug in devices have power adapters that tend to be bulky, plugging them into the standard wall outlet usually means losing both receptacles.  The 360 Electrical Outlet rotates and locks into 18 different positions to allow the bulky item to be rotated away from the second receptacle.

I’ll wrap up this Gadget Thursday with what I consider to be one of the most clever devices to come along in awhile.  Okay, it isn’t a new idea, it is just a simplified idea.  The Simple 9-Volt Battery Flashlight is just a LED contraption that clips on the end of a 9-volt battery, turning it into a mini-flashlight.

I rarely need a full blown flashlight and would really hate to have to carry one in my bag of necessary items.  This sucker would fit right in with my tin of Altoids, cellphone, mp3 player, camera, pens, and notebooks.  Maybe I could even use it to light up the inside of my bag when I seem to be unable to find a single pen of the twelve I should have inside that abyss.  Sorry, that is just a personal problem.  This mini-light looks functional, convenient, and runs off those batteries you find in that round device in your home that beeps when you cook.

I almost forgot again. Is it self sabotage? Maybe. But here I am after enjoying a few drinks to celebrate “Talk Like a Pirate Day” sitting down and writing the Gadget Thursday entry.

No, I won’t pepper my writing with piratey talk… I think I got most of that out of my system today.

I want to start off with the Power-Failure Light from Hammacher Schlemmer. Not sexy, I know, but I love the ultra-practical aspect of this device that connects between the light socket and the bulb of any standard lamp. When the power fails, the six LEDs provide up to 8 hours of light. But wait… there’s more. If you are like me, you may have a few questions… does the lamp have to be turned on at the time of the power failure? Sadly, the description doesn’t make that clear. I am not sure how it knows the difference between a power-outage and just turning the light off. What is good is it is powered by built in rechargeable batteries that recharge when the lamp is turned on. Additionally, a photosensitive cell won’t light up the LEDs if there is enough light in the room. I do think this is a good idea, and the worst case scenario is when the power goes out, a person would have to fumble over to the lamp and turn on the backup light.

Going back to the Hammacher Schlemmer well, I found myself enthralled with the ultra modern Wall-Mounted Digital Scale and Clock. The scale transmits the weight to the display on the wall and when the cook is done with the scale, he can hang it over the top of the display and have a clock in the kitchen. I live in an apartment with a rather small kitchen. Counter space is a premium so this device gives me not only a wall clock, something every kitchen needs, but also a scale that doesn’t take up that precious counter space.

Okay, time to get away from Hammacher Schlemmer. I can’t say, despite the fact that I just fawned over two of their items that I am a huge fan of their overall collection of items. To cleanse the Hammacher Schlemmer taste from my mouth, I need to visit good ol’ reliable ThinkGeek and thank goodness I did or else I might have missed one of my favorite things… gadgets in a case.

ThinkGeek is offering a USB Podcast Studio in a box. This includes a 19mm internal shock mounted diaphragm with cardioid pick up pattern with a desktop mic stand and some software that I don’t know anything about. I’m an Audicity fan myself. Did I mention the case? It all comes in a case. Look at the picture? How can you not want to have something that comes in its own case? I know I can’t resist it!

I’ve been debating how to cover technology in this blog. So many other blogs cover the release of every TV, cellphone, and automatic ear cleaners that no one needs yet another blog pointing to the same gadgets. Additionally, I don’t have the time or desire to watch for each and every gadget that is released. Yet, I do enjoy a good gadget and there are gadgets that fit into the core theme of this blog: luxury, pleasure, and efficiency.

Using that as a guideline and instead of writing about each gadget as I discover, I figured I’d sort through the weeks of gadget news and filter out only those gadgets that meet the criteria of luxury, pleasure, and efficiency while being unique.

To begin Gadget Thursday, let’s look at something that is most likely out of the price range of many of us, but will go on our wish lists for when we finally hit it big. The contemporary arcade table at Surface Tension is beautiful yet fun. The table runs Windows XP and has an arcade emulator. The surface is slightly opaque so the LCD screen can’t be seen unless it is turned on. From the table, you can surf the web, use iTunes, and play classic arcade games. Or you can fold it up and pretend you are a respectable member of society. This table is ideal for the closet geek.

For the coffee lover who is only brewing coffee for one, Tassimo has struck a deal with Starbucks to make available four blends of coffee for the popular single serving brewing appliance. I will accept the argument that not everyone loves Starbucks coffee so this deal doesn’t mean too much, but I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that if Starbucks begins to carry the Tassimo machines in their retail locations, the single serving coffee market is going to blossom. As it is, coffee comes to us only from cafes or our own coffeepots and when we make it ourselves, brewing a small amount seems like too much effort. Tassimo gives us just one cup with little effort.

For those who enjoy reading in bed or just having some extra light while in bed but maybe live in an apartment and can’t wire a light over the headboard, there is the wireless OverBed Dual LED Lamp. I’m personally rather excited by this because while I like my stylish Target bedside lamp, it really isn’t great for reading while in bed. The OverBed lamp offers two dimmable LED lamps on tracks for easy adjustment.

If you come across any handy gadgets that provide luxury, pleasure, or efficiency I’d love to hear about them

Do we really know what possessions we have? If something were to come up missing, how long would it take for us to realize it? If everything went missing, how much of it would we remember when filling out the insurance papers? Even if we have perfect memory, we might not recall everything when dealing with the stress of a disaster. A fire, flood, or hurricane could take everything away from us but we pay for insurance to guard against that disasterous potential. The only way we can get the real value out of our insurance is if we know what value was lost.

RealSimple has an article titled Prepare for the Worst by Creating a Home Inventory detailing how to perform a home inventory.

“Home inventories make it easier to substantiate your claim” in case of fire, natural disaster, or robbery, says Jeanne Salvatore, a senior vice president at the Insurance Information Institute.

An inventory also determines if you have the right type and amount of insurance. You may find that your computer equipment is worth $5,000 but your policy covers only $3,000 worth. You can then increase your coverage. Home cataloging also makes creating wills easier.”

There are several software packages available to assist in the process of taking a home inventory. A few are listed below. Having the inventory in digital form will make it easier to store in a secure location (a cd or dvd of the data in a safe deposit box, with a relative in another state, or stored on a server) and to update. Keeping the inventory up to date will become one of those annoying but necessary tasks. The RealSimple article recommends updating the inventory after each major purchase. For those of us who don’t make many major purchases but several smaller purchases, it may become more difficult to keep the inventory up to date. To address this concern, I recommend doing an inventory once in the spring and once in the fall. Combine the inventory with Stuff Elimination (spring cleaning, etc.) so you are also removing items from the inventory that you no longer own.

http://www.knowyourstuff.org/ – Free
http://www.mycroftcomputing.com/eiown.html – Free 30 day trial
http://www.allmythings.com/ – Free Basic Service

Unfortunately, I personally don’t have any good spring cleaning tips and have been scouring the blogosphere for advice that suits my lifestyle. In this effort I’ve come across a lot of different tid bits of information that are either amusing, pointless, or interesting.

The Scented Home offers advice on the use of scents in the home which I enjoyed. During late spring, summer, and early fall, I like to have my windows open and have fresh air blowing through my living spaces. Yet, for a variety of reasons, I can’t always have the windows wide open. Take this spring as an example. In Chicago where I am located, it has been remarkably cold.

Now I wouldn’t say my home stinks or smells funny, but it has a certain staleness to it that I believe contributes stongly to the feelings of cabin fever.

One of the ways this article suggests enhancing the olfactory charm of your home is by scenting your linens.

Lavender is one of the strongest natural scents available with a “clean” fragrance. I grow lavender plants in my yard each year and at the end of the season when it’s time to cut the plant back for fall, I take all of the cut debris, place it in a cloth bag and pound it with a hammer. This breaks up all of the material which releases every bit of it’s wonderful fragrance.

I then fill potpourri bags with the lavender and seat them between sheets, blankets and towels in the linen closet. When you take out fresh linens, you will find they have all absorbed the lavender fragrance. I also hang these bags between clothes from hangers in the closets and place them under the kitchen and bathroom sinks. It’s a wonderfully inexpensive way to enjoy the freshness of spring lavender all through the winter months.

I know that The Savvy Life is about urban bachelor living, so this is not advocating moving to the suburbs in order to grow lavender, or even start a container garden on your city deck when that space is better used for a party. I am not even saying lavender is the appropriate scent for a bachelor. There are other options that might be more masculine if that is important. What is important is creating a space that gives the impression you want.