The New York City Department of Sanitation is now accepting all rigid plastics in recycling pickups.  What does that mean, you ask?

Here is a list of rigid plastics from the NYC recycling web site:

• plastic bottles, jugs & jars
• rigid plastic caps & lids
• rigid plastic food containers (yogurt, deli, hummus, dairy tubs, cookie tray inserts, “clamshell” containers, other plastic take-out containers)
• rigid plastic non-food containers
• rigid plastic packaging (“blister-pak” and “clamshell” consumer packaging, acetate boxes)
• rigid plastic housewares (flower pots, mixing bowls, plastic appliances, etc.)
• bulk rigid plastic (crates, buckets, pails, furniture, large toys, large appliances, etc.)

For my own edification, I made up this rule:  if it’s plastic and you can crumple it up in your hand, then throw it in the garbage.  If you can’t crumple it up in your hand, then recycle it.

Just remember to thoroughly clean all containers with soap and water before recycling.  That makes them more saleable to the companies that buy them, which means more money for NYC!

For information about all NYC recyclable rules, see their web site.

We had a closet full of those.  Well, not a whole closet.  But what we had was bulky, so it seemed like it.

A few weeks ago, I decided that the large unused items had to go, and  I made some plans for them.  One item, a full-sized piano keyboard which connects to a computer so that you can digitally record what you are playing, was close to celebrating its 6th anniversary in our closet.  It was still in the original box and had never been used.

I put it out in the living room so that we would remember to carry it down to the trash room, hoping that someone in our building would see it and take it.

The next day my personal trainer walked in for our workout.  He plays in a couple of bands when he is not training.   He spied the keyboard box and got excited.  It turns out he has a smaller version of this, which he uses when he writes music.  The larger version would be a true upgrade.

“Do you want it?” I asked.  “You bet I do!” was his reply.   At the end of my workout, he left with the keyboard, and he has made good use of it ever since.

I’m still amazed how this poor unloved and unused albatross went overnight from a burden (ours) to a blessing (his).

So go get those unwanted items out of your closets and drawers and cabinets.  Make a list and tell everyone you know that you are giving away these useful items for free.  Whatever is left over, donate to a thrift shop.  Get the enjoyment of knowing that your trash has become someone else’s treasure.

Earlier this year, Barry Manilow appeared on Broadway in a concert of his music.  Back in the day, I was a huge Barry Manilow fan.  This was not a cool thing to admit back then, but I was fearless in my individuality and would happily confess it.  Somebody once said to me, “But all his songs are exactly the same.”  I replied, “Maybe so, but I like that song.”

Hearing that Barry would be appearing on Broadway got me thinking about how much his music had meant to me, particularly in times of trouble.   Shortly thereafter, one of my favorite TV shows, Glee, ran an episode about guilty pleasures, and one of the teenage characters admitted to being a Fanilow.  (Love that word.)

So I decided to buy a Barry Manilow CD and wallow in my uncoolness.  I poked around on Amazon.com and found Ultimate Manilow, which had all the songs that were meaningful to me.  A few days later, I ordered the CD.  Thanks to a new feature on Amazon, you can do an instant download after you purchased a CD.  I downloaded Barry and had a blast going down Memory Lane listening to those songs.

A week later, the CD arrived, and I enjoyed myself all over again listening to it.

Being a tidy person, I then went over to my CD bookcase to put it away.  I scanned my Vocalists section, looking for the M’s, and that’s when I saw it.  Ultimate Manilow.  I already owned this exact CD!

I have no recollection of buying it or listening to it previously.

This discovery put me in mind of a story my sister once told me.  Her husband was an inveterate book-buyer.  His book collection continued to grow unabated throughout the years, which greatly irked my sister.  One day, he came home with Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.  Going over to the bookshelf to put it away, he discovered he already owned it.  My sister, who has a sharp and witty tongue (we are very much alike), responded, “Oh, good.  Now we have three idiots.”

When I discovered my identical Manilow CDs, I took them over to my husband, held them up and said, “Now we have three idiots.”

How many possessions are lurking in your home that you have completely forgotten about?  When’s the last time you refreshed your memory about what you own?

Set aside some time to do a thorough tour of your space.  You may surprise yourself as I did!

The one exception has always been my jewelry.  I am crazy about costume jewelry.  Nothing oversized or flashy, but interesting and unique pieces, especially earrings.  I typically bring a different pair of earrings to wear each day — specially coordinated to my outfit – and sometimes even a different necklace to match it.

Last month, my husband and daughter and I traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to visit his family.  In the spirit of simplicity, I decided to bring just one necklace – a classy set of silver-tone beads — and several pairs of silver-tone earrings.  I wore the necklace and a pair of earrings on the plane.  Imagine my surprise when we checked in to our hotel and I unpacked my suitcase, only to discover that I had left the box of spare earrings behind.  So for our entire visit I wore the same pair of earrings every day.

And you know what?  Nobody noticed, and nobody cared.  It was actually quite a relief for me not to have to make a decision each morning as to which pair of earrings to wear.

Last week I went to New Orleans to attend the annual conference of NAPO (the National Association of Professional Organizers).  I decided to wear the same necklace and earrings that I had worn in San Antonio, and not to pack any additional jewelry.  Again, nobody cared!

I can still have fun coordinating my jewelry when I am at home, but I’ve found yet another way to simplify my packing.  One less set of decisions to make when I’m packing and when I’m in my hotel.  Amen to that!

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Perhaps the biggest discovery shared in my new book, Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure, is the idea that while we can’t actually manage time, we do manage “time demands.”

A time demand is simply an individual commitment to complete an action in the future. Bill, the book’s main character, discovers this distinction while struggling to improve his own time management skills. He’s under some pressure – a failure to improve his productivity will result in him joining the list of those to be laid off. Defining what a time demand is appears to be important, and during the book he comes up with the following characteristics:

1. Time demands are born in the mind of an individual who is prompted or triggered to do so by an internal or external event.

If there’s no trigger, then no time demand gets created. Some people can visit a library without it triggering a single time demand while others feel guilty even if they only drive by, believing that they should be reading more books.

2. When a time demand is created, the action to be taken is defined, as well as the time required and when it will commence.   At the moment of its creation, the individual makes an estimate and stores it in their minds.

3. Time demands cannot be touched or seen – they are psychological creations. They are discrete, and finite in number.

4. Once the planned action is completed, they disappear.  This is part of what’s known as the Zeigarnick Effect, named after the Russian researcher.

5. They have a particular, inescapable flow into and through our lives, moving from one “location” to another.  Examples of locations include to-do lists, electronic calendars, email Inboxes, etc.

6. They have physical properties.   When they are not managed well, they accumulate in the mind. When they ARE managed well, they leave the mind free, even if the total number is high.

This final point is worth repeating as it’s supported by research conducted by Zeigarnick in the 1920′s, and more recently by Masicampo and Baumeister. Essentially, they discovered that when a time demand is created and then assigned a specific start time, place and duration for completion it disappears as a source of distraction. In other words, when we make specific plans to complete time demands, they leave us alone to go on with our lives.

This makes sense and adds to our need to be able to observe time demands very clearly, and our role in creating them. It also helps us see what we should do in order to manage them if we truly want to attain peace of mind.

Most people, however, don’t see time demands but only see “stuff.” This leaves them in a state of overwhelm and confusion as it’s hard to manage “stuff.” For example, you may receive 500 pieces of email in a week, but they may yield only 5 actual time demands. The amount of stuff receive is a poor estimate of the number of time demands that your mind creates.

In the book, Bill shares his discovery of time demands with others, and eventually helps train his team members to see them. I am hoping that future generations will also receive this kind of instruction early in their lives so that some clarity can be created. It should change our relationship to information overload, and even help us see what’s important… making us less “stupid.”

This little idea of time demands is that important.

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Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure can be purchased from Amazon.   For more about Francis Wade, visit his web site.

Read more about the Zeigarnick Effect and the work of Masicampo and Baumeister.

The latest ribbing I received was about the nature of my Netflix subscription.   “What, you still get Netflix DVDs?  Why aren’t you streaming?”

For those of you who have been living in a cave, Netflix is an on-line video rental service.  Using the traditional service, you log on to your account, create a list of movies and TV shows you want to see (known as your “queue”), and then wait for the first available DVD to arrive in the mail.  When you are finished watching the DVD, you put it in the envelope, mail it back, and wait for the next one to arrive.

Netflix now offers a second plan that enables members to stream videos directly to their computers or TVs.  No more waiting for the DVD to arrive in the mail.  You turn on your device, pick your movie, and you are ready to watch.

So why doesn’t a high-tech girl like me want to stream videos?  Frankly, I find the idea of having so many choices utterly terrifying!

One way that I manage my time — and my life — is by limiting my choices.    I subscribe to the Netflix plan that allows me to have three videos out at a time.   That’s about as much choice as I want.  When a rare two-hour window opens up in my family’s evening schedule, we pick one of three movies — movies that I already vetted when I added them to  my queue.

Just another instance in which less is more.

I ask them, “Do you have a cassette tape player on which to listen to this music?”  The answer, more often than not, is “No, but I plan to convert them to CD.”  “When?”, I ask.  They reply, “Someday.”

In the meantime, these cassette tapes take up a lot of space, and in many instances are in open boxes and coated in dust.

My advice to them — and to those of you who recognize yourselves in this story — is to weigh the importance of the music on these cassette tapes.  Which ones have the the most significance to you?  Which ones do you think you would really listen to once you’ve gone to the expense of converting them to a digital format?

Can you purchase that music in a digital format right now, either by buying it on CD or downloading it from iTunes?  The quality will be much better than a converted tape would.

For any truly significant music that is not available digitally, consider having it professionally converted by companies who do this.  It will save you a lot of time, and make this music available to you without having to wait any longer and watch more dust gather.

As for the rest of the cassettes — the ones that really aren’t that important – let them go.  If you can’t bear to toss them, donate them to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.

“Good, better, best.
Never let it rest
Until your good is better
And your better best.”

I always liked that sentiment, because I am a bit of a perfectionist.  My feeling is that if you are going to do something, you might as well do the best job possible.

Needless to say, that attitude has sometimes resulted in me spending too much time getting something from “really good” to “excellent”, when I could have simply stopped at “really good” and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to anyone.

Since I’ve become an organizer, I’ve learned a new saying: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.  In other words, don’t put off doing something because you can’t do it perfectly — just get it done.

I’ve seen this with clients who are ready to part with items they are not using anymore, but want to exert too much control over how to dispose of them.   They might want certain items to go to very specific charities, rather than to the local thrift shop with everything else — even if that means these items hang around much longer than they really need to.  Or they might want to hold on to an item and give it to a friend they are not seeing until months from now, rather than simply donating it.

When you are trying to get clutter out of your life, the important thing is to keep it moving.  You don’t want to lose momentum and have the clutter stagnate.  For many people, making the decision to release some of their possessions is difficult, and trying to find the perfect home for these possessions can stand in the way of progress.

I’ve also seen this with clients who have a pile of items to be repaired.  These are usually items that haven’t been used in years and would never be missed, but the client is convinced that once these items are repaired, they will be of great use.  However, getting them repaired is such a low priority that it doesn’t get done, and they simply continue to be clutter.

While it’s true that in the “perfect world”, these items would never have broken, don’t let your desire for perfection distort the reality that possessions aren’t meant to last forever, and letting them go is often more appropriate than making them whole.  If getting them repaired is important to you, then get it done.  If not, then throw them away or recycle them.

What are some of the instances in your life where perfectionism is getting in the way of progress?

Some of my clients hold on to every return address label that was ever sent to them, even though they have so many that the labels will most likely outlast them.  Personally, I play favorites, keeping only the ones that I really like or that reflect the charities I truly support.

However, I must have been too picky, as I discovered recently that I was out of address labels.   Yikes!  So I made my own.

I used Avery labels and MS Word.  Within minutes, I had thirty little personalized return address labels.  Much faster than hand-writing my return address, and no writer’s cramp!

I have found it such a time saver to make labels to eliminate repetitive writing.  Here are some other uses that I have found for computerized label making.

I bank at TD Bank.  The ATM deposit envelopes have spaces in which to write your name and account number.  I created labels so that I never have to write those in.

I keep my holiday card list in MS Word.  That makes it easy to review and update every year, and even easier to generate the labels when I’m ready.  Maybe that’s why I always get my cards out the first week in December . . .

If there are things that you have to write over and over again, consider automating those tasks by using labels.

I love that saying because it is so simple, yet so rich a description of human behavior.

Take a look around your home or office.  Do you see things lying around simply because you placed them somewhere, meaning to get to them later, but never did?

In my clients’ homes, I see this frequently at the front door.  When they get home, they put down the keys, the mail, the packages, the shopping bags so that they can take off their coats.   Then they move on, but the stuff remains stuck where they left it.

In your office, it could be a pile of meeting handouts that you put on your desk when you get back after a meeting.  You’re eager to return phone calls or see what e-mails you missed.  You mean to do something with those handouts later, but later never comes.  Before you know it, you’ve got a huge pile on your desk, and you are also having trouble finding certain papers that you know you have, but where are they?

Taking a minute to put something away – rather than just putting it down – will save you so much time later, as well as prevent a huge clutter buildup.

One reason why people put things down instead of away is that these items have no “home”.  As my clients know, my #1 organizing principle is “Every item must have a home.”  When you bring things into your house or your office, think about where those items go.  If you can’t answer that question – because these types of items don’t currently have a home — then ask yourself, “Where would I be most likely to look for this if I wanted to find it again?”  The answer is the item’s de facto home.   Once you’ve identified the home, put it away.  After all, why hold on to something if you won’t be able will find it again?

When you exit a room, always take a look around for items that don’t belong there.   On the way to your destination, relocate them to their proper homes.  You will be amazed at how much calmer you will feel to have reduced clutter.  And when you’re looking for one of those items later, you will be so glad you took the minute or two to put it away.