How To Organize for the Hopeless Disorganized: Desk Edition

Raise your hand if you're feeling disorganized. Raise your other hand if you'd rather sit on the couch and cry about it than clean. Hey, me too! Now, turn those hands into fists and shout, "I WILL PREVAIL!"

Okay: attitude. Check.

Whether you live in a small or larger space, the starting point is the easiest/ first place to make yourself feel accomplished. Set a time for ten minutes and move fast: kitchen, living room, bedroom. If you have kids to help, even better. If your other half is around, grab him too. Share the fun!

We're not deep cleaning here, people. Keep it easy breezy.

My personal downfall is my desk area. I say desk with quotation marks, as my desk is also our kitchen table at present. One and a half more months and then we move, and then I'll have my own desk and room! I'm looking for helpful additions to keep my papers neat and my mind focused. Here's what I've got so far:

The Kids Come First

By Joy Pullmann

This week my husband and I made a big decision. It was to take a big pay cut and leave a job I enjoy so I can keep my kids from outside childcare. Right now, as readers know, my husband stays home with the kids most days while I work most days. I am comfortable with my children being cared for by their father if not always by me. But he will go to graduate school this fall. For a few months, I was not exactly sure what we would do with the kids, but my plan involved finding regular childcare, from either an extended family member or some nice local lady. I was not extremely pleased with the idea but was ok with our three little ones spending about 15 hours a week with someone who was not their mommy or daddy.

Long story short, another job offer came along, and I've been given the gift of cutting our income in half, which still pays our basic expenses, while continuing to do some of what I love. But, most of all, I don't have to outsource my children. And that means the most to me.

Letter to a Young Woman about Balancing a Writing Career and Kids

By Joy Pullmann

A few days ago, a college freshman emailed me to ask how I manage to work and have kids, and what a regular work day looks like for me, and if I have advice for her now. She also wants to be a writer and mother. Here's my email back to her, edited a little to add clarity and delete a few things that are unique to her situation.

Dear [young lady],
A regular day looks like crazy. :) Like right now I am standing in a New York train with my sleeping 2-month-old hanging off me in a pack. I'm here for work. I have three kids under four, and it would be utterly impossible to work if my husband did not stay at home with us (you can always ship your kids off to daycare, but I thought that would be selfish of me and knew it is also bad for their development). The littlest guy is two months old, and I mostly work around his nap schedule (luckily, the little ones sleep a lot) while my husband wrangles the other two. If I have to take or make a phone call and must not have random whining in the background, my lucky husband wrangles all the kids.

Luckily, writing and editing is very flexible and can be done reasonably at home, which is where I and many writer/editor friends work. Once your baby is about 6 months old, however, you basically either need to go part-time or get childcare, or plan to work evenings and probably weekends also to fill in those breaks during the day when he is now awake and needs attention. And that is only really possible if you are lucky enough to get a baby who sleeps well (hah!).

Typing, One-Handed, and Hoping the Baby Doesn't Cry

By Joy Pullmann

I am self-conscious about working at home with my children clustered around, largely for the element of unpredictability: At any moment, a child may scream. If I'm on the phone, as I often am, the person on the other end instantly knows either I'm not in a traditional office or that something is weird. Baby noises now don't bother me as I work, because they're always there now, but they make me feel unprofessional. It would be like going to work with spitup on my shoulder.

I wish I could say to people, "This is how I put food on the table for my babies while refusing to outsource their care." I'm sure many would respect that, but many others wouldn't. Not knowing which attitude is the other person's, I'm nervous whenever I take or make a phone call.

Going on TV = Basically Not Worth It

By Joy Pullmann

This afternoon, I was scheduled to go on a TV program to talk about government preschool. I told the producer I couldn't make it to a TV station to record, because my husband is taking a test from 1 to 5 (therefore gone with our only car) and the show window was 2:30 to 3:45. Luckily, we could do the show over Skype, as long as I had a hardline connection.

Pertinent detail: The children nap from 2 to 4. Also pertinent: Our router is located in our unfinished basement, so I had to rig up some makeshift background. I duct-taped a navy sheet to our heater vents.

Working from Home: 15 tips from 4 friends

By Mary C. Tillotson

our backyard neighbor!

My husband spent four days in Vermont this summer, and during that time I called some girls at the nearby college to see if we could hang out in the evening -- till then, I'd had more face time with bears than human beings that day and it was disconcerting.

Working from home is awesome but, like anything, it presents its own set of challenges. I emailed three friends (including Joy from this blog and Laura who's written for us a couple times) for their work-from-home tips, and included mine as well. Feel free to add yours in the comments below!

Keeping focused

1. Don't stay in your pajamas all morning and half the afternoon on a regular basis. It might be comfortable, but it will make you feel lazy and unproductive. And not like the functioning, mature professional that you're trying to be. Anna Sutherland

2. Set work hours. I work from 9 (or whenever I wake up, really) until 5, with a lunch break. If I just worked whenever, I would never get done what I need. But if I didn't have an end time, I would hate my job because I would work constantly. Joy Pullmann

via Wikimedia Commons

3. If you have trouble staying focused, as I do, pray specifically for diligence.  I find this helps. Also, I have a picture of St. Thomas More (patron saint of lawyers) hanging right above my desk. His stern gaze can help me stop dilly dallying and get back to work. Laura Christine

4. Make an effort to be friendly with your co-workers, over phone or email. Talking shop with others in your profession helps you stay focused and develop yourself professionally. Build relationships that you can easily share ideas over. Mary C. Tillotson

Not Going Crazy

5. Don't let inertia keep you from leaving the house. If you work from home all day, going places suddenly seems like a significant undertaking (even if it's just the grocery store). And if the only people you regularly see are your family members, going somewhere to (gasp) socialize feels even more daunting.... so you might as well just stay home, you tell yourself. In reality, you do need a change of surroundings and some new company every now and then, so don't hesitate to go to the library, the coffeeshop, the gym, that church event you meant to attend, whatever. Anna Sutherland

6. Don't work an hour before bed. Staring at a computer messes up your sleep patterns. Joy Pullmann

7. Take a walk. If you need a break, get up and go outside for a while.  It helps clear your mind much better than checking Facebook or browsing the web.  In the same vein, consider taking an actual lunch break instead of eating at your desk. Laura Christine

8. Know yourself and your social needs. I'm sure your husband is awesome, but if he's the only human being you see all day (especially if you're extroverted), join a club or take a class or do something outside your home on a regular basis. This will take time away from work and family, but it'll make you happier and more emotionally equipped to be good at all the things you're doing. Mary C. Tillotson

9. Consider a standing desk, or some other way of working while standing. Sitting all day is all kinds of unhealthy.  My husband has set up his computer monitors so that they slide up and down, and he can work part of the day standing up.  He finds he actually has more energy and concentration that way.  I'm working on a way to prop up my laptop so that I can do the same. Laura Christine

Parenting and Family

10. If your kids are older than 1 year old, you need childcare for them, unless you're only working part-time. Under 1 can stay with mommy and is not much trouble, but after they start walking and stop nursing you're hosed. Joy Pullmann

11. In that vein, schedule phone calls. I love having my kids around me, but I can't make calls knowing someone might randomly start screaming while I'm on the phone. Joy Pullmann

12. Make a deliberate decision about the lines between work and family, don't just let it fall where it falls. I don't mind taking some breaks during the day (either I'm distracted by the internet, or I need to go outside, or I wash dishes or update our family budget) and doing some work in the evening, but I might do it differently if I had kids. There isn't a blanket right or wrong way to do it; the best way for you to manage those lines is going to be whatever will make your family top priority and allow you to be professional and hardworking at your job. Mary C. Tillotson

Helpful apps and tools

Waste No Time

13. Get a smartphone. I can work in airports, while the kids are at the library, in the car on the way places, etc. You can get cheap ones and plans at VirginMobile or similar services. Joy Pullmann

14. Waste No Time App: I love this free browser extension!  It allows you to set limits on how much time you spend on a certain website at various times of the day.  For instance, you can set it so that you can only spend 15 minutes on Facebook or Pinterest between the hours of 8 and 5.  You also can block certain sites altogether.  Of course you can cheat and disable the settings, but I find that the screen that pops up when I've gone over my time limit is enough motivation to get back to work. Laura Christine

15. Workflowy is great. I don't even use it that much, because I have to write everything down with a pen, but I can't get over how cool this program is. It's free, just sign in with your email address and a password. (If you want some fun features, you can get them for $5/month.) Workflowy is literally a bunch of bullet points and sub-sub-points and you can zoom in and out and collapse and expand as much as you like. (There's a short video here that gives you a better visual.) For a while I used it to keep track of all my phone calls, so I could know at a glance whether I'd been obnoxious, assertive, or passive about getting ahold of someone. Mary C. Tillotson

If your to-do list is overwhelming and it's hard to get motivated, remember this tidbit from Ray Bradbury: "By doing things, things get done."

What tips do you have for work-from-homers?