Hey there, I just wanted to let you know that I am going on a blog break. For past two weeks I have been trying to write but am hitting on some kind of block. Article topics and ideas are there in my head but when I sit down to write, it feels as if the magic is missing. It feels as if my heart is not in writing for now. And I don’t want to write to you anything half-heartedly.

I don’t know what am I going to do with the time that I usually spent blogging (promise to update you on that once I come back). I plan to go with the flow and let my heart decide what it wants to do and where it wants to go.

I know I will get back to writing eventually. Probably with new experiences and ideas to share. Till then, ciao and take care.

May life treat you well and may you treat life well.

Love & Happiness,
Avani
p.s.: I might have gone on a blog break, but I am still there. If you want to contact me, feel free to email me at avani [at] avani-mehta [dot] com.

photo : linh.ngan

Food containers are quite useful. They help you keep stuff organized. For any food item you want to store – whether in your pantry or cabinet or fridge, you can find just the right kind of container. However, just like everything else which is great in utility but troublesome when in huge quantity, unchecked purchases and unorganized placement of food containers can create havoc in all your storage places.

After shifting to US, over a period of time, we had bought approx 50 containers. Half of these are always in use and have fixed location. The other half, we purchased when we got a lot of snacks from India. Over a period of few months, the snacks rested snugly in our increased & satisfied belly and the food containers, now empty, had no place to go.

Since containers are still used in a on-off basis to store items, we can’t put them away. They need to be accessible. However, since they are used to store items temporarily, they really don’t have a place of their own. And when something doesn’t have a place of it’s own, it always finds a way to create clutter and trouble. If the moment you open your cabinet, a container or lid tumbles down OR you find your containers everywhere – over crowding limited space that you have OR you don’t find the container that you want easily, you know what trouble I am talking about.

I started to experiment ways in which I could organize these empty food boxes. Here is what I tried and how it worked out -

My Experiments With Organizing Empty Food Containers -

• Place containers along with their lids stacked up in pantry (that’s two long open shelves in our case).
  

  Bad idea! over a period of time, we found containers taking over entire pantry. Because our pantry doesn’t have any kind of dividers and containers aren’t necessarily kept in the same order always, we conveniently started putting containers wherever space was available. And soon, it looked as if our pantry had just one purpose, storing empty food containers!

  This of course led to other problems as well – we had to create space everytime we wanted to place some new item in the pantry – which means lot of reshuffling of containers to make space.

  The only good part was that we could get any container we wanted with it’s lid easily.

• The next idea – to nest containers in each other and store lids separately

  The pressing issue of containers taking over entire pantry got solved. We grouped containers based on their shapes and brands. Stacked similar items together and kept lids separately. This reduced amount of space these containers needed.

  However, finding the right lid became a time consuming process. Since we have boxes from multiple brands – Rubber maid, Tupperware and Main Stay, and we got boxes in multiple sizes, finding the right lid meant figuring out right brand and right size.

  A lot of people recommend sticking to one brand and one shape per size to avoid such confusion. But then, we had already purchased containers so too late.

  An additional problem – since nested containers were stacked, sometimes stacking got uneven and everything tumbled out. Plus, time required to get one right container increased. Find the right container, and keep rest of stacked containers back, find the right lid, keep the rest back in place … it was easier to just keep everything out than keeping them back in their right place.

  And because it was easier to keep everything out or just dump, over a period of time, half containers got stacked and half spread over the entire pantry. And yes, they did begin taking over entire pantry space again.

• To solve the problem of containers taking over entire pantry, I started keeping containers stacked in a huge and deep cardboard box.

  I nested containers and stacked them over each other in the cardboard box and kept lids on the side. This really helped. Creating boundaries for containers helped keeping them within them and not take over entire space. In addition to that, the containers that I used regularly got on top of the pile and the rest remained at the bottom of the box. Searching for lids was still a problem.

  Only problem with this was that to get a container from bottom, I had to remove all containers and sometimes re-arrange them. And yes, if the lid somehow had found it’s way to the bottom, then searching for it became trouble some as well.

• I then decided to move all containers to a cabinet

  The two shelf cabinet was an answer to all my organizing problems. I divided containers in two categories – those used more frequently and those used less frequently. The top shelf got all containers used less frequently and the bottom one got more frequently used containers. Same brand – same size nested together and kept with their lids on top or bottom whichever worked.

  I also have a set of disposable containers which I think I might not use but would like to keep for just-in-case scenarios. These are all nested together and kept away in a place which is rarely used. If I don’t use these containers for another year, then they will get dumped.

Do you have any difficulty organizing your empty food containers?

Here are something pointers which might be helpful -
• Dump containers which you are not going to use and those which don’t have matching lid or container
• Divide your containers in two sets – those frequently used and those rarely used and fix locations for both categories
• Closed places work better than open ones
• Keep containers in such a way that all of them are visible and easily accessible.
• Keep containers nested so that they take less space
• Keep lids along with containers so that you don’t have to search for them

What tips can you offer to organize empty food containers?

photo : syntopia

My first thought – to put it away in a fixed deposit so that I don’t do anything stupid with it. It is wayyy too easy to spend money. Especially when you think that this money is money which you didn’t have anyways, so spending it will not create a dent in whatever you have planned. (Because the logic makes sense, it is kind of even more dangerous )

Of course, spending it all away is always an option. But what if, you could use this money to strengthen your finances?

5 Ways To Use Windfall Gains To Strengthen Your Finances -

• Pay Off Your Debts/Loans

  I know I don’t need to sell you the idea of paying off debt. As you pay your debt off earlier, you will save money in terms of interest. In addition to that, if financial freedom is one of your life goal, paying off debt is the way to go.

  Which debt to pay first? The one which is costing you more (which basically means one which has higher interest rate). The more you prepay and reduce principal debt, lesser interest you will have to bear.

  Interestingly, there is one more strategy which is quite popular – known as snowball effect. As per this strategy, you pay off debt with lowest amount first. Don’t bother with interest. Reasoning behind this style is that when you pay off one debt in whole, it gives you the much required boost/motivation to keep working on the same.

  If you would like to see how both methods work out in a given scenario, Trent from TheSimpleDollar has written a detailed article on Which Debt Should You Pay Off First using a real life example.

• Put Them In Your Emergency Fund

  Your emergency fund should have at least 3-6 months of your monthly income. This seems to be true now more than ever.

  If you were a late starter and your emergency fund still has to catch up, use this money to give it a good jump. If you are a beginner, then too, this makes sense. Once you set up your emergency fund, you can start focusing on other investment options.

  And of course, once your form your emergency fund, don’t touch it unless there is a true emergency.

• Put Money In Your Preferred Investment

  There are a variety of options available to invest your money in. Fixed deposits, stocks, mutual funds, debentures, gold, other commodities, property etc. You can consider taking help from financial experts as well on where to invest money.

  If you are curious about certain investing options and would like to try out, but hesitate because of risk, you can invest partial amount from your windfall gain and see how it performs.

• Put It On Hold For Six Months

  This is one which I like the most. If the windfall gain is quite huge, it gets overwhelming to decide at once what to do with so much money. Parking it in a fixed deposit or a separate bank account (basically making it untouchable for a few months) gives you required space and time to get through emotions and think logically about what would you like to do with money.

  One added advantage of this method is that after six months or more, the windfall gain stops being a windfall gain and becomes your savings. The value of money from a windfall gain and value of money from savings is different. Just because after six months your windfall gain will become money that you saved, you will be more careful and thoughtful on how you use it.

• Use Envelope System

  The envelope system is very much like a dedicated piggy bank.

  You can dedicate your envelope to anything you want and let money accumulate in it. When you save enough money over a period of time, you will be able to buy something valuable which you want for yourself. This method is very effective when you get small amounts as gift (we get them on Birthday, Diwali, Meeting elders after a long time etc). The amount by itself wont get you anything. It will get spent in food or travel and create no memories.

  Accumulated money is a completely different matter. It has the power to buy you something valuable and cherished, something you will enjoy for a very long time. This is one of the best way to use gift money – it serves you a purpose and creates great memories.

  I usually buy gold coins from accumulated gift money.
  

• Set Percentages

  It is quite possible that you would want to do all of the above. You want to spend money, save money, invest money, increase emergency fund etc. In that scenario, setting percentages is the way to go. Decide before hand how will you divide money in all areas that interest you in percentages. For example – 10% for splurge, 10% for tithing, 40% debt reduction, 20% emergency, 20% invest.

  You can set whatever percentages you like based on your priorities and your financial position. What’s important is that you set this percentage before windfall gain and you stick to it.

  It will help greatly if you can decide before hand how would you like to splurge as well. If you focus on creating memorable experiences with your money, you will get a long term satisfaction from it.

What do you do with a windfall gain? What’s your strategy?

photo : wetwebwork

Imagine a treasure box which gives you something new & valuable every time you visit it. That’s how Adam’s MasterMind Matrix Chart is. It’s now over a week that I have his chart. And yet, every time I visit it, I find something new which I hadn’t seen before.

What is this MasterMind Matrix Chart? It is a mind map which explores each and every aspect of human psychology and how it affects our life. Here are Adam’s words explaining what the MasterMind Matrix Chart is and how it got formed –

Every Personal Development Guru I came across had a personal vision of the human psyche, and they represented it in a variety – of somewhat limited – diagrams that only showed a single thread of the bigger picture. It was frustrating, because nobody I had come across, had managed to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together into a diagram that actually made sense to me, and provided me with the answers I was looking for.

The chart is huge (you actually will have to see the chart to understand how huge:)) It is filled with information which took Adam over a decade to gather and put together. Because of it’s size, at first look, the chart does seem to be very complicated. However, once I got used to the chart and the way it shows information, it became easy to navigate through it and grasp everything.

If you are keenly interested in personal development, this chart can come in quite handy – since it maps out all aspects of self help and how they connect with each other. Best part is, anytime you now hear experts talk about a topic which you don’t know, you can quickly glance through this chart to get an idea of what they are talking about.

One thing to keep in mind is that the chart will not spoon feed you. While the chart does link all concepts and show how they work together, it is you who will have to find out how to use this information. This is purely a thinkers map. You have to do your own work to get something out of it.

While I can go on and go about Adam’s MasterMind Matrix Chart, who better than Adam himself to share with you about the chart. Some excellent links where he talks about the chart -

• A Journey Through The MasterMind Matrix
• The Psychology Of Success & Achievement
• Download The MasterMind Matrix Chart

To understand more about MindMaps -

• How To Mind Map – A Beginner’s Guide
• Advanced Mind Mapping Skills

p.s.: Since you are already visiting Adam’s blog, don’t forget to go through his Mind Map Gallery. It features some amazing posters related to Academic Success, Life Success, Health & Well Being, Business Success, Online Success etc.

First quarter of 2009 is already over. 50% of new year resolutions are given up by this time. Are you keeping up with your new year resolutions? Here’s how things are going at my end (updates and learnings combined) -

New Year Resolution – Learnings & Updates

• Read One Book A Week

  I had fun time doing this. While I haven’t been able to read one book every week, the average turns out to be just right (i.e. one a week). Luckily, 12 out of 14 were really good.

  Books I enjoyed -

  • Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
  • America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money by Steve & Annette Economides
  • 52 Ways to Live Success…From the Inside Out! by Jeanne Sharbuno
  • Rich Dad’s Rich Kid, Smart Kid: Giving Your Children a Financial Headstart by Robert Kiyosaki
  • Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Investor by Janet Lowe
  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl
  • The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follet
  • A Matter of Honour by Jeffery Archer
  • The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks(all four)
    • First King of Shannara (Shannara Trilogy, Prequel)
    • The Wishsong of Shannara (The Sword of Shannara)
    • The Elfstones of Shannara (The Sword of Shannara)
    • The Sword of Shannara
  • (I also read a couple of forgettable romances)

  Note: Reading one book a week becomes difficult if the size of book is huge and too easy if book size is small. A better goal would be to read 4 books a month or read x number of hours a week or x days every week.

• Lose 30 Pounds & Get Passionate About Exercise

  I am 7 pounds down. Yes, that feels great (light actually ).

  What worked (all these changes were made together) -

  • A cup of Ginger Tea in morning.
  • Replacing dinner with Khakhra (Crisp Indian Bread) & Chai.
  • Having dinner by sunset. To have fruit/a cup of milk if hungry later on.
  • Drinking 2 litre of water everyday (am almost there with every day).
  • Fast Walking – 30 mins
  • Good sleep

  What didn’t work -

  • Sunday fast. I got extremely hungry by the time it was evening. I now have milk & fruits for first half day. And have dinner a bit early.

  Next In Line -

  • Yoga In Morning
  • One Serving of Salad Everyday

  Note: I am a vegetarian & I rarely have sweets, soda, fried food and outside food.

• One Adventure – To Face Fear

  No adventures so far. But have started facing some small & silly fears like getting hair cut short, travelling alone etc.

  What I learned from facing fear -

  • The quicker you act, the better it is for you. The more time you give to fear, the more it evolves. Nipping fear in bud is the best strategy.
  • The experience of facing fear isn’t as bad as we think it would be. Sometimes, it isn’t that good either.
  • Facing fear once is not enough to remove fear completely. You will have to repetitively face fear to get over it.
  • Success in facing fear in one area, gives you courage to face fear in other areas as well.

• Master 2 Cuisines

  I absolutely love experimenting different dishes on my hubby . Lucky he, my cooking has been in his favour – no bad recipes so far.

  My learnings -

  • Master the basic gravy making process. You learn one gravy and you can easily learn 10 dishes in which use the same gravy.
  • Learn and apply over and over to gain confidence and get comfortable.

• Save & Invest

  It’s amazing what small changes can do for your finances. We slashed our monthly food & household bills to half.

  What worked -

  • Rather than buying in bulk for two weeks, we now buy food for three days only. Less food goes waste in our refrigerator this way. Less waste = more money.
  • We have reduced eating outside.
  • Reduced number of days/times we rent car (We don’t own a car. So we simply rent one usually on weekends).

  Note: We got lot of Indian snacks and household items like soap, toothpaste, toothbrush etc from India. This is a huge money saver.

• A Habit To Stay In Touch

  A trip to India was icing on cake. I got to meet and socialize a lot. However, because of this, there wasn’t a need to focus on working on the habit of staying in touch. Now that I am back in US, I have started working on this with some pretty basic stuff – connecting with atleast one friend/relative a week.

How are things going your end? Even if you have broken your resolution, you can re-commit to your goals and start working on them. After all, ‘a new year resolution’ is just an excuse to start making goals and work towards what you want in life. You can do this anytime you want.

photo : arazas

This time, when I had to make a trip to India and back to US in a few months, I didn’t want to be incapacitated with jet lag. While I did find options of getting no jet lag through medications, I was only interested in natural ways of preventing jet lag all together and if I do get jet lagged then the easiest way of getting over it.

I couldn’t avoid jet lag completely but was able to overcome it within three days on both trips (to India and back) – which is great considering my previous experiences have been of weeks and months.

As you must have already made out from the article title – ‘Beat Jet Lag With Sleep’, my strategy of combating jet lag is mainly via sleep. So here are some tips for you on using sleep to beat jet lag:

How To Beat Jet Lag With Sleep

• Don’t try to adjust your sleep pattern to your destination time before making the journey. It will make you tired, sluggish and irritable. Your long distance travel will become even more painful. You are going to get jet lag anyways. So have good sleep while you can.
• Ensure that you get a good night sleep after boarding based on your current time zone. This will ensure that you remain rested. For me, the last few days were anyways so hectic that I was all set to drop dead with tiredness. Even if you get a good 2-3 hours sleep it is all right – as long as you sleep.
• After your first sleep, take as many naps as you can. For this, take help of soothing music, meditation, closing your eyes and just resting … whatever works. Sometimes, we get so engrossed watching one movie after other (in flight entertainment), that we forget sleeping all together. Hence, take a break after each movie. You will feel better and might be able to get 40 winks before you start with the next one.
• Once you reach your destination, ensure that you sleep the first night well. If you are arriving late evening / night, then sleep right away (or in a few hours), if you arrive morning/noon, then try to stretch till evening and then go to sleep. You don’t need to wait till night to go to sleep. Since you are dealing with tiredness, lack of sleep and jet lag all together, even if you sleep in evening (that’s around 8 for me), it is all right.

  NOTE: If you can’t stretch, then don’t make mistake of stretching too much. Get your first sleep without bothering about timing. So that you can cover up for the sleep you missed and your tiredness. This will ensure that then you deal with jet lag only and not the other two.

• Wake up the next day in the morning and get some sunlight. Have as much of a normal day as possible so that your body can adjust to the new time zone. If you can stay awake entire day, it’s great. If you can’t, take a mid noon nap for an hour. Not more than that. This will help you to stay awake for the rest of the day.
• From now on, just listen to your body to know when to sleep. If you think you need to sleep more, sleep at 8. If you think you need only normal sleeping hours, sleep at your regular time.

Following are few tips to deal with jet lag which are not related to sleep -

• Have lot of fluids – while traveling and later on.
• Avoid caffeine, alcohol and soda.
• Eat all meals provided by air lines.
• Eat meals at regular hours after reaching destination.
• Take break and do some walking / stretching in the plane and off it.
• Exercise and expose yourself to sunlight as much as possible.
• Jet lag takes some time to go so adapt to odd hours for a few days and make most of them.
• Keep your schedule light for the first day so that you can adjust based on your body’s demands easily.
• Ensure that you make yourself as comfortable as possible while traveling – give thought to your clothes, footwear and luggage.

What are your tips to fight jet lag ?

photo : Mayr

After a 24 hour long journey, I am finally back in US. There are two things which are usually on top of mind every time we make an international travel – to overcome jet lag and to organize everything that we have stuffed in our suitcases.

A cardinal rule we follow while traveling from India to US – never ever let a pound available (in suitcase) go empty. Every pound available is used up with big-small items – Indian pulses, spices, snacks, utensils, clothes, footwear, toiletries … name it and you will find it. The reasons for this are quite simple – it’s economical (without compromising on quality); some items are hard to find in US and of course, being able to use things we have grown up using is quite a luxury – no matter how small the item is.

This time, we could bring in a total of 5 suitcases and 2 handbags (between me n hubby) which is equivalent to more than 300 pounds of stuff. You can probably imagine what a feat it should be to put everything in its rightful place. But the speed at which we could finish sorting and organising everything surprised us. Within a couple of hours we finished the daunting task of putting everything in it’s place be it kitchen, pantry, closet etc.

How To Organize 300 Pounds Of ‘Stuff’ In A Couple Of Hours With Ease

Here are a few tips and ideas to organize everything fast and with ease -

• 1. Do Not Dump

  Because you are going to organize something doesn’t mean you can start dumping and creating a mess. Whether you are emptying your suitcase or cabinet or closet, do not dump things within. It would take you even more time to sort through things then.

  Moreover, have you ever looked at a pile of everything just dumped together? It looks unattractive and overwhelming. It feels as if going through and sorting that pile is going to take ages.

  Do not dump. No matter how tempting it is. No matter how sensible it seems – since you had anyways dumped everything in your closet. You cannot be unorganized while organizing.

• 2. Create Groups

  So, if you don’t dump, then what do you do is the first question that might come to your mind. The answer is quite simple – create groups and place each item in the group it belongs to. For instance, my groups were spices, pulses, utensils, snacks etc. For items like clothes, if sub groups are needed, then we create sub groups as well.

  It is not necessary to create groups based on item type. You can also create groups based on shelves – i.e. place items to be kept in one shelf together or based on pareto principle – i.e., group items based on how frequently they are used.

  Some important groups which you should always create – waste group, extra plastic bag group and empty box/suitcase group. Take a huge garbage bag or a big plastic bag and place in it everything that needs to be dumped. Take one more plastic bag and place in it all extra plastic bags that you have. Every box or suitcase you empty, simply stack them in one place. While you might think this to be unnecessary since you can do these things in the end while cleaning up, if ever you try this out, you will thank me. These three groups will help in keeping your room neat and help in reducing mess.

• 3. Stay Focused

  ‘Stay focused‘ applies on multiple levels.

  Stay focused with the activity of organizing. Do not mix it with other activities since it would simply take more time. As time passes, organizing starts becoming a pain – to the point that you might be tempted to dump everything in your closet to organize for some other day. So allot a few hours or a day if possible to organizing. And get everything done.

  Stay focused with the container you are emptying. Whether it is your shelf or closet or cabinet or suitcase, once you pick up one container to empty, do not jump to another one just because you are bored. Once you start with a container, finish emptying it completely. Do not leave anything behind. Clear it completely so that you don’t have to go back to it. Every time you leave a container unfinished, that container will still be in your list of to-do containers.

  Stay focused with your groups. Once you finish emptying everything and placing things in relevant groups, you will put all your focus on one group. Place all items of that group in their rightful places. It is only when you finish one group that you can start with another one. The logic to this is same as that of focusing on a single container at a time. It makes things easy and helps you manage your to do list better .

Some Side Advantages Of Following These Techniques Of Organizing Are -

• 1. When you don’t dump and focus on placing items in groups, your mindset from beginning is that of organizing and finding logical groups for everything. You don’t place things at random – with every item, you think which group does this item belong to. While the actual activity of organizing and placing everything in it’s correct place starts later, because you have already started thinking and creating groups, you are giving yourself a solid platform to organize everything quickly.
• 2. When you create waste group, plastic bag group and empty container groups, you are actually reducing the clean up time needed in the end. You will finish things faster this way and avoid pain of cleaning up after you are done with organizing things.
• 3. When you stay focused, you are able to deal with things which you would rather avoid. This way, things which are left untouched each time you organize (because you don’t like them) get attended as well. Staying focused helps you stay small as well. It makes everything seem manageable – even the overwhelming and unending tasks.
• 4. When you put everything in related groups, it is quite possible to box them to sort later on in case of emergencies. Moreover, the next time you start organizing, you don’t have to start from scratch. The effort of clearing everything and creating and placing in groups will not go waste this way.
• 5. While I had to clear all of my suitcases at one go, when you are clearing your closet or cabinets, applying ’stay focused’ to it would mean taking one shelf at a time. This would require a maximum of one hour and hence make it less time consuming and quite manageable. By breaking entire task in smaller chunks, you might be able to get it done faster since at a one point of time, you require lesser number of hours and energy.

While these ideas seem quite simple, they produce tremendous results (because they are simple I guess). To make most out of them, apply them keeping in mind the basic test of being organized. Keep in mind the two questions that form the test of being organized while creating groups and assigning places to each item. Remember the three principles which help you clear the test of being organized – Mise En Place, Being A Minimalist and Giving Thought Before Organizing. All these together will help you to organize and place things in such a way that it will be easier for you to be organized than be unorganized (which should be your ultimate goal while organizing).

Books On Organizing:

photo : shoothead

This week as I observed how my three year old niece’s sleep timing was changed from late riser to early riser, I stumbled upon one of the simplest ways to change our sleeping pattern. It doesn’t matter whether you want to become an early riser / sleeper or a late riser / sleeper, I believe this tip to change your sleeping pattern should be helpful in either case. All you need to do is follow these three pointers –

How to Change Your Sleep Pattern

Determine your desired waking and sleeping time.

Based on ideal number of hours you need to sleep, decide what time would you like to wake up and go to sleep every day. It doesn’t matter what time do you wake up and go to sleep right now. Simply decide on your ideal sleeping and waking timings.

Reset your sleep clock by one hour.

If you would like to wake up early, then do so by an hour. If you would like to wake up late, then stay awake more for an hour. Don’t cover the entire distance between your current waking/sleeping time and your desired waking/sleeping time in one go. Change your timings one hour at a time but do so without fail. Stay consistent with this change till it comes naturally to you. And then, reset again.

Tire yourself through physical activity.

Do some heavy exercises – run, walk, cycle, play, swim, dance … anything that tires you. If you wish to sleep early, work your body earlier, if you wish to sleep late, do these physical activities a bit later. One will ensure you get tired and fall asleep earlier, second will ensure you stay awake longer than your usual hours (but not for too long) and wake up late.

And that’s it, you are all set to break your sleeping pattern and change it as you desire.

What I like about this method of changing sleep routine is that it is ridiculously simple. It would be difficult to make mistakes and mess up with these three pointers.

I had found a way to change my sleep timings and sleep early the last time I was struggling with a jet lag. These pointers are actually a great update to that method of becoming an early sleeper. Read more about do’s and don’ts of changing sleeping routine – and do share some of your tips.

Books On Sleep:

photo courtesy of porcelaingirl

Week 1 of the long distance relationship has gone by. And within this week we have had a few challenges. As my hubby ventured into an area which is purely dominated by me (the kitchen of course), familiarizing himself with where everything is kept became a task by itself. The first few days were filled with one minute calls on where do you keep this and where do you do keep that. And then, as he caught on to my logic (my way) of organizing kitchen stuff, he didn’t have to make calls any more.

As the week went by without any more calls for kitchen help, I realized that I have passed the basic test of being organized. The basic test consists of two simple questions to which if you answer yes, then you are all set and if you answer no, then you still have some work to do.

Two Questions of The Basic Test Of Being Organized

1. Can you guide someone else to get something from your house solely based on instructions? Do you know where everything is kept (not somewhere over there but exact location)
2. Is your stuff organized in a logical way; such that, on picking up your way of organizing things, people can get other related stuff on their own?

While the test does seem short and deceptively simple, to answer them positively, you will have to put to practice following principles –

• Mise En Place – A place for everything and everything in its place.

  Every item in your house should have a specific place so that after using it, you can keep it back to its allotted place. Moreover, the habit of keeping things back in the right place will have to be inculcated.

  When you put things back in the right place all the time, you automatically start getting feedback on your system of organizing things. If putting things back to the right place is difficult, then the logic with which you have allotted places needs to be revisited. If it is easy for you to get and put back each item, then there will be no reason for you to not follow this principle. Your goal is to organize things in such a manner that it is easier to follow this principle than to break it.

• Be A Minimalist – Keep only what’s truly needed.

  For every item in your house to have a place of its own, you need to have a limited number of items because the available space is only so much. As your possessions increase, so will your work to create space for it. You will know you own too much stuff when you face difficulty in allocating right place for it.

  Being a minimalist encourages you to think twice before buying – on whether you truly need what you are buying; it helps you to buy smart and be frugal. Being a minimalist will also ensure that you de-clutter your house often – Throw / sell / give away what’s not needed or not being used any more; it will ensure you don’t collect junk in your house for someday.

• Give Thought Before Allocating Space

  Every item to have a place of it’s own does not mean that you randomly assign any available place to it without giving proper thought. Your organized system will stay in its place with ease only if you have given thought before allocating a dedicated space to each item.

  As you start thinking in lines of ‘what is the best place for this item’, you will find yourself creating logical groups and assigning areas for those groups. These groups could be based on item type – bean group, spice group, most used utensils group, party items group, storage group etc. Based on quantity and volume, you will then be able to assign dedicated shelves/area to item groups and create dedicated areas if non existent – by boxing items together or creating new shelves/ cabinets etc.

While I took kitchen as an example, these principles apply everywhere – for instance your filing cabinet – are all your documents in order? What if, you go outstation and need a document to be faxed badly. Will you be able to guide someone else to get that document and other relating documents? Does your filing cabinet pass the basic test of being organized?

What about your computer or your inbox? As available space to store files and emails have increased, we have become more and more unorganized and cluttered. Is it possible for you to get what you want without searching and guessing? What about asking someone else to do it? Does your computer and inbox pass the basic test of being organized?

Where else can you think of applying the basic test of being organized? What are your tips to be organized?

photo courtesy of bast

Three weeks is not a very long time to worry about how we will stay connected (that’s one bridge we have already crossed over and over by now). What to do with all the idle time in my hands is a big question. Since I am still on a vacation over here, relaxing and connecting are the only things on my list. Here are some tips on how to pass time in a long distance relationship when the time period is as small as three weeks -

Long Distance Relationship Tips – On How To Spend Time

• Is your beauty sleep long overdue? This is the ideal time to catch up with it. Sleep as long as you like – fill up those hours which you usually spend with your partner and are now trying to pass.
• Relax and rejuvenate. Treat yourself (with whatever is your definition of a treat) – curl up with a book, put on your favorite music, go for long quite walks, cook your favorite dishes, do nothing and simply spend time being idle … whatever catches your fancy, treat yourself with it.
• Start with a new beauty/fitness regime. Desire to look stunning and surprise your partner with how you look can be a great motivator – it will help you to stick to whatever beauty/fitness routine you pick up. Just imagine how your partner would react, grin and the rest will fall into place automatically.
• Spend a night out with your old friends reminiscing days before marriage. Spend time with them as you used to when still single. Catch up on each others stories, remember good old times, take a trip down the memory lane … nothing can beat being single again.
• If networking is anywhere on your priority list, this period is perfect time to start working on it. A lot of factors work in your favor during a long distance relationship – two key factors being – having idle time in your hands and a desire and willingness to talk to others. If you usually find networking a chore, this is the time when it will truly seems like a pleasant activity you look forward to doing.
  

  Take out your address book and start connecting with people. While no one can fill in for the absence of your partner, connecting with others will really boost your social life and networking skills. Start working on building a strong network of trusted friends, family and colleagues right away.

If the duration of your long distance relationship is huge, here are some options –

• Pick up/Learn a new hobby
• Get back to school – start studying, get another degree
• Chalk out an aggressive career plan and work on it
• Start a challenging project to make a difference in the world
• Plan out for your times together

Are there any tips which you can give on how to spend time in a long distance relationship?



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