My computer was possessed by the letter “h” . . . lessons learned.

A couple of weeks ago, my computer became possessed by the letter “h”.  It started out occasionally typing an “h” randomly while I was working and then began doing it more frequently.  It got to the point where I couldn’t backspace fast enough, log into anything that required a password, and it changed the name of my iphone to “hhh” in my itunes.

So off to the computer shop it went.  At first I thought it was cat hair or something that was jamming the key but no amount of cleaning would help.  Turns out it was an electronic glitch in the keyboard system itself.  Of course, my hot pink laptop needed a special keyboard that no one carries in stock so I had to wait for it to come in.  To my tech guys credit, they had my new keyboard installed within an hour of its arrival.  You know it’s not a good thing when the tech geeks say, “Hmm, haven’t seen this problem before”.

BUT, here’s my lessons learned from being without my laptop for 2 weeks and attempting to work with only an iphone that wasn’t able to be synced for that whole time (or for about a week prior – see above note about itunes):

• be sure that all of your contacts are updated regularly in your smartphone or that you have a printed backup
• be sure that all of your passwords for accessing things like, oh, your bank account or your WORDPRESS BLOG are written down somewhere that you can access if you normally save all your passwords in a (very secret) file on your laptop so when you go on a different computer to try to do something you can actually access your accounts
• be sure to write down all of your appointments from your Outlook calendar BEFORE you take said computer to the shop (or consider using something that is based on the web such as Google Calendar)
• Place all important documents (ones you need to access regularly) in your Dropbox account so you can get to them online when you need them
• be sure that your smartphone can actually send emails as well as receive them

Here’s some things I did right, though:

• My iphone has apps for Facebook, Twitter (I use Tweetdeck), Linked In, Kindle, Evernote and many others that I use on a regular basis
• Most of my client and project research was in my Evernote account
• My paper files have blank copies of contracts, important documents and client notes
• My whole computer is backed up using Carbonite so even if the whole system crashed, I had all of my information that could be restored if need be
• All of my current clients and projects were in project folders or project bins along with all pertinent information & materials
• I had current checks, envelopes and stamps in my mail center

I was also lucky that it was the end of summer, just before school started back up, so I wasn’t as busy with clients.  It’s typically a slow time of year for my business as families are trying to wind down summer and gear up for school.

I felt as if a body part was missing.  It did give me some critical insight that maybe I’m too attached to my computer, or too dependent on it.  I kept walking over to my desk and staring at the pitifully empty spot.  While I was going through the withdrawal pains, I came to the conclusion that at least it gave me something to blog about that others can learn from.  Other than that, it sucked.  Seriously sucked.

Organizing lessons From The Nashville Flood of 2010

my town May 2010

Many of you may have heard of the “great Nashville flood” we had in our area recently.  While I was personally very lucky (only lost some plants and had some water in the crawl space), there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Middle Tennessee that lost possessions, houses, and in some cases, their lives.

This community came out in force to help those affected by the flood – it shows what a great area this is and how good people really are.

Out of this tragedy, though, come a few lessons on organizing .  I’ve been thinking about this for a while, even before this happened, but this really clarified it.  I realized that if we had lost everything – would I be able to recreate my life fairly easily or would it be extremely difficult?  And the answer was, somewhere in between.  So in the interest of being able to recover from this sort of disastrous event, here’s some thoughts:

• Back up everything digital in an offsite/cloud format.  I recommend using Carbonite for a full backup of your computer(s).  Carbonite regularly backs up to a secure location so if you lost your computer, you could recreate all of your data quickly and easily.  Another great way to store data is Dropbox.  This is a cloud storage as well that you can put pictures, documents and any other information out there so not only can you have it secure but you can access it at any time from any internet connection.
• Secure your passwords to everything.  If all of your passwords are written down on a piece of paper and you have a flood or fire – how are you going to virtually access your bank accounts, online payments, etc?   Keep your passwords in a digital format and be able to access them through Evernote,  Dropbox or Carbonite or some other method.  If you need to keep things in a paper format, use a waterproof, fire safe or an off site safety deposit box.
• Make sure your wills, power of attorney, social security cards, living wills, home inventory, etc. are up to date and secure.  Scan all of your documents and make them available digitally to those who need to have them or keep them in the secure off site storage.  For home inventory (all your physical stuff), consider Collectify (that’s what I use).  It also can’t hurt to have valuable items appraised.  In the Nashville area, contact Connie Sue Davenport, my favorite antiques and collectibles appraiser.  For scanning, I use Neat Company’s Neat Receipts Mobile Scanner.  Stores all of your information and will convert it to PDF.  Don’t forget about your credit cards, passports and keeping a list of important contacts somewhere you can access them if you lose your phone.
• Consider having your photos scanned by Scan Digital.  Not only will they scan them for you, they will send them to you in a CD or DVD format and keep them on a server for you.  While most of our current photos are digital these days, it’s the older ones that worry me.  I realized that I have wedding photos, pictures of my early childhood and family that would have been destroyed if we had been flooded.  I have all of my photos packed up right now to send to Scan Digital this week.
• If you had to leave your house in a hurry (think 5 minutes or under), could you easily grab the important stuff?  Do you know where it is – and do you know what is important?  Give this some thought and make a plan.  If I had to leave the house, here’s what I could take in under 5 minutes: 1 child, 3 cats, 1 dog, 4 chickens, my purse (wallet, iphone, camera, notepad & other misc. items) and my laptop.  All of my documents are backed up on my laptop and with Carbonite & Dropbox so even if I don’t have the originals, I can recreate with the backups.  If I had a few more minutes, I would grab all of the original artwork and family heirlooms we have and maybe my favorite boots.
• On that note, take a serious look around your home at your possessions.  Could you actually determine what was the “good stuff”?  The stuff that would truly be worth saving.  Consider using that as a guide when deciding what to keep and what can be “de-cluttered”.  There’s always the stuff you need, like toilet paper and ziploc bags – but these are easily replaced.  It’s the baggage you’ve been carrying around for years that doesn’t enhance your life – just weighs you down.  When you look around your home – what are the things in it that really MAKE it a home – and what are the things that just fill it up?

Nashville flood May 2010

Having a plan is key but if you don’t prepare for an emergency, then you will be caught flat out when one happens.  The flood here taught me a good lesson – even though we were lucky this time – we may not be next time.  I’m spending this summer preparing – just in case.  Contact me if you have any questions about the services I reference OR if you have any other great ones to share.  This is not a definitive list by any means – but take the time to do what you need to so you can recover your life.

being organized is a good thing… but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing!

I’m a very organized person – just ask anyone who knows me. It’s in my blood, I guess. I’m always straightening, labeling, putting things in bins, etc. But sometimes, I just get out of control – I mean it – hold me back . . .

When I got my new laptop, it had Vista. At the time I was using Neat Receipts, which is a fabulous portable scanner that files receipts, documents, etc. and also can convert them to pdf and a whole bunch of other great features. When I got my new laptop, Neat Receipts didn’t quite have the upgrade so I put it away for a while. Now they’ve got the Vista upgrade and I went to install it and start using my Neat Receipts again. Now, keep in mind that this is really embarrassing for me to write about but I COULDN’T FIND THE CABLE. Found the Neat Receipts scanner, got the download but the cable was nowhere to be found.

So where could it be, I wondered. Not in my drawer where I normally keep cables I use. Not in the closet where I store office stuff. I hunted everywhere. Now keep in mind that my house is only 1100 square feet. There are only so many places it could be. I wondered if I had accidentally disposed of it on Freecycle when I was doing a purge recently. Oh crap, that would suck.

I gave up for a while and figured I’d have to buy a new one when I went to my office supply closet to get some more paper for the printer. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a black box and all of a sudden the light came on (not the actual light, mind you, but the one in my head that had been on dim apparently). It was my cable storage box from Kangaroom Storage! With trepidation, I opened up the box – and there was my cable! Not only was the cable neatly labeled (with my label maker) but the section that it was carefully wrapped and placed in was also neatly labeled. I mean, come on, how could I not remember this? But there it was – just waiting for me. Sheesh.

So the moral of this story is – organizing is great but the ultimate goal is to be able to find what you need when you need it. I’d say I failed on this one – had all good intentions but when it came down to it – it just shouldn’t take 3 weeks to find something!

PS If you want to purchase a Neat Receipts scanner – just let me know – I can order one for you and drop ship it directly to your house with no shipping cost! I love mine and my clients do as well.

rules for kids – how specific does one need to be!?!

I’m all about setting limits and routines for things to help kids get through the day (and me too!) but I try not to go overboard. And I kind of figured that my rule of “hairbrush goes in the bin in the bathroom” was pretty clear. My daughter has decided that the only hairbrush worth using is mine no matter how many we get for her. It has to be the one I am currently using. Hence the hairbrush rule.

I didn’t plan on this:
Note the hairbrush on the floor. Now this would have normally put me in a conniption but, as she so eloquently explained to me, it was the ONLY thing in the house that worked as the spiky pit for the racetrack for the new race car her daddy gave her. This is only a portion of the “race track” which went around the whole room with various obstacles and observers. I do applaud the creativity, however, I do need to brush my hair with that brush.

I guess I didn’t clarify that hairbrushes are only for hair. I did tell her that it was not to be used for brushing the pets but I definitely did NOT clarify that it was NOT to be used as a spiky pit for the racetrack. My bad.

recovering from a minor “disaster”

Last night we were invited to go over to a friend’s for dinner. My contribution was bread, and dessert. My daughter and I love to bake and we do it often – we get a lot of use out of the KitchenAid mixer. She chose to make a buttermilk chocolate cake so we tried out a new recipe. The batter was delicious and I was really confident it was going to be delicious. And it was. The only problem was that it wouldn’t come out of the pans in one piece. We were planning on making a layer cake but both cakes just fell apart into little pieces. This was at 3:30 and we were supposed to be there around 5 or 5:30. Now, it’s not like our friends would refuse us dinner if we didn’t bring dessert but we were kind of bummed out that it was a mess.

So . . . I started thinking . . . well, what can one do with crumbled up cake?

We made trifle. If you’ve never had trifle, it’s layers of cake, whipped cream and fruit most of the time. We made ours out of crumbled chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, homemade whipped cream and chopped up chocolate chips all in a big crystal bowl so you could see all of the layers. Yummo as Rachael Ray would say. The recovery from the disaster was actually better than the original cake probably would have been.

My point of this story is that even if something doesn’t turn out the way you originally planned, very often, you can recover gracefully with some creative thinking and come up with something even better than the original. Things can morph over time into options or concepts you may not have realized were really a great idea, and things that collapse on you can sometimes be all for the best. Go figure. When a plan falls apart, or a project doesn’t turn out right – sometimes the right thing to do is walk away, but sometimes taking another look and thinking “outside the box” can turn into something spectacular. Take a chance and see what happens!