Hint: let me go.

If I can’t easily remove my account, I am only going to get annoyed. How do I loathe you? Let me count the ways …

1. I’m going to have to spend time looking for a way to delete my account.
   Chances of me coming back: going down.
2. If I give up, and keep my account details, every time I see you in my password vault it will annoy me that I couldn’t delete that account.
   Chances of me coming back: getting worse every time.
3. If I  give up, but don’t keep my account details, if I do actually go come back to you I’m going to get really annoyed because I know I have an account (that I couldn’t remove) but can’t remember how to get in. So have to create a new one. No, I have no way of knowing which email address I was using at the time, or what username or password I had to alter to fit your stupid requirements of minimum numbers, letters and non-alpha widgits.
   Chances of me coming back: getting worse every time.
   Chances of me blogging about you: getting really good now. But you won’t like it.
4. If I have to go through a whole series of emails with you just to delete the $@#*^ account I am going to be really grumpy.
   Chances of me coming back: zero.
   Chances of me blogging about you: assured. And tweeting, facebooking, G+-ing and everything else I can think of.

So here’s a shoutout to those neat little tools that I’ve used over the years. All have been useful or fun, and all let me sign up for free, which is really good. All offer something good, and are worth checking out. And to those that let me go, thank you – and I might come back some day.

So here’s how they stacked up when I tried to leave:

The Good

The best: Edublogs: neat free wordpress hosting site for educators and students. They’re also great at hooking people up with other bloggers on the site. I simply left to host my own wordpress site. Summary: Option in settings to close, confirmation email, great clear, friendly messages. I’d be happy to come back.

Sites you simply cancel from “Settings”: Goodreads, Digg, Toodledo, Friendfeed, Youtube, and Google (surprisingly). All had good, clear instructions and friendly messages.
No, I’m not moving off Google – I found I had 3 accounts with them, so am consolidating

The “please email me” category:

I’d rather have an options in the Settings, but I found you can do this well, or do it badly.  Ligit is a great example of doing it well: A nice friendly message in their FAQ tells all: “While we hope that you never need to delete your Lijit account, we can delete it for you if you send an email to …”. After such a nice message, I’m happy to do so. Picnik was also clear in its FAQ.

The Bad

Brinkster – free web hosting accounts for educators; really, really good online real-time tech support, which has really helped me. Can be a bit slow, and has ads, but that’s fine for a free site. No complaints about the experience or service. The only problem was leaving, and it’s a procedural rather than technical one.

The automated cancellation process failed for me (that’s ok: it happens). So far ok: the fail page told me the email address to contact them and the details to give them.

I got a really quick response email from a real live person – that’s really great (no sarcasm – it really is). The problem was what she asked for: to email my password (or the last 4 digits of my credit card). Um, no. Dodgy dodgy dodgy. And a concern that she’d be able to see my password to confirm that it was correct.

It’s good that you’re making sure I’m me before you potentially delete my only copy of precious code and data, but that’s not the right way to go about it.

Yahoo – the account deletion process is fine (great, really – nice and simple). BUT my flikr account (which I want) is tied to my yahoo account (which I don’t want) – so if I delete the yahoo account, the flikr account goes too. I might keep it, but the yahoo email address that it comes with actually gets mail in it, which I never check. So the account must go.

The Ugly

Technorati – There’s no option to delete accounts – you have to email them. But nothing on their site tells you that – I had to Google it. And when I did, I read that lots of people are finding that a listing on technorati is ruining their reputation, overloading their sites, or just plain not working for them. I think you’d rather I just read your user manual than all that, wouldn’t you? Um, and I haven’t yet had confirmation that they’ve actually done it, which I read can also be a problem …

And finally Gliffy. Who I have NOT been able to get rid of. Again, no way to delete accounts – you have to email them. However it does tell you this in the FAQ, unlike technorati, so that’s good. Unfortunately that email launched a deluge of “just tell me why?” and “are you sure?” and finally “but it’s free and you could just leave it – why don’t you do that?” emails. From a real, live person, which is I suppose a good thing – but OMG just delete the *&*^^* account please!!! To their credit, after 3 or so emails they did delete the account, and their response was really quick, which was great.

But then I got a tweet this morning apologising for the bad experience, and asking me to email them what the problem was. OMG! it’s worse than breaking up with a clingy boyfriend/girlfriend. And yoy – I aint ever going back.

Moral of the story: letting people leave can be fundamental to getting them to come back. And we all know that it’s much easier to get a return customer than a new one.

Kim.

So, then, why haven’t I been writing? It’s not a lack of passion. It’s not lack of time – other mothers have written several books during nap times.

So what is it?

I simply decided that, for a period, I wanted to do other things. I don’t have to do everything. In fact, I can’t possibly do everything I want to; at least, not all right now. So it’s very important to choose what I DO want to do with my time, right now. There will be other times when I can do other things, but right now there are only 24 hours in the day, and it’s up to me what I do with them.

I read a wonderful affirmation recently: “I have all the time in the world”. It’s true. I have all the time there is: it’s up to me to choose what best to do with it.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

- author unknown.

Click to view original.  Source: http://xkcd.com/557/

I don’t know about you, but when I have this dream, it’s usually a sign I’m procrastinating on something I know I need to get doing

Look around: if you have piles of “stuff” and you don’t know where to put it … watch out – the SPCC (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Clutter) might be on your tail! Find homes for all that poor stuff now!

Why: stuff without a home will lie on your tables, floors and shelves, begging for attention and cluttering up your home.

How to find your stuff a home in 3 easy steps:

If something is just lying around because you don’t know where to put it –

1. Pick it up.

2. Decide if it is (a) useful or (b) beautiful. If not, give it to a home that loves it. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

3. If it’s useful or beautiful, find a home for it, close to where you use it.

• If you use it often, put it somewhere handy.
• If you hardly ever use it, repeat step 1 then, if you still have it, put it somewhere a bit harder to get at. If you haven’t used it in 6 months’ time, repeat step 1.
• If you think it’s beautiful, display it somewhere. If you have too much to display, repeat step 1. If you still have it, consider storing some things away and rotating what you display.

A note on notes: if you have piles of notes and assignments from old courses, consider carefully whether they will be useful to you in the future. If you think they will, file them away, and review in a year’s time. Next year it may seem basic – or out of date.

For any paperwork, consider going electronic for non-legal documents (for accounting, tax and legal documents keep the original safely).

Happy home hunting!

The best way to get more organised is to spend time organising.

It doesn’t have to be lots of time – just more than you do now. And it’s most effective if you do it regularly.

What I do: Every day when I get home I do Flylady’s “5 minute room rescue“: 5 minutes tidying one room. Unbelievably, such a small thing keeps the house pretty much tidy.

To do this:
1. Choose a regular time – e.g. when you get home or before you go to bed.
2. Set your timer for 5 minutes.
3. Tidy til it beeps. Don’t do anything else, don’t get distracted – just do it.

You’ll be amazed how well it works.

If you’re procrastinating over something, start the very first, small thing. And only the first thing.

• If it’s a report, write the first sentance (“This report descibes my industry placement at PCs R Us.”).
• If it’s a presentation, prepare the first few words (“Hi, my name is Kim.”).
• If it’s a programme, write the first part of the header ( /* foo.php written by Kim 12/3/2008 */ ).

That’s all. Honest.

Why this works:

1. Once you’ve written the first bit, chances are you’ll start thinking about the next bit, then the next bit, and before you know you’ve done a whole lot of it.

2.It’s much easier to start a very small task (one sentance), than a large and undefined task (writing a whole report).

3. Psychologically, you’re giving yourself an easy “win”. If you write just one sentance, you’ve done what you promised. You can then shut down the document and go play World of Warcraft, feeling good about yourself. This makes it easier to start again next time.

Of course, this technique only helps you overcome procrastination, not finish the whole task on time. Next time you’ll have to do the second small task

So - what are you waiting for?

1. Break the work into tasks. In my case this is: do literature review; write first draft; write second draft; write conclusion, introduction and abstract; and polish.

2. Estimate how long each task will take you. Be generous here – it’s better to have spare time than run late. My estimates were 2 days for the literature review (I already had a lot of information), one day for the first draft, one day for the 2nd draft, and one day to polish.

3. Work out when you could start and finish if you started each task on the earliest possible date from today. I started on February 18th, and can do research every Friday, so my dates went like this:

4. Adjust to meet the due date. Unfortunately, that’s March 14th. If I get up early Saturday morning, I can do a full day’s work by lunchtime, so that gives me an extra day a week. Now my plan looks like this:

This also gives me some slack time in case things don’t go as planned – although not a lot.

5. Monitor your progress and adjust the plan as needed. The literature review took an extra day, so I had to find time during the week to work on it. I’m half way through the 2nd draft, and it’s looking good – but it’s March 2nd, so I need to finish that today (not a planned working day) to stay on track. Why did this happen? Because that’s life. I didn’t know about the deadline until recently (correction – I didn’t think to find out about the deadline til recently), I had hoped to work on it during the week, but in the first few weeks of the semester that’s impossible… other things get in the way. Sound familiar?

To get an even better plan:

6. Work out the latest start dates as well: From the deadline, work backwards -

7. Put reminder notes in your diary in big red letters – 8th Feb – Must start literature review today!!!! 15 Feb – must finish literature review today!!! That way you won’t let things slip pas those dates, because you know in advance that you have to start on those dates to finish on time.

Try it for yourself – it only takes a few minutes, and saves a lot of panic at the end.

After getting inspired by Unclutterer’s “Workspace of the Week” I decided to tackle it. It turns out, some of the problem was my fault:

• I’d come home from work and dump my stuff on my desk (it’s right off our entryway, so very handy).
• I’d put mail on my desk to deal with later.
• If I didn’t know where to put something, I’d put it on my desk to deal with later.
• If I had to do something, I’d put it on my desk to remind me (I’m a stacker).

So I set a weekend aside to deal with it. I got a big pad of paper, a pen, a recycling bin, rubbish bin, and 2 laundry baskets (I’ll explain why soon). 

At the top of the paper I wrote “To Do”. 

I moved the chair out the way so I could get at my desk.

I cleared every piece of paper, junk, stationary, etc, etc off my desk. As I picked something up:

• If it was rubbish, it was thrown into the rubbish or recycling bin.
• If it was a reminder or old to-do list, I copied it onto the To-Do list, then threw it in the recycling bin. I did not stop and do the things then and there – I’d never have finished.
• If it belonged elsewhere in the house, it went in one laundry basket to be re-homed later.
• If I wanted to keep it, and it had a home, I put it in its home. If I had to do something with it – e.g. bills to pay – I put that on the To-Do list before putting it away.
• If I wanted to keep it, but didn’t know where to put it, it went in the other laundry basket.

This took about half a day, but when I was done it felt great – I now had a list of everything that needed to be done, and didn’t have nameless worries nagging at me any more.

I could now see my desk top clearly – yuk! I took everything off it and cleaned it thoroughly! I then picked up one item at a time, assessed whether I really wanted it on my desk, and if so, cleaned it and put it back.

As I looked at my clean, usable desk, I noticed the cable clutter for the first time. So my husband drilled a hole in the back of my desk, and I fed the cables through that. No more cables – yay!

Lastly, I created a launchpad on top of the drawers beside my desk – a place to leave keys, wallet, etc when I get home and to collect things to go with me the next day.

I put away the rubbish and recycling, rehomed the things from other parts of the house, and finally found homes for the unhomed items in the last laundry basket.

Fairly soon after this, strange things started to happen. If I was looking for something to do, I’d find myself sitting at my desk, because it was a nice place to be. I got out the house quicker, because I knew exactly where my keys were, and I found that it was actually easy to put things away when I’d finished with them, because they had homes. The clutter monster’s still there, but I keep it tamed with 2 minute hotspot clears.

I wish you luck with your own monster – it’s well worth the effort.

1. Get a good chair that supports your back properly and sits you at the right height for the desk. Guidelines can be found here.

A chair doesn’t have to be expensive to do this. If it’s the right height for you to use the keyboard properly, but your feet don’t touch the floor, get a footrest (a thick book or box will do). If you’re leaning back a bit when you rest on the chair back, will a cushion make you sit up straight?

2. Have enough space to spread out. If you have several books open at once, you need enough room to lay them out. If you have a notepad beside your computer, you need enough room for it beside the keyboard, on the side you write with. Get a desk long enough to let you work how you want.

3. Have only what you need. One pen. One writing pad. One computer. That may be all you need: take everything else away, and see if you use it. If you do – regularly – find a home near your desk for it. If not, throw it out, or find somewhere else to store it. It’ll be easier to find things, easier to keep things tidy, and will feel a whole lot better.

And if you’re storing hundreds of pens because one day the one you’re using will run out, here’s a suggestion: think about how long one pen lasts you. Then think about how many spares you need. 5? OK. Pick out the 6 best pens, bundle the rest up, and give them to your local Red Cross. They’ll be grateful.

4. Add some inspiration by putting a beautiful picture or photo on the wall – one that makes your heart feel glad every time you look at it.

5. Get good light. Invest in a good overhead light, and a lamp if you need it. Make sure that you can see clearly, whatever time you’re at your desk.

6. Keep your desk clear of distractions and clutter. If you can’t see it, you can’t use it. If your desk is currently a disaster zone, start working on clearing it and keeping it clear. Find another place to dump all the junk.

7. Enjoy. Let your desk become a place of inspiration.