NEAT & SIMPLE LIVING

Celebrating My 4 Year Anniversary with "Makeovers" + FREE gifts for you! : )

Hi everyone!

I can hardly believe it's been 4 years this month since I started this blog!  Reviewing the posts here is like reliving my personal journey from focusing on "organizing how to's" to getting deeper and deeper into what really works to help people conquer chronic disorganization and live a full and productive life with ADHD. 

I've gone from working with Fortune 500 companies to working with people in their homes, from designing corporate learning programs to writing self-help books, from coaching managers and employees to coaching people one-on-one and in my Getting Unstuck virtual support group community.

More than ever, I feel like I'm putting ALL my talents and everything I've learned over the last 50 years to good use! 

Along with growth and change, comes the need to reflect, rethink and renovate.  So much has changed during these past few years, that my websites started feeling quite disconnected. So it was time for a massive makeover that clearly unites everything I do and reflects the principles that underly it all. 

For me, the ultimate "connecting" symbol for what I do is the Lotus - the gorgeous flower that grows and blooms even in the worst of conditions. It's still a simple white flower like the Daisy I used to use as my symbol for simplicity...but to me, and I hope to you as well, it's even more inspirational.  

Now ALL of my websites have a common look and feel that features the lovely pure white lotus, and are connected to each other! 

My new "mother" site is called Lotus Bridge, LLC.  Neat & Simple is now the professional organizing "brand" within Lotus Bridge. Lotus Bridge to me is more holistic, and more inclusive of the coaching, education, and writing work I do that goes even deeper than organizing and clutter clearing. 

CHECK OUT MY NEW LOOK and ALL THE FREE STUFF on
 LOTUSBRIDGE.COM!!

To celebrate the "OFFICIAL" launch of my new site which is now the home of my coaching services, teleclasses, and books AND to Thank You all for reading and subscribing to my blog, I have included links to FREE downloads, audio teleclasses and more as a gift for visiting my new site and checking it out! Included:

• 8 page PDF on "10 Strategies for Simplifying Your Life"
• Podcast on "Overcoming Overspending"
• Teleclass on "The Link Between Creative Personality Type and Disorganization"
• and more are on the the way!

 

The websites aren't the only ones getting makeovers.  I got one, too!  I cut off most of my hair!  I'm turning 50 in September, and decided to simplify my life further by keeping it short and ultra easy!  No more perms or coloring.  I'm loving the freedom of short hair - Not to mention feeling 10 degrees cooler all summer : )

I hope you enjoy the new "fresh" look of this blog and enjoy the rest of your summer! 

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Hope to see you there!

P.S. Don’t miss my session on Overcoming Overspending; Why Adults with ADHD Overshop and How to Stop!  at the Virtual AD/HD Conference  - October 5 - 7!

 

 

Simple Living Blog List is Growing Fast! Is your blog on it?

Jack Rugile over at Simple Sapien is putting together a list of Simple Living Blogs and he included Neat & Simple Living.   Here's the list as of today, if you're not on it and you want to have your blog included, head on over and add a comment!

Our Las Vegas Vacation - Worth the Vacation "Hangover" : )

I love taking vacations, but the older I get the harder it is to recover from them!  It seems the longer the time I go away and more deeply I "disconnect" from everything, the longer it takes to get reconnected with all the elements of my life. And now, I'm finally reconnecting with you! : ) 

Having a 3 hour time change and getting sick after coming back made this vacation hangover particularly grueling and lengthy.  I think I got so sick partly because of the insane amount of smoking I got exposed to there.  Everywhere we went there cigars and cigarettes being smoked.  It was unbelievable how much smoking was going on there.  I suppose there is a connection between gambling and smoking. But it was really bad. We couldn't even walk down the street, or wait for a shuttle bus, or even go to the spa or pool at our hotel without suddenly taking in a deep breaths of CIGAR smoke - never mind the cigarettes.  It was like they were having some kind of cigar convention there (but they weren't) : )

We were so constantly bombarded with smoke that my lungs were killing me most of the time there.  (I am forever grateful to be living in NJ where we finally got a statewide smoking ban passed.  There is NO smoking allowed, at ALL, in any indoor facilities, and many outdoor areas as well.  As a former smoker, I know how hard it is to quit, but it's a lot easier to quit when you don't have to breathe it in everywhere you go.) 

We don't gamble, so I can't review the casinos except to say that they were EXTREMELY smoky, I actually had to cover my mouth to breathe a few times or hold my breath to walk through - because you HAVE to walk through them to get to the shows and the restaurants in most of the hotels on the strip.

OUR PHOTOS

Here are a couple Photo Albums we put up on Google's Picasa web.  I don't spend a lot of time doing photo albums, but I wanted to learn this tool so that I could hopefully start sharing more photos (and videos) of my work.  I just wish it didn't take up so much time. This is the EASIEST way to do it I've tried so far.  I uploaded over 50 photos all at once with no problem.  Added Captions in about 10 minutes. The MOST time consuming part was choosing the best photos and renaming the files.   

Here is our Las Vegas album - over 50 views taken with my new Olympus Stylus FE-290 7MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle Optical Zoom 

You might especially like my strategy for not bringing home a lot of clutter...I took photos in the stores of most of the souvenirs I was tempted by!  tee hee.  I love just being able to see them and not having to find homes for them somewhere in the house. 

p.s. Photos were resized and some were auto corrected with Microsoft Office 2003's Photo Manager.  Love that for quick and dirty edits. 

Here is our Leaving Las Vegas album showing some amazing aerial views from the plane.

TRIP HIGHLIGHTS

More nice things about Las Vegas: The weather was gorgeous!  Sunny and in the low 70s every day.  : )

RESTAURANTS

The food was amazing, I now understand why Top Chef did one of their seasons from Las Vegas.  We had a beautiful traditional Thanksgiving dinner at Lawry's Prime Rib.  FABULOUS.  I wish there was a Lawry's in New York City.

We had a delicious but very expensive meal at the The Mix restaurant which is in the THE hotel at Mandalay Bay. We were seated on the outdoor balcony of the 64th Floor and the view of the city was stunning. Good thing we don't drink or the meal would have been really outrageous! It was fun, but the whole environment seemed rather pretentious to me.

Our overall favorite though was Wolfgang Puck's Postrio Cafe at St. Mark's Square in the Venetian Hotel.  The food was 5 star, the service was just as fabulous and the atmosphere was far more relaxed and inviting.

Another favorite was the Harley Davidson Cafe.  They have a bunch of REAL motorcycles on a track suspended from the ceiling that actually move all through the restaurant.  It's like being in Disneyland.  Check out their virtual ride through the restaurant and their photo gallery...way cool.

SHOWS

We enjoyed the shows, especially:

Mama Mia at the Mandalay - My FAVORITE!!  Loved it.  The ABBA music made be feel 17 again!  I was actually 17 when Dancing Queen came out and I danced to it on my 17th birthday.

LOVE by Cirque de Soleil at the Mirage - It was a gorgeous show and the music was amazing.  I've Cirque before and was expeciting more acrobatics, it has a little, but this show is NOT about the acrobatics...be forewarned : )

Blue Man Group at the Venetian - My husband LOVED this one best.  I liked it, but it's really a guy's show.  They spray the audience with colored paint and stuff like that.  It got very gross at times - like when they squirt what looks like vomit out of their outfits and then eat it.  eeewww.  not my thing.  But at times it was very insightful too.  Overall, it's a fun show, glad I went, glad we didn't pay half price.  : )

ICE at the Riviera by a skating acrobatics ensemble from Russia.  It was nice, but DON'T pay full price.  The stage is too small and is not in the round so they don't have room to do anything too spectacular, though from what they did do, it was clear they are very talented. One cool thing about the show was that they have a thin ice track that weaved through the audience so that they could skate through now and then.

The Fountains of Bellagio were my favorite. We saw several different shows set to various kinds of music. Check out my video clip of - the entire Singing in the Rain show below. I took this clip with my new Olympus Stylus FE-290 7MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle Optical Zoom  After using it for the past month, I LOVE this camera. It was so easy to take the video, the audio is amazing, and it was so easy to transfer to my computer, (See my post comparing the Olympus FE 290 Wide Angle Digital Camera to the Samsung L74 Wide Angle.)  and upload it to my new favorite service...Google Video!  It's my new favorite because they don't have a 10 MB restriction like YouTube does.  You have UNLIMITED file size!!  How do they do it??!!   I don't know, but here it is.  Hope you like it!

BOTTOM LINE

I'm glad we went, but I would not go back. There are many more places I'd rather go, but I'm glad to have been there once in my life.

Well that's all for now. This post and getting all the photos and video clip together has taken nearly all day!

But meanwhile I was also playing with my early Christmas Gift, an HP iPaq PDA  - it's basically a handheld mobile computer with enough features to compel me to try using an electronic calendar again!  For one I can handwrite entries!!!  It also allows me to connect to the internet and email via WI-FI and cell phone. Plus it's an MP3 Player, a note recorder and much more. I'll wrote more about that eventually : )  For now check it out on Amazon here - It has great reviews! HP iPAQ 111 Classic Handheld

Till the next time,

Happy Blogiversary in September!

I can't believe it's been 2 whole years!  I've only been with Typepad since 12/2005, but I started out on Blogger.com in September 2005. 

It's been such a wonderful growth and learning experience for me and I want to thank all my fellow bloggers and especially my readers and clients who have helped make this such a positive and personal enriching journey. 

To celebrate I want to share some stats for this blog. 

I'll be posting my 400th post this week!   

In July, there were nearly 7,400 unique visitors and 16,164 page views - the most ever!

Today alone I had over 450 visitors and 952 page views in a single day!  (I have to thank Laura at Org Junkie for sending me one of the biggest boosts in visitors yet. ) 

A big thank you to all of you for encouraging me to keep writing!

More to come...

I've got lots of posts in the pipeline...just incubating and waiting till I can finish them up.  A very interesting thing about posting is that sometimes they roll off my fingertips...and other times they get stuck...I find that happens most often when I write about really personal things - like the posts I'm writing on 8 things you don't know about me (yes Julie, it's still on my list of Blog To Do's : ) perfectionism (for Kara) , sentimental clutter, and how I unlearned my cluttering habits, and how clutter is like addiction.  This blog has stretched me out of my comfort zone many times.  I think that's part of what I love about blogging...I love to get uncomfortable now and then - It means I'm growing! These more personal posts have to incubate till I feel comfortable putting them out there.  The good news is that is gets easier all the time for me to share my personal weaknesses and learnings.  It's a very freeing feeling to be able to open up and share...especially when I get so much positive feedback from you all.   

Thanks for being part of this journey with me! 

More Blogiversaries

• Another fellow blogger celebrating her first blogiversary is The Thoughtful Consumer. Happy Blogiversary, Cynthia! 

Are you celebrating your blogiversary in September?  Leave a comment with the URL of your blog and how long it's been for you.  Would also love to hear something you've learned from blogging.  I'll move your blogiversaries into this post!

My Blog URL Name Change is Complete - and there are NO broken links!

This weekend, we went to Wildwood, NJ!  I took a much needed time away from the computer and went 2.5 days without access to email or the internet! Voluntarily.  But unfortunately I'm "recovering" today from an excessive of sun, and not eating properly.  I so went off the sugar and gluten wagon, but today I'm getting right back on it and will be feeling better soon! 

Luckily, before I left, I "met" with my Blogging Angel Mark W. Shead of www.productivity501.com and he walked me through the process of changing my blog URL! As he promised, nothing broke or changed other than the name.  It all went smoothly and seamlessly.  THANK YOU again Mark, you are a true guru! If you haven't already done so, check out Mark's contest - he's giving away an iPOD Shuffle!

My official blog address is now blog.neatandsimple.com!  And the best part is any links you may have to any of my posts are ALL still working!  The magic of the 301 redirect is doing it's thing and seamlessly redirecting traffic!

So, I'm not going to ask to change your links to old posts, but if you have me listed on your blog roll and it's not too much trouble, I would love for you to change the name of the blog to Neat & Simple Living and the URL to http://blog.neatandsimple.com 

There is no rush and I thank you in advance for making the change!

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p.s. if you are into contests, check out these other sites hosting contests!

• Win a Dymo Labelmaker from Monica Ricci and help her name her review column!

From the Organizing LA site by John Trosko

• Vern Yip and Microsoft Home Office Want to Give Your Office a Facelift
• O-Magazine Offers Organizing Tips and a Sweepstakes

Gotta contest going? Leave a link in a comment here!

My Apologies to My RSS Blogreader Subscribers - I messed up!

I just found out today that my feed was only giving my RSS subscribers the first 250 words of my posts!  I'm so sorry I didn't realize it was doing that! 

To those of you who have been putting up with that THANK YOU! 

To those of you who unsubscribed as a result, I beg your forgiveness! 

The good news it that it's all fixed!  As is my RSS link in the right column.  If my Feedblitz is not giving you the whole post, let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix that too!

Now for the THANK YOU!!!

I can't thank my new friend Mark W. Shead of www.productivity501.com enough for being my Blogging Angel!!  Not only did he let me know about this problem, he was a HUGE help in fixing it!! 

I posted about my rebranding project last week.  Mark helped me get my website URL changed to www.NeatAndSimple.com  without a single broken link or glitch.  HE IS MY HERO!   What I thought would take months to accomplish, he helped me get done this weekend!

I have to give a shout out to my awesome webhost as well.  They have 24-hour live service - and over the phone they went in and made the changes Mark recommended to my .htaccess file and voila!  It was all done.  I now have a permanent 301 redirect in place!  My links all work no matter what you type as the domain name, and my Google rank is intact. 

Mark even took the time to explain and document the excruciatingly complicated procedure for changing my blog URL to blog.neatandsimple.com without breaking any links!  It's going to take a few days to make it happen, but I owe him big time. 

Not only is he an amazing writer and productivity expert, he is a web guru with a Service Heart as Gretchen Rubin describes it.   

Check out some of these Awesome Posts by Mark W. Shead at www.productivity501.com

• Cost vs. Benefit Revisited (Are Hybrids really better for the environment?
• Focus for Results

He interviewed 30 Experts...including me...and wrote these amazing posts!

• What is the single biggest way people waste time without even realizing it?
• What change has made the most difference in making you effective in life?
• If someone were to read just one post from your site, which would you recommend the read and why?

Check out his contest to!  You could win a free iPOD!

Breaking News - Say Goodbye Neat Living and Hello to..

I am so appreciative and grateful to the readers and subscribers of this blog and to my clients who have helped make Neat Living a successful adventure for me, so I wanted you all to be among the first to know about the big changes you'll be seeing over the next year!

It's been 2 wonderful years since I phased out of corporate performance improvement and into residential and small business organizing consulting.  I've learned and grown so much.  One of the MAJOR lessons I've learned is this:

Don't start a business with potentially global clients unless you own the .com for your business name!  (FYI, neatliving.com is owned by a company in Canada) 

WHY AM I CHANGING?

My treasured clients, readers, friends & colleagues have repeatedly told me over the past year that it's confusing that I use a .org and a .net address, so I have decided to listen to them and let go of the Neat Living brand!  To replace it, I have created a new brand where I own the .com and most of the variations on it too! 

In addition to the confusing URLs, I also have people send email to me at neatliving.com often and of course, I don't get it.  Another issue is that many people assumed Neat Living was about being a neat freak..and that is so NOT what I'm about.  I have always used the word "neat" a lot to describe innnovative, cool stuff I like. I also have ALWAYS loved making things simpler and easier so I could focus on my creative pursuits and passions. 

So to me, the new brand is about creating a positive lifestyle that you really enjoy.  I purposely did not include letting go of clutter and organizing in my business name, because I feel they are only a few of the means to the end, which is having a life you love.

CHANGE WON'T BE EASY - BUT WILL BE WORTH IT!

I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much work this is going to be, but with the help of friends, colleagues and readers, I'm going to do everything I can to make the transition as seamless as possible.  In keeping with my goal to let go of perfectionism, I'm going to do this gradually and live with the fact that there will be mistakes and issues as I change.  I know there will be some broken links and inconsistencies and Thank you in advance for putting up with the growing pains as I change everything over!  The logos and colors are not finalized yet but I'm going to get started anyway!

My long term plan is to consolidate all my content to one Master URL which will be www.NeatAndSimple.com   I own the .net and .org URLs as well as www.NeatAndSimpleLiving.com  Neat And Simple Organizing, & several more related .com names.

ADVICE IS WELCOME AND APPRECIATED!!!

If any of you have changed your brand and URL after becoming established, I would love to hear any advice or tips you have for doing this without breaking all my incoming links!

For now, please don't change any URLS or links back to me.  I am going to try to figure out a way to keep them live, while also creating the new brand.  Or to move the content as painlessly as possible for everyone. I will let you know when I have a more definite plan or if I need you to change links to me.

NEW BLOG TITLE

The Blog Title is changing before the URLs do, hopefully in the next couple days.  It will be:

My plan also includes an online store containing informational, learning and organizing products. My upcoming series of information products will be called:

There are several more changes coming up that I will let you know about over the next week! 

Help! : ) I'm Decluttering & Simplifying My Blog - Got any suggestions?

Helping Monica Ricci make her blog simpler and a little more visually appealing inspired me to take a hard look at my own blog.  I wasn't thrilled with what I saw. Averaging over 6000 visitors a month I realized that I really need to focus on making it simpler, easier to read and navigate. So I've started the process of simplifying, decluttering & improving it with a new look. This project is NOT easy!  With over 350 posts, it's a huge undertaking so I'm breaking the project down to make it more manageable.

So here's a few of the things I'm doing to improve the blog a little bit every day.

1. Make the title banner better describe what's in the blog.
2. Reduce the number of categories. I've cut the categories nearly in half already and plan to get it down to 10 or so. Recategorizing 350+ posts takes a lot of time!
3. Rewrite or Delete Old Posts - The process of recategorizing has been especially painful because my perfectionist self reads the old posts and cringes.  I want to rewrite every single one!  I've learned so much over the past 2 years of blogging and some of those old posts are embarrassing! Some of them I'm just deleting rather than taking the time to rewrite them.
4. Declutter Columns - Using the New Pages Feature Typepad finally rolled out. Wordpress has had this for years.  I'm not sure how I'm going to do this, because the Typelist feature only works if you post the content in the column.  I'm not sure I want to give up the convenience of the typelists.
5. Write shorter more frequent posts.  This weekend I caught myself writing a mega post again and the light went on.  Why not break it up and pace out the posts daily? Since my last vacation I had gotten out of the habit of programming my posts for future posting.  I do this because I can't write a post every day when I'm working with clients.
6. Use more headings & photos.  I've been doing this for a while.  But I never went back and did this with older posts.  Looking at some of them now - I don't even want to read them they are so bland looking.

I truly appreciate all of you who have subscribed to Neat Living and included me in your Feed Reader!  I want to make this blog better for you so I'm asking for your help.  What can I do to improve the blog even further?  Questions I have are below.  You don't need to answer them all, but if anything comes to you while reading the questions I'd love to hear your feedback.  You can leave comments below...or if you don't want to publicly tell me how to improve, you can email me at: abenefit@neatandsimple.com 

- What do you like about this blog that I should NOT change? 

- What should I STOP doing?

- What would you like to see that isn't here now?

- What would you do to improve the Neat Living blog?

- Do you think I should narrow my focus and specialize in 5 or fewer topics?

- Everyone is doing daily themes...I've liked being more spontaneous and writing about whatever moves me. Should I do some daily themes too?  Does that really make you read a blog more often?  Or is it just a writer's preference?

Thank you in advance for taking a minute to help me make Neat Living Blog a little Neater!

I had Lunch with Jessica Duquette This Weekend!

One of the best side benefits of blogging is getting to know other bloggers and making new friends!  This past weekend I had the pleasure of finally getting to meet Jessica Duquette, my "sister" professional organizer from the Los Angeles, CA area.  She is the heart and soul behind http://www.its-not-about-your-stuff.com/ and her services website is at http://www.inperfectorder.com/

She is orginally from New York City, and was back home to do a week-long organizing makeover in CT starting on Monday.  I don't know how she does it.  I can't imagine traveling across the country to organize someone else's home when you aren't even able to sleep in your own home!  I'm afraid I would miss my husband and 3 kids kitties way too much.  But she tells me she loves the adventure of it, so I'm happy for her and her lucky clients!

Jessica and I have spoken on the phone many times and shared ideas and advice on how we run our business, our blogs, handle client situations and even on personal matters.  So meeting her in person was easy, I felt like I've known her for years.  It was so nice to go out for lunch & get to see her smiling face while were talking!   

Alan & I also visited with her in her Dad's NYC apt. for a while and got to check out her amazing collection of Young Living Essential Oils.  We left smelling awesome after testing out so many oils.  I love essential oils and use them as perfume and as air fresheners.  My favorite Young Living Essential Oil is Magnify Your Purpose™.  It is a blend of Sandalwood, rosewood, sage, nutmeg, patchouli, cinnamon bark, and ginger.  YUM!   

I wear this all the time and people often ask me why I smell so good.  It's the best!  Young Living describes the Magnify Your Purpose™ blend as follows.  It stimulates creativity, desire, focus, and motivation. It helps foster a positive attitude, encouraging you to rise above adversity, seize the initiative, overcome procrastination and self-pity, and magnify your life's purpose.  (What could be a better mantra than this?) 

I use the oils as aromatherapy in my office to help me be more focused, productive, and relaxed.  I keep a few with me to help clients as needed if they enjoy aromatherapy and many do : ) Essential Oils are so much better for you than using chemical air fresheners and Young Living is one of the best quality oils you can buy. See the U.S. Product List for a description of all the oils: http://www.youngliving.us/US/products.asp  If you want to consider purchasing any of the oils, contact Jessica!

Monday "Link Love" Fest! Don't miss these fabulous posts from Inspirational Bloggers!

Over the weekend I decided to catch up with some of my favorite bloggers and I found so much to learn and be inspired by!   So I decided to have a Link Love Fest and just put a bunch of great links in one post!  So without further ado, here are some of the best, most insightful and inspiration posts I found!  These are not in any particular order - they are all awesome posts! 

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Learn the Rules with Liz

"Business Rules They Don't Teach in School".  From the warm and super-smart Liz Strauss of www.Successful-Blog.com we have a series of insightful rules that are true for business and life in general.  I love her canoe analogy which illustrates Rule #6 !

"Focusing on the past can’t fix the future. Focusing on the future might."

It does no good to blame or find fault or regret...just focus on making things right!

Rules Posts by Liz
Business Rule 5: Never Underestimate the Power of a Voice on the Telephone
Business Rule 4: You Know Your Truth — Listen to Yourself
Business Rule 3: In PRM, the First Test Always Outweighs the Final
Business Rule 2: How to Do What You Want
Business Rule 1: Working at Home and Doing it Right

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Get Healthy with Wendy

The Psychology of Losing Weight
The Psychology of Losing Weight - Listening
When is it Time to Leave an Alcoholic? (Her advice applies not only to being involved with alcoholics but with people with any addiction that is ruining your lives - including clutter.

These are from the fabulous fountain of inspiration, WendyPiersall.com - )

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Cultivate Enthusiasm with Mark!

5 Reasons Why Enthusiasm is Better than Confidence This is is a post that will make you smile no matter what you are feeling when you read it! From Mark McGuiness and the "Wishful Thinking" Blog (with thanks to the wise, witty & wonderful Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project for introducing me to this great blog!)

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Bust a Myth - This is a Shocker!

You don't really need 8 glasses of water a day!  You must read this study from Dartmouth University!  Personally, I drink 2-6 glasses a day depending on how I feel.  I can never get down the full 8!  Thanks to Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project for finally helping me not feel guilty about this!  : )

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Get Happy with Gretchen

A refinement of my earth-shattering happiness formula. Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project strikes gold every time she touches the keyboard - this is a platinum insight from her!

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Become a Great Blogger with Brian, Liz, Sarah, Robin &  Wendy

I can't share just one post from these guys...if you want to be a better blogger, check out these masters.

http://www.copyblogger.com/  Brian Clark
http://www.successful-blog.com/ Liz Strauss
http://www.bloggingexpertise.com/ Sarah Lewis
http://www.sleepyblogger.com/ Robyn Tippins
http://emomsathome.com/blog/ Wendy Piersall

Check out the SOBCon'07 event!  A Relationship Bloggers’ Conference and
Networking Event in Chicago Relationship Bloggers Unite! SOBCon ‘07 This promises to be a fabuous event!  I wish I could go!

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That's it for today...I'll be back with more later in the week!

"How do I map my own domain to a Typepad Blog?" from the Ask Dave Taylor! Tech Support Blog

Link: "How do I map my own domain to a Typepad Blog?" from the Ask Dave Taylor! Tech Support Blog.

People have asked me how I can have NeatLiving.net go directly to my blog. 

Dave Taylor has explains it all with a little tutorial on his blog. 

Hope this helps!

Ariane : )

NEAT LIVING BLOG Celebrates 100th!

Wow!  I just realized I now have over 100 posts and almost 100 readers today! If that keeps up we'll have 3,000 for the month!  Pro bloggers I'm sure have many more, but this a big milestone for me. It's so neat to be able to connect with so many people from all over the world.   Thanks for visiting and making this blogging journey such a great adventure. 

One of the most popular links here is my extensive online photo gallery of organizing makeovers.  I 've been spending a lot of time writing for my book, when that's done, I promise I'll focus on getting more pix up!

In the meantime, feel free to send me your pics of organizing makeovers and tips.  I'll be happy to publish them and link back to you!  Also, ask questions!  Nothing like a question or problem from a reader to inspire me to write! 

To stay in touch with the latest events and info, sign up for my newsletter!  I include a brief listing of the blog posts for the month plus an update on workshops where I'll be giving public Organizing presentations, and more.  My next newsletter will be a combined May/June issue and will feature an article on creative and EASY ways to organize with binders.  Sign up for the Newsletter and as a bonus get My Free Filing and Documentation Retention Tips!  People tell me I should charge for this, but for now it's still free.  Eventually it will be part of my book.  Don't miss it!

Can't wait to see what the next 100 posts will be!

Sending neat thoughts,

P.S. Don't forget to vote in the New Poll!   And we now have a New Feature - Just for Fun.  It includes a daily quote, daily news item, and daily word match up game.  To play, click a word on the left and then click the word that means something similar.  Enjoy and come back often!  I'm always looking for ways to make this blog more interesting.

Neat Resources for Creating & Marketing Your Blog

I often get asked by friends and other professional organizers

1) what is the difference between a blog and a website?

2) why do I do both a blog and a website? 

There are many differences, but I suppose only people who have created and maintained a website themselves really get just how different the two are.  For me, my website is a basic brochure of what I do.  I update it often, but it is much more cumbersome to update than my blog.

In thinking more about it, one list can actually answer both questions. Here are a few of the differences between blogs and websites...that also explain why I love to do both! 

Why Do You Blog?

I found a cool blog today that raises the question of why people blog.  There are sooooo many reasons.  Personally, I have found it rewarding in many ways.  And trust me, it's not money. I've yet to make any money from it.  The real value of blogging in is the sharing.  And of course by helping others, I help myself too!

It’s a great way to keep track of the books I read, blogs I love, best websites, projects I've done, places to help clients donate stuff and more.

One of the unexpected side benefits is that I’ve found some really cool people who blog and share incredible ideas and experiences.  And I've even made friends I now connect with in real life.

Check out Robyn Tippins reasons for blogging....I agree with them all and couldn't have said it better myself.

Link: Practical Blogging.  Why do you blog?

Our New Web Host - How & Why We Picked Them

Our new host host offers an amazing array of services.  We can have unlimited blogs, websites & domains. It has Fantastico, FTP access, C-Panel user interface (which is really neat and it's ALL only 9.95 per month.   And the real kicker was that they have LIVE 24/7/365 HUMAN service!!!  That is unheard of at this price. Service was tops on our list of selection criteria after so many problems we've had with hosts that provided no service.  We tried the phone and chat service just to test them and we really did get human beings who helped us.  We had our account up and running in 10 minutes.

How we picked them. We  signed up with a few webhosts to try out the service before we moved our site. We quickly learned that how they describe their features can sound the same - but the way features work can be SO different!  For example, one host we tried actually forced you to upload every page and graphic manually.  YIKES! 

When we got into this host it was like heaven - it was as if they had picked all the coolest and best possible services on the market today and put it all in one place.  They even have immediate backup every time you change your site!  NOt just once a day or every few days like some others.

Since our new host offers ALL the latest gadgets, we are soon going to be setting up a WordPress Blog, a Moveable Type Blog, a Wiki site, an online learning site with courseware, a Drupal system and more.  So when it comes to organizing information, we now have tons of new tools to learn about and add to  our bag of tricks!

It matched all our criteria and then some.  We got lots of bonus goodies we didn't even have on our list!  Plus - it is top rated by all the host review sites we went to.   So if you are  looking for Web Hosting With Quality Support? 24/7 Support Via Phone, Live Chat, and Email - check this one out!

You won't be sorry you tried it!

Ariane

p.s. for the non-techies out there - you don't have to transfer your domain name to move your site!  Just call the phone service if you want to learn how. It was very easy for us to just change 2 lines in our DNS settings. 

 

Goal-Free Living and Blogging can be a GOOD thing!

BRILLIANT concept!!!  If you enjoy blogging, Goal-Free Blogging is a must-read post by Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal Free Living .  I’ve been blogging since August and I also have found that blogging is best as an adventure and a journey - not a goal. It started out as part of my organizing business, but now it’s much more than just about organizing and productivity.  It's about learning, discovery, insights, sharing and community just to name a few. And yes...it's so much more fun and insightful when you just let it flow rather than set goals and objectives for the blog.  At first, it was tough.  But now, ideas for the blog just hit me all the time. And, I think it helps me be a better organizer as well.  It stimulates my creativity and innovative problem-solving. 

I can’t wait to read Goal Free Living - the new Book by Stephen Shapiro coming out in January.

I suspect Goal-free concepts can be applied to helping my clients enjoy getting and staying organized, rather than seeing it as a dreary task or goal that must be done.  If you see organizing as a chore, then it is.  If you see it as a way to creatively make your life easier and more fun...then it will be! 

Why wait to enjoy life "once I get organized".  Start enjoying your life NOW!  : )

All the best,
Ariane

links for 2005-12-27

• A VC: how to post Delicious Daily Links-automatically   Great tips for getting Typepad to automatically post your del.icio.us links.  If you haven't tried del.icio.us, check it out.  I've just started myself.  It's a much easier way to Organize your links than the typical browser bookmarking.  Mainly because you can assign tags, AND you can add notes as to why you bookmarked it in the first place.  This allows you to file a single bookmark under multiple categories.  I LOVE THIS!  I'm all about making it easier to find what you're looking for.  The bookmark (Favorites) filing structure in Explorer and Firefox requires you to put your Bookmarks in a single folder.
  
  The concept of tagging files to organize them is an amazing tool.  I can't wait till we figure out how to do that with paper files!  Another tool that uses tags is flickr .  It allows you to upload your photos and tag them.  It's really awesome.  The only problem I have with flickr right now is that I can't control the order that photos appear in a set.  There may be a hack for that, but I haven't learned it yet.  Feel free to leave me a comment if you know how to do this.

(tags: blog hacks bloghacks)

• Micro Persuasion: Ten Blogging Hacks  If you are a blogger or hope to be, these are some great tips on using del.icio.us and other tools to really take blogging to a whole new level.  I don't have the time to implement all of these.  But there are few I really like.  Like for example, I'm going to experiment with having my del.icio.us links post here daily - automatically.  I think it will be a great way to not only track my best finds on the web and blogosphere but also to share them with you.
  (tags: bloghacks blog)

TYPEPAD PERFORMANCE ISSUES

Dear visitor,

You are probably noticing problems with this blog.  Typepad hosting servers crashed and we were down an entire weekend.  they are attempting to restore all data.  I'm so sorry for this.   Don't worry, we are considering moving the blog to a new reliable host, but in the spirit of the season, we're going to give them another chance.  Just keep http://blog.neatandsimple.com bookmarked.  That will NOT change even if we change hosts.  Thanks for understanding.

Seek and Ye Shall Find: Top Ten Alternative Search Engines - Lifehacker

If you are tired of the irrelevant results you often get on the well-known search engines, Lifehacker.com has posted a great review of 10 Niche Search Engines.  So if you are looking for a job, a recipe, images, or just unique & different approaches to searching, check out this article:

Link: Seek and Ye Shall Find: Top Ten Alternative Search Engines - Lifehacker.

Goodbye Blogger, Hello Typepad!

I think I may have killed Blogger.  Maybe I was posting too often?  Was it because I publishing via FTP?  (I do have a way of multitasking that often results in crashes and reboots.)   Maybe it was just the Blogger version of the dreaded"blue screen of death".  I don't know..but one day -December 1st to be exact - I went to post...and my blog simply wouldn't publish.   Neither would my other 2 blogs.  Alan & I tried everything, even writing every day to the support email address.  Ha, Blogger can't even spell support.  No replys.  No nothing.  Just 3 dead blogs on my hands. I think maybe the whole account / file became corrupted. 

So there I was - out in the blogosphere, effectively gagged and bound, with no one to help me and no way to tell my readers what was going on.  So here I am at Typepad.  After researching alternatives to Blogger till my head was about to explode - I opted to go with a paid service in hopes that I'll get some actual support.  But I am bummed that I can no longer post via FTP to my own webhost.  I was really moving up in the Google, Yahoo and MSN ranks thanks to all the content on my site. 

Now I'm trying to learn a whole new way of blogging and figure out how I'm going to get my dead Blogger blog to reappear here.  I suppose I'm lucky it happened after 3 months of blogging and not a year.  And, I do still have my content.  Maybe it was just time to grow up and get a serious blog!  I actually can't wait to have CATERGORIES!  Maybe I don't need multiple blogs after all.   Being a professional organizer and writer, I love the concept of CATEGORIES!!!!  I'm all about designing information to be easy to access and navigate.  : )

  Here's to Typepad!