In our last office we discovered that hanging a mirror helped us stay organized. Not only did it let us check our appearance, but it also doubled as a dry-erase surface for keeping a running to-do list — and even for leaving welcome messages when that room hosted friends and family.
After we moved, I missed that small organizational corner, so I started taping a tiny piece of paper on the wall with a short list of tasks. That little note soon multiplied into two lists on either side of the large doorway: the left side labeled “Posts To Write” and the right side labeled “Projects To Do.” With a long master list of house tasks (we have hundreds of ideas), narrowing down the next ten-ish items helps us focus, prioritize, and gather the supplies we’ll need. It also helps prevent the odd situation where we finish a project and immediately move on without blogging about it — which happens more often than you’d think. Keeping track of completed projects that still need posts keeps our blogging lag time short and our sanity intact.
Not having an erasable surface was hurting our update frequency. For example, “limb up the magnolia” was still on the list even though I had already taken care of the tree weeks earlier. Oops.
So I rummaged through the playroom — which conveniently becomes the catch-all for baskets, bedding, extra frames, and mirrors — and found two semi-matching mirrors. I asked John to hang them up. I’ll admit I outsourced the hanging (nursing the baby is an excellent reason to delegate) and supervised comfortably from the big green sofa while he worked.
The result: two usable dry-erase boards for our “Projects To Do” and “Posts To Write” lists. They’re not perfectly matched, but they look much better than the faded notebook pages we’d taped to the wall. (Yes, I pushed the dining chairs against the wall to vacuum and never put them back — long live lazy short-term solutions.)
That photo above shows an idealized version of our lists — what they’d look like if we ever completed everything on our to-do list. Dream scenario.
Here’s what they actually look like with all the projects and posts currently on our plates:
Notice the blue dry-erase marker tucked into the top of the right-hand mirror — the frame is deep enough to hold it. Someday we may track down a closer match so the mirrors balance better visually, but for now they do the job. The key improvement is being able to erase and update our lists instantly. Crossing items off a list is satisfying in any format, but doing it on a smooth dry-erase surface feels especially good — quick, neat, and endlessly reusable. That small change has already made keeping up with projects and posts simpler and more enjoyable.