#148: How We Keep The Lives & Projects Organized

People are consistently asking how we keep our projects and our household organized (“do you make lists? use an app?! assist me!”) so today we are outlining the three tools that we use every day. Some are digital, some are old school, but the most essential part is that they assist to keep us on the same page (sometimes literally) about our projects, purchases, and more. We are also sharing the near completion of a long overdue outdoor update that nearly sent one of us over the edge… of the roof. Also, could it be true that some people do not have a de facto “side of the bed” every night? WHAT?! We have questions.

You can also find this episode on your go-to podcast listening app, like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Spotify.

What is New

• That is only the primer going on in the photo above, but it gives you a sense of where our little shed “makeover” is headed now that we are at last painting it to match our painted brick house.
• We considered spraying it, but ultimately chose it’d be more straightforward to hand paint it with a brush and high-nap roller (since the siding is fairly textured). Even with the time it took to brush into each groove of the siding, we are not convinced spraying would’ve been much faster since there would’ve been a lot to tape off & tarp.
• We have still gotta get the doors painted (they’ll end up being Ben Moore’s Tranquility to match the exterior doors all around the house’s exterior) and we have some window boxes on order too. Ever since the beach house shed got one we have been itching to add them here because everything survived!

• And if you want to see a photo taken about 60 seconds before I heard the buzzing of the wasps living under that dormer’s eave, here you go. This is when Sherry said it looked like I was simply sleeping up there. Note: this is simply primer on the shed, hence it looking oddly cool/blue

• Cannot wait to paint the doors, hang the window boxes, and share wrapped up photos. Soon I hope!

Can We Simply Talk About Sides Of The Bed?

• Here is a strong summary article on Apartment Therapy of the “uproar” over the idea that some people do not have a designated side of the bed each night. Some of the Twitter reactions are hilarious!

• And of course, now we have to get your take on the issue with the survey below:

Listener Question: Keeping Life Organized

• I found Sherry’s new planner online in case you are interested. It is this 18-month planner (so July 2019 – Dec 2020) and she picked up it from a small bookstore in the “Honey Bee” pattern seen on the far left (there are a few other covers available too).

• Sherry was drawn to it because of the plain checkmark list formatting inside that she hopes encourages her to “respect the lines” and keep things short & sweet. So far so good. Plus, it is pleasant to be able to literally check something off when you are done.

• We also talked about using our Amazon Alexa to keep shopping lists up to date. We have an Echo in our kitchen (our version is no longer sold, so that is the new model that is releasing in 2 weeks) and some Echo Dots in other corners of the house (again, I linked the new model). We enjoy adding things to our shopping list hands-free (simply with our voice) from a few distinct spots in the house (sometimes you think of something upstairs for example). Then while we are in the store we can simply reference and check things off from the Alexa app on our phones.
• We also talked about using shared Google Docs to keep specific projects organized, which was especially helpful during the beach house and duplex renovations (they required us to be truly organized before each trip out there). Below is a sample of what those sorts of documents might look like in the middle of a project:

• We also mentioned Trello a couple of times, so if you are curious to check it out there is the link. It is a fairly cool tool, but we never got in the habit of using it after using it jointly with our publisher on one of our books.

We are Digging

• That is our bedroom above where we lately moved some furniture around so that we could lean that large arched mirror on that dresser on the right to mimic the placement of a window that we’d enjoy to add someday.
• And below are some other mirrors that could do the same trick of being large like a window and reflecting some light around too (especially if you strategically place them where your eye wants to see a window – check out the symmetry that ours creates in our bedroom): 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

• If you want some good historical non-fiction reading, I Enjoyed Dead Wake by Erik Larsson about the sinking of the Lusitania, and it makes me want to re-read his other more popular title: Devil In The White City.
• And as you heard in the outro, tomorrow (October 1st) kicks off Aquatober (for me) and Walktober (for Sherry). The former being my month-long commitment to drinking only water to reset my soda habit, and the latter being Sherry’s effort to walk more each day than she normally would (even simply an extra 10 or 20 minutes).
• Also, if you did not get the Terri Sloppins reference in the outtake, here is where you can watch the whole thing on @latenotes Instagram stories (it kicks in about 6 or 7 slides in). And here is another one for the Harry Potter fans out there.

If you are looking for something we have dug in a past episode, but do not remember which show notes to click into, here is a master list of everything we have been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we have recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Grove Collaborative for sponsoring this episode. You can sign up at Grove.co/YHL and get a FREE 5-piece Mrs. Meyers cleaning set, a 60-day VIP membership, and free shipping on your first order.

Thanks for listening, folks!

*This post contains affiliate links*