Getting Organized! Tips to Live With

July 24, 2007 at 2:45 am (Blogroll, home organization, organizing information, organizing space)

Life can be so overwhelming with everything that we as business men and women have to do.  We leave home in the morning, travel to work, work all day without a break too many times.  We leave work and travel back home to find the mess we left in the morning still there, waiting for us to come home to it. 

This blog is specifically set to give tips for those of us who need focus.  Focus on how to get everything done without giving up more than an hour a day to staying organized in any one area of our busy lives.

So, let’s begin:

1.   Life began with the egg right? hmmm, not so said Mother Hen!   No matter what you believe, hen or egg, I believe that every day begins better if you take time to eat a well – balanced breakfast.  But you say you don’t have time to eat.  Yet you are packing several more pounds than you did several months or years ago!  I totally understand.  After working a midnight shift for several years I do so understand.

       However, the trick is that if you put good stuff in (whether food or knowledge) good stuff is bound to come out!  In how you approach the rest of your day, how much energy you have and how well you deal with others.

2.   Keep a planner or calendar.  Hmmm, so you use a PDA?  If you keep your appointments in it then it’s a planner.  I personally use several kinds, but mainly an online program called Plaxo that sync’s with my Outlook and a paper planner that I carry everywhere.  This way if something happens to one or the other then I definitely have a backup.  With Plaxo I can access my calendar online from anywhere and any computer.  Know this one thing.  If you do not schedule time into your schedule for yourself, or your household duties, the kid’s camping trip, etc., then it is likely to cause those guilt feelings to build until you burst!  Make time for yourself and your family!  3.  Simplify.  This is the most beautiful word in the English or any language for that matter.  Life becomes complicated and bogged down.  If you would try to minimize, simplify what you are doing you would find a few extra minutes here and there that could build into hours.  Minimizing the steps you take when completing  your work is called STREAMLINING.  This is a method of simplifying your work steps so that they are less complicated.

Well try these 3 things this week and see how it goes.

To summarize:

1.  Eat a wholesome, nutritious breakfast to give you the energy to get through your day.

2. Schedule time for yourself and your family!  They will love you for it.

3. Simplify your work methods and your life in general.  Your stress levels will go down!  Your heart will love you for it.

Well, until next time!  Keep on organizing! 

Denise

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Opportunities

July 6, 2007 at 10:18 pm (Blogroll)

It’s Friday again!  You know everyone who works weekends ought to be shot!  No, really!  Well, not really and I do have to work tomorrow, so a short week due to the holiday is not happening! 

Today, I’d like to tell you what happened this week.  I have been given an opportunity that makes me giggle.  I was called on by a magazine article writer (whom I am assuming is freelance, but maybe not).  She is doing an article on high-end closet organization.  So she asks me if I’d be willing to be interviewed about the subject.  Well, being the person that I am, I got very excited about the prospect of free advertising!  Every little bit helps, right?  So I said yes.  She then stated that it included a 3 picture spread.  My brain started churning.  I am the type of person that doesn’t lie well, and to tell the truth meant that I needed to tell her that (in my estimation, while I have done quite a few closets) only one of my clients truly had a High-End closet.  I told her that I would call the client and see if they were willing to open their home for me and the photographer, plus the writer to come for a short visit.

God bless my client!  Truly, she is one of a kind.  She said yes!  So I told her I would come by Tuesday afternoon and help her spruce up (a Tune Up) and then we could come by on Wednesday afternoon for the photos.

I wanted to share this with all of you.  Wish me luck!  God is looking after me in this venture of mine.  And I am truly thankful for His persistence in helping me to succeed.

Enough for now!  Keep me in your thoughts as I very nervously go into the interview on Wednesday.

Denise 

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So You Want To Get Organized?

July 4, 2007 at 2:40 am (Blogroll)

Getting Organized!

So you think being organized is like T.V.?

Organizing Consultants can quickly disabuse you of that idea. Too many times people decide they have outgrown their homes or offices and look for a quick fix. They decide to call and try to hire a professional to come in and reorganize, de-clutter and generally do it for the owner.

The problem with this outlook is that while yes the job gets done, in a few weeks or months the place needs redoing. It is just as cluttered or messy as it was before.

Learning the tricks to getting and staying organized can help you in all facets of your home and work lives.
1. Make a list of every room.
2. Take a picture of that room the way it currently looks.
3. Start with surfaces. Go through every pile of papers, and make several piles.
4. Sort the piles into throw away (or have a trash can there and toss it immediately), keep to be filed (like insurance papers) and the immediate action pile (bills to be paid).

5. Then go through, if you have decided to redecorate or change the look of your home or office and de-clutter it by removing the dust collectors. If you have pictures, knick-knacks, general clutter that has no true home, decide if you are in love with the piece, and if you are find it a permanent home. If you are not, recycle it.

6. Once the surfaces are clear and you have found a home for every loose item on these surfaces, look to the pathways through your home or office. Is anything blocking them? Does it have a home? Say your vacuum cleaner just won’t fit into the closet the way it used to! So okay, we know the closet needs to be de-cluttered also. You know, those coats you never wear, the galoshes or other shoes that never get worn, but you just hate to part with something that “might” be useful…go through these and pass them onto someone who truly needs what you have an abundance of. And wow, you actually have room for the vacuum cleaner again and now space to walk.

These are some ideas that could get you motivated to having a more organized home or office. Just remember that if you don’t take care of it today, then tomorrow it will be twice as cluttered, twice the aggravation of looking at the mess and that aggravation can be stopped and once stopped you can then learn that by taking a few minutes every day to take care of the filing, putting the bills into a bill organizer, putting your shoes in the closet instead on the living room floor that you can have an organized and neat home or office.

That’s all for now! I hope this has helped you to want to get started and Get Organized Now!

Learn more about this author, Denise Russos.

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