Are you still fussing with liquids and containers when travelling? Have you invested yet in the travel size containers for your business travel kit? Make the commitment. They are widely available in a variety of price points. Do yourself a favour and pick up a package.
They usually come with several bottles and a couple of jars, all measured to meet international travel requirements. I have found them available at Canadian Tire Corporation and the Solutions Store. They fit perfectly and without fuss into most travel kits – even for those of us who don’t travel as much!
Author Archive for Carolyn – Page 20
This is a follow up post from the recent Where is Everything item.
Many of my clients, friends, family and acquaintances struggle with paper. It’s everywhere despite our best attempts to go electronic. Organizing paper is probably the number one frustration of almost all my clients.
One of the paper challenges are receipts coming into the household that many of us keep to maintain our household accounts. Some of us have jars, boxes, baskets or folders to keep these daily deluge of little, bitty, annoying pieces of paper called receipts. If you are checking off your credit card bills to ensure all expenses are your own and legitimate then you have a collection of these receipts.
There are many possible solutions but here is one that most of my clients find helpful. Find an expandable file folder – plastic is best – with 13 divisions. They are readily available in a variety of price points at Staples, Grand and Toy and many other office suppliers. Try the local dollar store. Label the divisions by month and then the 13th for miscellaneous.
Presto. You have a place to put those annoying pieces of paper and you don’t even have to sort them. When the credit card bill comes in, pull out the folder, check of the receipts. Now if, necessary, you keep the receipts, already organized by month. If not – shred.
It seems more than a few people are becoming concerned, and now willing to discuss, the very real concern that is a shopping addiction. This recent Chatelaine article on Shopaholics, by Rebecca Caldwell (no known relation), is a healthy discussion on how this addiction looks in real life.
It’s the end of the first week in February – have you turned over your year end yet?
Are you still mixing 2008 invoices/receipts with the new 2009 items?
Have you collected your 2008 documentation for year end reports and income tax preparation?
Do you have a designated location for your 2009 invoices/receipts i.e. e file/folder, paper file, folder, envelop or even a plastic bin?
Have you opened up a new file/folder for February 2009 so that January 2009 can be easily identified/located/sorted/recorded ___________ (fill in your own blank).
How much does your small business/home-based business pay in bookkeeping fees?
Would a little more organization reduce that for you?
What could you reinvest in your business with the proceeds?
It’s the end of the first week in February – do you know where your due bills are?
Do you pay your bills when they first come in the door?
Do you have a designated place to store them until they are due?
Are your due bills all in one room?
Can you find those bills when you go to pay them?
Is the designated place close to your bill-paying method: computer; cheque book and stamps?
Is the designated place easily accessible when you go to pay your bills?
Are the bills identified with the date that they are due?
How much do you pay in overdue bill fees? Would that help pay down your mortgage?
Have you scheduled your semi-annual clear out day yet? When was the last one?
Book a day or half day, order the pizza and insist that your staff commit to be present for the clear out. This is a very effective tool to ensure your offices do not become a cluttered, unprofessional place that causes you to cringe when clients come knocking!
Has your high school student just finished first term? Is his/her home workspace cluttered with the remnants of first term study?
Do everyone a favour, especially your student, and help them purge out the first term to make room for second term. The longer you leave the remnant clutter hanging around, the less likely it is to be sorted and purged before chaos sets in. Help your student sort through the notes for relevant material to keep such as key assignments and throw out the rest.
Helping students purge on a timely basis helps them learn sorting and prioritizing skills for their “office” before material becomes clutter. In addition, you will be teaching them the value of a clear, uncluttered space. They will be able to focus on the task at hand (second term’s material).
You’ll both feel better.
Excuses for Disorganization
Over on Caldwell Evolution Blog, I periodically post on the Top 5 Series. While they generally address the small business or home office organizing issues, I felt this particular post would be of interest to my residential readership as well. Do these excuses sound familiar? Maybe some help from a professional organizer would be a good idea!
1 “I don’t have time to worry about tidy piles of paper“.
You don’t, however, mind asking everyone else to wait while to try and find whatever it is you are all looking for?
2 “I don’t need to be more organized; I can find anything I want in my office“.
Except that it takes you three hours to find a single piece of paper or file folder and meanwhile, everyone else is held up.
3 “I’m not disorganized, I just like to keep things in case I might need them, someday“.
Meanwhile you pay for a storage unit that you haven’t accessed for months or years (would that money help pay off the mortgage?) You have rooms you can’t use due to the clutter and boxes covered in dust i.e. they haven’t been touched in years.
4 “I am actually very organized. I know exactly where everything is“.
Have you noticed you are chronically late for appointments, submitting school forms, paying your bills (and therefore wasting money on late fees) and rushing for completion of tasks at the last minute. You think you’re organized? Have you asked your family or friends recently?
5 “I have my own style of organization. No one else would understand it“.
You might be correct – no one else can find anything in your home either. Some professional organizers are specifically trained to understand your particulary style of organizing, and help you to make it work for your life.
Are you children learning their organizing habits from you? Is this a good thing? Would you like them to live with the harried existence that you live?
Think about it.
Have you got a big project underway at home that is getting the better of you? Is your organization falling apart as this project mushrooms all over the house?
Take a tip from the design world to help get a big project under control. Find a container big enough to hold all the bits and pieces and put the whole project into the container.
- For a child’s school bristol board project a clear garbage bag may do the trick. Use a clear one so that they remember what’s inside and so that it doesn’t end up in the garbage by accident.
- For a sewing or craft project consider a box with a lid. The lid will keep the dust, cat and prying hands away.
- For a project with odd shaped items, consider a basket, laundry hamper or other flexible container to accommodate the odd shapes.
When the project is finished the container can be used for the next project or repurposed elsewhere in the house – the laundry perhaps!
Q I had cleared most of my desk and office and was enjoying being able to see the desk and find things again. Then we had to put a rush on a project and now, two week later, I feel like I am back where I started. In a mess! Is this normal? Will life ever be different?
A In a word, Yes and Yes. Backsliding is a normal part of trying to improve one’s level of organization and, for most people, periods of disorganization are a pretty normal part of life. The difference between the generally organized person and the generally disorganized person is there ability to respond and return to a higher level of organization when the flurry dies down. Try these tips to stay on track and return to the track when you feel derailed.
- If you have a large project on the go, take a tip from the designers and find a container to hold all the project material. If it is paper and the project is too big for a file folder or box folder, get a box, basket, bag or anything else that suits your office and the project. Using a single container will ensure that all the pieces of the project stay together and that the project itself doesn’t spread across all your other work. At the end of each day, commit to putting all the project pieces back into its container.
- If you find yourself backsliding, remember that this is a normal part of progressing in organization. Its ok, you’re ok. Avoid beating yourself up. Focus instead on how much you enjoyed being more organized and how much you look forward to catching up again. Renew you commitment to yourself to greater organization and move on.
- Clear off your desk – even if you have to put everything into a big back to do it. A clear desk will help you think more clearly, breath better and generally function at a higher level.
- Break down the problem into small, chewable chunks and pick one chunk at a time to work on. If necessary, spend 15 to 30 minutes a day sorting through the paper, regrouping the projects back into their files or containers. You may find that asking a friend or colleague to help will get the job done faster. Try offering to swap organizing time.
Tags : Backsliding, mess
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