#6 Volunteer at a Food Bank – For many people this is a season of giving and yet many more have little to give. If you have often wanted to volunteer at your local food bank, consider giving them a call and slotting in over the holidays.
# 5 Decorate a Gingerbread House with your children – No children? Why not buy a kit and invite your nieces/nephews or the neighbours to come and help you decorate it.
Welcome to the Winter Solstice. Happy First Day of Winter. Now the days in the northern hemisphere get longer – yeah! Sorry to the folks down under who will now start to get less daylight each day.
To our friends honouring their Jewish faith, Happy Hanukkuh.
Author Archive for Carolyn – Page 24
For many people, today is the last day in the office before a couple of weeks vacation over the Christmas holidays. For others, the last day may be next week or early January before a relaxing vacation in a hot, sunny locale. (I wish!)
Whichever the case for you, take time today to Plan Your Return! Thirty minutes is all it takes to get a grip on the first day back. You will thank yourself – and who knows, maybe I’ll get a titch of credit – when you return and realize that you already have control over the back log of work and your top priorities. Think how impressed your boss will be!
- Clear out the top of your desk even if it just means sorting into piles so that you know what’s there. Make sure the majority of the top of your desk is a clear work space. You will be able to return to your desk, sit down and breath. Breathing is good.
- Schedule your top priorities for your return. Check your schedule of projects and start a list of activities that will require your attention as soon as you return. Book time for these activities into your calendar. Anticipation is powerful.
- Containerize your mail. If you will be receiving mail into your office while you are away, nothing takes the glow off a sunny memory faster than an overflowing Inbox. Consider a larger container for the duration of your time away from the office. It will help to keep the paper organized before it even gets to you! Containing the clutter keeps you in control.
- Clear the floor under and around your desk. Take home the 12 pairs of shoes (at least 11 of them). Return the dishes to the kitchen. Throw out the garbage and recycling (or leave them at the door for pick up). If necessary, resort to containerizing and stacking the rest to open up the space and free the energy around your desk. Energy is good.
- Check the view from the door. You are going to need an organized, powerful view when you first return in order to get a jump start on those ambitious goals to be organized and exceed your quotas for 2009. Organized is powerful.
Have an awesome vacation.
# 7 Prepare to Write Thank You Notes – The writing of thank you notes for the receipt of gifts, dinners, visits and good gestures is perhaps a dying art. Not only do many of us exist online with communication almost solely through cyberspace, but many of the manners of the previous generation are being lost as quickly as our computer chips speed up and our computer memory expands.
Why not revive this tradition. A handwritten note is a welcome and friendly addition to the usual collection of post holiday bills. To make sure writing thank you notes doesn’t become just another stress, book the time into your calendar. Save the space in your schedule. Keep a short list of gifts or events for which you would like to write a thank you and check your note card supply. Last but not least, remember to keep your contact/address list handy.
#8 Clear out Kids’ Toys – There will be more toys arriving in a week’s time. Why not get a jump start on your organization before they do?
Give your children each a box appropriate to their size and age. Tell them they have 10 minutes to fill the box with toys that they no longer play with, may have outgrown or do not like.
Ten minutes later you could all make a trip to a local charity office to donate the toys. (Depending on your space for storage you may want to save them for a garage sale in May or a toy box for younger sibings.)
With the toys reduced, you will have an opportunity to review if the toys storage for your children is still appropriate for their age. If you have children moving from toddlers to preschool age, do you have shallow bins on the floor for them to access their toys? If you have school age children, have you moved from the shallow bins for preschoolers to sorting bins? Sorting and patterning is one of the first task children master in school. They can do the same thing at home sorting toys into difference coloured bins for pre-readers and labelled bins/boxes for the older children.
Clearing out a client’s office with them, particularly offices with lots of paper, can be an illuminating experience. Not so much for me, but for the clients.
Typically at the end of the day, we end up with several bags or boxes of recycling mostly paper. There are usually another couple of bags or boxes of garbage. Finally, there is an inevitable collection of material that belongs to other people in the company and will be distributed accordingly or taken to a supply/equipment/archive store room. The end result is a calm and organized work space the even feels more productive, 4 – 6 bags of recycling and garbage in the hallway and a stack of stuff that is doesn’t belong in the client’s office.
When clients are confronted with the debris in the hallway, the illumination begins; “I can’t believe I was so stressed about so much stuff that turned out to be not worth keeping or not even belonging to me!” Bingo.
Take a look around your office. Cluttered? Messy? Paper got you stressed?
I highly recommend a clear out and overhaul. You may be surprised at how much stress you are spending on garbage.
Memory filling up? How many emails in your Sent File?
Try the 15 minutes a day trick. Spend just 15 minutes a day clearing out old, no longer needed files off your computer. You’d be amazed at how many you can clear out in 15 minutes. I’m up to about 250. Multiply that times 5 days a week and you’ve cleared out 1250. That will give your memory some breathing space!
It’s also easier if you switch up the way you sort your files. If you usually sort by name, try sorting by date, by size or, in the case of email, by sender. Changing up the sort helps change your perspective and facilitates the decision making to keep or discard.
…Because not everyone celebrates Christmas. Many thanks to Lisa Brisbois from The Wisdom Practice who helped me out with today’s post.
If you are celebrating Hanukkah you may have already used some of the planning tips in our countdown to December 25. Your countdown is ending sooner though as Hanukkah starts this year December 21 at sunset and lasts 8 days to December 29 at sunset. Lisa offered these tips to get organized.
- Send Hannukah cards to family and friends.
- Decide who’s doing the family Hanukkah party this year. How many people are coming?
- Buy the fixings to make latkes for the party.
- Check your box of December decorations if you have one: is the dreidl set for the kids to play with still there? Do you need to get a new one?
- Dig out the Mennorah and check your Candle supply for it.
- Buy Hannukah gelt to give away or enjoy for yourself!
- Find your family’s copy of the story of Hannukah so you can read it to your kids and remind them of the Maccabees and the miracle of light.
- Buy eight small appropriate gifts for your kids, one for each day of Hanukkah.
I have written a couple of times recently on the importance of establishing hot files in your office or work area, (see Hot, Hot, Hot, The Disappearing Desk). One question which consistently surfaces when working with clients, is “what is the optimal place for the hot files?”
The answer? There isn’t one; the location of the hot files really depends on how you function in your office. The best location will depend on your organizing personality, the nature of your work and the space you have available. Here are some examples in no particular order:
- In a vertical file holder on your desk. Works well if you have the space on your desk, your need to see the files right in front of you.
- In the top drawer of your filing cabinet. Works well if you have the file space, you require visual calm in your office, you don’t need the visual cues to remember what’s there.
- In a vertical file holder on your credenza (table). Works well if you have the space on a credenza or table, you need visual cues to remember what’s in them.
- In the file drawer on the right/left pedestal of your desk. Works well if you require visual calm, have the space in the drawer, are in and out of the files freqently during the day, don’t need them right in front of you to remember what’s in them.
The month of December is a challenging one for many people. As an organizer and blogger, I offer my clients and readers suggestions for easing the burden of multiple commitments and a fast paced society by organizing space,time and “stuff”.
Laura over at OrgJunkie has reminded us all that it is important from time to time to sit back, take stock and remind ourselves of what is really important in our lives at the end of the day. I commend you to her post When You’re Not Enough from December 9.
I hope that my posts would never lead you to feel that you are not doing enough in your life. If you are spending time on your top priorities, then clear the rest of the clutter and give yourself breathing space to do a great job at it. If your are wondering why you are doing what you are doing, then step back and take stock. What really is important? Enjoy putting your time and energy into that.
Whether you are small or large business, if you run the show it is important to know where you are going. Here’s an interesting and easy read over on SOHO Blog that will get you thinking.
Banish those procrastination gremlins!
Conquer Procrastination Cheat Sheet
Struggling with procrastination gremlins? Grab your free copy of Conquering Procrastination Cheat Sheet: 4 Procrastination Gremlins and the Tricks to Beat Them.
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Website by Janet Barclay