simply-org.com Blog

I was looking at a Storage magazine last week with its beautiful photos of nearly perfect rooms, drawers and shelves. The “organizing ideas” weren’t terribly brilliant or innovative which is fine. Many of the best ideas are the simplest. But here is what really caught my eye. The photos are so attractive because there is no clutter, no excess. The rooms had the right amount of stuff.

So my tip this week is to focus your goals not so much on “getting organized”, but on CLEARING THE CLUTTER. That is the root of getting organized.

Ask yourself these questions:

* Do you really need so much stuff to live a happy and fulfilling life?
* Do these things really make you happy or do they hold you back?

Prepare yourself to shift your point of view and get ready to clear some clutter.

If this is really difficult (and it can be) consider getting an organizing buddy who can help you see what is going on.

“I want to get Organized” is too broad and unachievable. Here’s what I suggest if you really want to make a change.

I start every new client meeting with two very important steps. We review the current state of things for what is working and what is not, which then leads us to DEFINE THE GOALS. The goals are very clear, measurable, straight forward, and have an end date. We write them down and post them where they can be seen: the refrigerator, bulletin board, computer notes….

Here are some examples to help you plan your own personal goals:

* I want to be able to find the insurance paperwork quickly and without stress by February.
* I want to be able to see my clothes clearly so that I can get dressed more quickly in the morning before my big vacation in March.
* I want to set up my pantry and kitchen this weekend so ingredients and tools are easily available to make nutritious meals for my family.
* I want to clear the dining room table and have a system in place so the clutter (mail) does not come back. We will eat our meals at that table starting next month.
Go ahead and set your own goals.

Service Provider of the Week
Scott Halbrook, Agent, Farmers Insurance

* When is the last time you did a thorough review of your home, life and auto insurance?
* Do you know, like and trust your insurance agent such that you actually look forward to seeing him/her?

I want to introduce you to Scott Halbrook of Farmer’s Insurance. Scott is local to Montclair. He’s your neighbor and friend who wants to do the best for you. If it has been a long time since you had a review or you barely even know your agent, take the pain out of the process and give Scott a call. He will come to your home or office and take good care of you. And you will make a new friend. I constantly recommend Scott to my clients and he is my agent too.

scott@halbrookinsuranceagency.com

510-531-1432

What are you really looking for when you say you want to get organized? Generally the answer boils down to three things:

Being Organized is having the Right Amount of Stuff, put away in a manner that you can find it later.
(I love this sentence)

1. Right amount: What is the right amount? There is no one answer to this. It is the right amount for you and you only. But start de-cluttering and you will be surprised that it is likely less than you first thought.
2. Put away…once again it is a “Place for Everything and Everything in its place.” Save this step for AFTER you get to the right amount.
3. So you can find it later. At the end of the day the only reason you need some tax related documentation is in case the IRS calls for an audit. Put it AWAY, and I mean away, with that in mind. Make sure it is clearly labeled.
The only reason you need more paper clips is for when you use up the few you keep at your desk. Put it AWAY with that in mind…get the picture? AWAY is the key word.

These three elements, when executed, will give you the space you crave….give it a try.

You have made the decision to de-clutter and get control over your things and your space. That is a great start.
But now the practical part comes into play and you are wondering how to actually get started.

1. Stop talking about it: All my clients want to talk, talk, talk. And nothing gets done.
2. Grab the first thing in front of you. The top thing, anything.
3. Make a decision if you need it, love it, want it, use it. Does it stay or go.
4. Don’t worry about where it will go if it is a “keep” item. This is called a rough sort and the decision is ONLY keep or go…not where. That comes later.
5. Have a recycling bag, donate bag and shred bag available.

This Rough Sort is the first step to get you going.
Are you having a really tough time making these initial decisions? Consider getting an organizing buddy. This can be a friend or relative who will be patient and will support you. If an outside third party might be less emotional and a less judgmental situation, consider hiring a Professional Organizer. Was that a shameless plug? Not really. An Organizing Buddy is a great idea, but sometimes it is to hard with someone you know.

POWER DE-CLUTTERING

For the fun of it…here are my favorite organizing tools.

Did we ever anticipate the amount of email that we would be sending and receiving when it first started? No way. The fact is the “office” has changed from a place to any-place as the internet and email are available anywhere, anytime. The messages keep coming at us and we keep responding, or letting it pile up, or getting stressed out.

It is interesting to see the major time management gurus beginning to address this shift in our culture. I will share that the core principles of time management still apply even with this explosion of messaging.

Stop reading email as it comes in.

Instead read it periodically.

Scattered email reading is really a time waster. There is tons of research on multi-tasking and interruptions which show over and over that interruptions take up to 10 minutes to recover. So imagine you are concentrating on something and also constantly flipping to your email, responding, filing, deleting, forwarding and more. The time it takes to go back to your original project and get your head back into that space can be anywhere from a few minutes to 10. Ouch, that is a lot of wasted time.

• Set up specific times to read email and communicate to others those times so that you manage their expectations as far as your response time.

• Respond quickly that have a simple and quick response.

• Leave the rest in either your in-box or folders you have set up for later When you have time to “do the work” to respond.

• Delete when you are done, or file it away. In other words, clean up your in-box often.

Are you having trouble finding basic things in your home or office? Are you wasting countless minutes looking, looking, looking?

There are a few things that come up over and over with my new clients. One of those basic things is that there is no “home” for things.

“A place for everything and everything in its place”

We have all heard this quote before, but do you practice it in your life?

Here’s an example. I was recently in a house where basic things did not have a home. Supplies for hobbies were in multiple rooms. Sports equipment was in the car, hall closet, and several places in the garage. Mail piles were all over the house.

The first thing this family had to do was to collect things together: all the scrapbooking supplies, sports equipment, mail, photos, etc. The technical term for this is Sort. (OK, you can chuckle at the phrase “technical term”).

The second key was to cull down the amount of stuff in each category.

Third, and very important, is to Assign a Home to each category of things. So the Scrapbooking supplies all went into the home office, the sports equipment in the garage and the mail has a station at the kitchen desk.

Have you assigned a home to things in your house? Take time this week to start working on this. Choose something that you are constantly searching for and losing time.   Start by pulling everything together and assigning a specific home to it. If you are constantly losing the keys, have one specific place where you drop the keys. Always leave them there, and always find them there.

What’s the thing that you need to assign to a home?

You have completed the “rough sort” and got rid of the junk, and you sorted your big pile into smaller ones.

Third Step: Breakdown your categories and set up files

Take the piles from last week’s first sort and start breaking them down to smaller groups. The financial pile now becomes your individual banks, credit cards, investments, etc.

(What about those papers that don’t fall into obvious categories? Make one pile personal items and deal with those later. This might include magazine articles for day trips, an item you might want to buy, a hairstyle you want to show your stylist, information about different counter top materials…you get the picture. We are focusing on financial papers right now. We will come back to these personal papers later….)

Next week we are going to make file folders and put them in a place that makes sense (not the kitchen table or the floor)

Here are a few good links to help you with your tax preparation.

selftax.com online tax preparation from FREE….
Dennis Middleton CPA If you are looking for a CPA to help you with your taxes, I recommend Dennis.