simply-org.com Blog

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

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.

Last week you completed the “rough sort” and got rid of the junk. If you still have questions of what can be tossed, see the IRS link below.

Second Step: Sort Like with Like

*Take that big pile from your quick “rough sort” and start to break it down.

*Use BIG categories like insurance, auto, financial, medical.

*Don’t get hung up on smaller categories and the specifics (yet). Those will come later.

Most likely you will have several types of insurances, but for right now celebrate the fact that you got all the insurance paper in one place. The same is true with financial: banks, credit cards, investments, etc.

Next week we will move to step three: setting up files

Incredibly useful links for Tax Preparation

Click on these links below for useful information for tax preparation.
Self Tax.com This site has FREE through very inexpensive online tax prep.
Dennis Middleton CPA.com If you are looking for a CPA to help you with your taxes, I recommend Dennis.
IRS.gov IRS guidelines for paper retention Here is the source from the IRS.

Tax Paperwork; Where to Start

It may only be February, but it is never too early to start organizing to prepare your taxes.

First Step: get rid of the junk

Wherever you keep your paperwork: the kitchen counter, dining table, home office floor, all of the above…it is time to sort through it and get to the important stuff. Keep in mind a main purpose of getting organized is to find things later. It is really hard to find the important things when they are burried under those that are not important. That is the clutter.

Do a “rough sort”.
1. Quickly start tossing the junk.
2. Pull out catalogs and magazines you will read later.
3. Keep a big pile of everything you are keeping.
Don’t get bogged down with what those things are and where they will go. Just slug through this “rough sort” and get rid of the junk.

What is the Junk?
Third Class mail, any solicitations you did not request, and coupons you will never use.

BONUS: You can see your counter, table or floor and even use it.

Next week we will move to step two.

ID theft is big business and one that you want to avoid. It can take up to a year to recover from ID theft with countless hours of time spent reclaiming yourself. One of the best actions you can take to control your private information is shredding. We are not yet a paperless society, so manage the paper that holds your personal information and protect your ID.

Here is a guideline list of documents and mail that you should shred to protect yourself from ID thieves.

(Use a Cross-cut shredder)

* Any paper that has your Social Security Number.
* Credit, Debit or ATM card Offers which are pre-printed with your name and address.
* Old Credit, Debit and ATM card statements.
* Receipts that show your Credit or Debit card number and your signature.
* Bank Statements
* Old Checks
* Investment Statements
* Old Passports
* Medical Statements
* Tax Returns(except any accountant will tell you to keep all your old tax returns forever)

Thieves are looking for two pieces of information: Social Security Number and your name. Add that to any bank, credit or financial statement and you are toast.

When in doubt, use good judgment and stick it in the shredder.

Here is another tip to help everyone manage their piles of paper….Remember, piles are delayed decisions.

Articles, Magazines, Catalogs, Trade Journals…and more that you want to read

How do you keep up with all the things you want to read? So many of us tear out articles from the newspaper and magazines to read later. But instead of reading them they turn in to piles, clutter and just a plain old mess.

It is too hard to commit to the reading if you can’t find the articles (or remember you saved them).

Keep all the reading material together in the place you are most likely to read it. A basket next to the sofa, a box near the kitchen counter, on your nightstand, a magazine holder in your office.

Commit to reading something everyday. I like to read while I eat lunch or have dinner in the oven.

Make it easy to get rid of the Paper.
Paper comes in to our lives everyday through the mail, work, kids, you name it. Getting control over the paper can start with one simple step.

Be sure to have trash cans in every room…ideally two: one for garbage and one for recycling paper.

Having cans throughout the house or in your office means you are more apt to toss the trash and the paper as soon as you decide that is where it belongs.

I suggest square or rectangular cans because they nest together tighter.