Organising your notebook

This is my colleague's notebook that I've been threatening to blog about for months.

I love the way she organises her notes - hopefully this will work for some of you too.

• She uses yellow post-it flags to highlight pages where there are still outstanding actions. This means she doesn't have to page through the whole notebook to find her place.
• She also writes the client/ product name on those flags to help keep her place.
• When she has a list of personal to-dos, she folds the page in half to help categorise those tasks separately. Can you see the page on the left is folded over?
  

I like to start a new page for each client meeting and for each day's work.

Of course I always use a spiral-bound notebook!

I write down my action items either in the meeting, or at my desk as I take calls or think of things to do. When I've done them, I highlight them in pink so I can still read them but they don't "bother" me anymore.

I don't use my work notebook for personal things unless they have to be done on that particular day, e.g. paying the doctor before I go to my appointments

How do you organise your notebook?

Today we're decluttering and organising office supplies

We're decluttering and organising our home offices this month.

Here are the first 3 challenges:

1. decluttering mail and loose papers
2. that declutter at least 5 books or magazines
3. weed through at least 5 files - I also shared my top 5 filing tips

It's not too late if you didn't get around to any of the challenges - start anywhere with just 15 minutes a day.

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1. Today, we're going to go through our office supplies and toss:

• anything that doesn't work
• dry pens, markers, etc.
• freebies you received that you're not using
• duplicate supplies

If things are in good working order and you just don't have any use for them, put them in a separate box and donate to a local school.

2. Also go around the house and return items to where they belong. If your stapler is in the kitchen for some reason, bring it back to your home office.

Incidentally, I do believe that you should have duplicates of some supplies. I have 6 pairs of scissors and we use all of them - 2 in the study, 1 with the sewing kit, 1 in the kitchen and 1 each in our two bathrooms.

(if you don't want to post on the theme, go right ahead and post on whatever you felt like decluttering this week :)

Are you up for today's decluttering challenge?

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7 easy steps to organise your office MP3 and ebook system will help you get your home office organised and in tip-top shape. By the way, you get this entire system FREE when you sign up for the Virtual Organising Seminar

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This week's challenge

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures and talk about what you decluttered. If you don't have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you decluttered this week.

It can be anything - physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism! :)

What did you declutter this week?

A filing challenge - are you up for it?

We're decluttering and organising our home offices this month.

Last week your challenge was to declutter at least 5 books or magazines. And boy, that wasn't a very popular challenge :)

It's not too late if you didn't get around to it - I just want you to get used to the idea that not everything you ever bought is sacred :) You CAN let go of some of your books.

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Now today, we're going to do something that may be a bit more fun for some of you - weeding through files.

The goal this week is to go through at least 5 files. While you're doing that, ask yourself these four questions:

1. why am I keeping all these papers?
2. what's the worst thing that will happen if I toss it and I need it again?
3. do I really need to keep this?
4. am I keeping it because it's a habit?
5. is this working for me? (a la Dr Phil)
   

(if you don't want to post on the theme, go right ahead and post on whatever you felt like decluttering this week :)

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Here is my contribution for this week...


I have one household file, one for the cars, one for medical and one personal. That's it.

I keep my filing streamlined in these 5 ways:

• I only keep 3 months' worth of most statements, except for our water and electricity (I have everything since we moved into this house) because things go wrong on that account from one month to the next. The Jhb residents understand this all too well :)
• I refuse to expand to more files so the paper is contained to just the 4 mentioned above.
  
• When my files get too full, I take 5 minutes and quickly declutter a couple of sections.
• I really hate filing so I only keep what I absolutely have to keep.
• When I change insurance companies, I get rid of everything from the old company after a month with the new underwriter.
  

So, are you up for today's decluttering challenge?

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7 easy steps to organise your office MP3 and ebook system will help you get your home office organised and in tip-top shape. By the way, you get this entire system FREE when you sign up for the Virtual Organising Seminar on Tuesday 24 Feb.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week's challenge

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures and talk about what you decluttered. If you don't have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you decluttered this week.

It can be anything - physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism! :)

How many files did you declutter this week?

Office Organising Makeover - Week 6 - dealing with obstacles

Anne here.

Confession time: I quit. I am a quitter.

It isn’t any of the self-justifying excuses I could throw out at you, it is just that I quit.

I did Steps 1-4. I had already done step 5 last fall so I limped through that one by just updating and decluttering. And I quit before I got to steps 6 and 7.

I know what you are thinking. What a loser! Way to go Anne!

I know, I know.

And the guilt is killing me.

I am so close to being finished that it is just insane to stop now. But that is how I operate. Oh, I might call it something else, but it is quitting none-the-less.

• I have plastic-canvas coasters that are 45% completed... from Christmas 7 years ago.
  
• I have 20% of a baby blanket started in 2000.
  
• I have thousands of dollars in scrapbook supplies that will *eventually* get mated with photos and stuck into albums.
  
• I have thrown away so much food because I got through 2 days of Freezer cooking and gave up before I got to the chicken day.
  
• I clean the entire kitchen and ignore the crumbs on the table.
  

Yep, I quit a lot.

But that is part of what this is helping me with.... the new system is so easy that I feel stupid for not using it.

And I already identified that it is easy that makes me use things, so what more excuse is there?

Loss of interest?

Could be... but no, I have enjoyed this process.

And you have all been so incredibly supportive.

So I quit quitting.

ANYWAY... I am working beyond belief to catch up and have a post for you all.

I need to share with you how I got off my butt and out of my own rut and completed all 7 steps and blogged about it. (that was a run-on sentence, I am pretty sure about that.)

Look for my final post next week with all the details.

Thanks for understanding!

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Anne's busy working through 7 easy steps to organise your office. If you'd like to check it out, have a read.

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Hi everyone, Marcia here

I love Anne's honesty in this post; don't you?

But more importantly, I want to use this as an organising lesson so we can all benefit.

The truth is that we ALL face obstacles in life when we try to do worthwhile things, whether they're organising projects, getting fit, eating more nutritious food or just improving our relationships.

That's life.

The way to overcome those obstacles is to realise that it's normal and brainstorm ways to navigate those obstacles.

Think about it like this - when you're getting your house painted, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's going to be messy and smelly while you're painting but afterwards, you're going to have a gorgeous, fresh room/house.

In the same way, the road to our dreams always has an obstacle or eleven :)

A couple of ways you can navigate those obstacles is:

1. realise that obstacles happen to everybody - it's not because you're a bad person, lack discipline, etc.
   
2. get some help (if you can) just to get you over the hump - even someone just sitting there and encouraging you is help
   
3. make yourself accountable to someone (I have the utmost faith in Anne and I know she will finish, and she will finish strong, but I do know that part of it is because she's made herself accountable to 600-odd of my blog readers. There's something about that accountability that propels you forward toward your goals)

Now, over to you.

Post about any project you've started where you've encountered obstacles

Oooh, a touchy subject - the book challenge

Remember that we're decluttering and organising our home offices this month. Today your challenge is to declutter at least 5 books or magazines.

When I finish reading a book, I rate it out of 10. If the book is an 8 or higher, I may keep it.

Most of them get recycled to the secondhand bookshop so that my bookshelves always stay neat.


(if you don't want to post on the theme, go right ahead and post on whatever you felt like decluttering :)

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Here is my contribution for this week...

3 packets of 3 books each... I find that they give me more money or credit for the books if there are smaller batches, so I take them back in threes.

Also, if you're wondering about the business card...most times the book buyer isn't there so this way it's easy for them to phone me back and tell me how much they'll give me. I'm all about making things easy!

I leave these packets in my launch pad so I can just grab and go when I run errands.



How many books did you declutter today?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

7 easy steps to organise your office MP3 and ebook system will help you get your home office organised and in tip-top shape. By the way, you get this entire system FREE when you sign up for the Virtual Organising Seminar on Tuesday 24 Feb.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week's challenge

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures and talk about what you decluttered. If you don't have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you decluttered this week.

It can be anything - physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism! :)

How many books did you declutter this week?

Woohooo - it's time to tackle the paper!

This month we'll be decluttering home offices and today we're starting with one of the absolute major organising challenges ever - PAPER.

In fact, a couple of years ago, I asked the readers of this blog what their biggest organising challenges were. The overwhelming response was paper and all things office - email, computer, desk, etc.

And so I wrote 7 easy steps to organise your office which, almost literally, flew off the virtual shelves.

I know it's still the same out there because I get all your emails :)

If you don't yet have the 7 easy steps to organise your office MP3 and ebook system, then read through a couple of the posts below to get some ideas.



Here are the posts...

1. Paper, paper and still more paper
2. Dealing with mail clutter
3. Paper decluttering
4. How I deal with all the paper

(if you don't want to post on the theme, go right ahead and post on whatever you felt like decluttering :)

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Here is my contribution for this week
Before:


Categorising and sorting into the different files



After - aah, the bliss


Now tell me, did you declutter anything today?

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Have a look at the Organise your Home e-course and get your entire home organised in just 12 weeks.

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Now for this week's challenge

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures and talk about what you decluttered. If you don't have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you decluttered this week.

It can be anything - physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism! :)

What did you declutter this week?

Last chance to enter the disorganised office contest

So far I have 4 serious entrants to the competition and other "should I, shouldn't I?" emails.

This is just a courtesy reminder that the disorganised office contest closes at 12PM EST today.

Get your entries in!

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Okay, here's the deal
I'm looking for someone who could use my 7 easy steps to organise your office MP3 and ebook pack.

I will donate a copy to someone free of charge and in exchange, you will guest blog (one post a week for about 4 - 6 weeks, depends how quickly you work through it) as you work through the system and organise your office.

The system covers organising your actual office space, desk, email, computer, etc. so you should have a more organised office than you had when you started :)

It doesn't matter if one or two of your areas are already reasonably under control because even REALLY organised people have used just one or two tips and seen BIG results

This is how you enter

Send me an email to marcia AT organiseyourbusiness.com or leave a comment telling me

if you work at home, work full-time, etc.

which areas of your office need the most help

if you have your own blog (this is not a requirement)

why you want to do this

Entries close at midnight EST tonight (24 Dec).

I'll let the winner know sometime over the weekend and everybody else will get another gift for being brave enough to step up :)

Have you bought your planner yet?

Remember this post from last year where I showed you my planner?

(Incidentally, I need to put a "most popular posts" thing on my blog because that post gets a huge amount of traffic)

Anyway, I started a series of blog posts on the other blog called choose the perfect planner. Read this one and keep checking back. I've planned out about 5 already.

Here is part 1 - paper or electronic?

So have you bought yours yet?

Make it easy to recycle paper

I've always said that if you make something too complicated, it just won't work, no matter how well-intentioned you are.

That's why it's so important to make your systems easy, especially if you live with other people and you want them to live by your organising "rules".

That's true for designing a good flow for laundry in the home and also for recycling paper in the office.

And so this was born:



I used to have one wastepaper basket but found we were less inclined to separate the paper when we cleared the trash.

Who wants to fish around amongst apple cores and other bits of fruit? Certainly not me.

This works beautifully for us.

First of all, I don't generate that much paper to start with but what I do throw away, goes straight into the paper bin. It's much easier now to take the one basket and dump it as is into the paper recycling bag.

Do you recycle paper? If yes, do you use those fancy partitioned recycling bins, or how do you make it easy for your household?

Show me your desk

As promised, here are some pictures of my desk at work. Looking at the pictures it actually looks a lot more cluttered than it feels...

Anyway, some things I want to point out to you:

1. the wall of inspiration on the right under my name (pictures of my hubby, inspirational quotes, scriptures from the Bible, pictures of friends and some SARK cards - my favourite is "you are a delicious, succulent human bean", which fits into my Big, Juicy goals theme)
2. my glass of water
3. my office control journal (in that vertical organiser)
4. minimal paper - only have 3 files and I'm actually cheating because one of them contains my performance appraisals, certificates, etc.
   

Now let's look at my desk head-on:

• computer with picture of Wicklow, Ireland as a screensaver
• in the top left corner, I have my "only four things to do with paper and email" from Help! I need more time
  
• radio and mirror (essentials!)
• to the left of the computer, my "things to do today" papers
• right in front of the keyboard, my master to-do list of all my projects and where they're all at, on top of the notebook where I write my 6 (or less) Eat the Frog items every day, and other assorted notes

For the most part, the desk works for me (although that vertical organiser is taking up too much space - I think I'll "release" it) because it's empty of stuff while still being inspiring to me. I can't work in a cold work space so I like to be surrounded by things that are "me".

If you have any questions about some things in the pics or how I do certain things, put them in the comments so everyone else can also benefit when I answer them. Thanks.

Now for the fun part, show me your desk (please link to a post with a pic of your desk, not to your entire blog)

Organise your computer

• Do you find yourself wasting time looking for files on your computer?
• Do you get frustrated because you just don't know where to start?
• Do you know when and how often to do a back up?
• Has your computer ever crashed and you lost everything?
• Do you know how to organise and contain all those free things you keep downloading off the internet?
• Do you know how to name and store files so they're easy to find?

Everything you EVER wanted to know about organising your computer is now ready for you.

On this 75-minute MP3, you’ll learn:

• Where to start organising your computer
• My DREAM method of organising your computer
• How to keep control of all the audios, PDFs and ebooks you get for free off the internet and how NOT to let it clutter up your hard drive
• Exactly how to label and store your documents and files so you can find them
• How to organise your contacts and all those business cards
• How to cut your computer time in half
• How to organise tasks and projects
• How and when to do a proper, thorough back up of your files and how to know when to do it so you don’t lose your work
• And much, much more

You’ll receive:

1. Recording of the live call as an MP3 audio download
2. Comprehensive handout

Get your copy now for only $37.

August declutter challenge - day 29

Only two days left...

I run Virtual Organising Seminars for people all over the world. Isn't the internet amazing?! During our time together, we organise your desk, get your paper and emails organised and set up a planning and priority system for you.

During the last one, I decluttered paper from about 6 file binders that are now totally empty. I'll repurpose the other files...

but this one is going. For me, filing is the same like carrying handbags - the bigger the file, the more paper you collect. So out it goes. Together with a few odds and ends found around my office space. Which just goes to show, there's always room for improvement, even in an organised office :)

Over this month, what have you decluttered from your office? How much paper has gone?

P.S. The next VOS happens on Tuesday 16 Sept at 12PM EST. Are you joining me?

August declutter challenge - day 19

Tackled my desk and some files. I like a paperless environment because we only ever look at about 20% of papers ever again.

Deleted things off my master to-do list, made new lists, etc.

What did you declutter today?