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?

Office Organising Makeover - final roundup of posts

If you've been reading since January, you'll know the whole story behind Anne's office organising makeover.

I want to publicly say that (I've already told her so privately) I honestly think God set this thing up because I could not have asked for a better guest blogger.

Anne has been so open and honest with her struggles and triumphs, but more than that, she's been really open-minded in letting me challenge some of the old ways she had of doing things through my 7 easy steps to organise your office system.

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So, here's a final round-up of all Anne's posts.

I'm also putting them over there ---->>> on the sidebar if ever you want to reference a particular post again.

1. Before pics & problem areas
2. Sorting out the zones
3. Decluttering
4. Paper clutter
5. Electronic clutter
6. Overcoming organising obstacles
7. Setting up systems

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?

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

Getting out of your funk

Okay, I've figured it out!

Again I was doing some blog surfing (!) and I see lots of our declutter challengers (and others) are tackling offices this month. Or office spaces. Whatever the space is where you store your paper/ keep your piles of papers, etc.

So to get out of my funk, I'm going to post on paper/ email/ computer stuff for the whole of September, maybe even into October. Let's see how it goes.

But I need your help because I want this to be useful for you.

What is your biggest challenge with organising your office? Please be as specific as possible so I can give you some really good ideas :)

P.S. It may help to look around your space and see what your challenges are!