Have you switched your clothes around yet?

Whether you're in the Southern or Northern Hemisphere, the seasons have changed and it's time to switch your clothes around.

My goal is to have all my clothes comfortably in one wardrobe. This is 98% - I have 6 pairs of corduroy pants hanging in another bedroom.


I remember YEARS ago when I first started working I had about 5 things to wear for work. It was so quick to get dressed in the mornings because there wasn't much choice.

Even though most of my clothes fit in one wardrobe, I still switch things around because I put all the current season's stuff on the right of my cupboard - the left door stays closed most of the time.

If you look closely, you'll see long-sleeved shirts on the top left and long-sleeved suits on the bottom left. Those are my winter clothes.

Do you switch your clothes around? If yes, have you done yours yet? Can you declutter any items?

Menu for the week 29 Sept 08

Our church has our annual celebration conference happening this week.

We want to get to as many sessions as we can, so it's going to be a quick and easy menu with some freezer stuff thrown in.

Monday
Bacon carbonara pasta with garlic rolls and salad

Tuesday
Stirfried chicken, veggies and rice

Wednesday
Potato bake, grilled chicken and pumpkin

Thursday
Chicken steaklets with spinach, rice and veggies

Friday
???

Have you done your menu for the week? It takes just 5 - 10 minutes but saves you HOURS over the week.

Visit Laura for more menus. And don't forget to visit on Friday to show off what you decide to declutter this week. I promise I'll remember the Mr Linky :)

How to declutter your feed reader

Found in the comments
I need to unsubscribe to blogs too. I have 230 feeds to go through someday! What was your criteria for unsubscribing?

I don't know about you, but for me, decluttering is not a four-letter word.

It's not a personal thing to declutter a blog because living our real lives are what it's all about, isn't it?

This is how I keep my blog reading under control. My 3rd point in that post has lots of suggestions.

But I'm interested in hearing from YOU!

What are your criteria?

The Friday Declutter Challenge - 26 Sept 08

The Declutter Tip for the week ...

Many of you have too many emails in your inbox so this week's tip is to make a game of deleting emails.

Anything is more fun when it's a game, so ...

1. set a daily target and decide how many emails you want to delete every day (25, 50, 60, whatever you like)
2. go scavenging and see where you can find those emails - Inbox, Sent Items, folders, sub-folders, etc.

Where does all my decluttered stuff go?

I had a question in the comments a week or so ago - what do I do with all the stuff I declutter?

Well, this is the beauty of living in South Africa where unemployment is high and people are poor. You literally leave things outside your gate and they are GONE in 10 minutes' time. Sometimes sooner :)

I don't mean to make light of it, but the fact is that for every person who lives in a nice house, there are loads of people who have hardly anything and are very grateful for any clothes, shoes, kitchen stuff, etc.

When I have a cleaning lady (I fired the latest one on Tuesday), I let her have first dibs at anything I'm throwing out. She leaves what she doesn't want and I leave a box/ bag outside with the rest and, as I say, it's gone before you can say "the Friday Declutter Challenge" :)

I take my books to a secondhand bookstore (Bookdealers) where I can choose whether I want cash or credit for the books. I always take credit since they give you more money that way.

And we have a recycling company called Mondi who collects paper goods once a week. So all my magazines and paper go in a big orange bag which is collected outside our house every Tuesday.


What I decluttered this week ...

A net total of 15 blogs from my Google Reader

and these two unused bags - backpack and an over-the shoulder bag, both promotional gifts from my husband's work (I gave these to my tenants - students - living in the cottage on our property)


What have you decluttered this week?

I'm guest posting over at...

Just thought I'd let you know I'm guest posting over at the Organizing Junkie...

and the topic is... Organising your computer

Have a read and let me know what you think.

Decluttering electronically

I have two gmail accounts - don't ask, it's a long story - and what I've been doing is using the one as my main Google Reader account and the other for some blogs I wanted to keep track of, but they don't post regularly so those posts can pile up.

I've been subscribing like crazy to both my Google Reader accounts so they're getting out of hand and it's not uncommon for me to find 81 items unread, which is unusual for me.



Account 1
Started with 42 feeds
Removed 7 but added 2
Left with 37

Account 2
Started with 19 feeds
Removed 10
Left with 9

Total: left with 46 blogs in total

That's not too bad because my comfort level is around 42 ;)

How many blogs do you read?

Today's organising challenge
Declutter some blogs you're just not getting around to and tell me how many in the comments

Menu plan for the week - a short one

This week we have a public holiday on Wednesday (it's Heritage Day in South Africa) which means no work, no cooking and lots of eating out :)

We love our public holidays here!

We love the apricot chicken dish so much that I decided to get creative and make a pineapple chicken dish. Thank goodness it turned out very well.

So, for this week's menu, here's the plan...

Monday
Pineapple chicken, rice and veggies

Tuesday
Baked potatoes with bolognaise sauce

Wednesday
Eating out or something easy like my delicious pasta salad (don't get hung up on ingredients - just make sure you have something protein (kidney beans/ lentils/ chickpeas) and some veggies like onion, cucumber, carrots, apple - anything that lends itself to a salad :))

Thursday
Stirfried chicken in a satay sauce with noodles

Friday
Debonairs pizza and salad

Visit Laura for many more tried and tested menus. And don't forget to visit on Friday to show off what you decide to declutter this week.

The Friday Declutter Challenge - 19 Sept 08

The Declutter Tip for this week is...

Once you declutter a space, make it look beautiful (this differs per person because all our tastes are different) so you'll be less tempted to mess it up again.

E.g. The living areas of our house are all open plan and we walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen so the diningroom table could have been a convenient place to dump "stuff".

Once the table arrived I went to buy a beautiful table runner and some fake flowers (I don't have a green thumb and I have the amazing talent of killing all plants). The table looks GORGEOUS and we are less inclined to dump anything on there. Or, at least not for more than 5 minutes. Yes, really :)

Read Sara's post about keeping your space uncluttered - great tips


Now these takkies (that's what we call them) travelled with me all over the world - Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, UK and Ireland. If my suitcase had been over the baggage allowance, I was quite prepared to throw them out right there at the airport. Fortunately, my travelling light decluttering plan worked and there was no need for any drastic measures.

But now, winter's over, the toes are scuffed from all that walking in London and they need to go!

What have you decluttered this week?

Everything you EVER wanted to know about organising 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?

We can help you!

Join me as I host the Everything you EVER wanted to know about organising your computer teleclass with Computer Whiz Janet Barclay.

Janet and I have a combined total of over 30 years’ experience, organising individuals, groups and organisations.

Our systems, tips and tricks will help you have an organised computer in no time at all.

On this 75-minute teleclass, 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
• 3 little-known filing tricks
• 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

Join us on…

Date: Tuesday 23 September
Time: 12 – 1:15 EST
How: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice)
Cost: F-r-e-e for all Gold VIP Inner Circle members. Not a member? Join here

If you’re not a member, your investment for this valuable teleclass is only $37

You’ll receive:

1. The live call - training and live coaching in the question and answer section
   
2. Recording as an MP3 audio download
3. Comprehensive handout
4. Janet’s “Maximising your time with Outlook” ebook (sells for $9,99)
5. Marcia’s DREAM method of organising your computer report (worth $9,99)

If you can’t make the call “live”, you can catch up by listening to the recording within 24 hours.

Decide today to make your computer work for you!

Book your place now.

Paper, paper and still more paper

If you're ever going to keep up with all the paper in your life, you have to decide on a system and keep tweaking it.

You can read about how to deal with mail clutter and decide if that system will work for you, or if you need to make slight adjustments.

I'll talk more about actual filing in later posts but before I do, I like to go back a step.

1. Examine the sources of all the paper in your life. Write them all down.

• Magazines
• Mail
• Printing emails
• Notes from school
• _________
• _________
• _________

2. See where you can eliminate or reduce the flow of paper into your life.

• If you get accounts by email and in the mail, email the company and stop the mail.
• If you and two friends read the same magazine, buy one every 3 months and pass it around.
• Sign notes from school immediately and send back the next day. Don't leavethem on your counter a minute longer than you have to.

3. Decide on your comfort level for accounts/ filing

• I only keep 3 months' worth of statements except for our water and electricity bills and that's because it is a crazy nightmare dealing with Joburg Connect to get queries sorted out. There are MANY great things about South Africa; that's not one of them :)
• I have one place in my study for "things to file". Since I don't keep a lot of paper, my comfort level went from once a week (about 18 months ago) to once every 3 - 4 weeks. I can still get through that pile in less than 10 minutes so it does work for me.
  

Your turn. What are your good ideas on dealing with paper?


Resource
7 easy steps to organise your office