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Paper Filing - How to Set up a New System
We’re supposed to be
in paperless society, right? There’s a proliferation of
cyber-information on the Internet, scanners on every desk, e-mail,
e-books, virtual catalogs, webinars, virtual property tours, and so much
more available via computer, so why should we even have any paper
floating around at all? If you’re like me, you are overwhelmed with the
amount of paper that’s generated from the computer. Paperless? I don’t
think so!
[More on taking control of paper]
Improve your Life -
Get rid of that clutter. Click on the picture to go to the video
If you work in an
urgent-only culture, the only solution is to make the right things
urgent.
Seth Godin
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 Get
Organised, Get a Life!
This popular e-book covers nearly everything you need to know
about powering through your work so you can have plenty of time to
enjoy life on the outside.
Includes 3 additional bonuses valued at $51.
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Clarity about Clutter
If you, too, have been slowly
suffocating under growing piles of
indispensable clutter, it's time to take
the clutter challenge. Evaluate how true
each of these statements is for you on a
scale of 1 to 5. Be honest. Then choose
one area in which you fall short and
resolve to de-clutter there, this week,
without fail.
Spring Cleaning -
clearing the clutter from your closets and your mind
You know the old saying, “Out with the old,
in with new.” It’s true. But you have to clear out the old before you can have
the new, whether it’s a new thought, belief, opportunity or material possession.
I believe my soul knows that.
Getting Stuff
Done
I recently heard a
neighbour explain that he wants to "make a lot more sales, but they (his
company) just won't give us the tools." When I asked what he meant, it turned
out he wasn't talking about actual tools like computers or a better phone
system. His complaint was that he never seems to get organized!
I told him as tactfully as I could that organization and productivity wasn't
something the company could do for him, it's something he must do for himself.
We've been looking at "getting stuff done" and a HUGE part of productivity is
the ability to manage ourselves, our time and our results. No one can do that
for you!
We ALL want to get more done, and we're all "too busy." We all have more phone
calls, emails, errands, interruptions and demands than we can cope with. It's
the nature of our world.
And yet, some people DO produce better results, and they do it on a regular
basis. What are their secrets?
Do You Have More Than 3
Magazines to Read?
by Marcia Ramsland, "The Organizing Pro
Recently I organized a client's finely furnished
home office where she had not one, not ten, but ALL of
Oprah's signature "O" magazine collection "I won't give
those up for anything," Victoria declared. She even had them
in red leather magazine holders, showing they were truly a
prized possession.
I thought that was perhaps taking a magazine
series a little far -- until I started to go through my
personal collection of Real Simple magazines this week. I
had every one from the first issue in 2003! And they can be
a "thick" magazine with almost 300 pages ... and very
beautiful covers. Enticing to keep while filling about three
feet of precious shelf space. I needed to downscale and use
the collected information. For what? To start my next book,
Simplify Your Space. How ironic.
Magazines - A Library of Knowledge or
Household Clutter?
Habit triggers
My wife moved a can of shaving cream
and one of my positive habits disappeared!
Sounds pretty strange, right?
Here is a strange, but true story that
can change your life....right now!
As many of you know, positive habits can be created
with the help of habit triggers. What are habit triggers? Here
is a definition from "The Power of Positive Habits" book.
Habit triggers -- External stimuli that help to trigger a habit action.
Habit triggers can be almost anything: a word, music, a time of day,
eating, an object, even another positive habit.
OK, now that you know what a habit trigger is, let's get
back to my very strange, yet powerful story.
read on ...
From
Rita Emmett - Recovering Procrastinator
Want to start off 2006 with less clutter? Begin now to cultivate a "3-a-day"
habit. Every day, from now till Jan 1, "process" 3 pieces of clutter - put it
where it belongs, toss it out, return it or do what you need to do with it.
Keep going back to the same area of clutter to select the next 3 pieces. Your
clutter accumulated one item at a time.
Getting rid of 3 every day will begin the de-cluttering process.
Then, whenever you can (maybe once a week?), devote one hour to the clutter in
that one place. When that clutter is gone, go to the next cluttered spot.
You will be amazed at how getting rid of clutter from just one small area will
leave you feeling lighter and clearer thinking.
Let me know how you do.
Rita
Emmet is the author of THE PROCRASTINATOR'S HANDBOOK and THE CLUTTER-BUSTING
HANDBOOK
http://www.RitaEmmett.com
I admire Michael
Masterton's attitude to goals and organisation. He has
a very practical approach. His offering is the
Early to Rise 2006 Total Success Acceleration Package
And last but certainly
not least - from "the Time Management and Productivity
Specialist", Robyn Pearce, the
Getting a Grip on time Goal Toolkit.
Great Time Management Advice!
by Jim Rohn
I often talk
in my seminars about the importance of time and time management -- how rich
people and poor people both have the same amount of time every day - 24 hours
(which by the way, I find fascinating).
This week, as we continue to celebrate the One-Year Anniversary of the 2004
Weekend Event, I want to share with you four great time management ideas we've
excerpted from the 2004 Event Speaker Round Table Session - Enjoy!
Article continues
More on Time Management
Don't let the new year get away from you before you have a
chance to implement these office-organizing tips.
By Leslie Jacobs
Every year, I spend time in January and February getting
organized and ready for the upcoming year. My organizing
actually starts during the holidays--with every present I
receive, I'm thinking "Out with the old and in with the new."
When I receive a gift, I have to decide what old item I'm going
to get rid of. This year, after putting away the new china I got
for Christmas--and selling my former set on eBay--I moved on to
organizing my office. If you'd like to get the new year started
right, follow these tips to help you get organized for a
successful 2006
Article continues
- Goal Setting - Set
meaningful goals, make better use of your time and get more done more easily.
Accomplish what’s most important. Stay organized and focused. Set and achieve
smart goals to reduce stress, anxiety, procrastination and chaos. Go for what
you want! Workbook includes 30 days of email support.
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Eat That Frog!
by Brian Tracy
So you want to get organized. You want to simplify your life. You
want to learn to focus on priorities...to get more done in less
time. The answer...read Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog! Listed below
is a sampling of what you'll get in this international best-selling
book that we've made even better.
-
Set the Table
- Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything
- Practice Creative Procrastination
- Focus on Key Result Areas
- Apply the Law of 3
- Identify Key Restraints
- Slice and Dice the Task
- Single Handle Every Task
Simplicity
Patterns
The MIT Media Lab's
John Maeda
lives at the intersection of technology and art -- a
place that can get very complicated. Here, he talks
about paring down to basics, and how he creates
clean, elegant art, websites and web tools. In his
book Laws of Simplicity, he offers 10 rules
and 3 keys for simple living and working -- but in
this talk, he boils it down to one simply delightful
way to be.
What stops
you from 'getting things done?'
Have you ever started your day with good intentions of completing a task or
project only to find that by the end of the day you've hardly worked on it? Or
have you ever set a goal to attend a seminar, learn a new skill or just have
more time out for you?
I'm sure you have. I'm not
going to write a long-winded explanation about the art of procrastination or
"putting things off" but what I will do is share with you the secret of actually
"getting things done"…putting an end to procrastination and just getting on with
it.
Organizing Your Office
Organizing! Who has time to
organize? You don’t have time not to organize! Most office managers
spend between 15 minutes and 1 hour every day just looking for things. Wouldn’t
you love to be able to find what you want, when you want it, in 30 seconds or
less? Here are the most important tools you need to organize your work:
What's right with your
messy desk
Have you ever had days when you
thought it would be easier to quit your job and start over elsewhere than it
would be to make sense out of the piles and stacks huddling layers deep all over
your work space?
Organizing Your Office
Organizing! Who has time to organize? You don’t have time not to
organize! Most office managers spend between 15 minutes and 1 hour every day
just looking for things. Wouldn’t you love to be able to find what you want,
when you want it, in 30 seconds or less? Here are the most important tools you
need to organize your work:
SEMINAR SUCCESS STRATEGIES
- HOW TO PROFIT FROM YOUR INVESTMENT
Hi
I've recently returned from a 3 day seminar, full of renewed enthusiasm and
information that, when actioned, will make a dramatic difference to all aspects
of my business and my personal life.
There were also many other people there, who like myself attend seminars and
conferences to gain more knowledge so they too can improve their lives.
However, it's not the knowledge that makes the difference, it's the application
of that knowledge.
"Stand up for something or else you will fall for
everything!"
Have you ever checked into a hotel or maybe onto a plane
or had any other experience where you came up against a
guideline? A clerk may respond "I am sorry sir, that's not
our company policy!" I often want to reply back with some
glib remark about "accepting company policies is against our
company policy", nonetheless they serve a function. They set
standard operating agreements for doing business. If you
know these in advance it is easy to adjust your behaviour to
fit in.
I learnt something as I unpacked my bags recently.
I'd just returned from a 3-day trip to regional towns
around New Zealand. I pulled out some items I needed
immediately and then caught myself thinking, ‘I'll
finish unpacking later.'
‘No you won't. You'll do it now!' said the little
voice on my shoulder.
With a brief flutter of resistance my procrastinating
self crept back into her hole. Within five minutes the
job was done, the room was tidy, and I knew I could come
back into the room later without that awful sinking
feeling of ‘Darn it, I've still got to put all this
stuff away!'
I noticed something else. It's easier to shift a
moving object than a stationary one, it generates higher
energy, and it's less time-consuming. It's when we have
to go back to something that we end up in a muddle, it
slows us down, procrastination becomes a familiar
companion, and tidiness becomes a hard and challenging
chore.
One important planning consideration is what
you’re going to accomplish each day. In his role as the dean of
creativity for the Walt Disney Companies, Mike Vance had a
strategy he called DO-DOING-DONE. The idea is to start a task in
the DO column, move it to DOING quickly, and then move it to
DONE as quickly as possible. That’s a fine idea, but it doesn’t
really matter how you format your list. What does
matter is that you have a list. In fact, you need
several lists. Without them, your brain forgets many of the
things you have to do as well as the cool ideas you come up
with. Having lists will enable you to plan your day most
effectively and will relieve that nagging sense of “what did I
need to get done…”
I use several types of lists, outlined here:
Read on ...
Have you ever focused your
time and energy on the sales aspect of your business only to discover
that you've been neglecting your employees' needs? Maybe you delivered
exceptional service to one client at the expense of another. Or perhaps
your devotion to your career interrupted your family life during that
crucial period where you had to spend a few too many late nights at the
office.
In order to better prioritize both our professional and
personal lives, it's important that we first identify key areas.
Which aspects of your life need improvement and are most
deserving of your focus?
Read on
...
Librarian's
Internet Index has a well-organized collection of
 The
filing system proposed and used by Noguchi Yukio is
worth a look. To employ the system, you'll need to
discard many conventional notions about how to store
paper documents. Here's how it works:
You need a set of A4 (letter)-sized envelopes and some
way to mark the outside of the envelopes. If you want,
you can color-code them with markers.
Take every document and store it in an A4-sized envelope
with the flaps cut off, as shown here.
Mark the title and date of the document on the side of
the envelope, as shown, and the envelopes are stored
vertically on a bookshelf.
Don't attempt to classify documents. The color coding is
optional, and only there to help you find documents more
quickly.
Add any new document to the left end of the "envelope
buffer." Whenever a document is used (i.e., the envelope
removed from the shelf), return it to the left end of
the bookshelf. The result of this system is that the
most recent and frequently used documents move to the
left, while documents that are rarely or never used
migrate to the right.
Over time, some of the files on the right side of the
shelf will be classified as "holy files" which you will
retain indefinitely. Remove these from the shelf and
store them in boxes. If a "holy file" is in use, it is
part of the working file group at the left. Thus, holy
files are really dead files which you cannot part with.
Get them out of sight into a box.
When you need more space, throw away any documents that
you consider "unnecessary."
Read more on Noguchi's system
in this article by
William Lise, or on Noguchi's
website.
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Achieving Goals by Tracking your Success and Growth
- If it’s important, measure it! We’ll help you track your performance so you
gain clarity, focus, meaning and results. Choose from 11 efficient success
tracking tools. Workbook includes 30 days of email support.
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The
filing system proposed and used by Noguchi Yukio is
worth a look. To employ the system, you'll need to
discard many conventional notions about how to store
paper documents. Here's how it works: