For example, if your system for organizing the ugly mail is hiding it in a pretty basket, you have not teed up the next stage well.  Your next stage will be more like hitting the ball out of the ruff.   Action files, including bills-to-pay, should be vertical, visible, and minimal.  These elements provide a well teed up next stage, that you can drive down the fairway.

Perhaps you have donate items located in several different rooms, in several different containers- shopping bags, boxes, trash bags or no container at all.  Getting all these items to Goodwill is like hitting your ball out of a sand trap.  You may accomplish it, but it is unlikely that you will accomplish it well.  Dedicate one area, perhaps a shelf in your garage, to JUST items for donation.  That way, when this area fills up, you have just one spot to grab donations from.  This singular location near your car, leaves the next stage well teed up.

As always, the key to staying organized is CIRCULATION PREVENTS ACCUMULATION.  Items can advance more reliably from one stage to the next, when those stages are well teed up.  It’s not enough to have a place for everything, there has to be a plan for movement.  If this plan for movement is not working smoothly enough, then it is time to look at how well each stage is teed up.

Voltaire is credited with saying “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Another version I have heard is “Perfect is the enemy of done.”

“Perfection” sounds like a final destination.  Organization is not a destination. Organization is a vehicle that will take you where you need to go, no matter how often that changes.  Good organization doesn’t sit still.  It needs to MOVE.  It needs to move, FLUIDLY.  Circulation prevents accumulation.

By circulation, I mean things need to move reliably from one stage to the next.  For this to happen, one must accept that stages cannot always be completed perfectly.  In fact, the more perfection you seek, the less progress you are likely to find.  Just as every environment needs to have limited blocks of space, every schedule needs to have limited blocks of time.

The goal of an organized home or office should be to assign dedicated zones with dedicated functions and to keep those functions moving.  If too much is neatly hidden away in PERFECT furniture and containers, the functionality is compromised and accumulation inevitably follows.

Similarly, managing time is really about managing priorities and you need to block out a limited amount of time for each priority.  If you take unlimited time trying to do one thing PERFECTLY, it will inevitably compromise your other priorities.

So don’t equate organization with perfection.   The reality is, perfection may be your biggest barrier to organization.

The most valuable organizing tool is a clear surface for processing. The dining room table may be the best example of this and because it is so valuable, it should never be wasted on storage. There are ALWAYS better alternatives for storage.

Perhaps you agree about the unsightliness of the cluttered dining table, so you store all incoming mail in shelves, bags, or even attractive baskets.  This may keep the table clear, but it doesn’t make you more organized.

Follow the Memphis model. The FedEx airplane doesn’t land and park on the landing strip.  Mail is emptied from it, sorted on the same day, and distributed to many different cities around the world.  The runway is always clear for the next plane because the plan is for processing, NOT STORAGE.

The same plan needs to apply to your dining table.  You don’t need to feel like you must pay your bills the second they come in, but you do need to separate the bills-to-pay from the magazines-to-read and junk mail-to-toss.  Notice how each of those items is attached to an action.  It’s all about keeping the next step in mind.  NONE of these next steps should take place on the table.  It takes seconds to make this simple sort and it gets the mail OFF the table.

To stay organized you need to avoid letting things take up residence on your surfaces.  Circulation prevents accumulation. FedEx has been very successful with this practice and so can you!

A truly effective organizing system must circulate freely, just as your body’s blood supply must circulate freely.   In both cases, when there’s a blockage there’s a problem.  It’s also important to note that the circulatory system moves forward in stages.  It advances forward to the next valve, then it stops and moves forward to the next and so on, but it is a reliable circular flow forward. 

Let’s compare this to the daily mail.  When it piles up on the dining table, it can be overwhelming and it can easily lead to trouble like bills not getting paid, opportunities missed, and late fees.  The opposite extreme would be to pay the bills the same day they come in.  I admire people who can do this, but for most of us that’s not practical.   What IS manageable is to move the bills FORWARD to the next stage, the next valve if you will.  Do a quick (2 minute) divide-and- conquer and dispatch with the magazines, catalogs, newsletters, junk mail, etc. then place just the bills in a bill organizer, ready to pay a week before due.  Now the next stage is FORWARD to bill paying, not backward to the dining table.  The bill paying stage will flow more freely because the bills are isolated, ready to go.

A complete organizing system must have a complete cycle.  To continue the bill paying example, after the payment is sent the record goes in your file cabinet; after the statement stays handy for the tax year it can be archived; after it has been archived for 7 years (usually) it is safe to recycle or shred; after it has been recycled into new paper it can (at least theoretically) be used for new bills.  Thus the cycle comes full circle.

Some items in our homes tend to circulate more naturally.  For example clothes: they need to go from dresser to body, to hamper, to washer, to dryer, and back to dresser again.  Another example dishes:  they need to go from cupboard to table, to sink, to dish rack, to cupboard again.  We know that when the laundry and dishwashing don’t get done, the clothes and dishes start piling up.  These examples may seem pretty obvious, but the point is you need similar systems of circulation for EVERY item you use.

Every healthy living thing requires systems that circulates freely.  Blood, oxygen, and water are just a few examples of things that need to circulate.  If you want your home and office to feel alive, it must have organizing systems that circulate too. 

TODAY’S KEY TO UNLOCKING CLUTTER:  Circulation prevents accumulation.

Originally from Matt Baier’s Organizing Works Newsletter, April 2008

THE ANNUAL PURGE

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  CIRCULATION PREVENTS ACCUMULATION.  What better time of year than spring for a fresh start? Open the windows and let the musty winter out and the clean spring air in.  Open the storage room and let the old junk out and the new potential in.  Here are seven tips to survive and thrive through spring clearing.

1. Start with the Garage.  This may sound counter-priority, but it’s not.  Before you dive into the junk in your closets, clear out your garage.  Consider this analogy.  You may get to the airport in plenty of time for your flight to Rome, but without a passport you’re not going anywhere.  An empty garage is your passport that will get you where you need to go.  Why? Because it is the logical place to establish an exit zone.  For smelly dirty garbage it is almost outside, but protected from the elements.  For items to donate, it is as close to the vehicle (and as visible to the driver that will take it away) as possible.  Don’t have a garage? Start by clearing an area as close to the exit as possible.

2. Fast and general first.  If you have a lot of stuff to sort and purge, speed IS endurance.  To hesitate is to get discouraged, sidetracked, and eventually quit before the job is done.  Rather than get hung up on individual items, think CATEGORIES.  Here are some examples:  To Donate, To Sell, To Do, Upstairs/Downstairs (to save steps), To Review (in detail when you have more time), and Trial Purge (see #6).  Once everything is sorted into categories it becomes much easier to make decisions, because you are seeing things in context.

3. Circulate your files.  A great reason to purge your old files in the Spring is because it is right after tax season.  Check with your accountant, but it is generally safe to toss all your tax supporting material after Seven years.  Once this year’s taxes are settled, any 2007 or older files can be stored in a more remote location than your home office, to free up space in your file cabinet.  To  automatically assign circulative files, see last year’s newsletter on user-friendly filing 

4. One Area at a Time.  You may be reading this and saying “sounds great, I’m going to set aside a day this weekend and just do it!”  If you ARE saying that, excellent, I applaud your attitude!  However, odds are you won’t find a whole day and even if you did, you probably couldn’t finish the job.  The answer: DIVIDE AND CONQUER.  Break up the annual purge into manageable chunks. Perhaps this weekend’s goal could be clearing out as much garbage as possible from the garage on a Saturday morning before 11:30.  Assuming your local dump closes at noon, this would impose a helpful deadline so that you not only get the garbage out of your garage, but off your property on the same day.  Now THAT’S a real feeling of accomplishment, which will encourage you to take on the next challenge.   Another example would be spending just 90 minutes on emptying your file cabinet of Dead or Sleeping files.  Set a timer for 90 minutes.  It really helps!  When you are strictly in a file mode you will accomplish much more in that chunk of time than if you are all over the place.

5. Cell Phone on Vibrate.  Your phone is programmed to ring, but you are not programmed to answer it. You can get more accomplished in a focused hour than you can in an unfocused day.  In addition to the divide-and-conquer approach, it makes a huge difference to truly FOCUS for a block of time.  With your phone on vibrate there is less of a knee jerk reaction to pick it up.  Check to see if it is an emergency (i.e. family member), otherwise let your phone take a message and get back to it when you are done.  Remember, you are only going to be focused on the purging for another hour or two, not the whole day.  There is very little that cannot wait an hour or two.

6. Value Over Cost.  One of the big reasons people hang on to something they don’t use is because of its cost.  This is typical with exercise equipment.  Now, I don’t want to discourage anyone from exercising, but if you are using your Bowflex for hanging your laundry instead of for exercising, then it is time to consider cost versus value.  Yes, the COST of the Bowflex was great, but what is it’s VALUE to you now?  To start with, it is a daily reminder of a failed initiative.  Who needs that? Secondly, it takes up a lot of valuable space, perhaps even enough for a more efficient clothes hanger AND that craft table you’ve been wanting.  Of course you won’t fully recover your cost of the Bowflex, but consider this.  You will NEVER recover the cost of your purchase, no matter how long you hold on to it, so why not start VALUING your space NOW.

7. Trial Purge.  When the choice is between “keep” or “toss” we tend to keep, Why? “Hey, you never know when you might need that!”  It gets easier when you have other options, like donating an item to the needy or other incentives like the value-over-cost question, but sometimes that’s just not enough for certain unused items.  This is when I suggest a Trial Purge.  You may go through a lot of items you’ve forgotten about and wondered if you might have used them if only you had known where they were.  If you are wondering if you can live without these items, put them on trial.  Place them in a box clearly labeled “Trial Purge” and put today’s date on it.  During next year’s annual purge you will see this box and because you have gone a full year without needing its contents, it will be much easier to say ‘they had their chance.  I don’t need them.  Time to go.”  Alternatively, if after a few months you DO find yourself needing one those items, you will know to go to the Trial Purge box. 

 If everything is important then nothing is important.  By focusing on clearing out the less important things at least once a year, you can make a fresh start on your most important priorities for the year.  By letting go of the old, a purge gives you the freedom to embrace the new. 

Dedicated Spaces

I know I’m not the first Professional Organizer to talk about dedicated spaces and that’s for a very good reason. While there are many different ways to GET organized there is no better way to STAY organized than to recognize dedicated spaces. Simply put, dedicated spaces are about using specific homes for specific needs. Here are some tips to help you create them.

1. Single location. To reduce confusion, keep all like items stored in just ONE place. In my experience as an Organizer, I have found that there is a minimum of 70 different storage needs in any household. That’s hard enough to stay on top of, but double it or triple it and you are really working against yourself.

2. Store near use. This rule applies perhaps to the kitchen, more than anywhere else. For example, dedicate the drawers and cabinets near the stove to cooking items, like pots, spatulas, and pot holders. If your pot holders are in the dining room with your napkins, your pot roast may burn by the time you get to them.

3. Room to grow. When you dedicate a space to a collection of specific items, it is important to provide those items with a generous allowance of space. This is what is meant by room to grow. Get over the idea that extra space is WASTED space. It’s not. Extra space is what keeps you in control. For example, you know that you will continue to collect more photos, so if you already have your bookcase of photographs packed to the gills, you’re asking for trouble because new photos are bound to pile up in other places. They have nowhere else to go!

4. Freedom in Boundaries. This is a useful paradox. Nobody likes waiting in line, BUT are you more comfortable waiting at delicatessen that asks you to take a number or one that is a free-for-all? It is not only more comfortable, but easier to know where one thing ends and another begins. AFTER your “room to grow” has been filled to capacity, consider it an alarm going off. If your generous allowance is gone reconsider some of the older items in your container. Either toss the older items to make room for new ones, OR reconsider your priorities and allot more space to this area and LESS to another. This is critical in maintaining dedicated spaces, because if you have overflow in one dedicated space, it will affect the allotted space of the other dedicated spaces. When you have dedicated spaces you have control, and when you have control you are free to focus on more important things.

5. Systems you trust. In his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity, David Allen states that in order to be truly productive you need to focus on one thing at a time, by getting all the stuff that’s swimming around your brain OUT and “into a system you trust.” For example, do you have a safe place to keep actionable, date-specific items? Allen and other efficiency experts recommend a “Tickler File” for this. I won’t go into the details of how a Tickler File works, but suffice to say I use one and as a result, I now never forget when to pay my quarterly taxes and I never misplace my concert tickets. They are out of my way when I don’t need them and there when I do. Another example, if you are storing your flashlight with your dedicated camping equipment space in the closet, do you trust that you will be able to lay your hands on that flashlight when the lights go out?

6. Be realistic about your needs. This kind of goes back to the point about room to grow. Before you run out and buy a pretty floral accordion file with a bow for all your greeting cards, take an honest look at how many greeting cards you are going to keep. If you know you love to collect greeting cards, gather ALL of them from around your house in ONE pile. If this pile is bigger than your accordion file then reevaluate. Either you need to purge some of the less meaningful cards OR you need a larger container (and don’t forget the room to grow). Otherwise you will have your accordion file busting at the seams, spilling cards on the floor while new cards pile up in various spots around your home. Now how pretty is that?

7. Circulation Prevents accumulation. I have talked a lot about this before, but it is very important to consider when establishing dedicated spaces. Paper is a prime example. Like it or not, you know that you are going to get mail 6 days a week for the rest of your life. Without an easy plan for circulation, accumulation is inevitable. I see paper as having a life cycle which can essentially be broken down into four stages of activity:

A. Running- ongoing projects; most active files out where you can see.

B. Sitting- Anything you want to find readily in a file cabinet.

C. Sleeping- Files you are hanging on to “just in case”; remote archives.

D. Dead- No longer useful. Recycle or Shred.

Rather than treating all paper the same, you need to dedicate spaces for EACH of these four stages. Otherwise it will just accumulate.

8. Frequency merits facility. In other words, the more often you do something the easier it should be. It doesn’t matter if you don’t rate an activity as important or not. The more often you need to do it, the more effort you should dedicate to removing all barriers to its completion. A perfect example is recycling. You may not see it as important, but it is the law and it has to be dealt with daily. Since it is unavoidable, why not make it super easy? Use clearly marked stackable bins and keep them in a convenient location in your kitchen.

9. Labels enable. Once you have established dedicated zones for all your needs, go one step further and label them. A clear plastic container is great for most items because it allows you to see what you have, but add a label to it and it really reinforces its purpose. A label leaves no room for ambiguity. Also if your container is ever emptied, a label will remind you what it had been allotted for. I’m a big fan of the Brother P-Touch for instant laminated labels.

10. Remember forgotten zones. Some needs for dedicated spaces are obvious, like a computer parts bin or a sock drawer, but unless you consider some of your less obvious needs you will have odd bits of clutter piling up throughout your home. Here are some oft-forgotten needs I typically find in client’s households:

• keepsakes
• stationery
• seasonal items
• gifts
• luggage/travel
• items to donate/sell
• contact information to be entered
• borrowed items

If these needs don’t belong SOMEWHERE they’ll wind up EVERYWHERE.

TOP 10  GOLDEN RULES OF STORAGE

A couple weeks ago Real Simple magazine contacted me, requesting my top 3 clutter control tips in the home office and kitchen.  Now I have nothing against Real Simple and I have no problem giving away my best tips, but I realized I simply didn’t have what they were looking for:  two sentence tricks that are room-specific.  I have found it far more helpful to offer a few good general rules that you can apply to every room in your home or office.  What follows is a list of ten such rules that relate to storage.  Many of them may be familiar by now, but hopefully there will be some new nuggets. Oh and if I’ve missed  anything here then by all means pick up the latest issue of Real Simple!

1. Store Vertically.  Clear surfaces are even more important for staying organized than for looking organized.  Clear surfaces make processing paper and other items infinitely easier.  Therefore, you should always avoid storage on horizontal surfaces like desks and tables.  To make the best use of your space, assign as much of your storage as possible to shelves, drawers, and other vertical positions.

2. Reveal Don’t Conceal.  Items that aren’t seen tend to go unused and when items go unused they tend to accumulate.  Avoid hiding things away in solid-colored boxes.  If it is your intention not to use a hidden item, then it is a good opportunity to ask why you are keeping it.  Clear boxes and clear drawers make it much easier to stay organized.  Never use flat drawers to store files and notes.  A single sheet of paper can be as much of a concealer as a locked safe.

3. Use Dedicated Spaces.  There are practical reasons why it makes sense to store like with like.  First, it allows you to see just how much stuff you really have.  If, for example, you have unread reading material scattered throughout your home, you probably have given yourself an unrealistic reading burden.  If, on the other hand, you put your reading material together, in one place, it becomes much easier to make decisions.  Perhaps, if you relieve yourself of last month’s newspapers and last year’s newsletters,  you can read that great new book before it becomes a movie.  Second, dedicated spaces provide homes for everything and facilitates sorting.

4. Room to Grow.  Dedicated spaces are not enough if they are too small.  Be honest with your needs and leave a generous allowance, especially for the things you need the most.  However, once that room for growth has been filled – STOP!  If you now have so many socks that you can’t close your sock drawer, toss some of the older ones, maybe the ones with the holes you’re never going to sew!  Otherwise your socks will encroach on other dedicated areas.  If you have created a generous room to grow, you don’t need those old socks.

5. Store Near Use. The best place to assign a dedicated area is nearest to the area the stored item will be used.  I am often in households where dishes are stored directly over the dish drain, which makes sense; but the printer ink and paper are stored in a closet across the room from the printer.  What’s the difference? Keep the paper and printer toner in the unit, under the printer and you’ll save time and facilitate inventory management

6. Showroom / Warehouse.  In all likelihood, you won’t have the room to store a box of printer paper under the printer, but you will be able to store a small, manageable sampling, much like you might find on a showroom floor.  It makes sense to distinguish between those items you need in minimum quantities at your fingertips and a back-up supply you can keep more remotely, like a warehouse.

7. Flip Your Lid.  Beware of too many enclosures.  It doesn’t take much to provide a barrier.  Are you more likely to take your socks off, get up, walk across the room, open the closet door, lift the lid of the laundry hamper, and place them in there, or are you more likely to toss your socks into a nearby, open hamper, like shooting a basket?  When it’s fun it gets done.  Tear down those walls.

8. Retrieving, Not Hiding. When you store something, you should think in terms of “How am I going to find this?” and not “How can I make this go away?”  Again, if you are simply stowing something so you don’t have to look at it, it’s a good time to ask yourself if you really need it.  This is particularly true with filing.  Don’t clog up your file cabinet with junk you never want to see again.  Instead, ask yourself, is this document an important record from the past, a tax-related statement for the present, or information for the future.  Any of these qualify for accessible user-friendly files. Toss the rest, or at least store them more remotely.

9.  Let Your Needs Decide Your Container.  Many is the time a client will empty a box of junk and then ask me “Now, what should I use this box for?”  The whole point of getting organized is to prioritize and take control of your life.  If you are a slave to your containers, you’re off to a bad start.  Instead, start with your goals and priorities.  What are the most important things that are missing in your life? This will make decision making much easier.  Typical Example:  You dump your collection of floppy disks because you realize that not only has your software has been completely updated years ago, but you don’t even have a floppy disk drive any more!  Toss or give away the floppy disk box, but DON’T invent an inappropriate use for it, unless you have honestly prioritized your organizing needs first.

10. Use Circulation Depots.  I am not a proponent of the popular organizing practice of “only touch an item once.”  That works fine for something like junk mail, but for most things you need a safe depot to place an item until you can get to it.  A perfect example of a circulation depot is the laundry hamper.  It is natural for most of us to wear an item and then toss it in the hamper.  When you can find some time to do laundry, you go to the hamper.  To stay organized you need similar systems throughout your living and working environment.  If you can establish circulation, you prevent accumulation.  Here’s another important circulation depot:  a front door table.  Establish an area by your front door where you put things to go outside the home, look for things before you step out, and place outside items when you return.  Ever have that nagging feeling you’re forgetting something when you leave your home, only to find yourself at the grocery store without your shopping list?  By dedicating a depot for all these exit items- -coupons, borrowed items, car keys, sunglasses, cell phone, etc.-You have only ONE place to look when you have this nagging feeling.  Remember, if it’s not circulating it’s probably accumulating.

Of course the best guideline for storage is Less is More.  The less stuff you have, the less stuff you have to store, clean, and worry about.  The less stuff you have to worry about the more you can focus  on what matters most.

FOCUS ON FILING, PART 2:  USER-FRIENDLY FILING

The AVERAGE executive wastes one hour a day looking for lost or misplaced items.  That’s six weeks a year!      -The Wall Street Journal

Last month I discussed the File Cycle, the lifecycle of a file in four stages of activity: Running, Sitting, Sleeping, and Dead.  Understanding a file’s lifecycle is important to staying organized because it helps you think about your files in terms of CIRCULATION, not accumulation. Sleeping and Dead files are easy to live with because they are out of your way.  Running files are easy to track because they are out where you can see them, but what about the Sitting Files?  This is where User-Friendly Filing comes in.

It is very easy to make a file go away in a filing cabinet, but it is another matter entirely to retrieve it, instantly, when you need it.  User Friendly Filing begins with the need to RETRIEVE.

My recommendation for User Friendly Filing is a system of organizing by CATEGORY instead by alphabet.  This system is based on the SuccessFile Filing System described in the book “File Anything In Your Home…And Find It Again!”  See Product of the Month.

I have found the two most important criteria for an effective filing system to be:

1. Ease of Retrieval

2. Ease of Maintenance

This system meets both criteria and I will explain how.

Filing Tips

1. Use the right files.  

One box of Box Bottom (or Extra Capacity) Hanging Files- These files are designed to hold general categories and to STAY in the file cabinet.  They work better than standard hanging folders because they take up less space and allow the folders to sit level across the bottom so the labels read more clearly across the top.

One box of 100 Tri-Cut Manila Folders- These folders are designed to hold more specific subjects and to go in and out of the box-bottom hanging files.  The reason for the tri-cut will be explained in more detail later. 

2. File by category.  A category system is easier to use than an alphabetical system for two reasons:

a. First, storage and retrieval are based on logical associations rather than just letters.  For example, where would you file “401K policy”?     P for policy? F for four? R for retirement?

b. Second, categories can be PRIORITIZED with flexible placement.  For example, if you are regularly adding receipts to your “Tax Receipts” folder then you must always reach to the back of the drawer if it is filed alphabetically.  If you file by category, you don’t have that unnecessary restriction.

3. Three reasons to file.  There are essentially only three things you need to file:

a. Information- reference, resources, policies, and possibilities that you will refer to in the FUTURE

b. Statements- paid bills, and ongoing statements that you are receiving in the PRESENT.

c. Records- certificates, licenses, and documents you need to refer back to, from the PAST.

With the Success File Filing System you can easily keep track of all three kinds of files.  How? That’s were the simple tri-cut manila folders come in.  Within ALL categories, use the LEFT tab for INFORMATION, the CENTER tab for STATEMENTS, and the RIGHT tab for RECORDS. 

4. The heart of filing.  Perhaps you are thinking “Isn’t that a little fussy and unimportant?”  Actually, using these tri-cut folders with specific purposes is at the heart of what makes this whole system work so well.  It forces you to think about

1. WHY you are keeping a file AND

2. HOW LONG you are keeping a file for

I’ve talked about the WHY so now I will address the HOW LONG.  I think the idea behind dividing file purposes is the same behind dividing the file’s life stage, I talked about with the Life Cycle of a File.  The idea is to isolate the ones to watch from the ones to forget about (at least for now).  In this case, the one’s to watch are the CENTER tabbed files, and that’s just once a year.   Fairly painless.  After April 15 is a good time to pull all the paid bills and statements that were important LAST year  and open up space for the incoming paid bills and statements THIS year. This provide the CIRCULATION that is crucial to stay organized. The pulled files become SLEEPING files, which you can wake up if necessary, but in the meantime they are not clogging up your important file space.  

As for the LEFT tabbed files, you only have to worry about emptying them when updated information comes in.  For example, when you get a new insurance policy in the mail, file it, and toss the old one.  RIGHT tabbed files you can pretty much forget about because their contents are the least likely to need updating.

5. Sample categories.  Categories should be general enough to hold related files.  For example, use a “Transportation” category instead of  “Car” so that you can include not just Auto Insurance and Car Repair files, but also Train schedules and Frequent Flier Miles. Avoid “MISCELLANEOUS” because one is not likely to think of looking for something there.

Here are some major categories to start with:

• TRANSPORTATION
• BANKING
• CREDIT
• [YOUR ADDRESS]
• HOUSEHOLD*

*”Household” is my best effort to avoid a “Miscellaneous” category.  In my files it includes Online Information, Takeout Menus, Life Insurance Statements, Wedding Records, Mom and Dad records.

You may want to keep a category for your kid’s files or perhaps an entire category for each child.

• INVESTMENTS
• INCOME TAXES

In an office, other categories may include:

• CLIENTS
• OPERATIONS
• ADMINISTRATION
• BUSINESS SERVICES
• PERSONEL

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH:  File Anything In Your Home…And Find It Again!  by Organizers Mary Anne Lessley and Katherine D. Anderson, copyright  1996.  To see the complete descripton this book can be ordered from KAMAL Publications, 170 30th Street, Suite 320, Boulder, CO, 80301 for $22.95 + $4.95 S & H. As the name suggests, this system is designed for the home, but I have also found it useful for business files.  The necessity for a structured filing system is more likely to be recognized in an office than in a home, but it is necessary wherever you value your time.  If you’d like to find out more about this user friendly filing system, I highly recommend this book.

Unless your files are all the same type (e.g. client files), alphabetizing your files can give a false sense of security.  Filing by category not only makes for easier retrieval and maintenance, it provides a flexibility and a logical process of elimination.  For example, if you have misfiled a medical file, you only have to limit your search to the medical category.  Having a plan for retrieval and circulation takes the guesswork out of WHERE to file.  You will know exactly where a file needs to go BEFORE opening the drawer.  The goal is to make filing so easy that you don’t keep a “TO FILE” pile, you JUST FILE!

Originally from Matt Baier’s Organizing Works Newsletter, October 2006

WHY IS CLUTTER LIKE A VAMPIRE?

“80 percent of what we keep we never use.” -Barbara Hemphill, Agency Sales Magazine, 4/1/03

Most of us hang on to much more stuff than we need, but few of us want our homes and offices to LOOK that way.  So what do we do?  We get to a point where we can’t take the clutter anymore and we make it go away.  No doubt the idea is that you will get to it later when you have the time, but of course that time never comes, given your busy schedule.   Eventually a collection of make-it-go-away bags and boxes come back to HAUNT you, as your hidden storage spaces swell to overflowing.  You suddenly find yourself without options and no one likes that way that feels!

OK, so I used the word “haunt” but what’s this vampire connection all about? Well, like a vampire, clutter is dangerous and frightening in the darkness (of your boxes, bags, and closets), but it is vulnerable when exposed to the light of day.  Don’t believe me?  Try this experiment.  Clear off a generous amount of surface space, a dining table will do, pull out one box (or bag) of stuff from your closet that you haven’t seen in a while, empty it out on your surface, and spread it out.  Break it down, sorting like with like.  There’s that charger for your cell phone you replaced 3 years ago; there’s a pile of grocery receipts from the 1990’s; there’s a stack of outdated magazines; and there’s  that large candle you were given that smells awful.  You had a good reason for saving all these items at the time, but that time has passed.  If they continue to lurk in your closet, they deny you the space you need, but spread out on the table like this they’re not so scary, are they? Now DON’T shove this junk back into your closet.  The only silver bullet you need is your friendly trash can.  If you are happy to see the space that has opened up then don’t let  me stop you from slaying more vampires!

MATT’S TIPS

1. Sort Like with Like. It may sound obvious, but I can’t stress the importance of this first step enough.   By SEEING the full quantity of stuff you have accumulated- whether it’s staplers, straws or stereos- it becomes much easier to part with the excess than if you are assessing them one at a time.

2. Have A Plan For Your Closet. If your closet simply stores indecisions then it very quickly becomes a useless Black Hole.  Start by deciding what’s important to keep.  For example, in one closet you may decide it’s important to keep just four categories:  off-season clothes, camping equipment, tools, and back-up kitchen supplies, a reasonable burden for one closet.  So if you then find yourself wanting to make a box of magazines go away, DON’T look to your important closet, look to your recycling bin.

3. Circulation is Healthy.  With every breath of air, you breathe in, you fill your lungs and you exhale.   This simple act keeps you alive.  To stay organized involves a similar process:  you bring new items into your environment, you use/ process them, then you let them go when they no longer serve you.  If there is an obstruction in your lungs that prevents you from exhaling and you choke.  Similarly, if you are obstructed by your clutter you can find yourself choking on it.  Even if you decide you aren’t sure about parting with an object, at least put it in a dated box with similar objects and see if you still miss it when that date has passed (6 months, one year- you decide).  This facilitates purging and it moves the process forward because you can SEE an established a plan, instead of ignoring the problem.

4. LOOK As Organized As You Are. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but of course we all do.  While this honesty may not fly in public, it is useful in your personal environment.  Don’t you feel more in control of your day if your bed is made first?  Don’t you feel more capable of taking on the world if your desk is cleared for take-off? These visuals contribute toward a sense of control.  

5. Isolate the Important. You may pull out a miscellaneous bag of junk and have no idea where to start.  Start by selecting the most important/ interesting stuff first.    Now spread out what’s left and ask yourself “What would be the worst thing to happen to me if I just dumped the lot?  This is an easier decision to make if you SEE that you have preserved the most important items FIRST.

6. Reveal, Don’t Conceal. The best way to slay those clutter vampires is to prevent them from emerging.  Store things in CLEAR plastic boxes and CLEAR Ziploc bags.  This demystifies the contents, rendering them powerless.  No, you can’t get the clear solutions for free like the supermarket bags and boxes, but the results are priceless.

7. Know Your Options. If you are aware of all the options that are available to simply tossing your unwanted items then it becomes much easier to SEE your way clear to user-friendly storage, as opposed to Black Hole storage (see Tip 2). 

Got an out-dated computer taking up a lot of space in your closet?  Did you know there is are organizations that will pick up your old unused computers, refurbish them, and ship them to needy children?  You can get a tax write-off thereby converting your loss into a spatial, financial, and spiritual GAIN.   This is just one good option for something you no longer need.  A Professional Organizer can help you with many others.