Closet Impossible?
I have taken rather ruthless measures in an effort to get my clients' wardrobes toRead More
Read vs. Review
The key to preventing an accumulation of mail is to do a FAST sort into simple categories, as soon as it comes in. Two of those simple categories are READ and REVIEW. So what’s the difference? Read. “Read” is for items you need or want to take your time with. It’s really important that when you are sorting your daily mail, you don’t stop and read a magazine or letter.
Compelements
I think I just invented a new word. Com•pel•e•ment |comPELement| (noun) 1 element used to compel one to action. So many organizing efforts are focused on containing items out of sight and out of mind. There are, however, things that we need to make a point of acting on, that should NOT be hidden. Quite the opposite. We need things to stick out like a sore thumb to compel us to action. Those are the compelements. Here are some examples.
To File Is To Find
It’s all too common to think of a file cabinet as a place to make paper go away. It’s not. It should be a safe place to store files where they can be FOUND reliably. Don’t put things you want to make a point of acting on in your file drawer. They will be out of sight out of mind. Instead, they need to be out where they are more compelling.
The Weekly Round Up
I have touched upon my system of Project Corrals in past posts, but today I am going to go into it in more detail. As always I believe a good system is an EASY system. This system involves an easy habit I call the weekly round-up, which I will demonstrate using my own projects and tasks as an example. The most important takeaway I got from David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity is this.
My Case Against Paper Clips
This isn’t the first time I have attacked a familiar office convention. There was the accordion file, the spiral notebook, and the rubberband.Today, I take issue with the apparently harmless paper clip. Let me start by saying I do use paper clips myself. I believe they have their place. It’s just that I find they are grossly over-used.
January 2012, Connecticut Magazine
Professional organizing expert Matt Baier of Stamford beams when asked how to set up an efficient home office; he lives for this.
What’s Making Your Tasks So Difficult
I have found that the number one reason we struggle with tasks is that they are actually projects, that we TREAT like tasks. So what’s the difference between a project and a task? The easiest way to answer that question is with another question: How do you eat an elephant?
How Dedicated Zones Work
How Dedicated Zones Work “Dedicated Zone” is an expression professional organizers (like me) throw aroundRead More
“We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!”
"We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!" So what does Sheriff Brody’s immortal line from JawsRead More
Simple Can Be Harder
"That’s been one of my mantras—focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: YouRead More
What My Headlines Look Like
A while back I described how to organize your to-do’s by comparing them to newspaper headlines. Today I want to share an actual model of what that might look like. To summarize, the front page of a newspaper is made up of a series of short compelling headlines. Each headline may have a short blurb, but it always has a connecter to the full story inside. Much of the time, what piles up on our desks are full stories.
Hey, That’s Important!
To get organized the word “important” needs to be used carefully. If “important” is used too much then there is no distinction and the most important stuff can get buried in the less important stuff. Put another way, if everything is important then nothing is important. If “important” is used too little then important is seen as a small category unto itself.
Getting Your Papers in Shape
Are you flooded with paper in your home? BIG paper challenges require BIG steps. An easy way to be as aggressive with your paper flood as it is with you, is to start by sorting shapes. The biggest deterrent to dealing with paper is making decisions. The vast majority of these decisions are easy, but we tend to tie them to the minority of difficult ones. The best approach, therefore, is to take the majority of easy decisions out of the way first. Here’s how.
