Use these Instructions for decluttering your home and use The Paper Tiger filing system software to keep track of your documents and many other things you decide to keep!
Instructions for decluttering your home
by Alex Fayle (in less than 500 words)
taken from unclutterer.com
Again we want to welcome guest author Alex Fayle, the writer behind the helpful anti-procrastination website Someday Syndrome.
One of the most frequent questions I ever get asked about organizing is the process. How do you make the decisions to get rid of things? While there are many tips and tricks you can use to ease the streamlining process, it all comes down to 5 easy steps:
1. Set yourself a goal “I am going to sort half this room before bed” or “I’m going to streamline the contents of this one box.”
2. Figure out broad categories and where you are going sort each category into.
3. Sort your stuff, moving systemically through the space, and not bouncing back and forth.
4. Purge what you don’t want.
5. Stop when you’ve reached your goal.
Use the sorting time to reminisce about the objects — don’t make any decisions at this point. Allow the emotions to come up and clear themselves out so that when it comes to the streamlining stage you are free from the emotional ties and can make more objective decisions about them.
If the idea of sorting overwhelms you, give yourself some early victories and do a walk-through of the space, choosing to remove a few large things that will open up the space quickly.
After sorting:
* Take one category and if you can, move it out of the space in which you are working, and into a clear space (like the dining room). This allows you to concentrate on the one category and not have to face the rest all at once.
* Ask yourself two questions: Need it? Love it? If you can’t say yes to either then get rid of it. Life is too short to fill out our spaces with things we’re indifferent to.
* Take the things you are not going to keep out of the house as quickly as possible. The longer they stay the more likely they will come back into the house.
* Give yourself rewards – for example out of fifty childhood books you’ve never reread but have kept for sentimental reasons, keep five and store them in a place of honor where you can see them and appreciate the memories associated with them.
There are two instances in which you stop for the day even if you are not done:
1. If you find yourself hitting a “brain fog” where nothing makes sense or you find yourself holding on to everything you are reviewing.
2. If you have hit a manic state and start tossing everything without looking at it.
Simple, yes? So now tell us, what are you going to streamline this week?
Posted by Alex on February 17, 2009
By Meggin McIntosh, “The Ph.D. of Productivity”™ and Paper Tiger Expert
Meggin also recommends Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management to get everything in your life organized — it’s not just for filing paper.
When you are taking the pulse on your productivity and the overall health of your ‘organization,’ you need to take a very good look at the ‘pixels’ related to your productivity. You can use this *P* word to think about a category that includes everything digital. For example, consider your
When you are really taking the pulse of your organization, you want to make note of – and make changes in (as needed) – anything and everything that can clog up your “circulatory system.”
Sometimes, the items (and your use or misuse of them) may clog up your ‘circulatory’ system because you don’t know how to use it effectively and efficiently. Other times, it is because the item – or some aspect of it – is a distractor to you. Either way, recognize that your productivity can either be helped or hampered by the way you utilize the technology tools you have available.
Let’s just look at two examples you will want to attend to if your ‘system’ has clogged arteries: email and electronic files.
Three key tips on how to use email effectively thereby keeping it from clogging up the works are:
As far as your electronic files are concerned, you need to be able to find what you have on your hard drive (just as you need to be able to find what you have in your paper files). A few tools to check out:
Just as your physical health needs to be monitored, so too, does the health of your organization. An excellent way to keep checking the pulse of your productivity is to join others (worldwide) who receive Meggin’s weekly emails (and check out what is available for download at no cost at the following websites):
**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)
**Keys to Keeping Chaos at Bay (http://www.KeepingChaosatBay.com)
(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh works with bright people who want to be more productive so that they can consistently put their emphasis on excellence. If this sounds like you, I look forward to having you in our group!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh
By Meggin McIntosh, “The Ph.D. of Productivity”™ and Paper Tiger Expert
Meggin also recommends Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management to get everything in your life organized — it’s not just for filing paper.
Take your pulse right now – and then answer these questions:
Now, let’s think about the pulse of your productivity. Ask and answer these questions:
If you are in business (or really, in any other type of profession), you need to periodically take the pulse on your productivity and the overall health of your organization.
When you attend to all seven of these on a regular basis, you’ll see your organization’s health improve. And, let’s tell the truth, your personal health will also improve since the stress of living and working in a ‘sickly’ organization takes its toll.
So right now, using your list of the seven areas listed above, give your productivity a checkup.
Now that you have thought this through a bit and done a quick diagnosis, do you have a sense that it’s time for some changes? Is there a need to make some adjustments that will increase your overall productivity?
Choose one of the seven areas to focus on first. Just as a patient who goes in for a yearly check up, may have multiple areas that the doctor recommends need attention. The doctor knows that no patient can change 15 behaviors or practices in one day or even in one week. So just choose one area and determine one change you can make in the next day. Now, repeat that change for at least seven days….and then move on to the next change. Watch for improvement. You’ll see it.
And remember, just as your physical health needs to be monitored, so, too does the health of your organization. An excellent way to keep checking the pulse of your productivity is to join others (worldwide) who receive Meggin’s weekly emails (and check out what is available for download at no cost at the following websites):
**Top Ten Productivity Tips (http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com)
**Keys to Keeping Chaos at Bay (http://www.KeepingChaosatBay.com)
(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh works with bright people who want to be more productive so that they can consistently put their emphasis on excellence. If this sounds like you, I look forward to having you in our group!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh
by David & Lorrie Goldsmith
Published 2/09
Reprinted from frogpond.com at http://www.frogpond.com/articles.cfm?articleid=dgoldsmith23
http://davidgoldsmith.com/
Finding time to plan is a Catch 22. Poorly designed systems force you to put out fires all day, leaving no time to plan. The longer you go without time-saving systems, the more problems you face, robbing you of planning time and fun time.
Saving time is like saving money. Put $2000 in your IRA from age 20 to 30, and you accumulate over $1 million in savings at retirement. Start the same retirement program at age 30, and you accumulate far less money.
Find time with good planning. If you can save only 15 minutes each day, at the end of the year you’ll have gained more than eight days of free time to spend as you choose. That’s a full vacation. Eliminate 60 wasted minutes each day…(it IS possible)…and gain an additional month of time for a vacation, a new endeavor, or to dine with your family.
Finding time is easier than you think. Here are 11 useful tips:
1. You might be the problem. Before jumping to something new, make sure that you’re using what you have properly. Plan each day the night before, not that morning when you’re already on the move. List priorities and rank them by importance of results, not urgency.
2. Delegate. For some this is difficult, but worth doing. Don’t trust that others will produce top-quality results. That’s a sign of flawed leadership. Educate others to take on responsibility and deliver results. Only keep tasks that belong to you.
3. Budget your time. Assign a realistic estimate of time for daily activities to prevent overbooking. Allow 20% to 30% of your day for the unexpected: impromptu meetings, returning phone calls. A good rule of thumb is to book only 6 hours of work for an 8-hour workday.
4. Batch similar activities to save time. If you will be conducting 10 personnel reviews, pull all 10 employee files at once. Planning in advance enables you to group similar tasks.
5. Run meetings with purpose, time limits, and focus. Use meetings to discuss ideas already thought about, not to start thinking. Exchange and benchmark progress by having participants bring completed work when they arrive. Each person should leave with an assignment due for the next meeting.
6. Turn off email pop-ups and instant messaging. They cause you to react at inopportune times. They’re no different than having someone barge into your office uninvited. When you need blocks of time, hold non-emergency interruptions and address them at your convenience.
7. Reduce interruptions from staff through strategy, systems, and education. Strategic plans set direction. Systems control flow of operations. Education produces empowered and independent employees. Jonathan Shultz of TCN Worldwide says that his job is to deliver the “vehicles for others to be successful.”
8. Take control of clutter. Trashcans and filing tools free up workspace, mental space, and time. Select a filing system based on how easy it is to find information, such as Paper Tiger Software (www.thepapertiger.com). Documents are filed by number, and numbers are retrieved in “less than 5 seconds” via software.
9. Use customer resource-management (CRM) tools such as ACT, Seibel or Goldmine software to organize digital communications. Notes taken during correspondence are available at the press of a button…no more searching through stacks of papers or file folders. But, if you have it and don’t use it, others won’t trust the system.
10. Put computer files in chronological order using a dating system. Year-month-day: February 4, 2003 reads 03-02-04. Now all 2000s group together, as do 2001s and 2002s.
11. Cut ties with negative people, especially if they’re employees. They easily suck away time. Challenged and excited people achieve more than the living dead…so do their supervisors.
There’s no substitute for great planning. Pushing off planning will bite you later, whereas great planning puts you in charge of your life. “Create” time with useful tools such as strategic and tactical planning, priority management, and systems. Strategic and tactical planning saves time and directs everyone toward the same goals. Priority management brings balance and achievement to work and personal life. Systems and procedures focus activities, maintain order, and reduce waste.
Once you’ve mastered the art of planning, you’ll need to find something to do with all that extra time.
For other articles written by David or Lorrie: http://davidgoldsmith.com/editor.php
Copyright© 2009, David and Lorrie Goldsmith. All right reserved. For information contact FrogPond at 800.704.FROG(3764) or email susie@FrogPond.com.
The following article by Barbara Bartlein, The People Pro, recommends The Paper Tiger filing system software!
After coaching executives for more than twenty years, it is clear that one of the greatest stumbling blocks for productivity is the difficulty successful people have in letting go. They hang on to routines, paper, people, and even meetings that suck their time, energy, and creativity. Consider:
* The average US executive wastes six weeks per year retrieving misplaced information on desks or in files. At a salary of $75,000 per year, this translates into $ 9225.
* Office workers spend 40-60% of their time working with paper. Despite visions of a paperless office, 95% of all information is still transmitted using paper.
* 80% of filed papers are never referenced again.
* Negative employees cost companies millions of dollars in lost productivity and sales.
* Of 1,037 full or part-time workers polled by Opinion Research USA, 27% ranked disorganized, rambling meetings as their top frustration.
Highly creative and energetic people seem especially prone to hang on to things and routines. After all, this was part of what made them successful. They view “stuff” as opportunity and people as resources. But sometimes it doesn’t work and the clutter, negative employee or useless routine gets in the way of attending to what is really important.
There are steps you can take to “let go” of the things in your life that are stifling your success. Some suggestions:
* Let go of perfectionism. Perfectionism is paralysis and often 80% is more than good enough. Sometimes it is better to just complete something than obsess over details that won’t make a difference. Set time limits for projects and stick to them.
* Let go of energy suckers. Get rid of negative, non-performing employees on the payroll. When management at 3M laid off the bottom 10% (the poorest performers) at one facility–their productivity skyrocketed up eighteen percent. 3M learned that negative employees not only produce less, but they also cost more. Negative employees destroy morale and turn off potential customers. As one employee said, “an energy sucker is the person you go on break with and come back more exhausted than when you left.”
* Let go of meetings. The great corporate time waster. So many meetings aren’t really necessary and too often they are poorly organized and run. Conduct training for effective meetings for all management personnel. This should include an evaluation checklist whether to have the meeting at all. Make sure that meeting organizers know how to create an agenda, start on time and keep control of the proceedings.
* Let go of filing. Make your office paperless by using some of the new on-line filing systems such as www.thepapertiger.com. Easy to implement, you can manage both paper and electronic files. It eliminates duplication of materials and does not require scanning.
* Let go of crisis management. Avoid the tyranny of the urgent so that you can focus on what is important. Often the result of someone else’s poor planning; it can result in spending most of your day putting out fires. Let co-workers know that you plan your day and don’t jump from project to project. Insist on realistic timeframes for projects.
* Let go of interruptions. Train yourself and your co-workers to stop the frequent interruptions that block creativity and “flow.” Every time you are interrupted, it will take an average of 15 minutes to get back into the task at hand. Make sure you are not interrupting yourself with frequent breaks, cups of coffee or chatting in the hall.
* Let go of useless tasks. Do you really have to do all the stuff on your “to do” list? I have seen executives typing their own letters, doing computer entry and other everyday jobs that could be easily delegated to someone else. Evaluate what you really need to do.
* Build white space in your life. UN-schedule time on your calendar and in your life to just think, read, walk, and relax. Have a weekend from time to time where you have nothing planned. Don’t schedule every hour of the day with no breathing room for the unexpected.
* Know what is draining your resources. Take a careful inventory of where your time goes and with whom. What activities/people deplete your energy? Evaluate how you can handle them differently. How do you re-charge? Structure your week with some re-charging activities such as exercise and hobbies.
* Start plugging the leaks. Start letting go of the problems areas. Get rid of clutter, let go of your bottom feeding employees and control access to your time.
Increase Your Productivity by Letting Go
According to Albert Eistein, there are three rules of work: “Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
FREE E-mail newsletter, sign on at http://www.ThePeoplePro.com. Barbara Bartlein, is The People Pro, and President of Great Lakes Consulting Group, LLC, which helps companies sell more goods and services by developing people. She can be reached at 888-747-9953, by e-mail at: barb@barbbartlein.com or visit her website at http://www.ThePeoplePro.com
Barbara Bartlein, The People Pro may be contacted at http://www.ThePeoplePro.com or barb@thePeoplePro.com
This article by Meggin McIntosh, “The Ph.D. of Productivity”™ and Paper Tiger Expert, is a great start to getting your workspace organized. Meggin also recommends Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management, and you’ve got a great plan to get everything in your life organized — it’s not just for filing paper.
I agree with the premise behind Marilyn Paul’s book title: “It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys.” Your workspace (whether it’s an office, a classroom, in a school, at a university, in your home, or anywhere else) is a place where you begin and conduct some of the work that allows you to make a difference. If your workspace is filled with clutter, you are not as free to think, create, and generate ideas that will have the biggest impact.
If your office and/or classroom have become cluttered, you can use the “Method of 9,” which is 8 Containers and a List, to rid yourself of this clutter. Implementing this method of clearing the clutter gives you a way to
* Stay on task;
* Make the decisions you need to make; and
* Restore order in your workspace;
…all with the purpose of letting you
* Create an area of peaceful, predictable productivity.
To get started with the Method of 9, here’s what you need:
1. A container labeled: Trash
2. A container labeled: Belongs Elsewhere
3. A container labeled: Recycling
4. A container labeled: But I Might…
5. A container labeled: Hazardous Waste
6. A container labeled: Shred
7. A container labeled: Give Away
8. A container labeled: Keep
9. A pad of paper for your List
Get these containers labeled and get started on your cleaning & clearing activity. Figure out where you need to declutter, pick up each item that is detritus, and put it in one of the already-labeled container (or make a note about it on ‘the list.’) You’re on your way!
Don’t be discouraged; be energized because you’re making progress. Remember, it took time (and no effort) for your space to become cluttered and it will take time (and some effort) for you to clear the clutter.
© 2009 Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., The Ph.D. of Productivity(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh supports smart people who want to be more productive so that they can consistently keep their emphasis on excellence. Sound interesting? It is!
**Keys to Keeping Chaos at Bay
During the “GREAT RECESSION”, as this recession is and will forever be known, many organizations saw their businesses shrink and their staff stretched to the breaking point. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor report dated September 4, 2009 the unemployment rate in the U.S. stood at 9.7%. With fewer people to do the work, everyone left in the organization has had to work much harder to accomplish their goals, relying on systems and tools provided by the company, to make the work as easy as possible. As the nation and the world economies start to recover and we get back to business in a more normal growth-oriented mode, this is a great time to make sure that your organization, if it is not already, is streamlined and ready to do business.
Paper Tiger software can take the boring and tedious task of filing and managing the ever increasing flow of paper in your office (yes, we are all trying to rid ourselves of paper but it still keeps coming!) and almost make the process FUN and REWARDING. After the past 12-24 months of recession, who doesn’t want to make boring tasks more fun?
Now is the time to change the systems in your office that don’t work right – alphabetic filing does not work properly and breaks down very quickly. You only have 5 options with any piece of paper.
As we finally get back to some form of normal business growth, you have to maximize the use of technology to remain competitive and provide the highest level of customer service. Let Paper Tiger software handle your paper filing system – the software really works. If you are using a single-user edition, consider putting your work group on the Network Edition. The software works great when information in the office must be shared.
Now, each day, they get the pleasure of being much better organized with their paper filing. They realized that paper was not going away and that they needed a better way to deal with it. Using The Paper Tiger software each day to stay on top of things, really gives them a bit of a thrill and makes them feel good. And in today’s economy, who doesn’t need to feel just a little better each day?
Make yourself feel good by making the commitment to install, fully implement and convert to the software. Once you have it in your office, you are not likely to go back to the old methods. Filing is a difficult, but necessary, task and making it FUN! (okay, well almost fun), is really important so that you will stay on top of it and streamline your office.
Be sure and see our new What is The Paper Tiger? video.
We stand ready to help you achieve your goals!
The Paper Tiger Team
