Making Progress

Although I thought this week was going to be a "light" work week, it ended up being pretty busy because I decided to jump in and start some of those organization projects I've been thinking about...
Two weeks ago, I attended the Club Organize 2 seminar give by the local Nashville chapter of NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers)(naponashville.com). I came away totally motivated and full of ideas. Also, I was happy to find out I have been heading in the right direction in terms of becoming ORGanized. I was just lacking some of the tools. Today I want to share some of the ideas Ihave learned and how I've used them to help me become more organized.
Most of my disorganization comes from the mountains of papers that are accumulated in my office. Admittedly, I am a pack rat. I hold on to papers, magazines, etc. afraid I might need them later. It has been a goal of mine to get over that fear and over the past couple of years I have had some success at conquering the Paper Chase. However, I have never quite seen the light. That is, until Cynthia Lindsey, CPO (Certified Professional Organizer) demonstrated the FreedomFiler filing system. She recommends the FreedomFiler system's easy filing and retrieval of papers. The key word here is RETRIEVAL! I was great at setting up files, but half the time, was not able to remain consistent in filing like items under the same heading or remembering under which heading I had filed an item. It was like a light bulb going on when I realized the object of the game was not just finding a place to put the paper, but being able to quickly find that paper again!!! Sounds silly, but, when I think about the number of hours I've spent looking for that certain paper, it was like a huge load was lifted off my back. I GOT IT- FINALLY!! Contact Cynthia at organizingease@bellsouth.net if you are interested in finding out more about the Freedom Filer system.

As long as I am giving "Shameless Plugs" - the term Lisa York (CPO) used frequently during the Club Organize 2 seminars when recommending a product or service that would be a valuable tool to the seminar attendees, I would like to suggest that you check out www.plannerpads.com . If your day planner, calendar, pda, outlook, hasn't been quite doing it for you, then this planner deserves a shot. I've used a planner since my first job over 30 years ago. Even during the years I was a stay-at-home mom, I still relied on my Day-Timer. Of course, I've tried lots of planners over the years. Outlook is good, but I'm not always in front of the computer. Using Outlook and a Day-Timer for appointments seemed like a duplication of effort for me. Appointments and schedules change too fast and I'm not always able to access a computer from everywhere. Using a PDA was not successful for me when it came to scheduling appoinments. I need to see the whole week in big letters that I can read. I put appointments on the wrong date or time more than once, when using a PDA as my appoinment book. The visual is too important for me! For the last couple of years, I have used a combination of a basic spiral bound appointment book (At A Glance), Outlook and Motorola Q for contact information, e-mails, communication, and reminders. (I do not use the internet function of my Motorala Q. I just don't want to access or be accessable to people or information 24/7.) I've personalized the appointment book by designing my own template with a TO DO list column and a PHONE CALLS column. I clip it to the front of my appointment book so I can add to the list whenever I thought of something I had to do or someone I needed to call. Even though the system seems to work pretty well, I still have several things to keep track of. It looks a little unprofessional and can be cumbersome from time to time. The Planner Pad does just what it says it will do - funnel your schedule from broad categories to tasks to actual scheduled time on your calendar. It does it on a double page spread for each week that is easy to visualize. How cool is that?!

The last tip of the day is something I thought of on my own. As an interior designer, I am a magazine and catalog junkie. Stacks of magazines and catalogs would accumulate in my office until I would have a cleaning frenzy and throw out all the magazines and catalogs I no longer needed. (Sometimes that would be an entire 40 gallon garbage can.) To keep the accumulation to a minimum, I set up a plastic file box with pend-a-flex dividers - one for magazines and one for catalogs. Each folder was labeled by magazine title or catalog name and sorted alphabetically. Now when I get a new magazine of catalog, I just file the new one in the file box and automatically throw out the old one. For magazines, I tear out any pages I need to save and put them in a box so I can sort the pages file them in my Design Ideas notebook. There are a couple of magazines that I just cannot throw out. For those, I have a time limit. For example, there are some magazines that just need to be saved for future reference. I only allow myself to keep a magazine for 1 year. After that, it is old news and I have to either tear out pertinent pages or throw it away!
Hope you get some inspiration from these ideas. I'd love to share your ideas too.