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Entries Tagged 'Goals & Time Management' ↓
You are busy, rushed & maybe struggling to keeping on top of your game. There’s work and kid’s homework, after school activities, dinner, laundry, mopping…You get the picture. On top of it all, there’s that nagging at the back of your mind…the phone calls you are supposed to return to the friends who have left you messages. The weeks, months and years going by without a coffee or a lunch but always good intentions to do so.
There are way to let your friends and family know that you are living, breathing and thinking of them even when you are short on time. Here are 10:
Try using facebook for quick status updates. As long as you aren’t getting sucked into the time-consuming games, you can get a quick look at what your friends & family are up to. With little effort, you can let them know what you are up to with a daily or weekly status update. I recently taught a class where a participant said her family turned to facebook to stay in touch after their grandma died as she was the one who kept everyone in the loop.
Use your headset to catch up with conversation in the car when you are by yourself.
Keep blank note cards & stamps on hand to jot down a quick “hello” and drop them in the mail on your way to work.
Keep cards on hand for all occasions so you are ready at all times for birthdays, anniversaries and expressing sympathy.
Create a Word document and type an email message. Cut and paste your message into individual emails with your recipients’ names so it won’t look like a mass email.
Leave a “thinking of you” voicemail at a time when you know someone won’t be able to take a call.
Combine activities: Talk on the phone during mindless tasks like folding laundry or go for a walk with a friend to get exercise & catch up.
Let people know how much time you have at the beginning of a conversation.
Leave a note on the counter, pillow or in a lunch sack.
Have easy-to-mail, generic gift cards to drop in the mail for special occasions or for just “thinking of you” times. Great options are Amazon, iTunes & Starbucks. Be sure to make a note in your planner 3 days prior to the special occasion to remember to mail it.
Try one, two or all 10 of these ideas to help you manage your time and stay in touch with the people you care about!
Tags: Amazon, balance, facebook, Home Organization, Home Organization Blog, iTunes, Starbucks, time management
I am really looking at ways that I can make changes to my routine that will save time (time management), save money (good for my budget), miles (gas and wear & tear on my car and helps the environment). These are all positive things, but it’s also kind of a fun way to challenge myself. How can I still get what I want using alternative sources? I will give you some of my own examples.
Example #1: My hair-which I take very seriously. 
I recently took the very bold step of letting my teenager color my hair. MY HAIR! I’ve only had professional highlights previously at about $110 twice a year which meant driving to the salon and sitting for about an hour. Now, I was taking a big chance on this one, but I went for it. I had a gift card for Target so I got the color for free and paid my daughter $10. I saved a drive, time in the salon and lots of money. My hair is darker than usual, but it’s fun and it’s changeable.
Example #2: I absolutely cannot stand going to the nail salon to get my nails done; it’s about a 40 minute round-trip drive plus sitting 45 minutes to an hour. It feels like such a waste of time! But since I am really hard on my nails and they need to look professional, I’ve spent both time and money going in twice a month for $50. Again enters my daughter who loves to make money. Our agreement is that I will buy her $80 worth of OPI nail polish for 20 manicures from her. She pointed out that would have been at least $500 in the salon! When did she get so smart? Oh ya, she’s a teenager, she’s known it all for a while now. If this works out, I’ll be saving a bunch of time and money as well as drawing my teenager out of her room.
I challenge you to find ways to manage your time better by finding alternatives that save you money too, a win-win! Feel free to leave me a comment letting me know what you tried!
Tags: budget, Home Organization, Home Organization Blog, save money, save time, time management
10 Days to Faster Reading
To organize your reading materials you have to make decisions on what items are important to you so you can make your reading pile manageable. The following suggestions on how to do that are from the book, “10 Days to Faster Reading” by The Princeton Language Institute and Abby Marks Beale.
1) Figure out what you are receiving and where it is coming from.
2) Take a piece of paper and write down all the reading material you are receiving: magazines, professional journals, newsletters, e-mail newsletters, etc.
3) Keep the list for one month.
4) Next, rate each piece, assessing its value to you and why you should keep it. If you can’t come up with a valid reason, cancel your subscription. If you have five or more unread back issues of any one publication, chances are you don’t have the time for it or are not getting value from it.
5) The items that you don’t have time for, toss in the recycle bin or pass it on. Local libraries are great places to donate magazines and books.
I think it’s also important to point out that you can read just the parts you are interested in. For some reason I used to get hung up on feeling like I had to read a magazine cover-to-cover. But now I realize that it’s OK to just read the articles I am interested in. One way I feel better about that is by donating my magazines to the library so someone else can enjoy them when I am done. Maybe they will read the articles that I didn’t!
Consider reading “10 Days to Faster Reading” so you can literally read and comprehend material faster; I am in the middle of reading it now and I have high hopes that I will devour more books! Decrease the amount of reading material you have on hand to help you read faster as well and you will be on your way to smaller stacks!
Tags: 10 Days to Faster Reading, Abby Marks Beale, articles, library, organizing, Princeton Language Institute, publication, reading materials
Reading Material to Organize
Maybe you enjoy reading, maybe you don’t but one way or the other, most of us have more reading material stacked than we have time. I do enjoy reading and I find that most of the books & magazines that I read are centered around personal improvement or relate to my business. And there certainly is no shortage of books to choose from. All I have to do is read a magazine that mentions a book that sounds interesting and boom-there’s another one on my list! So, how do you organize your reading materials and how do you read faster?
Organizing reading materials
* Be choosy about what you choose to read. Most of us end up with newsletters, articles, brochures and recipes that we mean to read but end up in a pile instead. Look at reading material quickly as it comes into your home or office and quickly decide if it will be worth your time to read. Recycle the one’s that don’t make the cut.
* Have a place for your reading material other than stacks on your desk that get shuffled around. Create a folder or file labeled “To Read” and place items of interest there. If the file is getting too thick, it’s time to make quick decisions. A folder also makes it easy to grab your reading on the go.
Hanging folder for reading materials
Next up, part 2 on organizing reading material: how to make decisions on what to keep.
Tags: articles, books, brochures, folder, magazines, newsletters, organize, organizing, pile, reading material
At-A-Glance Quick Notes Appointment Book
OK, OK, it’s the day planner again, not a ‘real’ best friend. But did I happen to mention how much I love my planner? My planner is so awesome because it’s the main time management tool that keeps me sane by keeping me on top of everything in our household and with my business. It’s what keeps the little stuff from falling through the cracks.
What do I put in my planner at the beginning of each year that maybe you should too?
- Birthdays and anniversaries in red pen.
- Reminders a few days before birthdays and anniversaries to mail cards/gifts.
- Reminders to make doctor appointments.
- Reminders to make dental appointments.
- Reminders to change furnace filter.
- Reminders to clean Dyson filter.
- Scheduled appointments.
- Scheduled meetings.
- Reminders of things I need to bring with me to meetings and appointments.
- Important or “critical” tasks that I need to schedule into my day vs. leaving on a ‘to do’ list.
If you use a paper system, be sure to look at it every day for your schedule and reminders. If you use an electronic system, still check it daily but also take advantage of the reminder system/tones that are available to you.
Organizing your time with time management can be as simple or as detailed as you need to make it. I feel like we all have so much running through our heads daily that getting the little details written down can be a load off your mind!
Tags: appointments, Blackberry, critical tasks, Dyson, electronic system, meetings, reminders, schedule, time management, To Do list
At-A-Glance Day Planner
OK, before you start feeling sorry for me, I’m not really best friends with my day planner. I have managed to rope in a ‘real’ friend or two here and there. But I really do LOVE my paper planner for time management and not letting anything slip through the cracks! I’m a paper and pencil girl, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. This is a super time of year for you to sit down and make sure you are including important dates, information and reminders that you will need in the new year. I personally use the At-A-Glance Quick Notes Weekly/Monthly Appointment Book. You can use whatever works for you-Outlook, BlackBerry, wall calendar; just make sure you use one system and stick with it.
A few tips to make sure you are using the right system whether paper or electronic:
** You feel comfortable with it. I personally like to be hands-on, touching and turning the pages.
** You are using only one system because you trust your system. No Outlook + a day planner.
** You are able to use your calendar system consistently.
** You are staying on top of appointments, celebrations and reminders because your system is so awesome. Like mine.
I have used this system for years and I like it because:
- I can turn the pages, I don’t like scrolling through an electronic device. And yes, I have experimented.
- The planner is set up to show a whole month as well as a blank page for notes for each month.
- The day planner has an entire column for every day of the week from 8 am to 8:45 pm. I have plenty of room to write and all of my appointments are in chronological order.
Use the system that naturally works best for you for time management and watch for my next post on what to put into your calendar!
Tags: appointment book, At-A-Glance Quick Notes, Blackberry, calendar, day planner, electronic, Outlook, time management
Delegating Girl Scout Badges
Oh why oh why didn’t I think of this sooner?!! How long was I dragged down by ‘mom guilt’ over these Girl Scout badges? Oh, probably only 2-3 years. Recently I was cleaning out my own dresser drawer when I came across the bag of guilt-producing badges. I had so diligently added all my girl’s badges to their vests over the years, until one day I didn’t. Right around the one day that my youngest brought a landslide of badges home at the end of the year. Good for her and her accomplishments! Not so good for a busy mom who isn’t the least bit crafty, OK, it’s just a little sewing or ironing but it’s still so not my thing.
Enter oldest daughter who loves to sew, craft, knit. OK, it’s not from my side. The daughter who loves to have money but who wouldn’t dream of offering the neighborhood tasks of my childhood such as raking leaves or washing cars. But sewing buttons onto my coats and adding badges to Girl Scout vests is right up her alley! I promptly hired her to get ‘er done which she did in a very short period of time, maybe a couple of hours. As it turns out, I’m not a good negotiator as I found out she would have done the work for half the amount of money I offered her. But it was worth every penny! It was amazing that a weight was lifted off of my shoulders in such a short amount of time by someone who could do the job so easily.
Delegation is a great way to stay on top of office or home organization; remember to delegate when:
** Someone else can do the task better than you can.
** Someone else can do the task at least as good as you can.
** Someone will enjoy the task more than you will.
** Someone else can get the task done more efficiently and faster than you can.
Do a little delegating and lighten your load a bit this year so you can focus on the home organization tasks you do best!
Tags: delegation, efficiently, Girl Scout badges, Home Organization, home organization tasks, tasks
Organized Office
Have you ever worked in the following way in your office?
- Zipping back and forth between tasks? Moving papers around? Randomly checking email, facebook & twitter? Calling a friend and then moving some more paper around? OH, and maybe a couple of texts thrown in for good measure.
Have you every worked this way in your office?
- Feeling fully focused? Honed in on one task and one task only? So absorbed in what you were doing that everything around you felt like it went away while you worked? Kinda like love isn’t it?
What was the difference and which do you prefer? Why are we sometimes scattered and sometimes absorbed? I am organized (ahem, of course), but I still have days when I feel like I have undiagnosed ADD. And I don’t mean to be flip about that, sometimes I really do feel like I’m all over the place. Let me share some organizing tips to help you and I stay on the absorbed side of the line:
** Define your priorities for the day, create a reasonable and manageable list. One thing that puts me into random mode is not knowing what I need to work on. A list truly helps me feel centered and focused.
** Prioritize your list from most important to least important.
** Work on the most important tasks on your list first.
** Limit distractions. This is huge for me. Since I lot of my work is done solo, it is easy for me to text or accept a social call from someone while I am working. I have found the best cure is to turn off my text tone and place my phone in another room. If a client calls I will hear it ringing but won’t be tempted to see if I have a text waiting. Turn off email tones, shut the door, close facebook, this is not your opportunity to “phone a friend.”
** Work for concentrated amounts of time that work well for you. I used to think I shouldn’t do anything non-work related like throwing towels in the dryer during the day. But I have found that I actually do better if I get up between work activities and have a change in tasks. Do what works for you. Get up, stretch, meditate-take a short break. One rule of thumb is to work 50 minutes and take a 10 minute break.
Organize your time and tasks to increase your focus so you can get your work done and then go have some fun! Fun is good.
Tags: email, facebook, focus, office organization, organize your time, organized office, tasks, text, work, zone
Water, water, water, I need more water! Recently I’ve been working on organizing myself to implement some very basic goals for my health, one of which is drinking more water. I’m either good at it or I’m not. And recently, well, I’m not. Living in the northwest, it’s usually not that hot out to make me very thirsty. And I find it’s really easy for me to get busy during the day and ‘forget’ to drink water. So I will admit it, I created a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet of all the healthy things I want to incorporate into my days like vitamins, flax seed and water. Of course I included a place to check off each item as it is completed daily. But being busy, some days I would forget about my lovely spreadsheet and then all bets were off.
Over the weekend we had to hit the cream aisle at the grocery store for kid sleepovers. Right in the middle of the aisle were grocery carts lined up with sale items that I couldn’t resist peeking in and checking out. And there it was. On sale. My shiny, new water bottle. Not just any water bottle mind you… This is a 64 oz, BPA-free bottle with a molded handle, build in ice pack and spill-proof straw. SOLD!
What I love about this water bottle is that I can fill it in the morning and that’s it for the day. No more losing track of how many glasses I have put down. No more drinking two glasses but then nothing more once I leave the house for the day, I just have to take my bottle with me by it’s lovely, blue handle. There’s no guessing, I look at the bottle and I know how much I’ve drank and how much more I have to go. Knowing if I’ve met my daily goal or not is right in front of me.
I believe the simpler we can make it to reach our goals the the more likely we will reach them. Looks like I have about 40 more ounces to go-not bad for 10:00 am-I can definitely do this!
Tags: goals, spreadsheet, water, water bottle
Apparently my hopes & dreams of winning the “Mom of the Year” award for 2010 are over. I guess the positive side is I don’t need to lose 10 pounds to get into a glamorous dress for my walk down the red carpet and I can stop take up any more time practicing the perfect photo shot pose.
I’m thinking there probably isn’t anyone out there that can be too much more into home organizationthan me, considering I am a professional organizer and all. But I’m a person who makes mistakes and I’m a busy mom and, well, the evidence was in the backpack. Recently I was cleaning out the last few paper scraps from last school year and that’s when I found “it.” A note from the school from back in June at the end of the year. My daughter went to school with no lunch and only .25 cents in her account. Since it was the end of the school year there are no IOU’s for a warm lunch allowed. So she was fed a dry burger bun, a slice of cheese, fruit and a milk. Now thank goodness for the fact that our school district has provisions for kids whose mom’s mess up and she didn’t actually go hungry. But man I felt bad and wondered how I could have sent my child to school with no food.
It may have been a, “mom can I buy lunch?” morning and I just said yes. It could have been a “forgot to make lunch the night before” kind of morning. It could have been a “mom is running late and she thinks said daughter was downstairs making lunch” kind of morning. No matter now. Now we just need a plan of redemption. So I’ve been busy making the following changes for the new school year:
- My goal is to stay off the laptop until the school bus pulls away. Stay on task, stay on time.
- Lunch needs to be made the night before.
- Money needs to be on hand in their school lunch accounts.
- I’ve cooked up a bunch of breakfast foods ahead to make quick & easy breakfasts.
- I bought a timer for my daughter who tends to dilly dally to keep her on track.
I am organized and, heck, I’m even a good mom. But that dry bun got my attention and forced a few needed improvements. And who knows, maybe the “Mom of the Year” award actually has my name on it in 2011.
Tags: Home Organization, laptop, lunch, mom, morning, school
