Everyday Life

Paper Clutter - Bills

2008-09-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

There are a few areas of paper clutter that most of us seem to fight with constantly. Over the next few days, we will look at a few ways to not only conquer that clutter, but maybe eliminate it as well.

The first we’ll look at are bills. First of all, can you receive the bills in an email form? Many companies now offer this solution, which not only eliminates paper waste, but also saves you space in your home b/c you don’t have to find a place to store it. You can keep it on a disk, or external hard drive without using precious space in your home. So, any chance you get, sign up for the ebill option. My utility company, phone company & credit card company do this and I can look at the bill and either put the file in my task manager on Outlook or I can simply pay it as I get it. It’s a great way to keep these bills out of the piles that we create with all the other mail that comes into the house.

Second of all, do you really need to keep the bill? If you need to keep a paper copy of the bill, create a home for the type of bill it is (credit card, utility, auto, etc.) It’s best to be broad here since you won’t have to refer to this folder every single month. If you have 4 credit cards and 2 cars, it will be easier overall to have everything in 2 folders rather than over organize your bills and have 6 different files. Put your files in a filing cabinet or get pretty boxes from Target or something to store everything in. If it doesn’t have a home, you won’t file it in the future. Likewise, if you have too many folders to go through, you’ll never find the time to do it.

When I was growing up, I lived with my mom & stepdad. They had 11 rental houses and probably just as many credit cards plus about 5 or 6 gas cards, not to mention the store specific credit cards. We would sit down & do the bills & it was my job to file them. I HATED doing this! We had a file for every credit card, every house (with sub-folders), every vehicle every owned by my parents (with sub-folders, of course). Filing was a nightmare to say the least! On top of everything else, we had a Lotus 123 (pre-Excel) spreadsheet for (you guessed it) every credit card, every house, every vehicle, so on & so forth with every bill we had.

This was my mom’s attempt at being organized. Now, you may be thinking, “what’s the big deal? So, you have a few files.” This comes up to more than 100 files spread over a few file drawers with every receipt and bill needing to be put in one of those files. The tricky part is do you put a gasoline receipt for traveling to a rental home in a city 2 hours away under the gas company or under the rental property? Or do you make a copy & put it in both? Now for tax purposes some of this was necessary, but the personal items like the phone bill & electric bill could be put in one folder called utilities. Then all the gas cards could be put in one gas cards file. The credit cards could be divided into personal & rental & leave it at that. Especially since absolutely everything was also tracked in Lotus 123.

All of this to say, you do need some type of system for your bills & filing them, but try not become obsessed with over organizing them because you will dread the system and fall out of the habit. Find a simple system that you can stick with and use it. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. Just use what works for you and what you will actually use on a monthly, if not daily, basis.

It's Been A While

2008-08-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since my last post. I guess that's because a lot has gone on. The biggest question? Have I been following my own advice and decluttering/organizing my life?

Work: I used to MindMap everything. Meetings, my upcoming wedding, my to do list, cleaning the house, etc. I still use MindMap, but for my to do list, I've changed things up a little. I use Outlook tasks. As soon as I receive an email or task, I simply open it, assign a due date, assign a category (priority/home/my boss) and then move the email to another folder called Hold For Now. I even do this for things I need to accomplish within the same day. This not only keeps my inbox empty, it also keeps me on task if I'm called away so that I don't forget to do something within a particular time frame. When I have a meeting with my boss, I immediately sit down with Outlook, enter all the tasks & get started. Again, this keeps me focused. Please note that this is for individual tasks. A task is one action, not a goal. For instance earn a million dollars is a goal. Get a job is a goal. Look at the classifieds is a task. Send resume's is a task.

Home: I joined Bookins (http://www.bookins.com/index.php?invite=2cz2cw5cA) to get rid of some unused books. It's great b/c you earn points towards books while getting unneeded books on your bookshelf. Also, the only thing you have to pay for is whatever container (envelope/box) you ship the book in. Also, I have recycled almost all of my magazines. I probably had over 150 to get rid of, so this was a big feat!

I have a friend who recently found out she has cancer. She was told she only has 18 months to live. It made me think. If I had 18 months to live, what would I do with all my stuff? And if I were in that situation, would I really want to be purging items from my house, or living my life to the fullest while I still could?

Make A Date

2008-02-27T15:54:00.000-08:00

Do you ever look at your life & say to yourself how you don't have time for this, or that? Well, guess what? We have all the time in the world. We can always find time to do the things that we truly want to do, whether we admit it, or not.

When I really don't want to do something, I will do everything in my power to put it off. I will sort laundry, check my email, read a couple of blogs, play with the dogs, you get the idea. But, I find if I tell myself, "Starting at 7:00 I am going to clean out the car (something I HATE to do) for 15 minutes." Not only will I start at 7:00, but most of the time, I find that if I set an actual time & just do it, I can complete the task in much less time.

Another problem is that we look at the job overall & say that we can never do it. Think of decluttering, for example. Let's say you decide that you want to declutter your home. Does it sound more achievable to say that you are going to declutter your home, or clean out your sock drawer?

I got a mindmapping program last year at work. It's just the way I think (you have a central goal with smaller goals going out from it radially). I use this program for my office, my home, my wine business, everything. I especially love it for decluttering. Get out a piece of paper (you don't need a computer program to do this, though you may want to write small) and a writing utensil. Now, in the middle write the word declutter & then draw a circle, square, cloud, whatever around it. Now, write down every room in your house & each car/boat/rv you have & draw a line from the room to declutter. See, that was easy, right? Now instead of saying you want to declutter your home, you can say you want to declutter your bathroom...but let's go further. For each room, draw a line & put areas of the room. So, for the bathroom you may write down medicine cabinet, linens, under the sink, items in the shower, magazine rack, etc. You can make this as detailed (every drawer, cabinet, etc) or vague (vanity) as you like, since it is just for you. Now look! You can pull out your map & say to yourself, "Today I am going to declutter the top left drawer of my vanity for 15 minutes." Can you find time to do that? I've always felt overwhelmed by saying that I needed to declutter my home, but I can do anything for 15 minutes!

My goal this year is to donate 100 bags of items to The Salvation Army. Using this method, I can do it!

So, make a date with yourself & your list & go! You can do it!

No Specific Right Way

2007-11-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

It's very important to realize that just because you have a friend that can declutter in one specific way, doesn't mean it will work for you. It is important to read as much as you can about whatever you are trying to learn to glean things that will work for you, though.

For example, some people can use Franklin Covey for organizing their time. It doesn't work for me, well it does for about a week & suddenly I'm forgetting to look at it, or I think to myself that It's a waste of time to enter certain things because I will remember them and before I know it, the book is on a shelf somewhere. As I stated in a previous post, I use MindMapper and Outlook Calendar. I can spread all my thoughts out at once with MindMapper and I put the routine items that I need daily reminders for in my Outlook Calendar.

Just like the example above, there are many different methods of decluttering your home. The way that I do it may not work for you. Some methods tell you to get 3X5 cards, some tell you to get a notebook for a routine, some tell you to jump right in the middle of the worst area & finish it quick.

Some people go out & buy tons of bins to sort items they keep, I keep baskets around for that purpose. Some methods will tell you to completely clear off an area you are trying to declutter & go item by item to see if you love it before putting it back. That doesn't work for me. In my mind, it's silly for me to remove the lamp & things I know that I need on a table just to remind myself that I really want them there. Again, this is just the way my mind works.

For some people, decluttering their home is like a few shows on HGTV where they take absolutely everything out of a room and start over. I can't even think about completely cleaning out a room and starting over (furniture included), that freaks me out. But, they have professional organizers. They take a couple of days to do a room and do a makeover in the process with a team of people. If that's what you want to do, I suggest hiring a professional organizer to help you with that massive project. They can keep you on task and suggest new ways of doing things.

In the end, do what's best for you. Read as many articles, books, websites, blogs, etc. to glean new ways of accomplishing your goals.

The Kitchen

2007-11-06T14:56:00.000-08:00

Now that you know the basics of decluttering, you can do a little at a time & make your home smile back at you.

Just remember that you need to stay small. Let's look at the kitchen. I've always dreaded "cleaning up" the kitchen because I never knew where to start and there was just stuff everywhere. Let's look at it in stages.

You have the cabinets, drawers, pantry, fridge & freezer (yes, the fridge & freezer need to be decluttered of all those ketchup and hot sauce bottles every now & then) and the counter tops. You may have more areas than this, so just add to this list as you feel the need. Don't look at it as decluttering your kitchen, look at it as decluttering one drawer and by all means start with the drawer you are least afraid of. If the thought of cleaning out the junk drawer freaks you out, start with a different drawer. If the thought of decluttering any drawer still freaks you out, start with a cabinet, or a shelf in a cabinet. Once you have a sense of accomplishment in one area, you can move to the next.

Drawers are fairly easy when it comes down to it. The pantry, on the other hand, is not so easy. You have all those shelves, maybe spices & appliances, maybe it's a catch-all. The best thing I've found is to start at the top & work your way down. Get a sturdy ladder, or a very tall friend/family member, and get to work.

First of all, do you have your trash can, donation bag & basket? Make sure you use them in all decluttering, mainly so you aren't running around every 5 seconds trying to put stuff away. Now, look at the top shelf. Is there anything there that doesn't belong in the pantry? My boyfriend tries to put dog items in our pantry all the time, even though there is an area in another room specifically for dog items. Take out the items that don't belong.

Next look at any expiration dates. You'd be surprised how that hidden can of corn can get shoved to the back corner & next thing you know, it's too old to eat.

Now, look at everything else, is the top shelf the best shelf for these items? If not, move them to a more suitable shelf, or a more suitable area in your kitchen. You don't want to have to reach to the top shelf for things you use every day. Now look at everything & make sure that everything on that shelf is really something you think you will use. If not, there are plenty of food pantries, homeless shelters, less fortunate members of the church, etc. that could possible use the items. Please make sure the items you donate aren't expired. I used to work for The Salvation Army & couldn't tell you how many cans of expired canned goods we had to throw away at Thanksgiving & Christmas. And that's just the cans that we happened to see.

So, let's review. You got rid of the things that don't belong. You threw away what was old, expired, stale, etc. You moved things that would be better placed somewhere else. Finally, you donated what you don't want/need. Does it make you feel good that you accomplished all this?

Take a picture! No, really, get the camera & take a picture of what you've accomplished. It looks fabulous! :-)

So, a little side story. My boyfriend's daughter B is with us every other weekend. I would tell her every time she was here that she needed to pick up her room before she went home (she has her own things here so she doesn't have to take things back & forth). I was always so frustrated b/c she would leave things out all over the place. One day I read an article, sorry I don't remember where, about how children may not know what you expect from them if you just tell them in the same way over & over again to clean their room (what's the definition of insanity?). So, I picked up her room one week as I expected her to leave it & took pictures of everything in the room. The next time she came, we sat down & I told her that I thought our ideas of a picked up room were not the same. I showed her the pictures of what I expected & it was like a light bulb went off in her head. Since that day, I rarely have to ask her to pick up her room before she leaves....of course, that means I have to be the example & keep my room picked up as well.

Decluttering

2007-11-05T07:39:00.000-08:00

Do a quick Google search for decluttering your home & there is no shortage of sites that pop up. In fact, I just searched declutter & it shows that Google was able to find 1,600,000 sites for me to browse. How do you not get lost in all those sites?

Well, here is what I've learned.

First of all, take a deep breath! Yes, I mean it, fix your favorite drink (coffee, tea, chocolate milk, whatever) & sit down for a few minutes. Relax your mind & your body so that you don't start out all stressed of what you are about to do. Tell yourself that it does your soul no good to point fingers, it does your soul no good to worry about what others think, it does your soul no good to get depressed about the clutter in your home. You are able to get rid of the clutter around your home, all it takes is a little time, you just need to know the steps to take to do it.

Second of all, choose ONE room that you want to work on for now. As FlyLady would say, "It didn't get messy in one day, don't expect it to be cleaned in one day." She has you work on one room, or one set of rooms per week and gets to the nitty gritty of cleaning it....we will get into that later, we are only working on decluttering, which is different than cleaning.

Third, write down what you want to accomplish for that ONE room in the end & be extremely specific. Rather than say you want to declutter your bedroom, put down specifically what you want to do i.e. "I want to clean out all the junk from my closet." "I want to have every surface cleared off." Break it down into specific items you want done in that room. Think of anything you could do in this room to make you smile every time you walk into the room.

Next, get a timer. It can be on the oven, the microwave, an egg timer, on your cellphone, whatever, you need a timer. I realize this sounds silly b/c you want to start in your room, go full blast, pull everything out & start over. Well, guess what? You aren't on Mission Organization on HGTV & you don't have a professional organizer with you doing this. You have to rely on yourself to get this done & once you start you may not want to take a break later, so go get one...I'll wait. :-)

Now, most organizing websites & television programs have you get bins, bags, etc. at this point. They all have different methods of items you need, here is what I use, something for trash (I just use a trash can), something for donations (I use a large black trash bag for this, so I'm not tempted to take the items back out) and something for items that belong somewhere else (I use a beautiful Longaberger basket, but anything will do). It is important that you have all three right there with you, so you don't have to go all over the house every time you find something that's trash & get distracted. You should be able to stay right where you are for the entire time.

Now you are ready to start. Now, read this out loud to yourself, your toddler running around, or your dog, "I am going to start small." Say it again, b/c you don't want to misunderstand what you are saying here, "I am going to start small." Remember that list we made in step three? Let's say you want to have every surface cleared off in your bedroom. Do not walk into your bedroom & look around & just start throwing stuff around. Walk into your bedroom, turn to the left or to the right & start with the first surface you come to. In my room, it would be the nightstand. Set your timer for 15 minutes and do nothing else until you have cleared off the nightstand. Throw the trash in the can, put the donations in the bag and put things that don't belong in the basket. Now find a home for everything in the basket. Notice I didn't say take everything off, clean the lamp, empty the drawers, go find the pledge to wipe off the nightstand, etc, don't let your OCD take over here. I only want you to make nightstand smile back at you. This post is not about cleaning, it is about decluttering (2 different things). Now move to the next surface in your bedroom & work all the way around the room. When your timer goes off, STOP.

I know, I know, this sounds ridiculous, but you need to stop. That's why we are only working on one area at a time. So, how did you do? Were you able to find a home for everything in the basket? If not, it's ok. It's off the surface & in the basket & we will look at that in a few minutes. Remember it's not like Hurricane Lyn came into your home, threw everything around in a few hours & now you have to clean it up. This happens over a long period of time without us realizing it & it will take time to get it where we want it to be.

Now for the next minute or so, I want you to go do something else. Get a drink of water, let the dogs out, change over the laundry, go to the restroom, etc. Just take your mind off that one thing you were working on & go do something else for a minute or two. Then go back to the room you chose, set the timer for 15 minutes and either finish the challenge you were working on, or go to the next place in the room & start there.

Sometimes, while doing something that I really don't want to do, I repeat in my head over & over again, "I can do this for 15 minutes & stop." Suddenly I realize I'm done & it only took me 5 minutes.

When you are finished with all the surfaces, take a break from this room and write down how much you love yourself for making your room (closet, drawer, or anything) smile at you.

For the most part, you should only work in 3 or 4 15-minute sessions & then take a 15-minute break. This way, the project doesn't overwhelm you.

Tomorrow I will write about decluttering specific areas of the home.

Happy Friday!

2007-11-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

I was worried for no reason, well for the most part. The only thing that went wrong was all the words on the screen now have a greenish tint to them & they're a little fuzzy, very strange, but livable. The one thing I forgot to save to an external file was all my signatures in Outlook. How could I forget that? I use many of them every day! Oh well, if those are the worst things that happened with the big change, no biggie.

I've been listening to a book on tape (The Ruins by Scott Smith). Note to self...If I feel the need to calm down in the car again...Don't get a suspenseful book! It was a great book, but man did it make me feel anxious! So, I will go to the library tomorrow & get something a little less intense. :-)

I'm getting a haircut tomorrow morning at a new salon, so that is exciting. Not sure how it will turn out, but at least the salon isn't 45 minutes from my house. And, hopefully, it won't look like I have two haircuts on my head anymore. I like a little more blended look ya know?

Well, have a great weekend!

Worried

2007-11-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

I'm a little worried this evening. They are giving me a new computer at work. To tell you the truth, I'm scared to death that something is going to go wrong. That I will go in to work tomorrow & something won't work right. I've done everything I can & had to just give it over to the IT guy doing the switcharoo. Of course I will have to download my Mindmapping program again. I will have to download Google Earth (how did I ever work before that). I will have to download the desktop search again. Good grief, who knew it would be this much work?

So, let's look at the good things about it....

My computer will be faster. I'll have Office 2007....fabulous! Aaaaannnd tomorrow is FRIDAY! So, if anything goes wrong, it's ok, I will have the entire weekend to recover. Well, kinda recover since we have B this weekend. Hopefully she will be cooperative and all will be well. So, think happy thoughts for us. :-)

I just joined the Tales From the Scales to encourage myself to lose a little weight, so stay posted to see how that goes. I will report on Tuesdays how the week went in that regard.

Can One Be Truly Organized?

2007-10-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote of going to the gym as my example of moving myself along this path we call life. Today I'd like to look at my organizational skills.

I'd like to be more organized. What exactly does that mean? I look at organization websites, attend seminars, look at books, listen to books on tape, etc. Does it mean to spend your time wisely? Does it mean to have a clear desk and a clean house? Does it mean that you know exactly what you will do when? Does it mean you know where exactly everything is at any moment? Are all of these realistic? Are any of them realistic?

My mind works at 100 miles per minute thinking about 10 different things at the same time. The organization tool I would like to work on most right now is figuring out which of the 10 different things I'm thinking about I need to act on right this second. I use a mind-mapping program with some success. My biggest problem is forgetting to do the little things. My boss will hand me something when I'm in the middle of something else & tell me to do it. If he doesn't say, "Put this on your spider" I don't even think about it again until he asks if I finished it. I am better than I used to be, but I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be with this area of organization.

Exercise

2007-10-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

I've come to realize that the path I take in life is my responsibility. I cannot blame others for what happens to me. I cannot expect others to pull me along. If I want something, I have to be the one to go after it full speed ahead.

Take for example my physical condition. I have a gym membership, yet I don't go every day. I don't even average three times a week. I just make excuses. There are weeks I go every day and then something happens where I miss a day and suddenly I'm back on the old path again of not going. Maybe I'm striving for the end goal and not looking at the small steps needed to reach that goal. Expecting myself to go daily when I don't even average three times a week is unrealistic. So, let's break it down into smaller steps. Let's try to average twice a week. Going on Saturday morning for Yoga and then on Wednesday mornings for cardio. If I can stick with that for one month (going more often if I choose), I will move on to try three times a week.

Life Is A Journey

2007-10-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

We travel in and out of people's lives not even realizing the impact we may have on their journey. We make friends and acquaintances. We lean on others, we let them lean on us, we share our lives with those around us.

This is my journey to learn more about myself, my style of learning and to be more organized. I've started many projects through the years. I've tried many organizational tips and tricks. I've tried many methods whether using FlyLady, Daytimer, Outlook or my favorite MindMapper. I've used notebooks, calendar programs, index cards, computer programs, sticky notes (my all-time least favorite thing to use, by the way) only to find that there is no perfect method out there for me. I am at my best when I use a combination of tools. I still read blogs about organization, time management and personal production, which I feel keep me on the path to staying organized.

I'm also tying to find creative ways to make money. I do like Ebay & Craigslist, but there is a lot that goes into setting them up and then sending them out, either shipping or meeting people to get the items to the customer. I'd almost rather give it to The Salvation Army and just use the deduction on my taxes. I've had a little success on Ebay selling a purse that my grandma gave me for $80, but that is the only thing of note that I've ever sold. All-in-all, I probably broke even.

I am an Arbonne representative, but I started that mainly to get the discount. I've been toying with the idea of actually selling it, but we shall see how that goes. I've never been one to sell people on things. I've always felt that you must believe in what you are selling or it won't work. Arbonne works for me, but do I really know enough about it to sell it to others?