NEAT & SIMPLE LIVING with Ariane Benefit, Organizing Coach

Do you make To Do lists but then don't follow them?

The topic of "to do lists" came up in the Neat and Simple Living Cafe the other day.  This is an issue that many people agonize over, so I thought I'd write about it here, too. If you are like the hundreds of people who tell me they make lots of lists, but have difficulty following them or even finding them, you are not alone! 

Difficulty following lists is very common among people with a creative or right-brain dominant personality style as well as with ADDers. In addition, people with certain kinds of brain injuries or head injuries may find it easy to "make" lists, but have much trouble "following" lists. There are many psychological, neurological, learning style, sensory, and even genetic reasons why some people are not good at "following" written instructions of any kind, including their own lists! 

I'm going to spare you the theories, but promise me you'll stopping beating yourself up!  It's not that you are lazy or procrastinating...it's how you are wired.  So let's accept it and work with it.  Even though it's not easy for you...there are some tricks to making your lists easier to follow.  

Here's the thing about making lists. Writing itself is a very effective way to clarify what's on your mind, process information and enhance your ability to remember things. So there is a good reason to keep on making your lists! They help you:

• Remember things better (just like taking notes)
• Slow down your brain to the speed of writing so that you can think more clearly and get your ideas out.
• Articulate your ideas. 
• Reduce your fear that you will forget the items

Before we look at ways to make lists easier to follow...let's look as some of the things that make them more difficult to follow.  Lists may be harder to follow if:

• There are too many items on it
• Handwriting isn't clear or the lettering is not big enough
• You use light colored ink or pencil 
• The paper used is colored and does not provide a high contrast with the ink used 
• Action items aren't listed in order of priority and you have to scan the whole list to decide which things to do next.
• Item don't list all the information you need to act on it, e.g. for some people, if they don't write the phone number and have to hunt it down, they will skip write over that item on the list.  
• The spacing between the items is too close.  
• More than a day or 2 goes by before you look at it again (particularly if you have ADD, the list may lose all sense of urgency)
• You have any kind of reading or vision difficulties such as a mild dyslexia
• You are stressed when you look at the list 
• You have lots of other ideas going through your head when you look at 
• The items are so brief that you forget what was actually meant. For example, I have seen many examples of people writing things like "Call Doctor" and then forgetting which doctor and why.    

There are many more items I could add, but I think you get the idea.  Everyone is different in terms of what works best for them, but here are some tips that might help you make your lists easier to "follow".

• Limit the items to 4 - 6 short items on them
• Use very clear large lettering, I use a black Sharpie for lists I really need to follow
• Put lots of space between items.  This makes it easier for your brain to focus on one item at a time. 
• Put a little box or circle in front of each item so that you can check it off when you are done
• Put high priority items at the top, lower priority in the bottom half of the list. 
• Use color or other visual cues to help you highlight the highest priority items:  e.g., highlighters or my personal fave is to draw "clouds" or "bubbles" around the  most important things.
• Use brightly colored paper with high contrast to your ink.
• Use a TO DO notebook that is ONLY for Action Items.  Put a removeable tab or post-it on pages with open items in your notebook. 
• Don't mix things you would "like to do" with things that you really "will or must do". One trick I've used is to turn the notebook upside down and use the back of the book to capture "brainstorms" and "ideas" or use a separate notebook all together.   
• Some people need "novelty" to help stimulate their brain to pay attention to their lists, so using different color paper and highlighters may be effective.  So if you are the types that likes trying out new ways to make your lists, have fun with it, but be aware that if you try lots of complicated software to do lists you are probably wasting a ton of time learning and setting up new ways to do your lists.  Try to restrain your "novelty needs" to simple, easy changes. 

Alternatives to linear lists and paper may also help you follow lists better.  I use different methods for different kinds of lists. Some of the tools I use:

• Digital Recorder
• Calling in to my Voice mail 
• White boards (I have a couple small ones that I use like pads of paper, and one on the wall fo rwhen I need to move around to think/) 
• Mind Mapping 
• Flip Chart that I hang on a nail on my office door 
• Post-it Flip Charts that I hang on my wall.  
• Magnetic pads for my refrigerator  
• Chalkboard in the kitchen 

You may need to experiment with alternate ways to find the best way for you to make your lists, and you may need different kinds of lists for different things.  Some people need to stick to one kind of list, others need the diversity.  Give yourself permission to play and experiment till you find methods that not only attract you but are easy to read and follow later.  Another option is to just give yourself permission to make lists with the intention of helping you get things off your mind without the expectation that you have to follow them! If they helped you remember, and you did the action item without looking at your list. That's good enough.  

Have a quirky way to make lists work for you?  Leave a comment below!

Perfectionism & Me - Debbie Jordan Kravitz Interviews me for her book!

On October 9, 2008, Debbie Jordan Kravitz, interviewed me for her upcoming book on Perfectionism! She was so easy to talk to, and so compassionate that I really opened up to her and revealed things I've never talked about "publicly" before. We also laughed a lot and I have to thank her for asking such insight-provoking questions and helping me to understand my perfectionism even more deeply yet in such a FUN way!

Listen to or download the MP3 recording our conversation about Perfectionism and Overcoming Perfectionism here. (note this is about an 86 MB file)

You can listen live right now here! Though it make take a minute to get started.

As another step on my personal journey to recovering from perfectionism, I decided to share the recording with you - in spite of how imperfect I may sound. I hope it helps you in some way understand your own issues. Here are some of the topics we talked about:

• When did you first realize that perfectionism was part of your personality?
• How perfectionism became an issue for me in college and at work
• How becoming a Professional Organizer taught me about ADD
• How perfectionism, ADD and creativity are connected
• How I learned to overcome / manage my own chronic disorganization and clutter issues
• Consequences of perfectionism - what made you realize you needed to change and how do you keep it at bay?
• The biological bases of perfectionism
• How perfectionism is related to your self-concept, image, reputation, ability and desire for being known for quality
• How I learned to give up being perfect about email, writing and other things
• How self-monitoring works
• and much more....

Debbie Jordan Kravitz, can be found at  www.DandRcustomorganizers.com Debbie is my new BFF (BloggingFriendForever) and the brains behind the really cool blog, Virtually Organized. 

Here's the link to Download our discussion on Overcoming Perfectionism!

Are you sick of choice?

I just have to rant a little. I am so sick of all the decisions to be made about the stupidest things!

I went to get dental floss at the grocery store and found they stopped carrying the kind I usually use. As if that wasn't annoying enough, there were at least 20 kinds of floss to choose from! I just got overwhelmed and gave up. I decided to look online for it and found out Oral-B stopped making it! (That seems to happen a lot lately.)

It's gotten so out of hand with all these choices for every little thing! Such a colossal waste of my time to spend 10 minutes deciding about DENTAL FLOSS!  How can we make this stop?  sigh...I guess I just have to close my eyes and pick one and hope it's not that thick band kind that I hate!  I never thought I'd be dreaming of good old-fashioned, plain waxed floss.   LOL   

You gotta laugh just to keep from crying sometimes : )

p.s.  the Book title contest ends at midnite tonite!  Is your entry in?  I'll be announcing the winning decision by the end of the week.  : )

http://blog.neatandsimple.com/2008/10/contest-name-my.html

My Summer of Seeking Simplified Sustainable Success! : )

Dear Readers,

I'm just dropping in with a brief update to let you know why you haven't heard from me for quite some time and what's in the works.  Since I started this blog about 3 years ago my personal life and health has become the victim of serious "scope creep"!  In my passion and enthusiasm for helping people I found myself saying "YES" to so many new clients and new ventures like guest blogging, pursuing coaching training and the very intensive Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization program, press interviews, writing a column, joint ventures, group coaching programs and much more that I found myself working 12-18 hour days, 7 days a week for the last 6 months since I got back from our Thanksgiving vacation.  I didn't even take holidays off.  The results have not been pleasant to say the least.

Not only have I exhausted myself and my husband, we also have several family events that are requiring a lot of attention.  In addition, a storm blew threw our town early this week and took down over 200 trees including 4 on either side of our house.  We have a huge cleanup job in front of us.

As a result of all this chaos, I've had to step back and take a long hard look at my commitments and see how I can carve out the time I need to not only fulfill my most important commitments but also work on a plan to get my life back in balance.  This past month has required much soul searching and making many VERY painful decisions to say "NO" to activities that I REALLY LOVE, but have to stop for a while so that I can "sharpen the saw" as Stephen Covey says.

Since this is a blog about keeping life NEAT & SIMPLE, I thought I'd share with you my current plan taking a "Summer of Seeking Simple Sustainable Success".  After all, it's not success when everyday becomes painful to get through.

Innovative Time Mgt Strategies: Outsourcing, Email, Voice Mail and more

Check out my new page on Innovative Time Management Strategies! 

If you have a super unusual, creative and effective strategy for saving time, or a link to a great post or blog that gives great tips or online resources for any of the following:

EMAIL - Ways to really save time on EMAIL like using auto-reply templates

AUTOMATING Your Work Flow

OUTSOURCING

BUILDING A SUPPORT TEAM - Personal and Business

Please leave a comment below or on the page so I can add YOUR contribution to the list!

 

HELP! I HATE FILING!

UPDATED - 9-2008

My friend Dr. Amie Ragan, author of the brilliant "Psychology of Clutter"blog, recently invited me to answer one of her reader's questions about how to get over your hatred of filing and even make it more fun. "Fun" is a lot to ask when comes to filing!  But believe it or not...it's possible!  With a few adjustments you can learn to appreciate and even LOVE your files! 

Check out my Guest Post where I answer Mack's question about how to make filing less of a pain on the Psychology Of Clutter blog!
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Dr. Ragan's blog is sadly, now gone from the web, but the article is now reprinted below!

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Reader's Question

About Organizing your papers. I know several prescribed methods for doing so, and I use a file cabinet along with an inbox to store papers until filed. I keep a fairly good filing system. However, I hate actually filing and will put it off until the box is full or I can’t find something important (like financial papers). Honestly, I would like to throw half of this stuff away, possibly including said financial papers. Is there any way to make this more fun? And in a related question, what papers do you consider it essential to keep and for how long?

Mack

My Answer
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Hi Mack,

You are so not alone!! Most people hate filing.  But it's not the fault of the files!  It's usually the little things that people do in setting up and using their files that make them painful to use. Like overstuff them! Another reason people hate to file is that they don't use quality filing cabinets and supplies they actually like. So many people's file cabinets are practically falling apart or get stuck when you open them, etc.  A quality filing cabinet, drawer, or even a desktop file box which contains your most frequently used files and is located near your desk or bill paying area can change your life!

The best way I have found to avoid putting off filing is to ELIMINATE your "To File" pile altogether.  Keep your frequently used files near enough to you so that you can file papers immediately and it won't back up on you.  Plus if your files are near where you work, when they start getting overstuffed, you'll notice immediately and can take 5 minutes to purge your thickest files. 

There are many ways to learn to love your files and I've included more of them in my article, The 10 Most Common Filing Mistakes and how to correct them.

If you are serious about keeping your paper under control, check out my new e-book titled  "Take Charge of Your Paper ."  There are also lots of ideas on how to arrange your workspace to keep your files handy in my "Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Home Office".   There is a specially priced combo pack which also includes my  "Personal Paper Retention Guide:  What to Keep and for How Long"   
Happy Filing!!

p.s.  Also get my free ebook "100 Surefire Ways to Organize Your Busy Life!"

Making Your Natural Adrenaline Moments Work For You!

This morning I was coaching a client with ADD and she had the neatest breakthrough that I thought you might like.  In my ADD coaching training I learned about a phenomenon called  "Completion Chemistry."

Essentially it means that many people, especially those of us with ADD, are more motivated to work on a task when we need to FIND something.  For example, we may hate to file or put things away while we are in midst of doing other far more interested things.  But when we really need to find something, we get a burst of adrenaline for the "hunt".   

My client was teeling me about her successes of the week and mentioned how she had needed to find something in the box of papers she had gathered up while organizing last week.  The box had been sitting there for days and she had had no motivation to work on it.  Suddenly when she needed something in that box, she got a burst of "energy" and become motivated to finally sort out some of the papers in that box.

What a perfect example of "Completion Chemistry"!  I let her what a great strategy that was and explained how she could use it more often and she LOVED it!!!  She felt so validated that she already had an effective strategy and now she could consciously work with it and harness it more often - without feeling guilty about the time she let pass before she got around to organizing the box. 

She even came up with her own name for the strategy  - "Riding the Wave" 

We talked about other ways she could apply this and came up with the idea of using the energy of a deadline to help her "activate" for other tasks by leaving extra time before the deadline and she is goign to try this...instead of seeing the task of having to take her daughter to  a 4:30 appt every day as an interruption, she is going to start getting ready to go an hour before use that hour to "scan" the first floor and do any little tasks that need doing, like sort the mail, return a couple calls, put things away etc. 

I'm leaving at 5:00 tonite to go to the regional NAPO conference in Washington DC so I'm going to ride my adrenaline wave to get packed and ready to go and then answer as many emails as I can, return  calls, and tie up other "loose ends" as FAST as possible!   

How do you "ride the wave of completion chemistry" in your daily life?  What new situations can you apply this concept to?

Organize Your Financial Papers To Make Tax Time Less Stressful - Part 2

See Part 1 Here:

Organize Your Financial Papers To Make Tax Time Less Stressful - Part 1

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STEP 4 -Decide if you Need to Establish Sub-Categories

If you use a tax preparer, just separating INCOME, EXPENSES, and STATEMENTS may be enough. Ask them how they want the documents submitted.

If you are doing your own taxes, you only need sub-category folders for those categories that have a lot of paperwork.  If you have a lot of tax deductible expenses, I highly recommend using some kind of financial record keeping software to keep a running total for you throughout the year.

If you need sub-categories for INCOME OR EXPENSES, I recommend using a financial filing system with categories that reflect the categories you had entries in on your tax return last year.

1. Review last year's return and note which expense and income categories were used.
2. Use those sub-categories as the basis for creating a MASTER FILE LIST to guide you in creating a file structure.

For example, if you deduct expenses related to rental properties you own, and you have a lot of expense receipts, create a folder called Rental Property Expense receipts.

A sample MASTER FILE LIST structure may look like this.

• INCOME

o Salary & Wages (Include all your W-2s and /or 1099s here)

o Commission

o Interest & Dividends (1099s and Year end statements only, you don't need the whole years worth of documents to prepare your return.)

o Rental Income

• EXPENSES

o Donations

o Property Taxes

o Mortgage Interest

o Medical

o Childcare

o Job-related Moving

STEP 4 - Choose a Final Home for Your Papers

Once you have it all sorted out, you can see how much paperwork you have and choose an appropriately-sized container. With fewer than 12 or 13 categories, an accordion file could be a perfect solution for organizing your tax - related paperwork. Keep it in a handy location so that as you receive tax documents, you can immediately file them. In doesn't matter where, as long as it is near where you process mail and pay bills, easy to access, easy to use and easy to put away.

STEP 5 -Submit / Prepare Return

By mid - February, all your 1099s should be received and organized. All you have to do now is take them to your tax preparer to do the rest! Or, if you prepare your own return, consider using an web-based or software system such as Turbotax to simplify the job. It stores your past returns and pre-populates this year's return. I find that with Turbotax, I get my refund much faster and as a bonus, It's Deductible is included free. Last year I got over $1000 back just because I kept track of my donations and used It's Deductible to determine the value of the donated items. The values they give are IRS approved and actually more than I would have guessed. So for $1000 it was worth the half hour it took me to keep track of and enter the items into It's Deductible. How else would I get paid $2000 per hour?

STEP 6 -Get Ready for Next Year - Archive Your Paperwork

Instead of creating a whole new system for next year, empty the system you created this year, put all your documents in a single envelope or folder labeled Tax Documents - (YEAR). Create a separate folder for your final Tax Return as well, and archive them in a safe, out-of-the-way place. You will keep the tax return forever, but after 3 - 10 years, you can shred the backup. here are only a few documents you should keep forever and those should filed separately - never put them with your backup. For example, paperwork related to the purchase or sale of Real Estate should be kept forever.

STEP 7 - Celebrate and Relax!

Now you can celebrate and congratulate yourself for a job well done! When spring rolls around, take your refund and do something fun as a reward for not waiting till the last minute!

NOTE: The tips in this article work for most people, but if you have a unique tax situation or are overwhelmed trying to decide what will work best for your organizing needs, consult a financial organizing professional to help you set up a simple, efficient, easy-to-maintain system and ensure a stress-free tax season!

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© 2008 Ariane Benefit, M.S. Ed, Organizing Coach, Neat & Simple Organizing Solutions

RELATED

• Organizing Tax & Financial Papers Digitally
• See my New & Improved A-Store!
• Check out my book on how to get your entire office including papers organized!  The"Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Office"  Take a Sneak Peek Inside!

Organize Your Financial Papers To Make Tax Time Less Stressful - Part 1

It's that time again!

The barrage of catalogs in your mailbox is turning into a flurry of year-end tax statements. If you dread tax time and usually spend your spring stressing over getting taxes done on time, these tips are for you! The best time to prepare for tax time is the year before, but if you didn't do it last year, start now! With these simple tips, you'll get your taxes done EARLY and be ready to enjoy spring! And once you have your system in place, it will be even easier next year!

Set an Early Deadline To Submit Paperwork! - The first step to becoming the master of your own financial well-being and reducing tax stress is to FORGET ABOUT April 15! Make YOUR Tax deadline the end of February or Mid-March and start getting your paperwork organized NOW.

If you use a tax preparer, call right now and schedule an appointment for as soon as possible. If you do your own taxes and have difficulty setting a deadline, consider getting a friend, family member, or coach to hold you accountable to meet your deadlines. Once you have a deadline, it's time to organize your paperwork.

STEP 1 - Gather Financial Papers

If the paperwork you need to complete your tax return is scattered, gather all the papers you need into a single box, basket or other container. If they are already in folders or other containers, gather the file folders into a single file container and move on to step 2.

STEP 2 - Sort

Sort your papers into broad categories such as INCOME, EXPENSES, and STATEMENTS. You can subdivide STATEMENTS into BANKING, CREDIT CARDS, INVESTMENTS, RETIREMENT, but if your papers are all in a jumble, using 3 major categories at first makes the job faster and simpler and requires far fewer containers. You can always micro-sort and break down the categories later if needed. But, honestly, most people never go back to the past years records so why bother? My rule of thumb is to not over-organize things you don't use regularly. Keep it SIMPLE. Unless you deduct expenses on your tax return, you don't really need to keep your credit card statements anyway.

STEP 3 - Eliminate

Eliminate any unneeded papers as you go. Keep only receipts that prove your taxable income and deductible expenses.

Eliminate receipts that are NOT tax-deductible if they are ALSO for items that are:

• NOT insurable
• NOT under warranty
• NOT income to you

For example, you don't need to keep electric bills unless you claim a home office deduction.

SEE GREAT ARTICLE WITH DOCUMENT RETENTION TIPS at Money Central

To determine exactly what papers you personally need to keep and what you can let go of, ask your tax advisor.

SHREDDING: Be sure to shred any documents that contain information that could be used to steal your identity such as: social security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc. You do not have to shred paper solely because it has your address on it. Your address can be found anywhere and everywhere anyway!

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PART 2 is coming on Wednesday!

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NOTE: The tips in this article work for most people, but if you have a unique tax situation or are overwhelmed trying to decide what will work best for your organizing needs, consult a financial organizing professional to help you set up a simple, efficient, easy-to-maintain system and ensure a stress-free tax season!

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© 2008 Ariane Benefit, M.S. Ed, Organizing Coach, Neat & Simple Organizing Solutions

RELATED

• Organizing Tax & Financial Papers Digitally
• See my New & Improved A-Store!
• Check out my book on how to get your entire office including papers organized!  The"Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Office"  Take a Sneak Peek Inside!
  

Prospering and Learning in 2008! Don't miss my Free Teleclass On "Organizing for the Creative Professional & the Chronically Disorganized"

I am so honored to have been invited to be a guest speaker in the "PROSPER YOUR PRACTICE" community hosted by Ellen Shapiro and offered FREE!  Ellen generously and expertly hosts free monthly "teleclasses with special guest experts to share their information and wisdom about different aspects of running a successful business."  Learn more about Ellen Shapiro here

In addition, she offers monthly "repatterning" sessions designed to help you incorporate the  learnings you "resonate with" from the guest speaker sessions into your belief system and empower you to put them into action! 

(p.s. I did a couple repatterning sessions with her and found them very helpful in refocusing me to take action on my healthy eating goals, which I'll be sharing with you soon along with big announcement : )

I'll be speaking on the topic:

"Organizing for the Creative & the Chronically Disorganized"

We'll be discussing what chronic disorganization is, why it affects so many creative people, and we'll also discuss some simple strategies & principles to help creative professionals become more organized using systems that are super easy and don't take a lot of time to maintain. 

Knowing me, I'll probably have some kind of neat freebie to offer people who attend...I've got tons of ideas floating around, but I think I'll just surprise you!

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Here's what you to do if you don't want to miss this!

1. If you want the chance to ask me questions live, Mark March 27th, at 8:45PM EST in your calendar. If you can't make it for the live session, you can listen to the recorded session later, but you have to register to the get the link to the recording!

2. Head on over to Ellen's site to register for the Prosper Your Practice group so that you'll be sure to get the emails with the teleclass info and the follow up link.

That's all you have to do! This is an easy, no-cost, no-obligation, no-spammy sales pitches way to discover what Repatterning is about, AND to visit with me live, and learn more about how to be more organized, even if you've never been able to do it before!

Hope to "see" you there!

JUST RELEASED! "Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Office"

JUST RELEASED! I'm so excited to announce that my new book
"Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Office" is finally here! Just in time to help you get a Neat Start to the New Year. Two years in the making, it now has 129 pages chock full of my best organizing advice. It will be published as a print book by the end of 2008. For now, it is an e-guide, which helps keeps the price reasonable.

Get more information including a Sneak Peek Inside!


Instant Digital delivery provided by E-junkie.com

"What's Wrong with Me? Why can't I manage my time?"

Q & A with Guest Author, Karin Vibe-Rheymer-Stewart, PhD
Time Management and Organizational Master
http://www.dailymastery.com/

I recently had an extensive conversation with Karin and was delighted to find that her approach to time management consulting is very similar to my approach in working with creative and ADD / ADHD clients to organize their home offices and paper.  I hope you enjoy this guest post by Karin.

Also check out Karin's unique Daily Mastery Holiday Survival Program which is designed to help you get through the holidays with less stress!  It includes emails, personal telephone sessions with Karin, Energy Healing Meditation Sessions with Cathleen Campbell, an Emotional Freedom Technique, Aromatherapy and Feng Shui practitioner.   This is a very creative package at an extremely reasonable price!  I highly recommend you check it out.

Also check out my newest articles on the Clutter Control Freak blog!
7 Neat & Simple Ways to Reduce Your Holiday Stress
Declutter Your Holiday Greeting Card List

Reader Question

What's wrong with me? No matter what I try, I can't seem to get organized enough to manage my time. I have all the right tools, (blackberry, a great computer planning system) but my schedule is in shambles.                                          

Sandra, New York       

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Karin's Response

Thank you so much for your question. In fact, most of my clients have the same issue! First, know that there's nothing wrong with you:  you just have different brain wiring than most and don't have the right tools for your style. 

During a quick conversation with you, you shared that while you have everything you are "supposed" to have (a blackberry, a great computer planning system) you still have trouble managing it all. You keep losing track of time, and never have a good sense of what your day is like. Even though you have a file drawer beautifully organized by your assistant, everything ends up in piles on the desk, competing for space with lots of post-it notes and other pieces of paper.      

These are all clues indicating someone whose right hemisphere tends to be the dominant hemisphere in your brain, a right-brainer for short. Typical right-brainers all share the following characteristics:

• "Out of sight, out of mind" is their middle name
• they don't have a very good sense of time
• they tend to be very creative
• they are great with the big picture, but details tend to evade them.   

Most tools touted as the standard in time management and organization are unfortunately made for the rest of the population, the left-brainers. As a result, right-brainers are often left to wonder if something is wrong with them. In truth, what's wrong are the tools recommended to them and how they're encouraged to use them.   

Discovering this is often a revelation. In Lauren's words (Lauren was a participant to one of my Daily Time Mastery programs), "finding out that I was a right-brainer was such a huge relief. Suddenly, a lot of things made sense, and I could select in the program the tools that really work for me." 

Here are some of the tools that worked well for Lauren and my right-brainer clients: 

• Use a paper calendar instead of an electronic calendar, so that you can visually see how your time will be occupied. For a right-brainer, the classic view on an electronic calendar listing all appointments in a row for the day is very confusing. The visual is the same whether appointments are at 9 am and 10 am, or 9 am and 4 pm, so it looks like they are the same. Also, writing them down by hand helps you remember them.
• Time Managmenet
• Store active papers visually (i.e. the things you're working on right now, or will handle soon). Use containers such as trays or magazine holders to store your active papers on your desk, rather than tucking them away in a drawer. Because of your "out of sight, out of mind" tendency, things in drawers disappear. That's why the papers accumulate on your desk: you want to make sure that they don't disappear. Keep only your reference file in file drawers. 

I hope this helps!

About the Author
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Karin Vibe-Rheymer-Stewart, Ph.D., Founder and President of Daily Mastery, a premier time management and organization services company, is a time management and organizational expert specializing in empowering clients to increase their productivity and create their ideal work-life balance. Karin combines 15 years of experience, professionally supporting others in organizing their lives, and personally as a business owner, manager, and mother to provide a unique perspective and proven tools to her clients who “want it all” in today’s 24/7 world.

Check out these Top Lifehacking, Productivity & Frugal Living Lists!

These are some of the best compilations of blogs covering Lifehacking, Productivity & Frugal Living!  Okay, so yeah.  I'm a little biased.  They all list Neat & Simple Living on them!  But that only makes them better lists right?  tee hee : ) 

Seriously, check out all the great blogs they list! You won't regret it!

From WhitePapers.org
Personal Productivity Required Reading List: 100 Kick-butt Lifehacking Blogs

From The Frugal Panda
Top 50 Frugality Bloggers

From Zen Habits
The Top 50 Productivity Blogs (most of which you haven’t heard about)

From Personal Development Demands Success
The Personal Development List

Update 9/9/07  - I'm reproducing the Personal Development list here by request!

It's extremely long so, click on the continue reading link to see it....

May all your productivity goals come true!

Five of my favorite sites that I find useful in my work

I've been tagged by Monica Ricci to share 5 of my favorite sites that I use most often to perform my work. I do a LOT of research for content and for products.  Here are my faves.

1.   www.Google.com   - I aways start my searching here, then if I don't find what I need quickly enough, I try www.ask.com

2.  www.wikipedia.com  - Another great resource.

3.  Amazon.com - This is where I start researching products because they have a lot of reviews and it gives me a benchmark on pricing.  Also, I can see if there are used products for sale and there often are.

4.  www.stacksandstacks.com  - This is a great site for finding unique organizing products and they also have reviews which are extremely helpful.   It's even better now that they have a blog!

5. www.cnet.com/ - This is great for researching technology, you get editors and user reviews.  It helped us buy our latest printer! 

Monica also tagged Dr. Amie Ragan.  Her list includes one of my favorite sites (www.webMD.com)

Now I have to tag 5 people please include a link back to me and let me know when you've posted so I can link to your post!

• All of you!  Anyone who would like to participate is welcome and I'll include a link to your list here!
• Dwayne Melancon Genuine Curiosity
• Julie Bonner Declutter It!
• Lorie Morrero Clutter Diet Blog
• Dawud Miracle Dawud Miracle
• Kara Sheridan  Kara's Place to Breathe and Believe

Wednesday Wisdom - On Keeping Perfectionism at Bay

Several of you have asked me to write about my tips on how I work at overcoming perfectionism. I've been working on a post about my battles with perfectionism, but one thought comes up over and over again.  

“Today’s Solution is Tomorrow’s Problem.”

 

I'm not sure who said it first, but I first heard it in 1989 from our Managing Director when I was an Education Manager at Arthur Andersen's Center for Professional Education in St. Charles, Illinois.  It has stuck with me all these years because it seemed so profound to me at the time.  It was one of those Light Bulb moments when you have to unlearn what you thought was true and start reframing your mind to understand things in a completely different way.

In 1989, the quality movement was in full swing and my perfectionism was feeding on it.  The pursuit of perfect quality was causing me to work 100+ hour weeks and I was stressing badly.  My health was suffering in a big way. I was rapidly burning out in the name of quality.

One day my managing director said, "Ariane, quality is important, but perfectionism is a losing game." I was quite taken aback.  He went on to counsel me that it was just as important to balance the amount of effort and time that you put into things according to the true potential lifespan of the solution.  Why?  Because today's solution ultimately becomes outdated or outgrown and becomes the problem you have to fix or rework in the future.  And because if you don't get solutions to market at the right time, all of your work will be for nothing.  It was then I started really learning the concept of choosing what not to do at all, and what not to bother to do perfectly.

Today whenever I catch myself spending a lot of time at something trying to make it perfect - I think about this concept and consider the following 8 questions that help me conquer perfectionism (Kara, this is for you!) : )

 

1. Will anyone get hurt if this isn't perfect?
    
2. Will anyone get hurt waiting for me to get this perfect?  (this includes me...like will I lose sleep? miss out on time with my family and friends?)
    
3. Does the lifespan of what I'm working on justify the time it's taking me?
    
4. Will this solution lose its value to others if I don't finish it more quickly?
   
5. Will I miss a deadline or other commitment if I don't ease up?
    
6. If I don't put a solution in place quickly will the problem keep getting worse as I try to get the solution to be more perfect? 
    
   (This is a good one to remember when agonizing over paint colors or organizing solutions.  I've been known to take years to choose a paint color and meanwhile the walls get dingier and dingier - not anymore!)
    
7. Will the solution take more time to implement than coping with the problem will take?
    
8. In 5 years, will I feel the time I spent on making this perfect was worth the sacrifice of other things that I could have been doing with my time?
    

So now, without any further attempts to make this post perfect, I'm moving on to my next thing to get done - like get some sleep!!  : )

Using Rules to Automatically Sort & File Your eMail as it Arrives - Here are resources for EVERY computer type!

I have found a gold mine in this post!  I often help clients set up Rules and Filters to organize and automatically file their email in Outlook.  But it's a whole different story when my client is using an email program I'm not familiar with.

Dawud Miracle has saved me! In his recent post on eMoms at Home on how to organize your email using filters and rules (this blog is NOT just for moms, it's a fabulous resource for any blogger as Wendy Piersall shares her growth and learnings on the way to becoming a Top 100 Blogger!)

If you are not sure how e-mail rules and filters work, why you should be using them to organize your email, or if you would like some ideas and strategies for setting up email filters, I strongly recommend reading Dawud's full post. 

I organize email using rules to put all my email newsletters and other non-urgent reading into a Reading Folder.  I put all the posts from Chats I subscribe to in their own folders and power read them when I have time.  I also keep an ARCHIVE folder for mail I want to keep for a while after I've read it, but not in my inbox.  I try to only keep e-mail in my inbox that requres a response or some kind of action from me.

Here is Dawud's list of resources to for setting up rules on various email programs to organize your email:

• Apple Mail: Rules with Apple Mail & Automatically processing email
• Eudora: How to use filters (Windows) & How to use filters (Mac)
• GMail: How do I setup filters & Lifehacker’s Supercharge your GMail filters
• Hotmail: How do I create custom email filters in MSN Hotmail?
• Microsoft Outlook: Create a rule & Tips for managing your email
• Microsoft Outlook Express: Creating rules in Outlook Express
• Netscape Mail: Creating Message Filters in Netscape
• Thunderbird: Creating, using and editing filters in Thunderbird
• Yahoo!Mail: Filtering mail

Wednesday Wisdom - On Perfectionism

“A man person would do nothing if s/he waited
until s/he could do it so well that no one could
find fault.”
 

- John Henry Newman

(the edits to make this apply to everyone are mine) 

Many thanks to Brandie Kajino for this awesome quote on perfectionism.  This is something I have made great strides in overcoming.  Writing this blog has helped me tremendously with it as I have dared to post things that I've only reviewed a couple times before posting live.  It hurts deep in my stomach every time I go back to an old post or look at the Free e-book I posted and see a typo.  But I put it out there anyway and just keep fixing things as I see them or when I have time. I still fear that putting out writing with typos might hurt my reputation for doing high quality work but I also keep telling myself this: If I wait till I get it perfect, I'll never get it done. Better to err and help people who don't care if there are typos in it, than to be perfect and never help anyone. 

RELATED POSTS

10 Myths about Managing Your Time

How to Avoid Perfectionism without Becoming Careless or Sloppy From the Goals to Action blog by Roger Constandse

Breaking News - Say Goodbye Neat Living and Hello to..

I am so appreciative and grateful to the readers and subscribers of this blog and to my clients who have helped make Neat Living a successful adventure for me, so I wanted you all to be among the first to know about the big changes you'll be seeing over the next year!

It's been 2 wonderful years since I phased out of corporate performance improvement and into residential and small business organizing consulting.  I've learned and grown so much.  One of the MAJOR lessons I've learned is this:

Don't start a business with potentially global clients unless you own the .com for your business name!  (FYI, neatliving.com is owned by a company in Canada) 

WHY AM I CHANGING?

My treasured clients, readers, friends & colleagues have repeatedly told me over the past year that it's confusing that I use a .org and a .net address, so I have decided to listen to them and let go of the Neat Living brand!  To replace it, I have created a new brand where I own the .com and most of the variations on it too! 

In addition to the confusing URLs, I also have people send email to me at neatliving.com often and of course, I don't get it.  Another issue is that many people assumed Neat Living was about being a neat freak..and that is so NOT what I'm about.  I have always used the word "neat" a lot to describe innnovative, cool stuff I like. I also have ALWAYS loved making things simpler and easier so I could focus on my creative pursuits and passions. 

So to me, the new brand is about creating a positive lifestyle that you really enjoy.  I purposely did not include letting go of clutter and organizing in my business name, because I feel they are only a few of the means to the end, which is having a life you love.

CHANGE WON'T BE EASY - BUT WILL BE WORTH IT!

I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much work this is going to be, but with the help of friends, colleagues and readers, I'm going to do everything I can to make the transition as seamless as possible.  In keeping with my goal to let go of perfectionism, I'm going to do this gradually and live with the fact that there will be mistakes and issues as I change.  I know there will be some broken links and inconsistencies and Thank you in advance for putting up with the growing pains as I change everything over!  The logos and colors are not finalized yet but I'm going to get started anyway!

My long term plan is to consolidate all my content to one Master URL which will be www.NeatAndSimple.com   I own the .net and .org URLs as well as www.NeatAndSimpleLiving.com  Neat And Simple Organizing, & several more related .com names.

ADVICE IS WELCOME AND APPRECIATED!!!

If any of you have changed your brand and URL after becoming established, I would love to hear any advice or tips you have for doing this without breaking all my incoming links!

For now, please don't change any URLS or links back to me.  I am going to try to figure out a way to keep them live, while also creating the new brand.  Or to move the content as painlessly as possible for everyone. I will let you know when I have a more definite plan or if I need you to change links to me.

NEW BLOG TITLE

The Blog Title is changing before the URLs do, hopefully in the next couple days.  It will be:

My plan also includes an online store containing informational, learning and organizing products. My upcoming series of information products will be called:

There are several more changes coming up that I will let you know about over the next week! 

Is it worth trying to change? If so, how can you make change easier?

Wednesday, I wrote about the myth of changing habits in 21 days and touched on whether or not it's worth trying to change. Changing anything, not just habits, can creates a tremendous amount of stress for some people. Assessing what habits are worth changing is part of self-acceptance and self-esteem.  It takes a strong sense of self and a steady character to resist the forces out there that make you feel like there is something wrong with you if you don't do things their way! 

Although some people thrive on change, and some are even addicted to change, even good change can create a lot of cognitive dissonance, confusion, and emotional pain. Think about the last time you rearranged your furniture.  It may have taken a couple days to not bump into things.  When I moved my office, as much as I loved it, after 5 years of going in one direction, it felt a little weird at first to come up the stairs and go in the opposite direction. But it was so worth it! 

What makes changes worthwhile? In large part, it's the degree of reward or the payoff you believe you will get once you assimilate the change - how much you care about that payoff - and how painful you perceive the change to be.  Better health, Less Stress, Peace of Mind, Better Performance Reviews at Work, Happier Marriage all are wonderful goals, but if the pain you experience in trying to make the desired change is greater, you won't succeed in changing - unless you can minimize the pain, or how you perceive the pain.

Once you decide to change, "changing" is actually a process which has predictable phases you can anticipate and emotionally and physically prepare for.  The phases of change are Initiation, Disorientation, Reorientation, and Integration.  Each of these is discussed below.

1.  Initiation - One factor that greatly affects the stress level you feel during change is whether or not you initiate the change or someone else is requiring you to change as in a job layoff, or a spouse giving you an ultimatum to lose the clutter or get divorced.  For this discussion, I'm going to assume you want to change.  There is a whole other level of difficulty in accepting changes that are thrust up on you.

2. Disorientation - This is the most challenging phase and can make or break your success in changing. The degree of disorientation and/or pain you feel during this stage is directly proportional to:

• The degree of the magnitude of the change.
• How much you are in control of the change.
• How compatible the change is with your core beliefs
• How well you are meeting your conscious AND unconscious needs
• How entrenched the old habits are or how long you've had the things
• How right for your innate personality and preferences the change is
• How risk averse you are
• How much you need to be in control
• How ready you are for the change

Feelings during this stage are relative to how much you want the change and how deeply your old habits are ingrained. 

The Role of Unconscious Needs

One of the biggest obstacles to change people face is unconscious needs.  You can learn about your true inner needs by trying to change! For example, holding on clutter may be meeting a need to avoid social contact that you don't realize you have till you no longer have the clutter.  Or perhaps you have a deep security need, or a fear that you are unaware of till you try to change.  There could even be a genetic component that is compelling you to hold on to the way things are.  Some of us are born risk takers willing to take the chance "we might need that someday".  Or perhaps we have a deep sense of security that allows us to belief that our needs will always be met.  When our unconscious needs conflict with what we want, change is more challenging.

The Role of Beliefs

Another major source of disorientation in this phase is our beliefs.  For example, when trying to let go of things, some people believe they are "losing a part of themselves"  or that "things have feelings so they need a good home to go to" or that "it would be a waste to throw away something functional" (in fact, you aren't using it, you are also "wasting" it.) These beliefs lead to intense fears and often are simply not true. But we are emotionally attached to our beliefs and they can be very difficult to change.

When you try to change, your unconscious needs & beliefs surface and can cause feelings of anger, denial, and anxiety. Unless you have truly changed the underlying beliefs, and /or find another way to meet your unconcious needs, there will often be some kind of pain and this can manifest itself in some very negative ways, even beyond backsliding, like substance abuse or developing a new addiction.

That's why even self-initiated changes such as quitting smoking can cause intense feelings of anger, denial, and anxiety - no matter how much you want to change! 

Denial is often involved in backsliding.  You tell yourself, just one cigarette won't matter, etc.  This is the phase where emotional and environmental support is critical.  For example, if you are trying to quit smoking, you may need a support group.  If you are trying to exercise on a regular basis you may need a friend or personal trainer to motivate you through the change.

In the organizing realm, you may need a professional organizer.  A lot of what I do as a professional organizer is help people minimize the pain of this phase by helping them:

• Become aware of their deeper attitudes and beliefs toward their things and toward organizing so they can change them to more productive beliefs
• Reframe their relationships to their things before letting them go
• Design change so that it works with their natural style as much as possible
• Make their environment support the change by redesigning the layout, changing the  things that are in it, and even by decorating - changing paint colors, etc. - to make the space they operate in more attractive.
• Hold their future vision so they stay motivated to get through to the other side of side of change. 
• Reward themselves for their efforts and their successes
• Integrate joy into the process wherever possible!

There actually can be joy experienced in this phase if you try to make it so!!

3. Reorientation - This is where the change starts to really take root.  Let's use the "quit smoking" habit again.  When I quit, I mean, after the many, many times I quit, it tooks years for me to stop craving a cigarette when I saw others smoking.  Thankfully, it did finally happen.  For me, the strategy I used was to make myself hate smoking was to smoke a very stale cigarette when I just couldn't resist smoking. It would make me gag and feel nauseous and the cravings eventually stopped. You don't always need to be this radical, but it worked for me!  : )   During this phase you start experiencing the benefits of the change and no longer mourn the loss of the way things used to be.

4. Integration - This is where the change becomes so ingrained, you can barely remember the way it used to be.  You know, like when people say they can't imagine life without their kids.  Or when after you've moved a couple miles from where you used to live, you stop going on automatic pilot to your old house.  Or when you never think about smoking at all and can't even remember why you liked it.  Okay that may be a little exaggeration, but I'm sure you get my drift here!

It's important to note that this model describes successful change.  But not all changes are successful. And not all should be!  Some things we should never get used to if we can help it.  Like habits that are abusive or unhealthy.

But understanding this model can help you identify your obstacles to making the personal changes you want to make.  By preparing to give yourself the support you need to make each phase successful, you can change.  Sometimes you need an external support system...and there is nothing wrong with getting the support you need!  And sometimes, you need to:

Accept the things you cannot change;
Have the Courage to change the things you can;
and have the Wisdom to know what not to bother trying to change!

Wishing you many successful changes!