Each month, I present a round-up of five posts at My Organized Biz that have caught attention.  Here are those for August.  Did you have any favorites I’ve not mentioned?

Boomers Organize Grandparenting Time

Organizing Resources about Business Concerns, Such as Health Care

Organizing Your Messages

Organizing Family Life So You Can Work at Your Business

Are You Distracted By Too Many Newsletters?

Did you find any of these organizational tips or ideas helpful during August?

(Image at sxc.hu)

Instead of waiting until you have time to complete an entire task, tackle small ones when you see them.  They may not seem like much, but they’re one less item on your “to do” list.

• File mail as it comes in and toss out junk.
• File even one piece that accumulates on your desk; for instance, my husband just opened his mail and handed me an insurance paper.  Instead of leaving it on my desk, I’ll stick it in the correct file. 
• Haul a box/file/bag to the next room when you head in that direction.
• Clear a counter
• Take meal dishes to the sink when you head there.  (I often eat lunch while I work in the office.)
• Get one piece of mail ready; don’t wait until you have half an hour to spend on correspondence.
• While you wait…file, sort, make notes, etc.  My laptop often is slow at some procedures.  This morning while waiting for pages to come up and an upgrade to finish, I sorted and filed papers on my desk (my “to do” pile), filed a pile I’d deposited on the floor, then went through some compartments in my wall organizer and tossed out outdated items.  

What small tasks do you get out of the way so you don’t waste time and are further ahead in your organizing?

(Image at sxc.hu)

Do you have favorite colors you use in your orginazional techniques?  Are these colors that you like?  Are they traditional colors for specific topics?  Do you designate categories with colors, groups of people with colors, different topics with colors, specific years with colors, etc.?  Or do you use the same color for everything?  Do certain people in your office/business have their own color?

Here are items that often come into play with color coding in organizing:

• Paper clips
• File folders
• Hanging folders
• Sticky notes
• Notepaper
• Memo sheets
• 3 x 5 and other file cards
• Photocopy paper
• In/out files
• Filing cabinets

I like to organize with different colors.  Now just to get everything unified under this method.

(Image: sxc.hu)

Do you have favorite colors you use in your orginazional techniques?  Are these colors that you like?  Are they traditional colors for specific topics?  Do you designate categories with colors, groups of people with colors, different topics with colors, specific years with colors, etc.?  Or do you use the same color for everything?  Do certain people in your office/business have their own color?

Here are items that often come into play with color coding in organizing:

• Paper clips
• File folders
• Hanging folders
• Sticky notes
• Notepaper
• Memo sheets
• 3 x 5 and other file cards
• Photocopy paper
• In/out files
• Filing cabinets

I like to organize with different colors.  Now just to get everything unified under this method.

(Image: sxc.hu)

“Mary, finish one task before starting another,” a co-worker remarked at my outside-the-home job.  “If we jump around too much we never finish anything.”

Good advice, I realized, as long as we don’t get interrupted.  I do have a habit of going from one task to another without finishing it and that may keep me from being as organized as I could be.  However, sometimes, life or family or another task interferes with my efforts to finish the first.

I am trying to do better, though, in keeping at a task until it’s finished, particularly if it’s not one that  requires several stages or days to accomplish.  When I think of something else that needs to be done, I take a moment and consider, “Does it need to be done NOW?  Or can I finish what I’m doing first?”

How do you organize tasks so that you accomplish the most you can? 

Image:sxc.hu

We’re back on track with organizing and back to our various jobs.  The refrigerator is running again, is spic and span clean, and everything sorted and put back.  That’s one way to organize our two-family refrigerator…of necessity.

Do other things get organized in your life…by necessity?  You put it off and put it off until there is no option.  Or you may be forced to change course a bit, but find it’s in a good direction.

Look at challenges as ways to organize, change your plans, declutter, or head in a new and great direction.  I’m not sure the refrigerator set us in a new direction, but it did get some much needed organizing done.  It’s great to look inside and know what’s there instead of it being a collector of the unknown.

Your office can become the same way…your sewing room…your shop…your home.   Take charge of your clutter before it takes charge of you! 

(Image: sxc.hu)

Today, my organized day gets off track for a bit.  Our ailing refrigerator must be emptied (freezer and cooling compartments) so my husband can work on it.  It’s a problem we’ve had before, so should be solvable, but requires emptying items into an ice chest and squeezing them into the downstairs freezer.  Also, we must run out for some ice.

Fortunately, I don’t have to work at my outside-the-home job and only have a business commitment this evening.  I can squeeze writing deadlines in between refrigerator unloadings.  But this is the way life (or refrigerators) can derail our carefully organized plans. 

What do we do?

• Look at our top priorities.  Determine what absolutely needs to be done and fit it into the reorganized schedule.  I must meet my deadlines today, send some business e-mails, place an order and make some calls.
• How can we postpone or rearrange the other items on our list?
• Can we get someone to help us?  In other words, is there anything we can delegate?
• Is there something we don’t need to do at all?’

How do you reorganize or repriortize when plans change?

(Image: sxc.hu)

How do you decide whether to add something new into your business or schedule?  Are you going off on a tangent, or will you add a new direction that contributes to productivity and profitability?  Do I send up a trial balloon?

It seems to me that adding art to my writing is called for at this time.  As I’ve organized my files, sorted through boxes of stored “stuff,” and tried to get more productive with my time, I’ve come across art work from years ago.  Currently I’m adding art to a picture book; I’ve reproduced some of my paintings as postcards for my own use; I dabble at designing fabric art.

Is it time to put some of my art on sites for sale?  Perhaps these could accompany my poetry and inspirational quotes.  Is this a good time to do it?  Or will I be spreading myself too thin>

• First, I need to see whether there is a market.  When I evolved from dressmaking into quiltmaking during America’s Bicentennial years of 1975-76, there was a resurgence of interest in quilts and I had an initial market in my mother’s general store.  Is there a market for my art in the current economy?
• Next, I must look at the time involved.  (My husband would do much of the reproduction of my art using his computer skills.)  Can I organize my life, so I have time to add anything new?
• I also need to consider the expense of materials versus what I could gain in income.
• I could try some for fun, but as income producing, I must look at all aspects.

Decisions here will involve a look at my organizing techniques, as well as the time, expense, and possible income.  Then do I send out a trial balloon?

(Image: sxc.hu)

Many boomers are grandparents.  Some live near their grandchildren; others are at a distance.  Some take on babysitting duties; others only visit occasionally, due to distance and time logistics.

What happens when you have a small business that consumes your time, too?  You must organize your business and grandparenting time.

“What!  Organize your grandparenting time! Schedule your grandchildren into your life!” some people may gasp in horror.

Boomers are entitled to their life and business.  Perhaps the business is enabling them to be independent, so they aren’t dependent upon their children.

However, to be part of their grandchildren’s lives…to help parents, too, it may be imperative to schedule or organize your time for the youngsters.  This can be especially true if a boomer has a home business, whereby children and others often don’t think grandparents have a schedule to keep or deadlines to meet.

One grandmother, who has a home business and grandchildren living nearby, does schedule time with them.  There are days she’s available for babysitting, but she makes it clear she’s not a “built in” babysitter.  She has commitments involving her business.  Specific days, or parts of days, are set aside for the grandkids.  She’s flexible, but when she’s busy with her business, she’s not available for babysitting.

How do you organize your grandparenting time if you have a small business or home business?  Do you drop everything at your children’s or grandchildren’s whims?  Or do you make it clear that there are business commitments, just as there would be if you had an outside-the-home job or worked for someone else at a small business?

What techniques do you use for establishing business time and grandparenting time?

(Image: sxc.hu)

How do you organize or keep track of your promotions, so that you don’t forget or delay too long the events that you can utilize?

• Some business people like to use the computer calendars that pop up when they open their screen.
• Others find programs they where they can develop something like a spread sheet for the year, one which carries over into coming years.
• Still others put these occasions into a Blackberry or iPhone type of planning program.  One friend has everything at her fingertips on her iPhone.
• You also can utilize a notebook planner or schedule book, something like a  Franklin Planner.
• Some of us still like the paper calendar, usually on the way, sometimes on the desk or in a file.  I can tell at a glance or by flipping the pages. 

Have you organized a promotional system for special events and holidays?  Of course, our plans can be continually evolving as we learn about new methods or incorporate them into our system.  I’m somewhat wary of having everything completely on electronics.  What if your system goes down or you can’t access the information?  I like to have a back-up.  What about you?

(Image: sxc.hu)