My Organized Biz

What do you use for better organization?  Each person develops their own methods, sometimes getting ideas from others, incorporating them into their business or lifestyle.
Here are some of that you might be using or could consider:

Notebook and pen or pencil
Lists on your iphone or blackberry
Computer list programs
Filing cabinets
File boxes
Banker boxes
Plastic file boxes
In and out trays on the desk
Piles on the floor around your desk!!
Planners or day books
Rolodex
Calendar on the wall
Journal

What type of filing/organizing tools do you find most useful and effective?

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I’ve been keeping at the 20 Days of Organization project, even when I’m not sure I’m getting anywhere.  Sometimes it yields “treasures.”  Not necessarily money or valuable items, but those that mean a lot to me and have potential for income.
As I describe at my Blisstree Arts and Crafts post, Finding Artistic “Treasures,” I came across a box holding samples of cards and notepaper I designed and sold many years ago.  These in the box were my masters, ones I can utilize today.
So this has given me the incentive to see what I can do with them by scanning into the …read more

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Once I set myself on the 20 Minutes per day plan to organization, I find myself doing something before I go to bed if I’ve had a busy day and haven’t gotten to my quota.  It’s something like a fear of falling off the cliff if I don’t keep the clutter at bay.
Maybe that’s a reason for sticking with it.  This becomes a habit, a mindset, so that you’re continually thinking about keeping the disorganization out of your life. 
I found, as I awoke the other morning, an idea popped into my mind about a place to store my accumulation of family …read more

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When you don’t have time (and most of us don’t) to get from mess to organized, why not go for 20 minutes per day?  It doesn’t seem like much, and many times we don’t think we’ve accomplished a great deal.  But every little bit puts on the way to organization, I’ve discovered.
I heard two different speakers mention this at business conferences.  I tried it, then became discouraged because I didn’t make much progress.  So I gradually quit.
This time I’ve started again and am determined not to quit until I organize my husband’s and my office, my writing files and folders (and …read more

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I’d be lost without my “to do” list, which I try to organize each evening before I go to bed. Sometimes I’m better at this than others…to fix the coming day’s schedule and work in my mind.
However, if I don’t write something down, I bounce from one task to another wthout accomplishing much at all.
There are a number of ways to create a “to do” list and I’m still working on the best for me.

3×5 index cards for each day of the week. Adjust as you accomplish or don’t the items on them.
Write the most important items at the top …read more

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With some people, organizing becomes an excuse for not moving forward in their business. I’ve met several people who say, “When I get my files organized….When I get learn more about my products…When I get my web site set up….”However, they never get anything to the standards they feel their business merits, thus organizing becomes an excuse for business inactivity.  Why does this happen?

They are compulsive people who think they must have everything in order before they can be productive.
They actually think organizing, filing, indexing are productive aspects of a business.
They have a fear of the actual productive activities if it involves  tasks …read more

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It’s high time to clean the office. Yes, spring cleaning time is here. Whether you clean yearly or quarterly or more often, make sure you get that clutter under control.
I recently helped a friend clean her house just before a move. It motivated me to tackle my office area. Previously, a few stacks of books and papers weren’t that bothersome. They were close at hand, which was important at the time. But now I really want to reduce the visual clutter, so I’ve moved all the books off of my desktop and back into the book shelf. Books I don’t …read more

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Does your to-do list overwhelm you? Is it so large or intimidating that you don’t know where to start? Stop and think about it for a minute. Maybe your to-do list isn’t what it should be. Although I strongly feel that there’s no single right way to do things, maybe you do need to think about purpose a to-do list really serves.
For instance, I still need to do my taxes. Normally I have them done by February, but I still have some sorting and data entry to do. It’s been harder to fit it in than I thought it would …read more

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When my desktop hard drive died, I had to reinstall from my backup. I did not, however, transfer my inbox. I left it on my laptop, instead deciding to start from scratch and see how I could do. That doesn’t mean I gave up on my other email. I just wanted to see if I could keep my inbox as small as possible.
It worked for a while. But work, life, family and oh, I don’t know, sleep, got in the way. And sadly, I’m back up to around 300 emails in there. Many of them are just email alerts that …read more

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We talk a lot about getting organized. It’s a good goal to have, right? But what is it, really? Is it just some nebulous phrase that we toss around, or does it have meaning? My definition may be slightly different than yours, but its meaning is probably similar in most of our minds. The details and the methods of execution may differ. That’s okay. In fact, that’s great!
If your system works for you, keep doing it. Is organization all about neat files, a clean desk, a fancy day planner? No. To me, being organized is all about being able to …read more

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