Organizing is about finding what you need when you need it, professional organizer Stephanie Calahan said. “Different people have different thinking and communication styles. The science of organizing is the tip; the art of organizing is in knowing which tips will work best for you.” She offered the following tips for organizing your home and office.
Organizing Your Home
• Set zones for each room in your house. For example, in your kitchen, you’d have zones for preparation, baking, cleaning, serving, and storage.
• Think through where you store your items. It may seem like common sense, but we don’t always think to put things nearest the point where we’ll use them. Make an effort to look at your storage with a critical eye, and move objects around if your current system doesn’t make sense.
• Go through your media library once a year. Unless you’re a library, you shouldn’t keep items in the event someone else may want it. Once a year, sort through your entire media library and remove anything that doesn’t interest you anymore.
• Always be ready for a road emergency. Keep a road emergency kit in the car. You can either purchase a pre-made one or make one yourself. To make one, purchase a medium sized duffel bag and put a blanket, non-perishable snacks, drinking water, flares, flashlight, jumper cables, jack, and ice scraper into it.
• Remember to consider the climate of your space. Attics have a tendency to be very hot at certain times of the year and basements can be cold, damp, or have insects. Take the necessary steps to protect your belongings.
• Try not to ignore your dead space when considering storage needs. You actually have more room out there than you think if you look in the right places. Dead space can sometimes double or triple your available storage. Don’t forget about the areas under beds, on the backs of doors, near the ceiling, and on the floor.
• Is it beautiful, useful, or loved? Ask yourself if each item you pick up is “beautiful, useful, or loved”—if not, get rid of it. Thinking of bringing one more thing into your home? First make sure of two things: you have a place to put it and it makes you smile. If not, it doesn’t belong in your life.
• De-clutter using a “Flashlight Focus. ” Imagine you’re holding a flashlight and shining it on one spot. Concentrate on this spot until it’s organized. This technique will prevent you from getting overwhelmed.
• Do the “daily” test. If you don’t use it daily, it shouldn’t be on the countertop.
Organizing Your Office
• Stand up to greet people who come to your office. By standing, you control the length of the interruption. Inviting the individual to sit invites a longer interruption.
• Great meetings begin with an agenda. Circulate your agenda in advance. If you can’t, write it on a flip chart or white board before participants arrive. The agenda should include the purpose of the meeting, the start and finish time, meeting location, a list of who will be attending, items to be covered, and action items on each.
• Learn that egg timers aren’t just for eggs. It’s a good practice to set a limit for each meeting topic when you’re creating a meeting agenda. When the meeting starts, ask for a volunteer or assign a timekeeper. Give them the egg timer, and every time a new topic is started, they should set the timer to the pre-defined discussion length. When the timer goes off, move to the next topic.
• You can have productivity management through inventory management. It’s not only a hassle to run out of supplies just when you need them, it’s also a waste of time to run out to the store or store room for individual items. Set up an inventory sheet, and use it to do a monthly inventory check. Your sheet should list all of your supplies and amounts ordered. You can track how long supplies last and adjust for future orders accordingly.
• Focus on the way you move. If you’re doing a lot of walking, bending, or stretching during the day, you need to rethink your space. An organized workspace is structured so what you need most is within reach.
• Create a “don't forget” list for closing up shop. Make sure you and your employees don’t forget anything when leaving the office. Tape a list of locking-up procedures to the back of the exit door. A list is especially important when the last one out isn’t always the same person.
• Use only one calendar for scheduling, recording appointments and special dates. The only exception is a family calendar—usually kept on or near the fridge. Be sure you keep the family calendar up-to-date with the one you carry.
• Time management is a misnomer—understand prioritization. Webster’s defines “manage” as, “to control the movement or behavior of.” You can’t control the movement or the behavior of time. There are only 24 hours in a day. The definition itself sets up time management for failure. So the issue isn’t how to manage your time; the issue is how to prioritize your time. There’s a big difference.
• Use your free minutes well. Make a list of small tasks that only take five to 10 minutes each, and complete one task when you find a small chunk of down time—waiting for someone to arrive or when you have just a few minutes at the end of the day.
• Create e-mail stationary. If you frequently send the same type of e-mail, save a copy as a draft or template that you can reuse over and over, changing the specifics such as name, date, and format for each e-mail.
• File regularly. File paperwork weekly, if not daily. This way, your paperwork doesn’t pile up and become unmanageable. Spend 10 to 15 minutes at the end of each workday clearing off your desk and filing paper work.
• Reduce the piles into files. If you keep your files in piles on your desk because you need to see them, try using a rolling file cart. This keeps piles off your desk but in a place where you can see them at all times.
• There are various uses for cosmetic bags or sandwich bags. When your office is mobile, it has to be efficient. Everything has to be at your fingertips but not under your client’s seat. Use clear cosmetic bags or small sandwich bags to store supplies such as writing instruments, Post-its, paperclips, scissors, etc. TPW
Read the story, "Change Your Life With Help From a Professional Organizer," from the September 2005 issue of The Peoria Woman.
To see even more free tips, visit the Calahan Solutions Web site at www.calahansolutions.com.