March 2012

Mar 19

Reclaim Shelf Space and Organize Your Books with a Kindle!

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Business Organizing, Closet Organizing, Expert Articles, Free Articles, Home Office Organization, Home Organizing, IABO Weekly News, Quick Organizing Tips, Resources No Comments

Before my Kindle

Are you tripping over piles of books on the floor? Is your bookcase bulging at the seams with no room for all your new books? How much time and money are you wasting finding a book or on duplicate purchases? Are you like me, someone who loves to highlight and tag your books for future reference?

Are you feeling a little nervous about letting go of your precious books? I love my books too and when we went to Hawaii a few weeks ago, we decided to buy an e-book reader and test it out on our vacation. We also thought it was about time to get with the times. Someone said to me, everyone in Hawaii has an e-book reader by the pool or on the beach. So we thought we would give it a try.

Having an e-book reader also let’s you travel light. Instead of packing three books each, I only took one book with me and Glen had his new Kindle. The first day by the pool, I looked around and sure enough, 80% had some form of e-book reader. Also, my husband kept saying to me, you’re going to love reading from the Kindle. It’s easier to hold and much lighter than a pocket book, and the wind doesn’t flip your pages around. Oh, and another cool feature is you can change the font size, which for some of us, and I won’t mention any names, is a bonus when the fine print is too small to read.

So, after two days, I finished reading my paperback and I was going back and forth, do I buy a second e-book reader or do we share? We still had another 12 days in Hawaii and I planned on reading several more books. So we decided to go to Best Buy and buy another Kindle. A few days later, we found a vending machine at the Sheraton Waikiki that sells high-end electronics – iPods, iPhones, iPads, Kindles and other items you wish you had while on vacation. How cool is that?

Anyways, all I can say is, why did I wait so long? I absolutely LOVE my e-book reader! I can highlight, makes notes and refer back to my notes easier than I could highlight in a book. No more yellow highlighter to fiddle with, its super light to hold and read, no glare from the sun, long battery life (5-7 days), love the larger print size, and I read faster because I’m not straining my eyes to read the small print. We opted to buy the basic e-book reader because we don’t need a ton of fancy features and a data package. We just wanted an easy way to read and organize our books. We can even share our books with each other.

After my Kindle

Four weeks later, I’m in my office and I notice a very full bookshelf. I thought I had purged as many books as I could and for some reason I was holding onto way too many books. Now that I have my Kindle, I don’t need all these books. As you can see from the before photo, the bookshelf is bulging at the seams. I want you to know that I practice what I teach. So, I approached my bookshelf with a new frame of mind. Knowing that I have my Kindle to store all future books, I asked myself “what’s the reason I’m holding onto all these books?” Here’s my answers:

It’s out of print and its a book I refer to sometimes.
I wrote the book or I’m a contributing author.
The book is a key resource in my business or personal life.
I want to read this book.
I paid a lot of money for this hard cover and I should keep it.
It’s a classic and I want to keep it.
A friend published a book and it was a gift.

Here’s the new question I asked myself because I now have a Kindle, “what books can I let go of, write down in my OneNote file, and if I ever want to refer to it, I’ll buy it on my Kindle?” Here’s the after photos of all the books that I am letting go of and if I want to refer to one of these books someday, I will purchase it on my Kindle. The cost of buying it a second time, if I do, is a fraction of the cost of the space that is now available in my office. I have room to breath and I don’t need to go out and buy a new shelving unit with doors (which I was planning on doing) because I didn’t like looking at all these heavy books.

If I can do it, so can you. Go ahead and purge your bookshelf. If you’re like me and thinking that a Kindle costs too much, think again. I spent less than $90 and the freedom and flexibility I now have is a wonderful feeling. It’s much easier to take my Kindle with me wherever I go instead of a thick book. No more “making room” for books on my bookshelf. The stress I released and the space I reclaimed on my bookshelves and in my office, priceless!

Mar 17

Love0

The Best Tips to Organizing Microsoft Outlook

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Business Organizing, Expert Articles, Free Articles, Home Office Organization, Home Organizing, Organizing Microsoft Outlook, Quick Organizing Tips No Comments

How many emails do you have in your Inbox? 100, 1500, 5000, or 20,000+? The larger the number the more time you waste and increased stress. Although many dream of getting to ground zero and only processing today’s emails, the reality of this happening is not high on the priority list. Organizing Microsoft Outlook is easy with all the new features in Outlook 2010.

Go ahead and look at the number in your Inbox. Do you feel like you have a 100 pound weight sitting on your shoulders or are you smiling because you are one of the rare few who only has this week’s emails waiting for you to deal with? The number of emails sitting in your Inbox affects the speed of your Outlook searches and how much time you waste scrolling past the same email over and over.

How to Start Organizing Microsoft Outlook

The key to getting a handle on your emails, improving your response time and staying on top of critical actions and time-sensitive tasks is to develop an approach to process your emails both from your computer and on your mobile devices.

1. Synchronize all your devices so you only process an email once.

For small business who don’t have access to a company server, set up a Google Business Account and use Google apps to connect your Outlook, phone and iPad to access your email, calendar, contacts and tasks from all your devices. You can even access your Gmail account from anywhere and the sync will update your Outlook the next time you are at your computer. If you only want to sync your email to your phone and iPad, you can use the free Gmail account, (note that you won’t be able to access your calendar, contacts and tasks).

2. Use the Conversation Feature – in Microsoft 2010 when Conversations is turned on, messages in your Inbox and other email folders can be organized by Conversation and Date. This is handy when there are several emails in a conversation because you can delete all the previous emails and only keep the latest conversation.

To turn on or off Conversations – On the VIEW tab, in the CONVERSATIONS group, select or clear the SHOW AS CONVERSATION check box. Next, click ALL FOLDERS.

3. Set up your Action and Reference Folders

Action Folders – are for emails that require action

Reference folders – are for emails with no action required. You keep these emails to refer to them later, are permanent records or are for tax and legal requirements.

When you create your Action folders, type a period “.” in front of the action folder name. Adding the period changes the sort order a moves your Action folders to the top of the list and your “Reference” folder under your Action folders. You can also use numbers 01, 02, 03, 04 if you prefer to organize your Action folders in a certain order. Suggested Action folders:

..This Week (there are two periods here)

.Delegated – Deb

.Leads

.Parked

.Projects

.Receipts to Print

.Travel

.Waiting For/Pending

To create Reference folders, create a main folder called “Reference” and then second level folders using broad categories (example. Accounting > Budget 2012)

Separating your action and reference emails helps you gain control on what requires your attention. No more wasting time scrolling past emails that don’t require your attention.

Arrange your emails by Conversation, From – In Outlook 2010, on the VIEW tab, in the ARRANGEMENT group, click one of the arrangement options. One of the fastest ways to process your emails is to arrange by Conversations.

Organizing Microsoft Outlook emails is easy when you customize it the way you want to process your emails. Now that you have your new action and reference folders set up, you can use the next four steps to process your Inbox and get it to ground zero, or close to zero depending on your preference.

Organizing Microsoft Outlook with F.A.S.T.

Use the F.A.S.T. Workflow Decision Making Process to quickly decide what the next action is. With the F.A.S.T. process, you have four choices:

File – file emails in your Reference folders that have no action. Drag and drop emails into the appropriate Reference folder. A word of caution, at some point you will need to clean out these folders or move them to your Archive folder.

Act – these are emails that require action by you. Drag emails that require action

Schedule – get your appointments into your calendar and save as an ALL DAY EVENT or at a SPECIFIC TIME. If you are keeping the email to refer to at the appointment, simply drag the email to your calendar and all the info will be saved in the appointment. Delete the email.

Toss – Read and delete whenever possible. Be ruthless with the delete key. You can set up your Deleted Folder to delete emails manually by you, monthly or whatever time frame you prefer.

If your inbox is overflowing with emails and organizing Microsoft Outlook seems like a daunting project, here’s a fast way to get your Inbox close to ground zero immediately. Create an Action folder “.OLD EMAILS.” Next, drag emails that are older than 7 days into the new .OLD EMAILS folder. You’ll need to schedule time in your calendar to deal with this old emails. This strategy gives you instant relief since you only have 7 days of emails to process. You’ll be motivated to process the old email folder.

What have you found was key to your organizing Microsoft Outlook? Join us in the Comments below!

Mar 12

Love4

Organizing & Time Management Statistics

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Business Organizing, Free Articles, Home Organizing, IABO Weekly News, Resources, Uncategorized 2 Comments

I’ve gathered some interesting statistics on the cost of clutter and disorganization in time, money and quality of life. Seriously consider what clutter and chaos is costing you in your home and/or business. It can be a real eye opener. If you need some help, we have many videos and organizing bootcamps to help you de-clutter your home and office.

Take a few minutes to review the Organizing and Time Management Statistics below and check off the ones that apply to you. Then find your calendar and schedule time to de-clutter your office and home. Start with the area that is driving you crazy the most.

Household Management
Information Management
Organizing Products and Tools
Paper Management
Stress and Work/Life Balance
Time Management

Household Management

It costs an average of $10/square foot to store items in your home
According to the National Soap and Detergent Association, getting rid of clutter eliminates 40 percent of housework in the average home
Escape Magazine, April 2000, says each week Americans spend:If you rent self-storage space to store your excess belongings, you’re contributing to a $154 billion industry. That’s bigger than the Hollywood film business!
1 in 11 American households rent a self-storage space and spend over $1,000 a year in rent
23% of adults pay bills late and incur fees because they can’t find their bills, Harris Interactive
80% of the clutter in your home is a result of disorganization, not lack of space
80% of what we keep we rarely use, Agency Sales Magazine
Realtors say ‘first impression’ is key and de-cluttering closets to be one of the smartest ways to spruce up your home before putting it on the market
We wear 20% of our clothes, 80% of the time. The rest hangs there
U.S. Department of Energy reports that 25% of people with two-car garages fill it with too much stuff that they can’t park a car inside
50% of homeowners rate their garage as the most disorganized room in the house, yet the most frequently used by family members

Information Management

96% of office workers are frustrated by their company’s information management, Harte-Hanks
According to Forbes ASAP, the typical executive today wastes 150 hours a year, almost one month, searching for lost information. For someone earning $50,000 a year, that translates to a loss of $3,842
Typical US worker is interrupted by communications technology every 10 minutes, Institute for Future and Gallup
80% of papers and information that we keep, we never use, Agency Sales Magazine
Email is increasing print volume by 40%, Document Magazine

Organizing Products and Tools

Using the correct organizational tools can improve time management by 38%, Mobile Technology Product
Home storage products have become a $4.36 billion industry, Newsweek 2004

Paper Management

The average American gets 49,060 pieces of mail in a lifetime, one third of it is junk mail
Paperwork has been voted the biggest burden for small businesses
The Wall Street Journal reports that the average U.S. executive wastes six weeks per year retrieving misplaced information from messy desks and files. For an executive earning $75,000 a year, that translates to a loss of $9,221 – 12.3 percent of total earnings. For a company with one hundred executives at that salary, it translates to nearly $1 million in lost productivity.
The average office has 19 copies of each document. Spends $20 in labour to file each document. Spends $120 in labour searching for each misfiled document. Loses one out of every 20 documents. Spends 25 hours recreating each lost document, PricewaterhouseCoopers
It costs about $25,000 to fill a four drawer filing cabinet and over $2,100 per year to maintain it, Gartner Group, Coopers & Lybrand, Ernst & Young
A four-drawer file cabinet full of paper, holds 18,000 pages
Studies show that some executives will pick up a single piece of paper from their desk thirty or forty times before acting on it, Michael F. Woolery, Seize the Day
Time spent mishandling paperwork detracts from the company’s ability to service customers, increase sales, and improve the bottom line, Small Business Administration
Corporations still don’t understand the value of good document management or the costs of bad, Thornton May, author of Imaging World
It costs businesses $120 in labour to track down a misplaced document or $250 in labour to re-create it

Stress and Work/Life Balance

80% of our medical expenditures are stress related as stated by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fast Company 2003
Stress-related illness costs the nation $300 billion a year in medical costs and lost productivity, American Institute of Stress
Perfectionism costs 50% or more of the total effort to squeeze out the last 10% or so of quality, Jeff Olson, The Agile Manager’s Guide to Getting Organized, 1997

Time Management

the National Association of Professional Organizers says we spend one year of our lives looking for lost items
Office workers waste an average of 40% of their workday. Not because they aren’t smart, but because they were never taught organizing skills to cope with the increasing workloads and demands, Wall Street Journal Report
In a 2008 NAPO survey of 400 consumers nationwide:
In Escape Magazine, April 2000,says Each Week Americans spend: The average American will spend one year searching through desk clutter looking for misplaced objects, Margin, Dr. Richard Swenson
- 751 minutes behind slow moving cars and stuck in traffic jams
- 727 minutes waiting for dates and business associates to show up for meetings
- 724 minutes standing in lines to make purchases, renew drivers
- 723 minutes on hold, waiting for someone to pick up the phone
It’s estimated that a manager loses 1 hour/day to disorder, costing the business up to $4,000/yr if earning $35,000/yr or $8,125/yr at $65,000
280 hours (7 weeks) per year are lost by workers seeking clarification due to poor communication
The average American spends one year of their life looking for lost or misplaced items at home and in the office, US News and World Report
According to the American Demographic Society, Americans waste more than 9 million hours each day looking for lost and misplaced articles
For every hour of planning, 3 to 4 hours are saved from redundancy, waiting for information, not being prepared and poorly managed tasks
The average manager is interrupted every three minutes
People who multi-task decrease their productivity by 20-40% are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time. Time lost switching among tasks increases the complexity of the tasks, University of Michigan Study
Sales reps surveyed were most productive when they assigned themselves only three tasks per day. It gave them a great sense of accomplishment when they were able to cross off those tasks, Accountemps
40% of adults say if they had more time, they would spend it with family, Day Runner Survey
Executives waste 7.8 hours each week in meetings, Accountemps Survey