Comcast is Going Paperless

Yesterday I got an email from Comcast about their new initiative to get rid of paper bills. Although I commend them to finally get on board with going paperless, what took them so long? I have been paperless with my Verizon and electric bill for over two years. I think you should definitely sign up to go paperless to eliminate paper clutter and of course to help reduce our paper usage. Check out Comcast's website to sign up to go paperless. Yeah, Comcast!

Time Management

Check out this speech by Randy Pausch. It is informative and inspiring.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5784740380335567758

Gain Wardrobe Control

If your like most people, your closet is overflowing with work attire, casual clothes, shoes, handbags, belts, and other wardrobe accessories. Every time you open your closet door you think to yourself, "I really need to get this closet organized". The best way to clean your closet is with the turn of the seasons. As the hot summer nights turn to crisp evenings, this is natures subtle hint that you need to spend one Saturday morning reviewing your upcoming wardrobe.

Make a goal for yourself to spend two hours on a rainy Saturday morning to look at all your work clothes. Inspect all the pieces for fabric pulls, stains, and missing buttons. Immediately put these in a donate pile. If an item is really not worth giving to charity, then consider using the item as a dusting rag in your house or simply throw the item away. FYI...Old t-shirts are perfect for dusting rags. Don't forget to try the items on to make sure they still fit and that you still like them.

Once you have eliminated the obvious give aways, start mixing and matching pants/skirts with shirts and suit jackets. Can you make multiple outfits out of your items? Are there any items that simply don't coordinate with any other clothing items? Give these a good look...will you honestly wear them? Do you need the item? Can someone else benefit from the item? Perhaps it's a pretty orange color, but it doesn't quite go with your wardrobe and it might be a little bright for your conservative corporate office. Consider giving it to a friend who looks great in orange and can really pull the color off.

After you have finished with your work clothes, take a break and enjoy the rest of your Saturday. Make a goal to review your casual clothing and your accessories in the next week. Follow the same steps as above and you should have enough room to fit everything in your closet and find room for next season's new fashion trends.

Magazine Clutter

Every day it seems I get a new magazine or catalog in the mail. From my husband’s Economist, Business Week, Bon Appétit, and National Geographic to my Health magazine, we have lots of reading material lying around. These are items we have ordered, but we also get Alumni magazines, store catalogs, and local newspapers. I keep all my magazines in two places…in a large square basket in the living room and in a basket in the bathroom.
After looking through the mail, I place the magazines in the large square basket in the living room. I can usually go through catalogs that evening while lounging on the couch and watching TV. Or sometimes I quickly flip through them after I sort and file my mail. One of the things I noticed lately is that most of these catalogs contain the same product information as the catalog before. I am not seeing anything new. If you feel overwhelmed with catalogs, then you can call the company and ask to be removed from the mailing list. I did this for my Frontgate catalog. I never bought anything from them, but all of a sudden I started getting the catalog. I love when my information gets sold!!!
I leave the magazines in the basket until it starts to get full. Usually at this point my husband and I will go through the magazines to recycle the ones we have already read. Sometimes I bring them to work and leave them in the kitchen for others to read during lunch. If you do this, make sure you take off the address sticker or black out your address with a marker.
Another place you can store magazines is next to your bed in a basket or on the night stand. If you do this, remember to clean it out on a regular basis to avoid it from overflowing onto the floor.
How do I determine what magazines can go and stay? Usually if it’s been sitting in one of my baskets for over a month then I recycle it. If I am keeping the magazine for one specific article, I will cut out the article and place it next to my night stand. I will add this article to my To Do list for the week. We tend to keep our cooking magazines for the recipes. In this case, cut the recipe out of the magazine. I keep binders with various recipes (Entrée, Dessert, Sides, etc). I can then hole punch the recipe and add to my binder and then get rid of the magazine. Another thing to consider is that certain magazines allow you to log on to a website to review the same article/recipe/tips as in the magazine. You can make a note to go to the website instead of keeping the magazine. Just remember if you haven’t looked at the magazine in the last couple of months, it’s probably time to let it go.

Story of Stuff

Check this out:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Eliminating Stuff

Check out this article from Time magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1812048,00.html

Starting a File System

You've thought about it for awhile now. You've seen the advertisements for filing cabinets and varying organizing gizmos. The only thing holding you back is knowing you have to sort through all your paperwork.
"Where should I begin?" you ask yourself. The way I figured out logical categories for my filing cabinet was by looking at the bills I pay every month. Here is a sample of items I pay every month:
Cable
Car Payment
Rent
Water
Electric
Student Loans
Gym membership
Phone
Savings
You may have some of these same bills every month or you may have something slightly different. Just looking at this list, you can see that there is paper associated with each item. This is the beginning of your file system.
Notice I made my list generic. I actually pay my bill to Comcast, but my file is called "Cable". The reason for this is because if I move and my service provider changes to Cox Communication, then I don't need to change my file name.
Take a piece of paper and write down all the bills you pay. Don't worry about getting fancy file folders yet. You can do that once you have a file framework. Instead use any folder you have available like a manila folder and put the name on the folder.
If you have papers lying on your desk, pick each item up and slip the paper into the corresponding folder. You may have serveral cable or electric bills on your desk and it's now just a matter of putting them in the folder.
Spend time going through each paper. Okay, you are probably asking yourself "I have all these random papers that have nothing to do with the categories I wrote on my notepad, now what?"
Take a quick look at each paper (less than 30 seconds) and decide if you should toss/recycle/shred or if it deserves another category. You may have picked up an Explanation of Benefit(EOB) statement that your health insurance provider sent you from your recent blood text. Don't worry about reading the content and taking action just yet, but decide on a category like Medical.
Continue to do this with each paper until you start to see similar patterns where similar papers belong with other papers. Remember to pile these papers together and write down the categories on your notepad.
This whole process can take hours or days. You can have tons of paper. Whatever you do, don't get discouraged. If you come to a piece of paper where you are unsure what to do, toss it into an "Unsure" pile and make sure to LABEL IT!
Once your filing framework begins to take shape, you can move the folders to a filing cabinet or shelf while you shop for the perfect storage solution for your filing solution. You will have all your categories written on your notepad so when you go to the office supply store, you will know how many file folders you need and the approximate size of the storage unit needed.
This is a fresh start to your new organized life!

Getting Out the Door in the Morning

We have all had those days where things just don't work in our favor in the morning. Either you can't decide what to wear in the morning or the outfit you choose to wear has a stain. Even better, you get half way down the block and you realize you left your badge to your office on the kitchen table. How do people get out of the house in the morning given all the things going on in our lives? Next time you will be ready to face the day with some easy tricks to follow.

Designate a spot for your purse and keys:
Every time you walk in the house, place your purse/briefcase/laptop bag and set of keys in the same place. Consider purchaseing a entrance hall bench with hooks to hang up your coat and bag. Hang up a letter bin with hooks or purchase an entry table for stowing your keys and mail. In the morning, everything will be there for you to grab on your way out.

Watch the weather report and set out your clothes the night before:
Take five minutes to turn to the weather channel or go to your local news station for the forecast on your television. If rain is in the forecast, plan to wear dark colored clothes. If it's going to be extra cold, dig out your gloves now instead of doing it in the A.M. Designate a spot in your bedroom for your clothing like a bench, a chair or even hang the clothing on the back of the door. You will have the items ready to put on as soon as you are finished with your shower or other morning routine.

Pack lunches and get your kids involved:
Believe it or not, I began making my own lunch for school when I was in third grade. Granted I had PB&J, a juice box, and two cookies, but I was able to do it. Your kids can do too, but you have to make it fun and a family affair. Get in the habit of making lunches together right after dinner. Ask the younger child to get the lunch boxes out and the older child to make the sandwiches. You can wash the fruit and pack the snack while you supervise the kids. At first it might take some practice getting everything done, but over time the kids will know exactly how to pack their lunch.

Now that your clothes, bag, and lunch are ready to go, you should be starting your day fresh and ready to tackle the world...at least until you hit your first intersection of traffic. Unfortunately the organizer can't prevent that!

Vacation Planning

It's that time of the year...people are planning and booking their vacations. Everyone wants to get a little bit of rest and relaxation from all their hard days. If you haven't already booked a trip and your struggling on where to start I have some information for you. First, you want to start by figuring out a budget. You need to know exactly how much you can spend on this trip without going into debt. Yes, your goal here is not to put this on the credit card so when you get back from the trip you will not be miserable looking at your credit card statement. Note: you can put it on the credit card as long as you pay it off. This is what I do to get my Starwood points.

Once you have your budget, figure where you can reasonably go within that budget. Given the oil prices you may not be able to fly to your destination without spending all of your budget. This may mean you need to stay closer to home. Create a list of places you want to go. For example:

1. Bahamas
2. Disney World (Florida)
3. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Spend one night looking at air flights on the airline sites like www.Travelocity.com or www.orbitz.com. Once you have all the flight prices, figure out your approximate costs for your hotel stay, rental car, gas, optional activities, and food. You should put all of this information in a spreadsheet to make it easy to compare the trips once your finished.

Finding Time For Exercise

It seems alot of people I talk to can not find the time to go to the gym or exercise on their own. I actually wake up Monday through Friday at 5:15am to go to the gym for 45 minutes. How can you find the time to do the same thing? First, I would like to say, It's not easy!! It takes discipline. It means I don't watch TV pass 10pm or do any anything else. I simply can not or I will wake up exhausted.
Its best to place your gym time on your Outlook calendar or pencil it in on your paper calendar. No matter how busy you are, take this opportunity to take a break from the computer and rest your mind. Actually, you can still think while your running....this is the time I usually think of all the things I have to do during the day and when I will do it. I also think of organizing ideas and articles to publish on my blog. Exercise gives you the opportunity to think even though you may not be sitting in front of a computer or a desk.
If you can't get to the gym, take period walks outside on your breaks. I have a corporate job where I can walk outside in the corporate park. Sometimes I walk with a co-worker and other times I walk alone. If I take three 10-minute walks throughout the day, then that is 30 minutes of activity.
The bottom line here is that you need to look at your goals and priorities. If exercising is a priority to you, then you will need to rearrange your calendar to fit this into your schedule.

Plan Your Meals

Are you part of a dual income family where both you and your spouse are working? Are you a stay at home parent that doesn't have time during the day to plan out your meals? One of the ways I manage a busy schedule and still manage to eat a home cooked meal is planning the meals in advance.

In my previous blog, I talked about keeping a list on the refrigerator with items needed at the grocery store. This list is also used to help plan out our meals. My husband and I will usually discuss our upcoming schedule for the week on Saturday. He tends to work late or go to dinners during the week for work. This changes week to week. Its important to note here that I am not the cook in the family. He is!!! If he's not at home to cook, I need to do it or warm up leftovers.

We figure out all the ingredients needed for all meals (Sunday - Friday) and put it on the list hanging on the refrigerator. For days where we both will be working late or if he won't be home for dinner at all, then we plan to do leftovers. I know people can hate leftovers, but it is such a HUGE TIMESAVER. (sidenote: warm your food in the oven instead of the microwave...it tastes so much better).

The other huge timesaver here: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO MAKE EACH NIGHT! Post the meals on the refrigerator too so everyone in the family knows what to expect for dinner.

This system has also saved me time because I don't have to stop at the grocery store during the week to pick up items for a meal. Everything was purchased on Saturday and I will have everything in my pantry.

Tips to save time and money at the grocery store

All I hear and read about in the news is how people are cutting back in food, travel, and entertaining expenses. In our current economic state, people will do anything to save money on their expenses. I am in the same shoes as everybody else. One of the things I do is create a grocery list before I go to the grocery store. I know what your thinking...I have heard this before. Here's the difference....keep a running list of all the items you run out of on your refrigerator. When you run out of orange juice, take a pen and record it on the pad of paper. It's best if you purchase a pad of paper that has a magnet attached to the back of it. At the end of the week you will have a full list of items you need.

Okay, so maybe you'll forget to do this or you have other people in the family that will forget to do this. The other possible solution is to create an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with all the common items you get every week...milk, eggs, cold cuts, etc. Print this out before you go to the store and add any items to the bottom that are needed for that week only.

Creating a list of items will keep you on track at the grocery store. You'll be less likely to get distracted by the supposed "deals" that are advertised at the store. Happy shopping and stay tuned for more organizing tips!

Tips to keep your Mail organized

How many of you have piles of mail lying around on your kitchen table? This is a common occurance because people are too busy when they get home to sort it out. I figured out along the way that doing a little each day will save me tons of time later on down the line. My suggestion to you is to sort through the mail at the same time every day.

For example, I look at my mail after I come home and change into more comfortable clothes. I quickly sort the mail into piles between myself, my husband, trash, file, and shred. I then open my mail and decide what to trash, file or shred. My husband allows me to open his mail so I do the same for his mail. If you have other family members who receive mail, designate a spot on a desk or entryway table for the person to retrieve the mail when they get home.

After reviewing all my mail, I walk to the shredder to shred, and the trash to trash. I have a filing cabinet with all our important paperwork where I finally go to file anything leftover from my mail. This whole process takes me about five minutes. Wow that is easy and now I don't have any mail on my dining room table.

You can do this too! Make a goal for yourself to begin a mail routine by the beginning of next month. Sort all your old mail first and then start fresh on a Monday. Now stick with it and see how this small activity will transform your space!

Welcome to my Blog!

Welcome to my new blog. This is where I will share my tips and tricks on how to stay organized. Enjoy!