Get Organized Now! Weblog

Reduce Ironing Time

Directly following a dryer session, as you're taking clothes out of your clothes dryer, put aside anything that needs to be ironed, and then iron them right away.

Since you're taking the clothes out immediately, there will be less wrinkles than if you allowed them to sit in the dryer, cool off, and form more wrinkles. So, in general, your ironing task will be easier from the start.

Log Your Interruptions

Ever start working on something, get distracted and start working on something else--just to discover later that you never completed that first task you intended to do?

If so, you're not alone. This 'drop one project, hop to another' tendency is a common one that many people share.

Next time you begin working on something, set a timer to sound off in 10 minutes, and then begin working on your first project. When the timer goes off, determine if you're still working on your first project.

If you are, great.

If not, and you haven't yet completed that first project, stop what you're doing, jot down what interrupted you, re-set the timer and get back to working on your first project. Repeat this process throughout the day.

At the end of the day, read through your list to determine what interruptions caused you to get distracted-- television, unexpected visitors, phone calls, and so on.

Once you know what these interruptions are, you can then work on eliminating them so you're not distracted by the same things tomorrow. For example, perhaps you'll turn off the TV, screen your phone calls, ask those visitors to return at a later time, etc.

Keep Your Pantry Stocked

You had tons of things to do today, and now you're exhausted. But, you still have to make dinner, and your pantry is bare. Sound like a familiar story?

In the future, always keep your pantry stocked with basics, such as tomato sauce, pasta, tuna, beans, canned veggies and rice. This will greatly reduce those last-minute treks to the store.

Make a Waiting Bag

No matter what, every once in awhile, you're going to find yourself waiting. You might be on hold on the telephone, or sitting at the dentist's office awaiting your turn, or at the train station waiting for your train to arrive.

Make that waiting time count by always carrying around a 'Waiting Bag' with you. Stock that bag with a few things you have or want to do. You may pack a book to read, or your latest knitting project. Perhaps you might bring your cell phone to make some necessary calls, your check book to write out payments for pending bills, stationery to catch up on correspondence, or an audio player to listen to the latest book.

The 'Waiting Bag' ensures you're always doing something productive with your time.

Do It Daily

While organizing and cleaning on a daily basis may sound daunting, it only truly requires about 20 minutes of your time each day.

When the last person gets out of the shower, spray down the walls with some shower cleaner. Quickly disinfect the toilet bowl each night. Turn the dishwasher on. Toss a load of clothes in the washing machine. Dust a few pieces of furniture. Vacuum a room. File a few sheets of paper.

You get the picture. Each of the items mentioned above just takes a few minutes--some even take a few seconds.

20 minutes per day, comes out to just over 2 hours per week--which is a very reasonable amount of organizing and cleaning time for the average household.

However, leave cleaning tasks for a week or two and very often the situation will get out of control. The tub will need to be scrubbed. The laundry will be piled to the ceiling. Your To Be Filed pile will be overflowing.

Let it go too long and deep-cleaning and heavy organizing time is required, which is much more time-consuming than simply organizing and cleaning a little bit each day. Whereas you would have spent just 2 hours in a week, now you'll find you have to spend an entire Saturday deep- cleaning and catching up.

Two hours versus seven or eight hours? That's a no- brainer.

Shorten Phone Conversations

Are your phone conversations too lengthy? If so, here are 3 simple ways to shorten them:

1. Warm them about your time limits.

Sometimes you just don't have the time for long-winded conversations. Next time she calls, right at the start of the conversation, tell her you've only got 5 minutes to spare right now. When those 5 minutes have passed, tell her it was wonderful talking, but you've got to hang up for now.

2. Set an egg timer.

Many phone calls get lengthy because you get so involved with the conversation that you lose track of the time. This can be both time-consuming and expensive. Set an egg timer for a specified amount of time (5-15 minutes serve most conversations well), and politely end the call when the timer goes off.

3. Prepare ahead of time.

Before you make your calls, make a list of the items you want to cover. This way, you're not wasting your time, or the time of the person on the other line, trying to remember things during the conversation. Check off each item as you go, and when you get to the last one you're done!

Stop Waiting--Start Progressing

Most people wait to start a home or office project because they feel they have too many other tasks on their To Do list right now. They figure, they'll just get to it later when there's more free time.

Sadly, that free time never just appears, and thus the task or project never gets completed. It never even gets started.

Perhaps you've been wanting to organize your closet for months now, or maybe you need to get your finances under control. Possibly you want to start a home business or begin marketing your current one. Or you'd like to catch up on your filing or your reading pile.

Whatever the task or project is, it will never get started if you are waiting for a bunch of extra time to just magically appear out of the blue.

Whenever you truly want to get something done, set aside a mere 10 minutes to start doing it. You can do this by waking up 10 minutes earlier, staying up 10 minutes later, working through a small portion of your lunch hour or even doing it during television commercial breaks.

Once the 10 minutes are up, it's up to you whether or not you wish to keep going. If so, great. If not, simply stop and do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day--again, for only 10 minutes at a time.

Within the next week or two, you will have progressed on this project. It is always better to get some of a project done, than none at all. Eventually, you will reach the finish line.

Creating Time Pockets in Your Life

A time pocket is a specific length of time within your day, or week, that is set aside to do something. Here are two examples of how you can use time pockets in your life:

A) You're waiting for some extra time to magically come into your life to begin learning how to speak French. That time never seems to arrive. By the way, it never will-- unless you make that time. So, you set up a 'French Time Pocket' from 8:00 to 9:00pm on Mondays and Fridays and you use this time to begin learning French. Nothing except a major emergency should interfere with your French Time Pocket, and within a few weeks, you should begin to have a beginners French vocabulary.

B) You love to surf the net, but you're spending three hours each night doing so and you can't get anything else done. The dishes are piling in the sink, the laundry is overflowing and the dust bunnies have taken over your furniture. Get everything back in control by scheduling an 'Internet Time Pocket' of 10:00 to 10:30 each night. That will give you 210 minutes per week to surf the net, but you'll also have plenty of time to catch up on your cleaning.

Whether you are NOT spending enough time doing something, or you're spending TOO MUCH time doing something, creating time pockets in your life can help.

Enjoy your week!

Organized Spontaneity

For the things you have to get done, a written list is a necessity. A list is your own personal assistant, constantly tapping you on the shoulder, reminding you of the things you have to get done.

I always choose to complete the things on my To Do list, during the weekdays.

By doing this, I leave the weekends open for doing whatever strikes my fancy. I might go for a leisurely drive with my family, or sit in front of the fireplace and read a magazine, or work on one of my hobbies--something that wasn't pre-planned, but is fun and spontaneous.

In other words, the actual events on the weekends are not necessarily planned in advance, but the free time is always planned.

This is what I like to call 'Organized Spontaneity.'

You can be both organized and spontaneous at the same time. Try it. You'll like it!

Time Management is Not About Accomplishing Everything on Your To Do List

The process of making lists is crucial to effective organization. If it's not written down, it's bound to be forgotten.

But, so many people get frustrated and overwhelmed when they look at all the tasks on their To Do lists. They wonder how they'll ever be able to accomplish so many things.

Believe it or not, time management is NOT about accomplishing everything on your list of things to do.

It's really about looking at your list of things to do, and determining if those things are important enough to do in the first place.

For example, ask yourself if it's really important to you to drive all the way over to another supermarket, just to save 35 cents on bread. That 35 cents is surely going to be spent on fuel anyway, and look at the time that is being wasted.

Or, is it a good use of your time to cut out and file magazine articles? For some people who reference their saved articles regularly, it certainly may be a good use of time. But I know people who just cut out articles, file them, and NEVER go into those files again.

We only get 24 hours each day. Think wisely before using them up, because once they're gone, they can never be retrieved again.