Crystal Clear Strategies, Inc. Blog

The average employee today has 37 hours of unfinished work on their desk at anytime.

Top 8 Tips to Manage Your Time
1. If there is a task that you are dreading, set a timer for 15 minutes and once time is up, move on.
2. There are only 24 hours in a day.
3. Remember to schedule downtime. That is when creativity happens.
4. Never have more than 7 things on your daily to-do list.
5. Take time to schedule each component of a project, not just the due date.
6. Leave room in your schedule for things like emergencies, staff meetings, and travel
7. Complete first things first.  Don’t work on the easiest items first if they are not the highest priority.

8. Figure out when your “Zone” time is and schedule your most intense tasks for that time when you can really focus.

The Importance of a To-Do List
The key to success often lies in ensuring that we do the first things first. The best way to establish this habit is to prioritize your to-do list every day. Often we choose to do the easiest thing first ignoring the importance of it and the other tasks on our list. Choosing to do the most important or time sensitive items first will help to prevent things from being completed late.  AT the end of each day create your to-do list for the next day.  Then prioritize each of the tasks so that you will know which items need to be compelted first.  This will allow you to start each day knowing exactly what needs to be completed and in what order.

What is the best way to get organized?

Experts in the organizing industry agree: there are no “cookie cutter” solutions. There are many different personality types, work styles and environmental influences, so each person must find the systems that work best for him or her. There are an ever-increasing number of products and services designed to help you get organized. First, determine the areas in which you want to improve. These might be filing, clutter control, time management, maximization of storage space or juggling projects and priorities. Then sift through the product and educational tool options and develop your solutions by designing systems and evolving them through a trial and error process.

Why do I need to get organized?

Organized people save time and money, make more money, and have lower stress and frustration levels. There is no one right or wrong way to get organized, and you only need to change what you’re doing if you’re not happy with how you manage your time, paper, information, and space. The amount of information available to us continues to grow at a rapid pace, as do the number of demands on our time. Organizing systems help you deal with everything from your paper to your professional responsibilities and give you parameters on what to keep, what to toss, and what to take action on.

Tips for the Home:

• Take children with you when you go to donate unused items. This helps them learn to part with things.
• Look up to identify storage spaces in a room; bare walls and above the cabinets are often underutilized. Also, don’t forget behind the door.
• Evaluate whether you want to continue receiving magazines you’re not reading, or consider rotating subscriptions.
• Group items together according to how you use them. For instance, keep all ingredients needed for baking together.

Tips for the Office:

• Break large projects down into small, sequential steps. Schedule these steps into your day with your planner.
• Keep only supplies you need on a daily basis on your desktop.
• Be clear about the response you need when sending a message to a colleague. They can then provide a full response, even if they don’t reach you directly.
• Keep a file index (a master list of file names). Check the index before creating a new file so you avoid making duplicates. Also use it when deciding where to file a piece of paper.

Scheduling Reminders 

• Block out time to make & return phone calls and handle emails.
• Be honest about how long a project will take.  If you know it will take 2 hours, don’t schedule only 30 minutes as you will be setting yourself up to fail.
• Delegate anything and everything you can.
• There are only 24 hours in a day.  It is impossible to schedule 30 hours worth of work, personal and sleep time in 1 day.
• At the end of each day, clear your desk.  This way you will come in each morning with a clean slate ready to start your day.
• Leave a little flexibility in your schedule for emergencies and staff meetings.

Recently I was reveiwing a fellow organizers information and found a great article on how to conquer clutter in small bits.  I think this is a great article and I wanted to share it with you.  It was written by Jackie Kleinschmidt on Everyday Organizing, LLC .

Conquering Clutter 10 Minutes at a Time

To help you maximize your de-cluttering time, here are ten quick projects you can complete in about ten minutes. Use them to give yourself a jolt of energy and feel the stress melt away:

Ten-Minute Project 1. Take a good look at the state of your medicine cabinet. Pull out any bottles containing expired medications or old prescriptions. Flush the contents down the toilet; rinse and recycle the containers. While you’re at it, wipe down the shelves. Put everything back, storing like with like and putting the most-used items in convenient spots.

Ten-Minute Project 2. Did you know makeup has a shelf life of only 3-6 months? Using old makeup can cause breakouts and skin infections. Do yourself a favor and de-clutter your makeup drawer. Discard anything that’s old, grimy or in a color you wouldn’t dare wear anymore.

Ten-Minute Project 3. While you’re in your bathroom, open up your cabinets and storage. Take ten minutes to throw out bottles of lotion, shampoo or hair products you know you won’t use. Consolidate half-empty bottles wherever possible. Rearrange items so you can find related items quickly and easily.

Ten-Minute Project 4  Everyone has a junk drawer. If yours is a jumble of “junk,” go buy a set of drawer dividers. Sort throug your items and group them in the divider containers. You might store tape and scissors in one; notes and scrap paper in another; paper and pens in a third, and so on. Focus on turning your junk drawer into a useful container of items you use. Throw out anything you can’t identify. And if an item really belongs somewhere else, put it away.

Ten-Minute Project 5. File 10-20 papers piled in your office. Don’t quit filing until your ten minutes are up or you’ve processed at least ten papers. If you have to create new file folders, do it right away with a bright white label and a black Sharpie.

Ten-Minute Project 6. Clean out your email inbox. Delete emails you no longer need; create new folders and move emails you need to save; archive anything older than the current year.

Ten-Minute Project 7. Do you store things under your bed or have a child that uses the under-bed space for “clean up”? Take ten minutes to drag everything out into the open. Decide exactly what you will allow under the bed and store it in clearly labeled bins. For everything else, either throw it away, give it away, or store it elsewhere.

Ten-Minute Project 8. When putting away laundry, run through the items in your closet and drawers. If your clothes storage is stuffed full, commit to pulling out at least ten items that you no longer wear - either because they don’t fit or you don’t like them anymore. Within a week, give your castoffs to someone who’ll be able to use them.

Ten-Minute Project 9. Clean out your purse by dumping out the contents. Wipe your purse clean with a damp cloth. Do the same with your wallet. Put back only what you really need to carry with you. Assign homes to everything and commit to keeping things in their place.

Ten-Minute Project 10. De-clutter while you clean. As you dust and straighten, commit to dealing with 10-20 items that you can put away, throw away or give away. In this way, you’ll get in the habit of keeping your home clutter-free.

 Copyright 2005 by Jackie Kleinschmidt, Everyday Organizing, LLC All Rights Reserved

Here is a great set of 10 tips to help you organize your office.

10 Tips to An Organized Office

By: Julie Morgenstern 

1. Rearrange furniture to boost efficiency. Bring filing cabinets, frequently used reference materials, and daily office supplies within arm’s reach of your desk chair. If you have to get up to put something away, chances are you won’t.
2. Before buying additional filing cabinets, free up space by boxing inactive files and putting them into storage. For easy retrieval, number each box and keep an index of its contents in a file called “Storage.”
3. Instead of a straight “A-Z” system, group your files into 3-5 broad categories. Assign a different color to each, and separate them in the filing drawers. For example, you might keep “green” financial files in the top drawer, “yellow” personnel files in the bottom drawer. Color coding reduces misfiling and stimulates your thinking. When you see a “green” folder, your mind immediately focuses on financial matters.
4. Use “straight tab” filing, in which the tab position for all the folders lines up one behind the other (instead of the traditional “left, center, right, left, center, right” alternating tab technique). Straight tab filing is much easier on the eye, and you can add or delete files anytime without ruining your pattern.
5. Make your filing system attractive. Color coding, high quality 2-ply top folders, and professional labels make your system visually pleasing, and increase your chances of using it consistently.
6. Label individual files using the broadest titles possible. Too many folders with only one or two pieces of paper in them is excessive and confusing.
7. Once your system is designed, create a 1 page file index (a list of all the individual files under each category). When you’re unsure of where to find or file a piece of information, a quick glance at your index is more precise than rifling through your file drawers.
8. On your desktop, keep an “In-Box” for mail, and at least one “Out-box.” If you routinely route information to several people, keep an out-box for each person. This works as well at home as in the workplace.
9. Resist the urge to keep active, pending, or to-do files on your desktop, so that you “won’t forget them.” Instead, file everything no matter what it’s state of completion, and keep a master to-do list on your desk. You are more likely to forget an urgent task buried under a pile of papers than one that’s written on a list.
10. Remember, 80% of what we file we never look at again. Think hard before you save a piece of paper. You can always re-order interesting brochures or certain reports if you keep a master list of sources. Don’t save things you “might” need someday if they are easily replaced.

Copyright 1998-2001 Julie Morgenstern For more information on Julie’s books, individual organizing or speaking services: Julie Morgenstern TASK MASTERS Empire State Building 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 828 New York, NY 10118 Phone 212-544-8722 Fax 212-544-0755 organize@juliemorgenstern.com

Creating a family command center

Find a centralized location in your home, usually the entrance way or a corner in the kitchen, to create a family command center.  This location will be the go to spot for your most important family needs.  It should include the following:

• Phone Lists - Keep an updated list of the family doctors, kid’s friends, neighbors, work numbers, service companies and emergency numbers.
• Schedules - Keep one main family schedule.  Assign each family member a color pen to add their events to the calendar so that you will always have a clear view of what is going on each day.  If your children are young, use stickers to denote event days such as a sticker of a soccer ball for a day when they have a soccer game.
• Document Processing - Use magazine files, a literature sorter, or other cubby system as the designated spot for mail, notices from the school, and other important documents.  Have a Priority slot as well as a slot for each member of the family.

Tips for a Small Space

Go Vertical - Add a bookcase or open shelves to a wall to use all of the vertical storage in the room.  Keep the shelf and containers light in color to keep the space feeling open and airy.

Color Code - Use boxes in a couple of colors for similar storage all over the house.  The kids items such as coloring books and out of season clothes in white, office supplies in blue, and house wares in red.

Under Storage - Use an under sink shelf or drawers to maximize your storage under all of the home’s sinks.

Below are some of the resources available to help stop the flow of unwanted mail before it even comes into the house.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like a more customized plan to deal with your mail abundance.

·         Credit Card Offers

o   www.optoutprescreen.com

o   (888) 5OPTOUT (888-567-8688)

·         Direct Marketing Association (DMA) 

o   Home Page: www.dmaconsumers.org

o   Mail Preference Service: www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist

o   (This will remove your name from national mailing lists for five years)

o   Deceased Do Not Contact: www.ims-dm.com/cgi/ddnc.php

o   Caretakers Do Not Contact: www.ims-dm.com/cgi/dncc.php

o   Elderly & Sweepstakes: www.thedma.org/consumers/olderconsumers.html

·         AARP

o   1-888-OUR-AARP (1-888-687-2277)

·         Catalogs

o   Call the toll free number on the back of the catalog to get off their mailing list.

o   Unsubscribe from hundreds at 1 time: www.catalogchoice.org

o   Be diligent about recycling the old catalog as soon as the new one arrives

·         Newspapers

o   If you get the newspaper daily, but don’t read it daily, call the paper and reduce your delivery to only the days that you read.

o   Recycle newspapers at least once a week.

·         Magazines

o   The average person can only read at most 3 magazines a month.  Keeping this in mind, try to limit your subscriptions to only the magazines you love. 

o   To decrease the clutter in your home, remember to recycle the old magazine as soon as the new one arrives.  

o   If there is an article in the magazine that you love, tear it out and keep it in a binder with other articles you love.  This way they are all together and you don’t need to hang on to a magazine full of articles that are no longer of value to you.

·         Charities and Nonprofits

o   When you make a donation, add a note asking to be removed from their mailing lists.

o   When you donate online, look for a box on the site that you can check to indicate that you do want to be contacted in the future

Looking for a new way to grow your business?  The first week of February is International Networking Week.  There will be great events going on all over the work to promote growing your business through networking. 

If you live in Orlando, you have an opportunity to attend the BNI International Networking Week Event.  It will be held on February 2nd from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at the Orlando Marriott.

The goal of International Networking Week® is to recognize and celebrate the key role that networking plays in the development and success of businesses in every part of the world.

Our Guest Speaker will be Iain Whyte, Executive Director BNI Scotland.  Iain is the author of Life, Business and Speedboat and brings many years of experience in BNI, networking internationally and training with him. As our featured speaker he will talk about building customer confidence in both you and your business.

Now more than ever is an important time to learn how to strengthen existing business relationships and open opportunities for new ones. Come join us from 5:30—7:30 PM for fun, food, drinks, and networking!

This event is open to all, bring your clients and friends.

Click here for a flyer: l-networking-week-flyer1