A cluttered desk doesn’t help you work. Piles of paper, lots of photos, knickknacks, tech gadgets, pens, staplers, tape – how many of these items do you really need to handle all day long? Chances are good that very few are needed to help you do your work. Today, we’re going to simplify and minimize the number of distractions in your work area, so you can think more clearly, find what you need when you need it, and generally feel more calm and collected. Here are five steps to simplifying your workspace.
- Gather up your papers, pile them up, then deal with them. On Days 23 and 24, we talked about paper piles and filing systems. If you still have papers piled up on your desk or stuffed into “deal with me” files, take some time to sort them, purge them and file what’s left.
- Declutter your knickknacks and desktop office supplies. If you have a lot of “stuff” on your desk, try a little experiment and box up everything except your favorite photo. Get rid of the stuffed animals, funny signs, candy bowls and desktop toys, and put the pens, stapler, paper clips and other office supplies in a drawer or nice box you can leave on the desk. I don’t have drawers in my desk, so my trinkets and supplies are organized in cubbies against the wall so that my desktop itself can stay clear. Try working with a sparse desktop for a few weeks – I bet you’ll love it.
- If you have drawers on your desk, go through each drawer and get rid of unused items. Keep only the supplies and gadgets you actually use. Organize each drawer according to its “purpose” and make sure each item has a home. Get in the habit of putting things away when you’re finished with them instead of leaving them out on your desk all day.
- Try decluttering your computer’s desktop as well, removing all the unused icons and filing documents into folders within the My Documents folder, instead of leaving everything out on the desktop. I keep my most-used programs in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and all my files are organized in folders either in My Documents or my Dropbox.
- Make some time to sort through your filing system and purge old documents that are no longer needed. This will make space for you to keep up with current filing and make it easier for you to find documents when you need them.
This post is part of the Fresh Start Series, 31 days of tips and tricks to simplify in the new year.
Bill paying and budgeting are areas where simplifying can have an immediate positive impact on your stress level. By simplifying your accounts and setting up a regular budget and bill paying strategy, you can know where your money is going and find ways to keep more of it.
- Keep all your bills together in one place. As soon as you get your mail, sort through it, separating your bills from all of your other mail and placing them in one spot all together so when you’re ready to pay bills, you know where to find them.
- Use online billpay instead of writing and mailing checks. The time it takes for the payment to be applied to your account is reduced, and you can save on checks and stamps. I prefer to do all my online bill paying in one place, from my bank’s web site, so I can see all payments on one screen, as opposed to going to each company’s website individually to pay bills. Paying bills now only takes me a few minutes each week.
- If you haven’t done it already, think about going paperless. Instead of receiving bills in the mail, you’ll get emailed statement notifications that allow you to log in to your accounts and see your statement online. To keep a record of statements, open the electronic version when it becomes available and save it as a PDF file on your computer.
- Create a monthly spending plan, either on paper or electronically. I prefer Mint.com, a free service that lets me consolidate all my financial accounts in one place to review, and I can set up budgets that Mint automatically tracks and categorizes for me. Mint can also send you bill reminder alerts and can alert you if you’re going over budget in an category. Having a spending plan in advance helps you spend your money with more purpose and less “oops, where did all my money go?!” I highly recommend checking out Dave Ramsey’s books and website for more information on how to set up a budget.
- Consolidate accounts as much as possible. Roll over IRAs and 401Ks from previous employers into investment accounts in one financial institution, which makes it easy to keep track of them. Likewise, consolidate checking and savings accounts if you have several in different banks. Consolidate credit cards down to just one or two (or even better, get rid of the credit cards completely!)
- Make savings automatic. If you use online banking, you can usually set up automatic transfers between your own accounts, and that makes it easy to transfer money from your checking account to your savings account. Set up an auto transfer to regularly transfer money to savings, such as on each payday. Some banks, such as Bank of America, offer to “round up” your debit card transactions each day and transfer the change into savings automatically. These tools take the thought out of saving and can grow your bank account much faster with little effort on your part.
This post is part of the Fresh Start Series, 31 days of tips and tricks to simplify in the new year.
On Day 23, we talked about conquering paper piles. Today, we’re going to talk about what to do with those papers you deemed important enough to keep. Simplicity is key when you set up a filing system – if it’s complicated, you won’t do it. Staying organized, particularly with paper, can save you time and money and keep your stress levels down, so taking a bit of time to sort through your paperwork and get it under control is time well spent. Filing systems are an individual preference – it doesn’t matter how you file as long as everything has a place and you know where to find it when you need it. Here are a few tips and ideas for filing your important papers.
- Reduce, reduce, reduce. The most important part of paper organization is getting rid of what you don’t need. Be ruthless, and only keep what’s really important – information you must have for financial, tax, medical or other reasons, information you can’t find easily in another location (such as on the Internet), and information that would be difficult or impossible to replace.
- File by kind, according to your needs. I don’t keep receipts in a file folder – I keep them in a rectangular basket. I don’t keep paid bills in a filing cabinet – I keep them in a tickler-style file box which gets transferred to an accordion file at the end of each calendar year for easy tax preparation. Tax receipts and donation information goes in a folder in the same system as the paid bills, also for easy location during tax prep time. Each child has their own box of artwork and memory pieces, not located in my filing cabinet. Our filing cabinet is reserved for items needed for long-term storage, such as home owner’s insurance, medical files, etc. This system has been working for us for years and we no longer need to think about it. Think about how you use your information and set your system up according to your needs.
- Store information online when possible. Most banks have online banking, with easy access to not only bill paying options but online statement storage, which means you don’t have to keep paper bank statements on hand. You can view statements online, or if you prefer, save them as pdf files and file them electronically.
- Stop printing copies. Save files on your computer or online, and reduce the amount of paper you file. Very few emails need to be printed – if you need to save them, organize them into folders and keep them tucked into online storage. Bonus is that by storing them digitally, you can use the search features to find what you need much faster than sorting through file folders.
- When you sit down to do your filing and organize your papers, make sure you have plenty of supplies on hand: your preferred type of file folder, labels or a label maker, stapler, pens, a recycling bin, a shredder or shredding box, etc. Allow plenty of time, and don't feel you have to conquer it all in one sitting.
- Going forward, don't let the filing pile up. Keep a small To File folder or box with a limit that requires you to file regularly.
Next up: Bill Paying and BudgetingThis post is part of the Fresh Start Series, 31 days of tips and tricks to simplify in the new year.
Confession: Paper piles are my nemesis (my son loves that word, nemesis). I've always had a tendency to read through papers, stack them up to deal with “later” and then leave them in piles for weeks on end. Last weekend, out of necessity and a wee bit of shame, I gathered all my various paper piles and tackled them in one marathon afternoon of purging and filing. Having consulted on many organizing projects, I know I’m not the only one who battles paper clutter.
It’s a common problem that even the most organized people face. Paper clutter leads to stress and costs both time and money. If you’ve ever had to track down a missing permission slip before school or misplaced bills that led to late payment fees, you know that one little piece of lost paper can be stressful. Here are some tips for dealing with paper piles and ensuring you don’t have to deal with paper clutter again.
- Select specific areas for dealing with paper and put a system in place for organizing it. I’ve created two areas for handling papers – one in the kitchen, where I read mail and collect papers my son brings home from school, and one in my home office, where the filing cabinet and my desk are. In the kitchen, I have a three-tier mail sorter I created, with one pocket for bills to pay, one pocket for school work that needs action, and one pocket for papers that need to go upstairs to my office for filing. The mail sorter conveniently hangs right above a recycling bin, so junk mail and unneeded papers can be immediately recycled. In my office, I have another recycling bin, a box for papers that need to be shredded, and several filing systems for organizing the papers we need to keep (more on that on Day 24).
- Be ruthless when dealing with paper, and recycle as much of it as possible.
- Reduce paper clutter before it even gets in the door by removing yourself from mailing lists, signing up for electronically delivered bills and bank statement notifications, and cutting back on magazine subscriptions that you don’t read.
- Decide what to do with each piece of paper the first time you handle it. Does it require action, like a party invitation needing an RSVP or a bill to be paid? Is it informative, something that was strictly meant for your information, and now that you’ve read it, can it be recycled? Is it junk that can be immediately recycled without reading? Is it something important, such as tax information, that needs to be filed so it can be found again easily?
- If a paper needs to be filed, file it as soon as possible to avoid letting it pile up. If you keep a “to file” stack, put a limit on how much will fit before you’ll run out of space and be forced to file. I used to keep a three-inch inbox tray, but that lead to a six-inch document box, which lead to one almost nine inches tall. Since I hated the thought of tackling that much paper, I kept transferring it to a bigger bin to avoid dealing with it. Now my kitchen To File pocket is only about ½ an inch thick and doesn’t hold much, so I’m forced to file more often.
- Go digital when possible. I transfer a lot of the paper I feel like I want to keep for informative purposes into digital files using Evernote, which I can access from my iPhone, my Color Nook and any computer connected to the Internet. Even easier, most of the time I transfer the paper to Evernote by simply taking a photo of it with my iPhone and uploading to the Evernote app. Then I can toss the paper. Evernote files the papers into “notebooks” that I can search, categorize and sort, and if I find I don’t need the information after all, I can delete it easily.
- For calendars, addresses and phone numbers, digital is key again. I remember in the 1990’s using a binder-style organizer and carrying it with me everywhere, although I was in a constant state of anxiety over possibly losing it and forever losing my calendar, address book and notes. Not anymore. Transfer calendar events and appointments directly to your digital calendar (I love Google Calendar, viewable online and on most mobile devices) and recycle all those little appointment cards, reminder postcards and scraps of paper. Keep contacts in a digital address book (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo!, etc.) and shred your old paper address book. Never worry about losing important info again.
What are your best tips for conquering paper clutter? Share them with me!
Next up: Creating Simple Filing Systems
This post is part of the Fresh Start Series, 31 days of tips and tricks to simplify in the new year.
I’m a big fan of hiring extra help when needed. I occasionally hire a cleaning service to help me clean my house before hosting events, or to help with deep cleaning in spring or fall. When I was working outside of the home full time, I hired a neighbor’s son to poop-scoop my backyard a couple of times a week, ensuring my kids had a clean place to play when the weather was nice. I recently found both a neighborhood babysitter (for nights and weekends) and a drop-in playcare (for school days) to help me with the kids so I could more freely schedule meetings and date nights. When I was having trouble writing meal plans for my family full of preservative-free, fresh foods, I turned to a service that specializes in healthy cooking, and now I have six months of meals to rotate through.
Help doesn’t always have to be bought. Think of tasks you could share and swap with friends. Cooking, child care, house cleaning, decluttering, car pooling, shopping and errands, lawn care – the options are limitless for swapping time and talent with friends. I’ve gone to friends’ homes and offices to help them declutter and organize, and I’ve offered my writing and graphic design skills in exchange for help with freezer cooking, painting rooms and extra eyes for book editing.
Take a look at your To Do List and goal sheet, and think of ways you could swap or hire for extra help. Perhaps a couple hours of babysitting could free you up to organize your home office or deep clean your kitchen. Maybe scheduling a housekeeper to come for a couple hours next weekend would motivate you to declutter your living spaces this week. Maybe inviting a professional organizer (or a super organized friend) over for a day could help with that declutter. Is there any way you could get some help to kick start your new habits?
