My Top 5 Favorite Products for Keeping Paper Clutter Under Control

By Jessica Hoelzel

These are all from The Container Store. If you don’t have one near you, you can order online too. Or look for something similar at the department store where you like to shop. And no, I don’t get anything from recommending The Container Store, I just picked products from there because I like their solutions, prices and, of course, product organization!


1. Open-Top File Box
For keeping papers corralled, but accessible on the countertop or desktop. (Active files only.)


2. Fun File Folders
Pick a scheme that makes you happy so you are inspired to develop and keep up a system.


3. Wall File
Great for small desks or small spaces. Get desktop clutter off the desk and up on the wall, using your vertical space.

4. Storage Boxes
Use these on shelves to store papers by category. Stackable too!

5. Translucent Expanding File Carrier
Great for storing tax doc’s and papers related to an organization or committee you’re on.

Create a “To File” Area for Papers

By Jessica Hoelzel

In my last post I was talking about how I got down to business and filed all my papers that were building up in my “to-file” folder. Do you have a “to-file” area? If not, establishing one could alleviate lots of paper that’s just lying around.

The first thing to do, to get control of paper clutter, though, is to alleviate the excess. For many people, half of the paper that arrives via US Mail is paper that can go directly in the recycling – ads, coupons, offers, catalogs. This type of paper should get chucked right in the bin. Don’t even think about letting it clutter up your countertops. If you glance at it then set it aside because you think “I may look at that later if I’m interested.” don’t. Only keep it if you are 100% sure you’re going to use it as a resource or take action on it.

And then, another ¼ is made up of paper that just needs to go right in your files – statements, correspondence, how much (or little) you currently have in your 401K, etc. Put a file tray, a box or decorative bowl near where you open your mail. All the things “to file” can go there.

It’s ok to let this type of paper stack up for a while, then file it later. Then, if you need to refer to a statement or record, you go two places: “to-file” area or the “file” area. It’s much easier to find something in one of those two places than mixed up with other random papers “around here somewhere…”

An easy suggestion to get control of the paper “situation” most people get overwhelmed with. Do you have a paper “situation” of your own? Let me know in the comments section of this blog. I’ll help you find an easy solution.

Embarrassed but Proud

By Jessica Hoelzel

I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve been procrastinating (avoiding, ignoring, refusing to acknowledge) my “To File” stack of papers for months now. It grew to approximately 2.5 inches thick, and at one point I did remove it from the file folder it was busting out of and moved it to a more expandable hanging file folder. Denial is an ugly thing, especially for a professional organizer.

When I decided “enough is enough, I must take action” yesterday, I spent the first few minutes of filing in astonishment. Some of the papers, I saw, dated back to April. Can it be true? Can I really have let it go like this?

YES. Factor in career changes, moving, new school, vacations, summer and there you have it. A backlog of papers that had to be dealt with. A big ol’ stack.

When I had all the papers filed, and emerged from my low point, I actually sat back and felt, well, proud. First of all, I had the files created already, so all I had to do was stick the papers in where they belonged. I’ve recently been blogging about simplifying your life, and setting up this system for my papers is one way I simplifed mine. Secondly, the filing had taken me less than an hour. In less than an hour’s time, I was feeling like parts of my life were back in order – finances, insurance, health care; my ducks are now in a row.

Now, the efficiency learning lesson here is that that backlog of papers was from about 6 months. If I had filed those papers monthly, like a good little organizer, it would have only taken me about 10 minutes a month. Instead of having to force myself to sit for one hour. If it’s uncomfortable for me, I know it’s torturous for you.

10 Minutes a Month. That’s all it takes. You can avoid having to sit that long. And avoid procrastination’s avoidance game, which really just keeps you from feeling good and living the life you want.

Simplify Your Life: Regain Control Over Your Inbox

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
Here’s the final tip from my 5 Tips for Proactively Managing Email:

5. Schedule time to set up folders for messages you want to keep on file. Take 15 minutes per day for one week to designate files and place messages in them. This should totally clean out your inbox, except for the newest messages you haven’t gotten to. Think seriously about whether you need to keep a message, though, before you just throw everything in there. Can you get the information elsewhere, say on a website? Can you request it again if you need it? (Make a note of the person’s contact information.) Do you want to print out a hard copy to put in a paper file? Does the content belong elsewhere in your computer, say in another file?

Read my earlier post for the lead-in to these tips. Utilize all 5, and you’ll be on your way to creating your life and work according to what really matters to you.

If YOU have tips to share, please click below to Post a Comment.

Simplify Your Life: Regain Control Over Your Inbox

By Jessica Hoelzel
 

Here’s the 4th of my 5 Tips for Proactively Managing Email:

4. UNSUBSCRIBE. Take your name off lists for information you don’t read or need. Be realistic about what you have the time and energy to take in. If you have subscribed to something that looks interesting, but turns to be different, ditch it. If you thought you’d have time, but have a backlog of messages, cancel it until you have more time. Usually the information you have an interest in can be found on the website, or you can request it again later.

Read my earlier post for the lead-in to these tips. And…stay tuned for the next tips. You’re on your way to creating your life and work according to what really matters to you.

If YOU have tips to share, please click below to Post a Comment.

Simplify Your Life: Regain Control Over Your Inbox

By Jessica Hoelzel

Happy Monday!

Here’s the 3rd of my 5 Tips for Proactively Managing Email:

3. Start with DELETE. Before you even get into the nitty-gritty of what to read and respond to, delete unwanted messages. Do a fast scan first thing and select the messages you know can be discarded. This is the first phase in streamlining that inbox. Delete, delete, delete!

Read my last post for the lead-in to these tips. And…stay tuned for the next tips. You’re on your way to creating your life and work according to what really matters to you.

If YOU have tips to share, please click below to Post a Comment.

Simplify Your Life: Regain Control Over Your Inbox

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
Here’s the 2nd of my 5 Tips for Proactively Managing Email:

2. Designate specific times to check your email, and specific times to respond to messages. Check your inbox at the beginning of the day, to see what is most pertinent to respond to. Incorporate things that require action into your plan for the day or to-do list, according to what is most timely or urgent. Check your email no more than 2-4 times per day at your scheduled time. Reply to emails when you have the least distractions.

Read my last post for the lead-in to these tips. And…stay tuned for the next tips. You’re on your way to creating your life and work according to what really matters to you.

If YOU have tips to share, please click below to Post a Comment.

Simplify Your Life: Regain Control Over Your Inbox

By Jessica Hoelzel

In my last post, I wrote about simplifying your life according to what really matters to you. With so many distractions, and information coming at us from all angles, we absolutely must consistently check in with ourselves to see whether what we are doing, how we are living and working, is based upon our authentic desires. Are we making choices that serve us on a physical, mental, spiritual level? Are those choices in line with our definitions of work/life balance, supporting us in achieving business and personal success?

At a networking lunch & learn today, the speaker, Tony Signorelli asked the group what they thought the biggest time-waster was. The overwhelming response was right on – email. Let me ask you, do you find hours and hours of your time each day or each week spent on emails? Checking email, getting distracted by new emails, trying to organize email or find something in your email? If email is way old-school for you, does the same ring true for managing text or instant messages? Be really honest with yourself about how much time is actually taken up. If you haven’t a clue, take tomorrow to log it.

Tony’s “New Rules for Self Employment”, found on his website, include time management strategies, and his advice (specifically for small business owners, but applicable to many) is similar to mine (found below). One thing I haven’t added to my list, though, is his idea to hire a Virtual Assistant to delegate email filtering to. If you want to know more about that, he’s got plenty of info on his website.

It's one thing to feel overwhelmed by the stacks of actual paper on your desk, but with flooded inboxes as well, how does one stay focused, like I heard Tony say today, on the things that really matter, the things that make you productive?

Here's some of my advice. (Adapted from an article printed in the Blaine Spring Lake Park Life)



The 1st of my 5 Tips for Proactively Managing Email:


1. Set limits around checking email. Also disable the pop-up feature to eliminate distractions and temptation. (Do this for Instant Messaging too!) Interruptions decrease efficiency because the mind has to change focus several times, which is also draining.

And…stay tuned for the next tips. You’re on your way to creating your life and work according to what really matters to you.

If YOU have tips to share, please click below to Post a Comment.

Simplify Your Life

Yampa River, Steamboat Springs, CO June 2011

By Jessica Hoelzel

 

A very wise man, back in the 1850’s – when it seems life should have been far less complicated that it is today, wrote this:

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand, instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.”

That man was Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher, Naturalist, author of Walden.

What he wrote so long ago, his advice gleaned from pulling himself out of the busy shufflings of society, and into the tranquil balance of nature, is advice we should heed, now more than ever.

Now, our world can seem chaotic. Now, our world can seem like time is accelerating. Now, we need to focus on what really matters. And not let things that don’t clutter up our lives.

Time to get real. Time to re-focus. Time to live authentically, with what really matters: LOVE.

Be with the people you love.

Do what you love.

Surround yourself only with what you love.

There’s nothing more simple than that.

Feng Shui at Work: Watch Your Back

By Jessica Hoelzel

I’ve written before, in an earlier post, about the importance of your desk being in the “command” position of your office. You want to make sure you:

Have a view of the door

Are not too close to the door

Are not in direct line with the door

Are towards the back of the room (ideally diagonal from the door)

If you don’t work in an office, but rather a “cube”, you are usually at a disadvantage because they are designed so that you face into the cube, not out. You back is, most often, to the entrance. This is troublesome because, energetically, anytime you have your back to the entrance, it sets you up to be vulnerable, at risk for being “stabbed in the back”, “blindsided” or “taken by surprise”.


Feng shui is all about metaphors. It’s based upon the well-founded, scientific idea that everything in our universe is energy. So even though it may seem preposterous to move your desk away from the lovely view out the window, turning it so it faces out (What? It doesn’t have to be up against the wall?) and then diligently organizing your computer cords so they are not unsightly, and no one breaks his or her neck tripping over them…it is not. (Preposterous, that is.)

When you rearrange your desk to be in the command position, you change the flow of energy. Instead of blasting you in the back, you are there to meet it. Hello world. Whatever you present me with today, I am fully prepared to meet, head on.

If you’re in a cube, situate yourself the best you can, and put a mirror in front of you. Either hang one or put one on your computer, so you can see what (and who) is coming. Here are some convex mirrors from fengshuishopper.com that will work nicely.

By enhancing and directing chi flow, we are able to direct our fate in a positive way.

- Kirsten M. Lagatree

Good "office luck" to you! Please comment if you have a workplace challenge you'd like me to address.

Feng Shui at Work: The Dangers of Too Much Yang Energy

By Jessica Hoelzel

In my earlier posts, I’ve been writing about balance, and how the basic feng shui guiding principle “use nature as your model” can help you achieve it. The Yin/Yang symbol represents balance, according to the I Ching (an ancient Chinese text used for divination and explaining the order of the universe).

The aim of the I Ching practice is to bring about balance in which celestial consciousness guides earthly awareness to follow the rhythm of nature.

- Roger Green

Its design symbolizes how chi (life force energy) fluctuates between Yin and Yang, which are opposites. When balanced, there are equal amounts of both Yin and Yang energy. Things get challenging if there’s too much of one or the other. (Off-balance.)

In the workplace, balance is often difficult to come by – for many reasons. One reason being that there is often too much Yang energy. Yang energy is masculine, aggressive, willful and active. Too much Yang can overpower. Yin energy is the opposite: feminine, passive, flexible and still. Too much Yin can underpower, but adding some Yin can balance out the occasions of too much Yang.

Too much Yang, according to Kirsten M. Lagatree,
in Feng Shui at Work, can:

Impede decision-making
Cause lost opportunities
Cause bad financial outcomes
Hurt morale
Encourage high turnover

How do you assess what’s going on and fix it?

Common Workplace Issues
Too much Yang................Add some Yin

Florescent lights..................Turn some off, use desk lamps/task lighting

Smelly................................Use diffusers* or fans, empty and clean trash regularly

Noisy.................................Designate quiet areas, wear headphones

Hectic................................Put systems in place to create order, create opportunities for breaks

Too warm..........................Add window shades, use a fan, fix heating

Crowded...........................Reorganize/eliminate furniture, encourage off-site work

Male-dominated.................Bring in art/accessories with feminine feel, hire more women

Cluttered............................Purge, organize, streamline things

I'd love to hear from you. What's going on in your workplace? Do you think there's a solution? Click below to leave a comment.

*Curious about diffusers? Check out these options from Young Living. The Travel Diffuser would work perfectly in an office or cube. Contact me by email for more information.

Boundary Waters Balance Part 2

By Jessica Hoelzel

In my last post, I wrote about how adhering to one of the basic principles of feng shui, “use nature as your model”, can help you find balance in your space and in your life…my reflections after traveling into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). But I also alluded to the fact, at the end of the post, that our trip wasn’t all balanced bliss. Yes, feng shui practitioners are human too, and it’s not all perfect feng shui and organization in their worlds, all the time.

What happened was a good learning experience for me, as most episodes of being “off-balance” are. So here’s the story…

My mistake was to turn over all packing responsibilities to my husband. He has more experience than I, in going into the back country. Since we didn’t have to portage this trip (carry our canoe and gear) he went a little overboard. Not that I’m blaming him, but his thought process was that since we didn’t have to go very far into the BWCAW, didn’t have to carry our stuff, and since this was the little ones’ first trip in, that he’d pack all the stuff they needed (plus a lot more –just in case they needed it). His goal was to make it easy and comfortable for them.

When we got to our site and started to set up camp was when I first felt overwhelm creeping in. Then over the course of the short time we were there, I kept getting distracted and bugged by all the stuff. We probably only really needed about a third of what we brought. The stuff, getting in our way at the site – in our way of both movement around the site, to perform “camp tasks”, and in our way of viewing the beauty of nature – hindered my experience of balance.

Lessons learned: next time we will 1) do the packing together 2) be more minimalistic in packing and 3) give ourselves more time to plan, set things out, and decide what we REALLY need.

You live and you learn…and every experience is a valuable opportunity to grow, and make things better.