Getting the whole family into the Organizing Act

Do things feel out of control? Are you feeling more like Cinderella than the queen of the ball in your own home? Is everyone else off enjoying themselves while you slave away at one onerous task after another?

If so, it’s time for a change. You need help.

Everybody needs to pitch in, but how do you accomplish that?

1. Go from room to room and determine what needs to be done in each room for it to be organized.
2. List chores to be done: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and As Needed.
3. Have a family meeting.Announce that you need help.You can even start with this step and have all members of the family help to generate the chore list.
4. Once the list is complete, have each person select a duty until all duties are assigned. Children may have limited choices based on their age and level of maturity.
5. Don’t get hung up on traditional gender roles in selecting tasks. Here are some ways other members of your household can help. Even very young children can pick up their toys, put their clothes away (providing storage is within their reach), and do simple household chores like dusting; just remove any irreplaceable knick
   knacks first.
6. Provide a checklist for what must be done to complete the job satisfactorily. Don’t just say, “Clean your room.” Be specific.
7. Since any excuse to drive is okay with most teenagers, a parent with a teenaged driver in the house need never go to the grocery store or the cleaners again until they leave for college. They may even  be able to drop off or pick up younger siblings. Establish guidelines in advance about the use of the car. Driving and other privileges should be directly related to how well they have completed their tasks.
8. Pre driving teenagers can prepare meals, clean up the kitchen, babysit, do their own laundry and clean their rooms.
9. Most people don’t like to be nagged but a chore chart prominently displayed can serve as a gentle reminder, especially if they have selected the chore.
10. Elderly parents often want something to do. We sometimes take away that privilege because it takes them longer to get things done and the end result may not be up to our standards. Make allowances for this. They probably did the same for you when you were too young to do it perfectly.
11. When guests and visitors offer to help, accept graciously.

7 Tips for Organizing Your Finances

How much do you owe? In other words what is the dollar amount of your total indebtedness? When will you be debt free? What is your current net worth? How much are you paying annually in interest? Do you know the exact amount in your savings and checking accounts? Are you saving on a regular basis? How much does it cost you to run your home for a month? If you do not know the answers to these questions, you are a candidate for some financial organizing. Follow these simple steps:

1. Add up everything you owe. Write down the amount owed, the monthly payment and the current interest rate. Figure out how much interest you are paying annually and how long it will take you to pay it off assuming you add nothing else to the account. Write down that date for each creditor.
2. Next, figure out where the money goes. Track how you spend every penny for a month. You may be surprised to see how much you spend eating out, or buying groceries or for entertainment. Decide where you can cut back.
3. Have a spending plan for each paycheck that accounts for all funds that you receive. If your take home pay is $3,000 a month, figure out where every penny of that amount should be spent in advance. In addition to categories for fixed expenses such as rent or mortgage, include money for discretionary expenditures such as gifts and entertainment. Include saving for an emergency fund of at least $1,000 and for periodic expenses such as insurance premiums so that unexpected expenses do not catch you unprepared and forced to rely on credit cards again.
4. Pay off your credit cards.
5. Balance your checkbook.
6. Establish your financial goals and plan ahead to save for them.
7. Use cash whenever possible. When the amount of cash designated for a particular category is gone, do without until you can save up for it.
8. Learn to say “I can’t afford it.” If you are consistent in doing this for a while, you will be surprised how soon you can afford whatever you want.

Organize Tax Documents for a Quick Return

Okay, so it is too late for 2009, but just in time to get off on the right foot for 2010 taxes.
Instead of just throwing all of your receipts into a box and taking hours to sort them out at tax time, you can organize them as you go along all year so that at tax time they are ready to transfer to your return in no time flat.

You will need an accordion file folder large enough to hold a year’s worth of receipts and tax documents.

You will need the following categories:

• Charitable contributions
• car expenses
• medical expenses including the cost of prescriptions
• doctor’s bills
• dentist’s bills
• mileage to and from medical appointments
• business expenses
• home office expenses (if applicable),
• continuing education expenses
• pay stubs or other proof of income
• W2’s
• receipts for any taxes paid
• articles about any new deductions such as the telephone tax deduction for 2009 or the tax credit for purchasing energy efficient appliances

File each item under the appropriate heading. Periodically, say at the end of the month, add up all of the receipts in each category and keep a running total. When you have tallied a receipt in your total, place a small check in the upper right hand corner to remind you that it has already been added in.

At tax time all you have to do is total each category and transfer to the tax forms.
For additional tax tips visit: http://www.taxsites.com/help.html

The secret to maintaining a clutter-free environment

Even after you work hard to get your home or office organized, you have the challenge of keeping it organized. At home that can be accomplished by doing a daily walk through every evening. At the office, the secret is to clean off your desk every evening before you leave.

At home you will need a large basket for every member of your home, preferably in a different color for each person who lives in the house. Every evening at an appointed time, go from room to room and put anything that does not belong in that room in the basket.

That should take about five minutes. Next, take about fifteen minutes to empty the basket and put everything where it belongs. Using this method, you never have to deal with more than one day’s clutter.

At work you can follow a similar process. Every evening before you leave the office, replace any files that you have had out during the day. File any loose papers under general headings such as, “Action,” “Read” or “To Be Filed.” Because you only have one day’s worth of papers and files to sort, you should be able to do this in about fifteen minutes. The reward is coming in the next morning to a clean desk!

Five ways to increase productivity on the job

1. Free up some uninterrupted time. Have someone take a message or let your calls go to voice mail.
Put a Please Do Not Disturb sign on your office door or take your work to an empty conference room where you will not be disturbed.
2. Start your day on time and put in 8 hours of work for 8 hours of pay, not just 8 hours of time in the work space. Eating your breakfast, getting your coffee, going to the restroom to check your make up should be done before the start of the business day. Arrive 30 minutes early to take care of all of these things so that you can begin your work day on time. Everyone has occasion to have to make a personal call during the day, but don’t make a habit of doing personal stuff on company time. Use your lunch hour. Taking time to send personal E mail messages on company time not only takes time
away from the tasks you should be performing, it is akin to theft.
3. Schedule your workday. Don’t just jot down meetings and appointments in your day timer. Schedule a specific time to work on and complete each item on your To Do List. As much as possible have a set time for doing repetitive tasks such as answering e mail, returning phone calls, going through the mail and meeting with co-workers. This might mean a daily 20 minute meeting with your administrative assistant or your boss to establish the day’s priorities and to share status reports
on various projects.
4. Map out all of the steps involved in taking a project from start to finish and then schedule time for each step. Stick to the schedule.
5. Don’t let other people waste your time. Learn to politely excuse yourself.

If you implement these five strategies on a regular basis, you will be amazed at how your productivity will soar.

21 ORGANIZATION TIPS That Can Change Your Life

An old Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Here are
some one step solutions to becoming better organized. Psychologists claim that you need to repeat
a new skill for at least 21 days for it to become a habit. Try a few of the suggestions below and let
me know how they work for you.
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1. Get up 30 minutes earlier than usual.
2. Go to bed one hour earlier than usual.
3. Take some time for morning quiet time before starting your day.
4. Clean off your desk before you leave the office at the end of the day.
5. Make your bed and straighten up your bedroom before you leave it in the morning so you come home to a clean and tranquil room.
6. Take a different route to work.
7. Decide what you are going to wear tomorrow and assemble all the parts and pieces i.e. jewelry, shoes,handbag together.
8. Before you go to bed review your TO DO LIST for tomorrow and select your top three priorities. Schedule a specific time to do them on your planner.
9. Every day before noon do one thing that you have been putting off.
10. Select a healthy breakfast menu i.e. oatmeal and fruit or yogurt and eat/serve the same thing for breakfast for a week. At the end of the week select next week’s breakfast.
11. Have a Monday menu, a Tuesday menu, a Wednesday menu etc. and repeat for a month. Next month change to a different daily menu.
12. Choose a specific day of the week and time of day to do laundry.
13. Select a specific day to go grocery shopping.
14. Keep a running list on the refrigerator of what you need from the grocery store.
15. For one week each month eat out of the pantry and the freezer. In other words do not shop for any groceries except perishables and then only if absolutely necessary.
16. Write down everything you spend for 30 days on groceries, entertainment, housing, utilities, car expenses, clothing, gifts, insurance etc. and review the categories where you can make adjustments.
17. Call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a long while.
18. Make a list of simple pleasures, things that you enjoy doing. Assign each one a specific time in your planner.
19. Start off the New Year with a new check register in your checkbook.
20. Organize a file for tax receipts and records.
21. Buy a blank book and use it to write down all of the miscellaneous notes you would ordinarily write on Post it Notes and other scraps of paper.

An old Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Here are some one step solutions to becoming better organized. Try a few of the suggestions and let me know how they work for you.

Psychologists claim that you need to repeat a new skill for at least 21 days for it to become a habit. These tips form habits that can change your life.