So I’m very slightly addicted to washi tape at the moment.

I get my packages delivered to work.

A package of lovely orange tape arrived for me and I couldn’t wait to start playing with it.

This is why all my boring black binder clips are all sporting orange at the moment.

So quick and easy and I did them all while chatting to a client on the phone

What’s this got to do with organising?

Well, we all know organising is MUCH more fun when things are pretty and when you’re happy to use them.

Do you like washi tape?

Have you decorated any of your office supplies yet?

Did you know the two most common questions I get are about paper and email?

Personally, I hate filing.

I’m not quite sure why people are surprised to hear this?

The way I deal with my filing issues is to keep very little paper.

Brilliant idea, right?

The most important thing to remember about filing is that the more you keep, the more you have to file.

And we all know we only ever access less than 20% of the filed paper ever again.

Let’s show you how I do my filing…

I toss the papers I really want to keep in this basket in a far corner of my study. It’s about 5 cm deep (2 inches).

I tossed a good number of those items.

The thing is that with the passage of time, so our intense need to hang onto things diminishes. Or at least for me it does.

I found I could toss the older things that had since been resolved.

E.g. We pay our telephone account every month. When I get the statement, I check to see if my payment is reflecting. If it is, I toss the old statement.

Look at this note.

I kept this note on the bottom of that tray so I could see how long it had been since the last time I filed.

This year I’ve only filed 3 times – 13 Jan, 30 June and 30 Oct.

Be honest – are you shocked?!

So now that my secret is out, how often do you file? Be honest, do you enjoy filing?

Apologies for those of you who saw the half-finished version of this last night.

When I clicked publish, WP decided to only publish the bit that you saw and when I found out, it was already way past my computer cut-off time

Here is the complete version, part two.

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I read TONS of blogs.

All sorts of blogs:

1. mommy
2. organising & productivity
3. business
4. leadership
5. home and decor
6. crafty
7. photography

I used to organise them by their categories.

This system worked okay, mostly, but if I ever skipped a day, immediately there’d be 120 and I’d feel overwhelmed before I even started reading.

And then, I felt like I needed to catch up so it wasn’t relaxing reading but guilt-filled reading.

Enough.

I thought about how I generally process my Google Reader and I read the blogs in this order:

1. blogs I always comment on
2. blogs I sometimes comment on
3. blogs that are pure inspiration and
4. business/ productivity/ leadership blogs

I took a deep breath and removed all the folders and tags from my subscriptions under Settings.

I then created new folders:

• always comment
• sometimes comment
• inspiration and reading
• business

I must tell you I love these changes because I’ve saved myself hours a week.

If I only have a few minutes I read the “always comment” folder or if I don’t have time to comment, I’ll choose something from inspiration and reading so I can just…read

If your subscriptions are all together in your Google Reader, and you’ve never categorised them, do try and let me know if it saves you any time.

Two questions for you:

How do you process your Google Reader?
Do your categories help you get through your reading faster, or not really?

PS Our winner for Clutter Rehab contacted me so third time’s a charm

PPS Have you signed up for 30 days of lists yet? This weekend is a good chance to get your book ready (don’t get caught up by perfectionism!)

Computer clutter has exactly the same effect as physical clutter – it drains your energy, paralyses you and makes you feel overwhelmed and stuck.

Not only that but it also makes your computer run slow so you should schedule regular time (weekly or more frequently) to declutter your computer, even if only for 15 minutes at a time.

Photos

Now that we’ve all gone digital, it’s so easy to snap, snap, snap and then snap some more.

Download pictures regularly (I aim for once a week), delete the bad ones there and then, and save the rest to CD or DVD regularly to free up some space on your computer.

I only print beautiful photos so if I wouldn’t want to print it, I don’t keep it on my computer. If I want to use pics on my blog, I compress them immediately so that they take up 50KB as opposed to 1MB. And I name them meaningfully so I can find them afterwards with just a few clicks.

Blogs

How many blogs are you following in your Google Reader or other feed reader?

Do you know how long you take to read all of those blogs every day?

Take some time to go through your feeds and declutter those you tend to skim over, especially if you do this 3 or more times every week.

Get to know your comfort number. Mine is around 40 – 50 and yet I currently have closer to 100 in my Google Reader.

I know when I start adding more and more blogs without deleting any, I start feeling more and more overwhelmed at the sight of all those unread items so yes, I’m busy decluttering my blogs right alongside you.

My coaching challenge to you

1. Print out this post.
2. Tackle one of these sections every week until they’re all done.
3. Let me know when you do them.

Happy Organising.

This week I’m very proud to feature the organised space of one of my clients, Ricci Jackson, an interior designer.

Ricci and I had a telephone session and she also bought the Organise your Business system.

Since part of having an organised business is having a space to work in that supports and doesn’t sabotage your business goals, one of the components of the system is 7 easy steps to organise your office.

Ricci sent me an email and said this:

Marcia, I just wanted you to know that I am making strides.

I organized my office the first week, bought files, a label maker and even created zones.

I am inspired to work in my office again.

While it was never a mess,  I found myself spending way too much time trying to find where I put this or that.

Now having everything in its prospective zone is deliciously satisfying.

Don’t you love how she described it? Deliciously satisfying!

I LOVE IT!

I always say that organising is not just something you do for organising’s sake; it’s to enable you to live your life to the full.

Without having to search for things, Ricci is now able to use that time to work on her business.

Because her space inspires her, she can better inspire her clients.

That’s what it’s all about!

after

she’s used at least 3 different ideas and tips that are clearly visible to me

and here is the lovely lady herself. Doesn’t that colour look great on her?!

Thanks, Ricci, for letting me feature your inspiring space!

Today I want to talk about an area of the office that may just be one of my favourite things to organise – your computer!

Because we can’t see computer clutter as obviously as we can see physical clutter, we often don’t realise it’s there but believe me, it’s still affecting you.

How does it affect you?

When you open your Inbox and feel drained at the sight of all your emails, when your computer runs slow because there are so many photos on there and when you click into your Google Reader and can’t BELIEVE how much some people post because you went through your blogs for 3 hours yesterday and now there are 127 unread items yet again!

Sound familiar?

We’re going to look at 4 places where you can declutter electronically. Today we’re going to look at two and next week we’ll discuss the other two:

Free downloads

We (especially women) like fr.ee things, don’t we? Buy one, get one f.ree sales come to mind… As a result, we download anything and everything we can find that’s for fr.ee.

If it’s fr.ee, it’s got to be good, right?

No, actually, it’s not all good. Not only are you cluttering up your computer but you can’t possibly use all the things that are out there because we live in an information-overload society.

I wish I could say that I’m immune to the addiction to F.REE stuff but I’m not! I am much better than I was but I still find myself entering my email address far too often for my liking.

At one point I had about 6 different grocery shopping lists on my computer (all fr.ee downloads) and 10 different versions of a to-do list. None of them quite worked for me so I made my own and deleted all of them.

Email

Mmmm, email.

My clients need help with email more than any other thing in their office, and paper’s a close second.

That’s because email’s so fast and because we don’t use it correctly. Did you know that for every email you send out, you get at least two emails back?

So how do you know if your emails are a problem?

The quick answer is if you spend more than 30 minutes a day on email.
90% of people waste an extra hour a day on email that they don’t have to. That hour translates to SIX WEEKS a year. You read that right – six weeks!

Get familiar with the delete key (my favourite key on the keyboard) and start deleting. Delete immediately once you’ve replied to an email and don’t file unless you absolutely have to.

Disable all the notifications from social networking sites like Facebook.

I only get friend requests, messages and notes on my wall in my inbox. The rest I’ll see when I choose to log on. (No, I don’t get Facebook on my phone but that’s another article for another day)

Here again, decide on your comfort level for emails and make sure you work your system until you can breathe again. Personally, I set a daily goal of deleting at least 50 items so once I’m done with my inbox, I go through my Sent Items and delete, delete, delete

As a matter of interest, how many emails are in your inbox right now?

Want to reprint this article on your blog or in your newsletter?

You may do so as long as this entire blurb is also included.
Marcia Francois is a time management coach and speaker who inspires busy women to break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and take purposeful and focussed action so they have the time and freedom to live life to the full. Visit http://purposefultimemanagement.com for your free Time Management Purpose Pack.

Be prepared to gasp at this thing of beauty!

click the picture to view a full-size one

I told you

I love, love, LOVE this space because it’s beautiful to look at (don’t you love the splashes of colour?), beautifully organised (where is her paper? ) and it speaks of her personality.

I had a good dig around her site (almost like looking through your cupboards and she loves teal.

But the best thing about this is that she visualised her space well before she even moved into this house.

I read an old post where she spoke of exactly what she’d have her office look like one day and this is it!

Fantastic and totally inspiring.

Have a look at all the beautiful pictures on the Katelyn James Blog (she’s a photographer) and be prepared to drool.

Katelyn, it was an honour to feature your inspiring space.

Here’s a button for you to link up your post.

Sigh…

What’s your favourite thing about this space?

P.S. If you want to send me your inspiring space, send me a link or pic to marcia AT organisingqueen.com

Before we start with Chloe’s post, I’d like to hear from you if you’ve also started following along with Chloe and Sam in terms of making any changes, thinking differently, being more intentional about your life, etc.

Leave a message in the comments otherwise email me on marcia AT organisingqueen.com (there are lots of shy people who only email me instead of commenting).

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Scary, uh?

I’ll let you know in the comments how that goes so far (since I’ve started this on Sunday), and I’ll post about it next week as well. Hold me accountable!

From Marcia

Um, yes, Chloe, I’ll definitely hold you accountable

And now, have a look at a fabulous email I received.

Marcia, I just wanted you to know that I am making big strides. In just one week, I organized my office, bought files, a label maker and even created zones.

I am inspired to work in my office again.

While it was never a mess, I found myself spending way too much time trying to find where I put this or that. Now having everything in its prospective zone is deliciously satisfying.

Ricci Jackson, C.I.D.
Certified interior decorator
http://yourdesignpartner.com

Don’t you love how she used the words “deliciously satisfying”. Hmmm, YES!

Your office can also be deliciously satisfying – organise your home office today.

I was just browsing my Google Reader and somebody linked to an application called Freedom that will prevent you  from going online for a certain, predetermined time.

The idea is that during that time you do what it is you’re supposed to do:

1. write your book
2. work on projects
3. organise your home
4. menu plan, etc.

I love it and hate it.

Love that the decision is then taken away from me and hate that I would need something to help with my self-discipline.

I recognise, however, that the computer eats into many things I should be doing but don’t get around to doing.

So it is a necessary thing in our overcrowded lives. And if this is the only way for you to impose self-discipline, then I say, “go for it”!

How about you?

How do you feel about this? Would you use it (there’s a version for PC and Mac)?

PS nobody’s paying me a single cent for writing about it – it just triggered a hot button and I want to hear from you

My first guest post for the year from James Adams

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If you are like many people, you likely have a home office, a work office, or both. Chances are that there are times you might like to throw everything away in order to declutter and get a fresh start. This is usually not a feasible idea, however, as you might lose many important items and get into a lot of trouble as a result.

There are better ways to get your office organised so that you will once again enjoy your time and not be so stressed out because you can’t find what you need. Keep reading in order to find out how.

To get your office into somewhere you can actually work and get things done, start to clear your clutter with these ten tips!

Tip 1: Go into your office and spend a few minutes simply visualising how you want it to look. Imagine that everything is arranged and in its place and how good that makes you feel. This will help you prepare for the task at hand.

Tip 2: Recognise that this is probably going to be more than a one day job. If you think that you are going to be able to do everything in one sitting, chances are you are going to get overwhelmed and abandon the task altogether.

Tip 3: Look at the arrangement of your office furniture. Are you able to walk between and around your furniture or do you have to fight to get through? Making sure that you have ample space to operate is a key step to decluttering.

Tip 4: Does you office equipment have its own space or is it fighting for space with the other essentials in the room? Make sure that your printer has a stand and that it is not sitting on the desk taking up unnecessary room. Put your fax machine on a little side table so that it has its own dedicated space as well.

Tip 5: Take an empty box and label it with the word “Maybe”. Start putting things in it that you might use in the future but are not sure about. These are items that could potentially end up in the trash at some point, but you are not quite ready to take that leap.

Tip 6: Take a good hard look at your desk. Go through all the loose papers and scraps that are there and throw away anything that you are not going to use again. Take the loose files that are sitting on the desk and put them in the file cabinet. If for some reason, you don’t have a file cabinet, now is the time to invest. Get some stacking trays and actually use them. Label them Inbox, Outbox, Miscellaneous and this will go a long way towards putting the remaining papers in their proper place.

Tip 7: Look in all the drawers. Again, go through and throw away unnecessary items that you have stashed in there. Buy some trays that are specifically for the drawers and use them to organise pens, pencils, scissors, staples, etc. You may even want to label your drawers so that you can quickly know what goes where.

Tip 8: Look at the floor. Are you stacking things on the floor because there isn’t room for them anywhere else? Now that you have decluttered the desk and drawers, you should be able to move the excess off the floor and into its proper location.

Tip 9: Now that you have most things in their proper place, go through and really clean the office. Vacuum the floor, dust all the furniture, hang the pictures you’ve been meaning to do all this time, place a candle or scent jar on your desk. Make it someplace that you feel at home in; almost like a sanctuary. If you want to be there, you will be productive.

Tip10: Just like in Tip 1, stand back and visualise, but this time do it with your eyes open and be proud of what you have accomplished.

James works at Spares Next Day, one of the UK’s top suppliers of hoover bags for vacuum cleaners. Click here to read more of his work.