EDITED TO ADD
I have 5 invites left besides Ginny’s one- if you want one, let me know in the comments.

I’d seen Pinterest mentioned on a number of blogs but I didn’t like that it was “by invitation only” and all “exclusive”.

That kind of thing doesn’t encourage me; I feel incensed at the injustice of it all

Yes, I’m a tad dramatic.

Anyway, eventually I had an aha moment that if I signed up, I could organise all my bookmarks currently stored on the computer and have ONE place to refer people to.

My current bookmarks were organised in folders, mostly, but you couldn’t see what was so special about bookmarking something. It lacked the visual impact.

I signed up exactly 3 months ago and it’s been great.

If you don’t know about pinterest, it’s like a giant filing system of things on the internet.

Boards are broad categories – you can use their suggested boards or create your own.

Then you pin your individial items on the board.

E.g. On a board called home you could have kitchen, bathroom, bedroom ideas.

You can also tag your pins so that they’re easy for you to find afterwards.

These days I find myself saying, “oh, you should see my Pinterest – I have a recipe for that”

And the other day my boss and I were discussing offices in cupboards (I am currently obsessed with these) and I sent him my pin to show him what I meant.

As with anything (facebook/ Twitter/ blogs, etc), if you allow it to be so, it can be a huge time suck.

Confession - last night I spent about two hours on Pinterest but on a daily basis, I typically just pin and if I’m in a dreamy sort of state, then I’ll indulge a little.

Here is my for the home board and here is a pin on that board.

Follow me if you want and see all the things that make me happy. And things I would do if only I could sew.

Leave comments on my pins and tell me if you like them and what you like about them – I love hearing from you. It truly makes my day.

Are you on Pinterest?

How much time are you spending there in a week?

Which is your favourite board?

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?

Let’s look at 4 places where you can declutter electronically:

Free downloads

We (especially women) like fr.ee things, don’t we? Buy one, get one free 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 FREE stuff but I’m not!

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.

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?

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 get a chance to log on.

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

It’s this weird game I play – anybody have some other weird email games?

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

Look out next week for part 2 of decluttering your computer



I’m a big lover of “drag and drop”. I drag and drop almost anything and everything within Microsoft Outlook.

Here are 3 of my favourite ways to save you time:

2. saving email addresses

Drag and drop the entire email onto your Contacts. I like to do this the first time someone emails me (if there’s a need to keep the email, like with a new client) so I have all the background and not only the person’s email address.

It’s also easier (and faster!) for me than opening the email, right clicking the person’s name and then selecting “Add to Contacts”.

Today we’re decluttering files and document folders.

I have three tips for you today:

1. Keep it simple

Make folders in your My Documents folder.

BUT please don’t make too many folders so that you have to click through lots of layers to get to your documents.

2. One in, one out

Declutter regularly. If you know you download documents like PDFs and audios on a weekly basis, then you need to declutter those (or others) on a weekly basis.

Just this weekend I listened to a 60-minute audio while I decluttered some files in my study. When I was done, I deleted the audio. There didn’t happen to be anything that I needed to action but if there had been, I’d make a note in my spiral-bound notebook and then still delete the audio.

3. Make your system work for you

My filing system may not work for you and yours may not work for me.

Ask yourself, “where would I look for this document if I had to find it in the future?” That’s how you name your files.

I have household forms and business forms. You might file them together but the way my brain works, I think of business forms with business, and so on.

This week, your challenge is to

go through at least 5 folders in your My Documents and declutter …

• any duplicate documents
• documents you no longer use or need
• audios you’ve already listened to and actioned
• PDFs that no longer serve you (forms you’re not using, etc, etc.)

To get you inspired, read how Anne organised her document folders when she did the Office Organising Makeover.

Share in the comments how you did!

On this 75-minute teleclass, you’ll learn:

• Where to start organising your computer
• My DREAM method of organising your computer
• How to keep control of all the audios, PDFs and ebooks you get for free off the internet and how NOT to let it clutter up your hard drive
• Exactly how to label and store your documents and files so you can find them
• How to organise your contacts and all those business cards
• How to cut your computer time in half
• How to organise tasks and projects
• How and when to do a proper, thorough back up of your files and how to know when to do it so you don’t lose your work
• And much, much more

Check out Everything you EVER wanted to know about organising your computer

files and document folders

Get ready because I want you to post your intentions… and then how many documents you manage to declutter tomorrow.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On this 75-minute teleclass, you’ll learn:

• Where to start organising your computer
• My DREAM method of organising your computer
• How to keep control of all the audios, PDFs and ebooks you get for free off the internet and how NOT to let it clutter up your hard drive
• Exactly how to label and store your documents and files so you can find them
• How to organise your contacts and all those business cards
• How to cut your computer time in half
• How to organise tasks and projects
• How and when to do a proper, thorough back up of your files and how to know when to do it so you don’t lose your work
• And much, much more

Check out Everything you EVER wanted to know about organising your computer