Back in June I pledged to achieve in-box zero by the first day of autumn, so I owe you, dear readers, an update. How did I do? In a word: busted. I managed to keep up with most everything that came in during the past three months, but the backlog is a mere 10 percent…
Category Archives: Benefits of Organizing
In-Box Zero
Remember merit badges, those embroidered circles used to mark achievement for Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts? Now there is a company that makes merits badges for grown-ups, and there’s one I desperately want to earn: In-Box Zero. My goal of an empty email in-box is more elusive than live tech support. I crossed into the…
Want to get organized for business? This class can help.
Tired of an overflowing in-box? Would you like to be better organized? Want to manage your time, paper, and energy, and have a lot more fun doing it? There’s a class that focuses on the skills and tools you need to banish disorganization in your office. I’ll be teaching “Organize Your Business Life” at College…
Time Myth: "busy people are more productive"
Ready for a tough assignment? The next time you feel overwhelmed because you have too much to do, slow down. This is not easy. It is a natural tendency to rush through our work when we feel short of time, but in the end it doesn’t help. That’s because busy-ness is not the same thing…
Are professional organizers perfectly organized?
This recent news from my organizing colleague Margaret Pearson Pinkham, who specializes in working with chronically disorganized clients in Sonoma County, CA: I went to sign up for the Spring season of NSGCD teleclasses and guess what? I had waited too long and the class on Procrastination was FULL! Occasionally someone will ask me whether…
Join the National Day of Unplugging March 19 & 20
One complaint that I hear popping up more and more frequently, a habit crying out for change, is the negative intrusion of technology into our lives. I’m not talking about the miracle of GPS, which guides me directly to my destination in a strange city after dark. Or online chats that allow me to hold…
Time Blocking – three reasons to focus your week
Kim, who owns a growing health-care practice in San Francisco, wanted to get rid of the feeling of overwhelm that seemed to hang on no matter how hard she worked. The key to banishing overwhelm is focus. Kim and I began by considering everything that’s required to make her life and her business run during…
Need a Net Nanny? Rescue Time Provides the Loving Discipline.
How do you waste time at your computer? Are you an obsessive email-checker? Do you while away hours playing solitaire or backgammon? Are your achievements in Farmville and Mafia Wars huge compared to your achievements in the real world? Are you a connoisseur of funny pet videos on YouTube? With temptation never more than one…
Five steps for ending "tolerations"
I call them “tolerations” – those little irritants we hardly notice. Maybe it’s something small, like a sticking wheel on a desk chair. Maybe it’s something you try to ignore because you feel you can’t change it, like a noisy neighbor. It could be your life-long habit, such as piling your papers rather than filing…
The Jump-start Meeting
Recently I was seated next to Laura Van Galen, the dynamic head of Bleu Marketing, a full-service direct marketing firm based in San Francisco. She described to me a practice she uses with her senior team, the daily jump-start meeting. Here’s how the jump-start meeting works: every morning each manager has three minutes to describe…