Winter time-savers

check out these time-savers…

Cut out one commitment.

At work, say no to taking on another project.

At home, say no to taking on one more responsibility – canteen duty, committee secretary, hosting a formal dinner party.

Get organised about dinner. Plan your meals, make a shopping list and shop just once a week.

Save on routine maintenance. Invest in easy care fabrics and surfaces. Save time cleaning by keeping dirt out in the first place. This applies to your inbox as well!

Cut down on clutter. Extra stuff needs extra maintenance and it’s easy to misplace the stuff the matters when you’re surrounded by stuff that doesn’t.

Stay out of the car. Reduce trips by banking and shopping online, or by consolidating errands and completing them all on one day.

Set deadlines and follow through. Make expectations and consequences clear. “I need feedback on the draft by 5pm today, then the final letter goes out at 6pm.” Guaranteed you won’t be waiting days for feedback. At home, invest in a good alarm clock and training to use it.

Let everyone know it’s their responsibility to get up on time, not yours to rouse them. I suspect the hardest part is the follow through. Nothing is more effective than setting expectations and consistently following through on consequences. Reminders, nagging and second chances only weaken your position.

Does it matter really?

The February Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria have made us all aware of the preciousness of the here-and-now and of our mortality.

The loss of lives of all ages can make you wonder: how many of those people had made choices to put off things they valued in order to meet someone else’s expectations. How many of them made compromises based on the assumption that they’d be around to make up for any regrets?

It’s like the person who dies suddenly leaving behind a beautiful scented candle or an exquisite lacy nightie that has never been used. The family may have never seen it before. She had been keeping it for a special occasion – the one that never came.

In fact, how many of our mothers (or maybe us) keep the “good” silverware, crockery,or glassware in a cupboard? Too scared to enjoy the beauty of these valuable items in case something gets broken or damaged?

Does it matter really?

One of the guiding principles to use when trying to put strong feelings or strong compulsions into perspective is this simple question. Will this matter in twelve months time?May help you turn the squeaky wheel to mute so you can allow your values to get a say.

What About You?

How do you manage the difficult choices?

What is your most important value?

What has been the hardest choice you’ve had to make?

What do you do with the regret that sometimes accompanies our difficult choices?

Values & To Do Lists: Distractions!

Distractions

Sometimes when we’re deciding what goes into the round filing cabinet (the bin, my fave filing cabinet!) – and what gets DONE first, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets our attention and the values-driven tasks can get outsqueaked. So the boss hammering us to finish a project may just sound louder than the cries of your baby.

Yes I know it’s a dilemma that doesn’t have easy answers. We make compromises all the way through our lives. In hindsight some compromises sit well, and some leave us with regret.

Just like a new dad, we have all made decisions that assume there’ll be time later. Many couples building a career at times can make a decision that career comes first. The first decision to tear yourself away from a family or partner commitment in favour of your work is often an agonising one. Unfortunately, they get easier from then on.

Values and To Do Lists

How do values and To Do Lists work toegther? Big projects without any vision or value behind it, can end up meaningless to us. We don’t see any positive payback so the task remains unfinished.

Without sufficient activities and decisions that meet with your values, life becomes hollow, dissatisfying and eventually soul-destroying.

If we keep treating our most important values as meaningless relics, that’s exactly what they’ll become. Michael Josephson

How does a young mum or father try to juggle the competing needs of their beautiful new baby and the career make/break project they are now leading? It’s his/her first big chance. And in his/her mind and the present economic climate, it could be their last.

How does do we deal with the “to-do list from hell” in our projects when there’s a sweet-smelling little baby waiting at home? How does a father look his tired wife in the eyes as he leaves home at 5.30am and walks in at 7pm? How does he make the choice to eat his dinner and pull out his laptop and work from home for a couple more hours?

Yes, he probably does say to himself, it’s only a few weeks more. And we can all understand why that could be a reasonable choice for him.

But is it a real choice he’s making? Is it driven by his most important values?

What’s Important In Life For Decluttering?

Do you have a to-do list?

Does yours seem never-ending?

And when you look at it, does it remind you of how little time you have to do it all?

Time is such a precious commodity in our modern age.

What’s Important

None of us can do all the things we have on our to-do list, so we make priorities. We plan some. We let some other things go – that’s if we follow any of the time-management principles anyway.

We let them slide off the list and into the “round filing cabinet” because they’re seemingly impossible. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Either in our brain or on our list, we’ve looked at that item and asked ourselves “can I do that?” and decided we couldn’t.

All things on our list don’t have to be done.

Just like not all bright ideas we have are useful, not all “must-dos” must be done.

What influences that decision? What drives our priorities?

Handy Ways to Tame Your Paperwork!

Do you keep shuffling paper around? No more!!

1. Purchase a large vertical wire step file (available from Officeworks)

2. Sort through your in-tray/s or piles and organise the paperwork into similar categories, i.e.

·        Correspondence

·        Reading

·        Clients

·        Invoices

·        Staff

3. Label manila folders with the above categories.

4. Place folders into step file.

5. Organise direct debits for regular bills and keep informed of your bank accounts and finances.

Now you’ll have all your work to do sitting in manageable files. It’s much more effective than shuffling piles of paper.

This simple but practical device saves my accountant 2 hours per week. Do you know what that means to an accountant who charges out at $100 per hour?

Save Two Hours/Week @ Hourly Rate of $100

2 HRS/WEEK = $200
= 8 HRS/MTH = $800
= 96 HRS/YR = $9,600

You don’t need to be an accountant to understand the significance of saving a small amount of time and the impact it has overall. It’s always the little things in life – the one percenters – which make the difference.

How many minutes, hours, days or months a year have you been wasting keeping yourself needlessly ‘busy’ with paperwork?

Holiday Organisation

The holidays are a busy time. Why? Everyone’s shopping. Sunbaking. BBQing. Travelling. And buying more, more, more! When you’re busy, things tend to slip around the house. Bills fall behind. And with all that shopping, more stuff sneaks into your home. Start the year right by taking control of post-holiday clutter.

Purge the Chrissy decorations

When you take down your decorations—whether it’s the lights on the house or the ornaments on the tree—it’s a great time to sort through old, unused, or broken decorations. Also limit decorations to the space you have, and clearly label the boxes in which they’re stored. Use different boxes for type of decoration (eg lights or the tree) to avoid confusion and help keep order. A little effort here will pay off next Christmas!

Use the right storage containers

Using divided boxes for tree ornaments and padding for lights to ensure that expensive items are not crushed or damaged in storage. Large, plastic stackable bins are great for lights, decorations, and larger seasonal items. Label them clearly and store them in the less-trafficked zone of your home or garage.

Create clear labels and attach one to the front of each bin so that you can clearly and quickly find what you’re looking for!