Simplify instead of organize. Have as few things as possible, and you don’t need to organize.
Leo – Zen Habits

Try to keep the desk clean, leaving only the essentials on its top. The rest goes into the drawer, boxes, the archive, or the bin. Your computer, the phone, and the paper you are currently work on is enough.
Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann – DEVONtechnologies LLC

Buy the smallest desk you can possibly find – then you’re forced to be organized!
Joe Bennett – Tweddle Group

Clean desk is key.

Have the following folders available on one of those accordion style organizers. As you get things put them in each of the folders, for example, the folders can be:

• Things to do – Urgent
• Update in Computer
• Future Project or Future Review
• Separate folder for each project that you are working on
• Read

Rita

Use a phone log to document phone calls and messages in one place. This eliminates scrap paper and sticky notes that can clutter your desk, helps you remember information and stay focused while on the phone.
Lisa DeVeau – Completely Organized, Inc.

Keep everything in its own place so you don’t have to look for anything, it is immediately to hand.
Chris Ramsey

I make sure I organize & clean my desk every evening as I’m done, gives me a nice fresh start every morning.
Ann Brampton – Ann Brampton

Keep a notepad beside your phone. Have an tray for stuff that you have yet to deal with. Remove all else except what you’re working on right now.
Masariko Yokosuka

An exercise in minimalism: Remove everything from your desk…Everything! Retrieve items you need as you need them for one week. Anything not retrieved w/in the week need not be on or in your desk.
Rachel Z. Cornell – ProNagger, Because I Know You Can!

Remove all items from your desk. Uncluttered clean desk, keeps the focus on the work, rather than the stuff.
Steve Bell – SteveBellNow

1. Clear everything off your desk. As you need items, put them back. You’ll be amazed at all of the stuff that you don’t actually use frequently.
2. If you need to remember something write it down and all in one place. Avoid using Post-it notes as they can quite easily take over your entire workstation.
3. Keep all supplies in one place. If you don’t know how much you have of something, chances are you will buy more than you need.
4. For frequently used files use vertical file sorters. Using trays and inboxes allow piles to easily form.

Allison Perkins – Reclaim

At the end of the work day clear off your desk. Have one
or two great frames with photos of your family –but that is all…this is an office… Have one plant either in the corner of the office or on your desk. One “”very cool”" item or “”very kooky”" item that can make you laugh when you need one. Nothing offensive, please.
Leslie Jacobs – Les Is More

Develop a plan for how you plan on getting organized, and then break the plan down into manageable chunks. Going paperless, with a product like the NeatDesk, can be great for many people. It can save time, space, and effort – and make you more productive overall!
Joshua Zerkel – Custom Living Solutions

Think of your desk and chair as command central. Things you use daily or often should be within arms reach from your chair. The less often you use it, the further away it should be.
Melinda Massie – Organizing with a Side of Fabulous

• If you don’t LOVE it, USE it or NEED it…it’s got to GO!
• Only have projects that you are CURRENTLY working on on your desk
• Organize your desk for how YOU work, not because that’s how a co-worker has theirs or that’s how it’s always been done

DeAnna Radaj – Bante Design LLC

My friends and colleagues say I’m the most organized person they know, but for me, it isn’t something I do consciously anymore. I keep my desk organized by having a place for everything, and making sure I put things back when they’re done. Office supplies go in one drawer, files in another one, and lesser-used items in a third. Nothing sits on top of my desk except my computer: things on top of the desk end up breeding clutter. Once you get in the habit of always putting things where they belong, it’s easy to stay organized!
Michael Kaiser-Nyman – Impact Dialing

1. Move to a paperless office platform – Scan and store important documents on a server, thus allowing you to remove basic paper clutter from your desk.

2. Shy away from using a basic ‘inbox’ tray, as items can easily pile up while important dates fly by.

3. Our last bit of advice? Purchase 1 picture frame and fill it. The easiest way to stay organized is to stay motivated, and the best form of motivation is to remember what’s important. A daily glimpse of your friends, family, pet, etc. will bring an instant smile to your face.

Lacey Stenson – reThink Consulting, Inc.

Try regularly rearrange all the things found at ur desk so that you can refresh the memory of the things where you first put them.
Max Lee

Keep paperwork contained by project. Keep tasks contained in the same way, as one project, to be worked on daily. Keep only one project out at a time and put it away before starting another whenever possible. Put your projects to bed every night.
Fran Piekarski – www.remedease.com

The beginning and end of day routines matters! The night before, clean off your desk – tidy the folders, bins, or projects. Put away anything you’re finished with. Make a short list (1-3 items) of the MOST important things to do the following day. Lay out the materials you’ll need. First thing the next morning, do the ONE most important thing.
Angela Mattson - Your Organized Guide

Design your workspace using desktop file sorters or baskets to organize your daily “to do” list, tasks, “action” files and even your piles. Avoid picking up, putting down, picking up. Create a paper flow system for incoming documents.
Susie Hayman - In Your Business

Whenever possible delegate things that are not the best use of your talents to others with applicable strengths.
Fran Piekarski – www.remedease.com

• Have ONE inbox
• Use a napkin holder on top of your desk to hold documents and files
• Keep two hanging file drawers: One for archived/reference material. The other for “active” files
• Use a muffin tray inside the drawers to organize small items and office supplies

Amy Volk – Simplified Living. LLC

Arrange your office based on your own needs and individual style of working. Your office should reflect you, your personality and how you work. Position your furniture and equipment so that they work for you.
Susie Hayman – In Your Business

Your desktop can mirror the desktop on your computer. In other words, current files and projects laterally organized on the desktop. Reference files and projects in drawers or archived.
Fran Piekarski - www.remedease.com

Assign a home for what’s on your desk. This includes things you don’t know what to do with or need to review later, and office supplies. If you don’t use it on a regular basis, get it off your desk – a file cabinet, a shelf, a bookcase or the trashcan.
Susie Hayman – In Your Business

Keep it simple! The only items you should have on your desk are those that you need daily, the rest should have designated homes. A cluttered desk will cause you stress. Your desk should be a place where you can be productive.
Michelle Monroe Morton – Michelle Morton

Choose furniture and supplies that fit in workspaces. Don’t crowd desks with large items if your desk is too small for them. Plan ahead by researching the dimensions of your work space and supplies
Tony Ellison – Shoplet.com

Having an organized desk is a fundamental skill that exhibits good focus. Without it, success is hard to achieve.
Acharya Sri Khadi Madama – www.yourstrulyyogatv.com

Mount all cables and wires to the underside of your desk. Fix a pegboard to the underside and suspend your gadgets with wires. See more at this link.
Jules – IKEAHackers

I have an enormous pin board above my desk (more than two meters long). Instead of putting vouchers,receipts, letters, and everything else on my desk, I pin it to my pin board. This is excellent for me as I’m very visual, and it’s so much more fun doing paperwork when it means “one less pin”.
Kristine

Every day, take 15-30 minutes before you’re scheduled to leave work to put away anything that should not be laying about on your desk, like pens, files, Post-It notes, paper clips, personal items, etc.
Deb Lee - D. Allison Lee LLC

Minimize storage. More storage attracts more junk. Keep only what cannot be replaced. Be ruthless.
Cryptoglot

Keep only supplies that you use daily on your desk-top or in your top drawer. If you don’t use tape or need hundreds of different sized paperclips then put them back in the supply cabinet.
Holly Bohn – See Jane Work

I sold my desk and use my dining table. When I am finished I put what I need into my portable inbox, including my laptop and pen. Everything else gets filed, trashed; my inbox goes onto a shelf in the nearby buffet and I close the door on it. A big change in my life! Goodbye desk anxiety.
Barbara K.

I truly believe that less is more, containment is key, and labeling certainly can’t hurt! When I work with clients, I recommend they keep their active desktop area reserved for the project they are currently working on. It can be as messy as they want while they are working, but as soon as they are finished or reach a stopping point, the piles get cleaned up, contained in a file folder, bin, or project sleeve, and it gets put in a holding area
Angela Mattson – Your Organized Guide

Divide and conquer the types of paper that can comingle and make a mess on your desk. Keep your mail separate (in a basket) from documents (in a paper tray or sorter) and use file folders for projects (in a tiered file holder).
Deb Lee - D. Allison Lee LLC

Straighten desk at the end of the day and especially at the end of the week so that you can start each morning with a clear desk.
Janet Taylor – JanetMTaylor.com

Desktop organizers and/or trays will help you organize papers that come across your desk.
Janet M Taylor – JanetMTaylor.com

A laptop with a second monitor, and all my IMs(use a company standard IM, GTalk, with Outlook, OneNote sharing(is on the second monitor) and use the first screen to do most of the work.

Things which take longer, or to be sent to someone to be done and follow-up – typically go into tasks on a writing pad.
Ravi V

Don’t follow the rules. Every job is different and the tools you need to get the job done will also be different. Sure there are some things that most everyone will use, paper and pen for example, but other than that it’s job specific.
Holly Bohn - See Jane Work

Limit your memorabilia to one or two items. Put everything else on the wall or shelves.
Mark Shead

Keep your office essentials close to your desk, like your garbage bin, file cabinet, and shredder. If you have to get up to reach them, you’re more likely to keep the trash, files, and paper all piled on your desk.
Deb Lee – D. Allison Lee LLC

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Some time ago we were having someone  come over to house sit for a few weeks.  I felt bad because we didn’t have a television in the house, so I set about hooking up an old DVD player to my computer monitor so they could at least watch some movies while we were gone.

The video worked fine, but I needed a connector to hook up the audio.  I looked through a box of audio cables, but finally gave up and went to Radio Shack.  25 minutes and $7 later (which seems ridiculous for 6 inches of wire), I had the cable I needed.

I am sure I own the necessary cable, but after several moves in the past 12 months, I couldn’t locate it.  After thinking about it, this isn’t uncommon and I’m probably at least a bit more organized than the average person.  I imagine I’ve spent several thousand dollars and countless hours over the past 5 years buying duplicate items that I didn’t really need.

How much do you spend on things that you already have?

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In this post we are going to look at 10 ways you can help keep clutter to a minimum.  These aren’t hard and fast rules–take what is useful to you personally and ignore what isn’t.  A few brief decisions acting as a de-cluttering superhero can reap long term rewards–particularly when you start fighting clutter at its source before it even makes it into your house.

De-clutter Superhero!

1. Rent instead of buy

Renting things that you only need once per year can be a good deal.  Often it isn’t the cheapest option when you just consider the money–it only takes renting 5 or 10 times to pay for the item.  Still, when you rent something you don’t have to deal with the maintenance,  storage, repair, etc. For example, every year I rent a lawn aerator. It costs me $55 for a day and I use it on my yard and my parent’s yard.  Buying a similar unit would probably cost $300 to $700. However since I only use it once per year, I’m not dealing with storing it the other 364 days.

2. Get off mailing lists

How much of your clutter comes in the mail?  If you can get your name taken off of mailing lists and unsubscribe from magazines you don’t read, you can significantly cut down on the amount of stuff in your house.

3. Buy simple things

Sometimes products are designed with all kinds of options to make them appear more attractive.  That vacuum cleaner that comes with a huge box of add ones like a shampoo unit, ceiling fan brush, balloon inflator add on etc. may look very attractive, but how often are you going to use those options? Simple things are often more reliable so you may actually get more use out of the item with fewer options.

Obviously there is a balance here.  You don’t want to buy things that are so limited that they aren’t useful, but there is a cost of complexity and clutter that comes with having a device that can supposedly do everything.

4. Approach Christmas & birthdays with care.

Christmas and birthdays are wonderful, but it is easy to acquire a lot of stuff that just turns into clutter.  Here are some tips for dealing with these events.

• Single gifts – It takes some planning, but families can pool their money to get each person a single very special gift instead of multiple ones.  The idea is quality over quantity.
• Donation to a cause - Some families keep Christmas gifts to a minimum and instead donate money to a good cause that they all agree on.  The family takes time together to pick out exactly what everyone feels would be the best organization to donate to.  Some non-profits make it more interesting by allowing you to purchase specific things–for example you can buy a cow and three chickens to be given to a farmer in Africa.
• Consumables – When someone asks me what I want for Christmas, I always ask for AA batteries.  I know I’ll use them, they last for a long time and they require minimal storage space.
• Gift cards - Some families just revert to giving gift cards to each other. I think this can kind of miss the point, but it is very clutter free.

5. One in–one out

Which closet is easiest to keep organized–one with 50 items or one with 500? The one in one out rule says that when you bring in something new, something old has to go.  This is particularly good for dealing with clothing and toys.  When you decide that something is important enough to purchase it forces you to decide what is the least important so it can be removed.

6. Only one

How many scissors do you have in your house? How many ink pens?  Often we have multiple items that do the exact same thing simply because we didn’t know where something was when we needed it.  I’m not saying you can only have one ink pen in your house, but proper organization can help minimize the number of things you have. When possible, put your effort into finding the item instead of driving to the store to get another one.  If you find you have a bunch of the same thing, it might be a good indication that you need to change your organization.  For example, if you have a screw driver in the kitchen drawer, one in you desk, one in the garage and one in the pantry, it might be an indication that you just need a good tool box so you can always find the screw driver in the same place.

7. Single box of memories

Most of us have boxes in storage of memorabilia from the past.  These are important treasures, but if left unmanaged they can grow into huge storage problems.  A single large plastic box for memories is a reasonable goal.  Fortunately modern technology makes it easy to keep the memories of things without requiring the physical storage.  Here are some ideas:

• Scan photographs and throw out the originals or give them to family members who would appreciate them. In some cases you may be able to donate them to your alma mater or a museum.
• Take pictures of trophies and awards and physically keep only the ones that have the most meaning to you.
• Scan or photograph artwork from your childhood.  If you have a lot you can even have them printed and bound in a book from Lulu.

8. Reduce software storage

Most people have boxes of software that are outdated and irrelevant.  You probably don’t need a copy Microsoft Money 99 any more and what are the chances you’ll ever need to reinstall Windows 98?  Even the software you need to keep is probably taking up a lot of extra space.  Fortunately the actual CDroms and DVDs are very thin.  Get a zip up CD folder and transfer all your software to that.

Just make sure you keep the keycodes necessary to reinstall.  I like to keep the keycode paper in the sleeve and also write it on the outside of the CD. If you just write it on the outside of the CD, you can’t read it while you are re-installing because it will be inside your computer.

Another more tech heavy option is to burn all of your CDs/DVDs to ISO image files and store them on an external hard drive. I tried this for awhile, but i prefer the convenience of the original media and a few CD cases don’t take up that much room

If you find a CD case you like, you might consider buying a couple extra.  Companies are constantly creating new models and styles and if you want them to  look the same you can’t count on being able to the same style again 9 months down the road.  Plus it may be easier to organize your discs if you separate them into multiple cases instead of simply filling one case before overflowing to the next one.

9. Movies and music

Even though the size of a jewel case is much smaller than most software boxes, music and movies can take up quite a bit of storage space.  You can reduce them to CD storage cases if you like.  However, if you ever think you’ll want to sel or give away some of your CDs or DVDs it is probably a good idea to keep the original cases.  Movies and music tend to keep their value a bit longer than software–a good CD from 10 years ago is still worth listening to, but most people aren’t going to ever install Windows 98 again.

A good compromise is to burn your music off to your computer and put all the CDs in a box out of the way.  This helps keep them from cluttering up your house without loosing access to your music.  Of course this only works if you computer is setup where you will actually listen to music from it.

You can do the same thing with movies although DVDs tend to be encrypted so it can be a bit more difficult to turn the physical copy into a digital version.  I’m not sure of all the legal ramifications, but generally you are allowed to make a backup copy of a movie that you own–as long as you continue to own the original media and don’t try to sell it or give it away. On OS X and Linux, Handbrake make it pretty easy to copy a DVD into an MP4 file. Of course if this limits you to only watching movies on your laptop instead of using your big expensive TV it isn’t very useful.  I’ve tried a bunch of different ways of getting movies from my computer to show on my TV.  DLNA is good in theory and TVs that can play MP4s directly sound like a good idea, but in actual practice the only thing that has been reliable is an Apple TV unit.  My movies go in iTunes with my music and they show up on the Apple TV menu. At only $100, it was well worth the time it saved me of fiddling with all the other ways of doing things.

10. Things you might use

Things you might use can be one of the biggest sources of clutter.  That piece of exercise equipment that you never use, or the board games you never play.  It isn’t bad to keep some stuff, but you need to be honest about whether you are really going to use things in the future.  If there is a very high probability that you won’t use it again, do an analysis of how  much it would cost to replace if it turns out you do want it later.  Also consider how its value will depreciate over time.  For example, if you have an unused computer that is worth $500 today, it will probably be worth only $250 or less in 18 months.  If you aren’t going to use it for two years it is much better financially to sell it today and simply buy a new or used computer when you do eventually need it.

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I’d like to say that the picture above is just something I found on Flickr. It isn’t. That is my desk at this very moment.

In looking at my desk I realized that most of the clutter comes from problems with my system. Obviously adding an extra computer, 2 keyboards, 3 mice, 4 cell phones and everything else will fill up my desk, but there are still items on my desk that are just there because I haven’t put them away.

When your desk is the messiest is the best time to evaluate your organization system. Here are the problems I’ve discovered with my organization system:

1. I used to keep my pocket stuff (wallet, keys, etc.) on a space on a bookshelf. Over time I’ve filled the bookshelf space and these items have migrated to my desk. I need to rearrange the bookshelf or find another place for them.
2. The drawer on my file cabinet is sticking. As a result I don’t like to try to open it any more than I have to and papers have started accumulating on my desk to be filed. This wasn’t as much of a problem when the drawer worked correctly. It is time to admit that the $15 file cabinet from Wal-mart just isn’t going to meet my needs.
3. Various items have migrated to my desk over time that belong elsewhere. Right now I have a tire gauge that belongs in the car, two quarters that belong in the car for paying tolls, a memory card of unknown origins that fits nothing I own, and a grocery card that probably belongs in my wife’s wallet. The problem isn’t that this stuff is here. The problem is that it has been here for too long. I tend to empty my pockets before sitting down to work for a long stretch. I need to establish a routine where I can put this type of stuff where I will take it back out with me when I leave (and hopefully put it where it belongs).
4. I thought I was being very smart by creating a folder on my computer for rebates and putting all the related documents in the folder. It appears that I also need a paper folder because I need a place to physically collect things while I rip the front pages off of manuals, cut out UPC symbols, etc. The folder on my hard drive is making things easier, but a lot of the rebate forms are still easier to fill out using a pen.

So now you’ve seen my desk at its messiest.

Originally published in 2007.

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Lets talk about silverware as an example. Assume that after you run your silverware through the dishwasher you randomly place each piece somewhere in your house. You put some in the drawers in the bathrooms, others on top of books on the bookshelf, some above the fireplace, some in the refrigerator, etc. In other words your silverware storage is totally disorganized. Is that efficient? No of course not.  Whenever you need a fork, you have no idea where to look and you’ll spend a great deal of time looking for it only to eventually find it in a potted plant–where it is dirty and you’ll have to wash it before using it.

Now assume you do what most people do and you have a little tray in a drawer where you place each item together with like items in their own slot. Is this efficient?  Well, on the retrieval side of things is sure is. You can find a fork very quickly because you know exactly where to look, but you do have a certain amount of time invested in placing each item in its slot.

What if instead of having an organized silverware drawer, we decided to simply dump all the silverware in the drawer–no tray? Sure it would look like a mess, but would it really be less efficient?  We’d save a lot of time putting the silverware in the drawer, but would we lose that much when it came time to getting the silverware back out?  If you have a drawer full of spoons, knives and forks, how much time would you actually waste if they were all there in just a random order?

The answer is of course “it depends.”  If you are single and generally need one utensil at a time, this might be an optimal setup.  It also might work if you have a simple silverware collection with only 3 or 4 different types of items–no salad forks, butter knives, soup spoons, pickle forks, etc.  On the other hand, if you routinely have to set the table for 7 people, there may be an advantage to being able to grab all of your forks in one grasp because the time required to go through and pick out every single fork would be greater than the time required to put them in the organized slot to start with.

The same thing is true of the way we organize socks. If your sock inventory consists of 2 or 3 different types, simply dumping them all in the drawer may be more efficient than trying to match up each pair. (And you probably know from experience that no matter how hard you try, you’ll never match all the socks that come out of the dryer–something will be missing.) If each pair of socks you own is unique, you’ll want to match them before putting them away because the time required to find a match after they are all in the drawer will be greater than when you are doing the laundry.

My point is that some types of “messes” are actually more efficient than rigid organization. It is possible to still have a nice looking living or office area while optimizing your organization for efficiency. Organization needs to be designed around how we actually  use stuff otherwise it can become a time waster just like being disorganized.

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The real question to ask yourself is “Where will I look for this when I need it?”  There seems to be a big separation between the way the brain makes connections when you are trying to store something and when you are trying to retrieve it.

This makes sense because when you ask yourself “Where do I put this?” your brain is going to start thinking in terms of size, available storage space, danger to surrounding objects, etc. It isn’t thinking in terms of the context in which the item is needed.

If you organize your stuff by thinking about the context in which you need each item you’ll spend far less time looking for things.  This type of approach helps you find simple but innovative solutions that make sense.  For example, if you ask yourself where  you should store your postage stamps, you’ll probably put them in a drawer, but if you think about the context in which you’ll actually use them, you might decide to keep them in the box with empty envelopes.

By imagining the context in which you will need something in the future,  you can organize your stuff in a way that makes sense and works best for you personally.

photo credit

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We have been working toward a paperless office for some time, we try to do all contract exchanges and paperwork electronically, and generally this works very well. However, one requirement in our business space is that we have to have a copy of an ID document for each guests who rents accommodation from us (Europe wide law, applies too to hotels).

We used to take a copy of an ID document at time of checkin, however we began to ask customers to send ‘A copy of a photographic identity document, EG. Passport or Drivers licence by scanned email’ before they arrived, to cut out that paper neccessity. What resulted was that in a large percentage of cases (10-15%!) people would take a photograph of themselves, and send it to us! We have tried experimenting with wording, and have thus far failed to bring down that percentage by much! :-)

Lao Watson-Smith, Managing Director, Azure Online LTD, Sarl Everything Cannes

It is interesting to see how people will react to a written message. Even though the wording may seem crystal clear, there is always someone that will misunderstand!

Jim’s company newsletter sends the wrong message

Prospects didn’t fool us too much. My partners and I were very good at determining who were the decision makers, who were potential inside advocates, who were tire-kickers, etc., But we still maintained contact with all of them because our sales cycle was long and people’s circumstances (and staff) change.

We stayed in touch by switching from the expense of print newsletters to email, having integrated it with our computer database of contacts. We thought it was pretty clever to add a database field for comments that graphically described each person with terms like “Financial Iron Fist” and “The Power and the Money” and so on.

Our cleverness collided with our cash flow when we were horrified to learn that a new employee had been sending out our newsletter with this descriptive field listed as the title of the recipient! I am pretty sure the Financial Iron Fist got a kick out if it but plenty of the others were not as flattering. It was just a matter of time before I saw the fallout.

Of course, we got the expected cancellations to the email list, but I did have a live interaction over this dumb mistake, too.

I was doing a presentation at a prospect’s office. And after the technical part of it, the client’s Information’s Systems VP (the real decision-maker) stood up, looked me in the eye and said, “Well, if the ideas directed to the ‘COMPUTER DWEEB’ part of this is done, I’ll get back to work.”

Dan Seidman from SalesAutopsy.com

Sometimes a seemingly harmless joke can go very, very wrong. I just had to laugh at some of the nicknames, though. = )

Humorous, maybe. . .

Paperless. . . not exactly. . . but a very good reason to go paperless. . .

I was providing tech support for an office that kept getting blank sheets of paper out of their laser printer.

I made a bunch of suggestions over the phone, all with no luck.

Then the secretary said the tip-off line, “I don’t get it. I just put in a fresh cartridge yesterday.”

“Did you pull the tab?”

“What tab?”

“Take the cartridge out of the printer and tell me if there’s an orange tab on the side.”

“Yup.”

“Yank it.”

“A long piece of thin plastic came out.”

“Try it now.”

“It works! I guess those other two cartridges I threw out weren’t bad.”

Bud Freund of Budly’s Blog

Though it sounds as if the person in this story wasn’t terribly computer savvy, printers frequently get the best of us, as does other technology that is supposed to make us more efficient. If we’re careful about how we use it, technology can be a great productivity aid, but if we’re not so careful, it can wreak havoc on productivity.

I was dragged kicking and screaming into a paperless office environment when I went to work for Found Line, a creative firm that heavily uses Google Apps and other online tools. The only paper we had was the legal posters on the walls; for the first 6 months I didnt even have access to the printer because we rarely used it! I stubbornly dragged around my paper folders and notebooks but gradually transitioned to living life with less paper.
Now I have moved on to a paper-intensive nonprofit organization. And once again, Im DYING! Now its because there is so much paper and I have learned to run my business life online.
Live and learn, live and learn… but Ill never go back to the paper level I used before the paperless office!

Liz Schlegel

The “paperless” mindset is one of those rare good habits to have. = )

When I worked for a Health Charity Not-for-profit I printed everything, emails, research papers and then had to file them It wasnt so bad until I left that job and had to clean out my office.

Now that I have my own company and work from home, my space is limited.
I have a laptop on my desk that is shared with my sewing machine and serger.  THe printer is set up 2 floors below to an old computer.  THe only thing I print now are my invoices.

Because my space is limited I will not hook up a printer, even though I have been offered some.  Not only am I saving space, Im saving paper, energy and most of all Im saving time from printing and filing.

Dawn Barbieri of albertinedawn.com

Cleaning out an office is always an arduous task, but moving around boxes of unnecessary paper would be frustrating, indeed.

Our university tried switching completely to a paperless university. Grades are submitted online, even the syllabi are posted online (not copied), and so on. One hilarious component of this switch was the student evaluations. They used to be on paper and handed out during the last class (where most to all students are present). Our student ratings would be quite high (close to the highest, at least in our department). The few students who disliked our classes would give us bad ratings but they would be canceled out by the high number of students who liked our classes. Then we switched to online evaluations. Now students actually had to remember to enter a website and enter the data anonymously. There was no way of checking whether they had done it. So, who would actually go to the effort of doing this? Only those few who were extremely unhappy. So, every faculty’s ratings fell from very high to almost the worst you can get. We immediately switched back to paper ; )

Berit Brogaard

Wow! What a harsh way to find out that sometimes paper can sometimes be more effective and efficient than electronic communication. I think that many colleges have found problems with sending out surveys electronically.

Technology has made paperless communication very accessible. Most people have computers, if not laptops, and access to the internet in one place or another. However, until more people catch on, paper still has its particular niche in which it is very useful. Because we are constantly flooded by emails, it is easy to disregard even an important message sent electronically. Until we figure out a better way to prioritize email messages, certain situations may require reverting back to older methods.

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Home Office in Mexico

I work from my home office. My commute is a 30-second walk down the hall, down the stairs and into the portion of our house dedicated to my business. As we’ve moved around, I’ve built 7 or 8 different home offices. My home offices have ranged from a small corner in a bedroom in downtown Durango, Mexico where the chair would collapse several times each day and we had to be wary of scorpions, to my current, spacious 1000 sq foot office with its own bathroom, fireplace and outside entrance. I’ve found a lot of things that work well and a lot of things that didn’t work out so well. In this post, we are going to discuss some of the issues and planning that should go into setting up an effective home office.

Lighting

Lighting can make or break your work space. Older-style fluorescent bulbs aren’t the best choice for high-productivity work. If you are stuck with fluorescent, tube-style lights, consider getting light bulbs that are designed to mimic the sun’s light spectrum. You can also get tube-style lights that use LEDs and retrofit those into your existing fluorescent fixtures.

If it is possible, you want a window in your office to help let in natural light. The natural lighting will help you stay alert and focused, and spending your days in an area with natural light has been shown to make it easier to go to sleep at night.

Sound

Don’t overlook the sound environment of your office. If it is located in the basement next to a noisy furnace, you may want to invest in some sound proofing. Also, be aware of how sound travels through the house. My current office was under a squeaky floor board that had a rocking chair on top of it. If anyone was in the rocking chair, it would drive me crazy in my office. I had some carpenters fix the squeak and add some sound proofing to my office ceiling. If you have sound that you can’t soundproof around, consider using some type of nature-based ambient sound.

Interruptions & Distractions

Home Office in Previous House

Be sure to consider how accessible you will be to your family members while you are in your office. One office I had was a bedroom in a small apartment. My two-year-old would constantly come in to see what I was up to. I’ve found that putting the office on a separate floor helps eliminate the distractions while still being close enough if anyone needs me.

Some people find it important to set some level of expectations when it comes to family interruptions. Keep in mind, one of the advantages of working from home is being able to be present when your kids start to smile or take their first step. You probably don’t want to completely shut yourself off. On the other hand, if you are getting interrupted so often that you can’t get anything done, you may need to work out some type of system to show when you are concentrating deeply and when it is okay to come see you.

Desk and Furniture

My home office layout from a few years ago.

Most desks are overrated. Amazon gives everyone a flat door with 4×4 legs. A door will run you about $30 to $40 and will give you much more workspace than a normal desk. By placing the door across a few filing cabinets, you can get a very nice work area for less than $75. There are some nice desks on the market and I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy one, but if finances are tight, skimping on a desk is one place you are unlikely to notice it–at least when it comes to getting work done. Other areas, like your computer monitor or chair, are much better places to concentrate any extra cash.

Your desk chair should be very comfortable. It took me about two years to finally find a chair I liked, and I’ve had the same chair for the past 9 years, now. It wasn’t even particularly expensive. It just took a long time to find one I felt comfortable in.

I wouldn’t recommend the particle board bookshelves that they sell at Office Depot and similar stores. If you have lots of books, they will bend and eventually dump all of your books on the floor.  I found some good bookshelves from World Market. I’ve also had good luck simply having a carpenter create built-in shelves.

I have had reasonable luck with cheap hanging filing cabinets. The $20 two-drawer units from Wal-Mart last a very long time with a bit of care. However, because my office is mostly paperless, it means that these file cabinets don’t get quite the workout they might get in your office.

Communications & Connectivity

Your office is going to need a connection to the Internet, and probably phone lines. Be sure to think through how you can get any wires where you need them. Dropped ceilings are ideal for offices because they make it easy to run wires wherever you need them–even if they are a bit on the ugly side. If you plan to use your cell phone, make sure you have good reception in the area you want to use as your office. There are boosters that will help if you find that you are constantly getting poor reception.

If you are going to get a phone in your home office, it is probably best to have a separate line. You want to be able to take business calls without being interrupted by family calls while you are at work. I use Ooma because it gives two lines for about $99 per year. (It is designed for residential service, but they don’t seem to mind home office use unless you are trying to run a call center type operation.)  I have also had good experience using Skype for phone calls.

With a scanner and printer you may not really need a fax machine. I use a service called RingCentral that lets me send and receive faxes when necessary without dealing with the physical machine or additional phone line. When a fax comes in, it shows up as a PDF in my email. If I need to send a fax, I launch a little program on my computer, type in the number, attach the file, and push send. RingCentral also gives me a voice 800 number that I print on my business cards and letter head. The 800 number simply forwards calls to my cell phone and Ooma line.

Shared Space

Be very cautious about sharing your office space with other uses. If your office doubles as your home gym and your family only exercises when you aren’t working, it might work. But it probably isn’t a good idea to try to create an office that doubles as your kids’ playroom. Also, be aware that double usage of space may limit your ability to take a home office deduction on your taxes.

Another downside of shared spaces is that you may feel like you don’t have any control over keeping your office organized. Having the ability to control the organization of your work space is very important, and it can be very frustrating if your desk keeps getting used as a storage place by other family members or if you are constantly needing to remove or rearrange items related to your office’s secondary usage.

Computer

I prefer to have the biggest, highest-resolution monitor I can possibly find or afford. Right now that is a 30- inch Apple display. The larger monitor and higher resolution make it easier for me to do things on screen that I would have had to print off in the past. With a 30-inch monitor, you can put two scanned pages side by side and read them easily. This is extremely useful if your office is paperless like mine is. In the past, I’ve had multiple monitors, but I like the simplicity of a single screen. If you have multiple monitors, consider putting one in portrait orientation. This makes it the right layout for reading the form factor of traditional print items and can give you much higher resolution of an entire page than what you’d see on a landscape-oriented monitor.

If your eye-sight is poor, you may find that an HD television with a monitor input gives you the resolution you need while keeping everything large. Many televisions cost significantly less than a large, very high-definition monitor.

I use at least two computers–a desktop and my laptop. To make use of the large monitor, I use a device that lets me switch my keyboard, mouse and monitor between the two computers with a touch of a button. The device I’m currently using for this is the Belkin Flip. It works well and my only complaint is that I’d like to have inputs for 2 more computers.

My scanner is set up on a separate desk hooked to an older laptop. This means I have to get up if I need to scan something, but it also means that my assistant can do scanning without needing to use my desk. Since she does most of my scanning for me, this works out well. The laptop hooked to the scanner is older, but perfectly adequate for scanning. This helps keep my main computer free if I load in a large scanning job that needs to run for a while.

Layout

I prefer an L-shaped layout. This gives me one work area for my computer monitor and another for my phone and working with papers.  As far as the desk orientation, I find it is most comfortable when my back isn’t to the door or entrance to the room. I once had a very small office that had formerly been a doctor’s office exam room. The only way to fit my desk in was to put my back to the door. I found this to be distracting. At any sound, I would turn around to see if someone was standing there.

In the corner of the L, I have a small, short table that I put my MacBook on top of. My desktop computer is on the lower shelf. It has two side pockets for storing magazines that I use to store the wires and KVM out of sight. I’ve talked about this type of setup in my post A Desk for your Desk. I have a curved piece that will connect the two desk pieces together, but I haven’t put it in yet. Once it is in place, it will be much harder to move anything around, so I’m waiting to make sure I don’t want to move anything first. Ideally, I’d like an enclosed piece of furniture to put the computers on where they are completely out of sight, but I think I’ll have to have it custom made to get what I need.

In addition to my L-shaped desk, I have another work area that is simply a large table. This is where I keep my printer, scanner, and networking equipment.  It also works well as a place to pack up items that need to be shipped, etc. In the past I’ve used part of my desk for these type of functions, but my office is now big enough to accommodate the additional work surface and it seems to work well. In particular, getting the scanner off my desk has been handy because it can be used by my assistant or my wife while I’m still using my desk.

I have a post with a previous desk layout for anyone interested.

Wire Management

Wire management is something that frequently gets overlooked in office design. If you are just setting up your desk, it might be a good idea to get everything in place and use it for awhile before investing too much in wire management. Once you have everything where you want it, then you can go back and make everything look nice and neat.

One of the most important parts of keeping wires organized is using wires that are the right length. Wires that are too long cause a lot of clutter. Once the wires are the right size, you need to find some way to bundle them or keep them out of site. One of the easiest solutions is the black plastic tubing that fits around your wires, holding them all together. If your wires are out of sight, you can do quite a bit with twist ties or tape.

Belkin makes a concealed power strip that keeps your wall warts covered behind a shroud. It also has some basic wire management built in to direct the wires where they need to go. I have three of these and have been very happy with them. I wish they had a bigger model. Another way to deal with all the wires that need to be plugged in is to get something like a power squid and put all of your connections in a storage box with holes cut for the wires to come out. This keeps the rats’ nest of power cables out of sight. Just keep in mind that you don’t want it to get too hot. You may need to add some ventilation if you are dealing with a lot of heat-producing devices.

The Home Office Itself

So what about the actual room you put your home office in? As mentioned before, shared space probably isn’t the best idea unless it is used very infrequently. You also need a room that is comfortable during the hours you plan to use it. If you try to use a room in the attic that doesn’t have an air conditioner in the hot summer, you probably aren’t going to get much done there. My current office is a bit cold in the winter. It has a fireplace, so I can warm it up using that, but it always seems like a lot of trouble to get started and keep going when I want to focus on work–I like it when I’m trying to enjoy the fire, but it can become a bit of a distraction. This summer I’m going to look at changing our heating and air conditioning system and try to fix the cold problem in my office.

You don’t have to invest a lot in making your office fancy, but at least make it a pleasant environment. A fresh coat of paint on the walls can go a long way toward making you feel good about your work area. My office has ceiling tiles and many of them had been damaged. After using it for six months, I finally had someone come in and just fix it.  I’m amazed at how much better I feel about being in my office simply because the ceiling looks nice and the broken tiles have been replaced.

Micro Garden Home Office

Most people are probably going to use a bedroom as their office. There may be tax advantages of getting rid of the bed and using it exclusively as your office when it comes to a home office deduction. If you don’t need exclusive use, need to keep a bed in the room, but are hurting for space, consider a couch that folds out into a bed, a quality inflatable mattress, or even a Murphy Bed. Those options will give you space for your office, but still let you transform the room into a bedroom when you need it for guests.

Garden Home Office

There is a growing trend of creating “garden offices” especially in UK. These are basically a shed with electricity and heat used as an office that you put in your yard. This isn’t a bad idea. It has some significant tax advantages that you may be able to take advantage of because it is a detached structure. Also, it gives you more privacy and separation from the household activities. Some people find that the physical separation makes it easier for them to go into “work mode” and then switch back into “off work mode”.

Garden offices obviously cost more than just putting a desk in a bedroom, but if you are short on space, they can be an option. Home Depot and Lowes have a number of garden sheds that could be customized, finished and insulated for the purpose, and if you are a bit handy and enjoy that type of work, you may be able to do it with minimal expense. Be sure to check with your local codes and home owner association before trying to put something like this in. Make sure you can control the temperature. You don’t want an office that is too hot or too cold to use.

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1. Do you have reading materials on your desk?

One common source of desktop disorganization is reading materials. Magazines, newspapers, etc. that come to you that you feel like you should read can consume a bunch of desk real-estate. For many people, this reading material isn’t ever going to be read. It just causes clutter and slows you down in other areas. Here are some tips for dealing with reading material.

• Stop it at the source. Be honest with yourself and if you are unlikely to read something in the future, get off the mailing list or cancel the subscription. There is no sense keeping it coming into your life to clutter things up.
• Opt for more expensive, higher-quality publications. Subscribing to a few high-quality succinct newsletters that provide an overview of your fields of interest may be much more efficient than trying to deal with 10 publications that you have to sort through. I subscribe to the Kiplinger Letter, Kiplinger Tax Letter and Trends Audio Magazine and find that those three subscriptions cover a great deal of content I had previously tried to acquire from multiple other sources. They are short–only a few pages long–so they don’t take much of my time, but they still keep me up-to-date on areas I need to know about.
• Keep what you need. Glance through a magazine and identify the articles you want to read. Tear them out and put them somewhere you are likely to read them. For example, putting them in your computer bag to read while waiting at the airport or even in your bathroom can help you get the value out of them when you have time to read them.
• Use RSS. Subscribing to publications through an RSS reader will let you skim a large quantity of sources and pick the ones that are of interest to you without filling up your physical or virtual inbox.
• Get it in audio form. If you have time during your commute, you may be able to get audio versions of the publications you are interested in. This can improve the value of your commute while freeing up your desk from papers you want to read but will never get around to reading.
• Get a bookshelf - If you have more books than places to put them, get some bookshelves. I do not recommend the the pressed-wood shelves you’ll find at office supply stores. If you really load them up with books, they will bend and break. We purchased some folding, real-wood bookshelves from World Market several years ago and have been very pleased with their quality. Also, don’t overlook having a carpenter build some permanent shelves for you. Sometimes the cost per foot of shelf is significantly lower and you can get them designed exactly the way you want. If money is a big issue, a few cinder blocks and 1 by 12 inch 5 foot long boards are very functional, durable and very low cost.

2. Does your desk contain items that need to be filed?

If there are items on your desk that need to be filed, but haven’t yet been organized, ask yourself, “why”? Why are they still sitting on your desk? Is your filing cabinet too far away? Is the filing process a pain, so you set things on your desk rather than put them away? Right now on my desk I have several pieces of paper related to taxes that I haven’t filed. I really don’t have an excuse. There is a stack on a nearby desk that my assistant will scan into my paperless filing system, but I just put the paper on my desk instead of where it belongs.

Why would I do this? Over the past week, I’ve been very busy and I’ve set some items on my desk that don’t really belong there. If my desk were clean other than just those two or three pieces of tax-related papers, I would probably have put them away. So keep in mind that clutter causes clutter. Keeping an organized desk will help you stay organized. Keeping a cluttered desk will encourage you to put more on it because “one more piece of paper doesn’t really matter.”

3. Are there papers on your desk that require action?

This is a big area of desk clutter–things that require your action that you haven’t gotten to yet. Take a look at these types of papers and write a number in the corner (or on a sticky tab) indicating the number of minutes you feel it would take to deal with them, or at least take the first action that would be required.  If you have a bunch of 2 to 5 minute items, you would probably be better off doing them as they come in. Is there a reason you didn’t just pay that bill when you opened it? Is there a reason you didn’t sign and send back that form when you got it? Understanding why you put off the action will help you understand how to keep those papers off your desk in the first place.

Papers that require longer action may be a bit more problematic. However, is your desk the best place to keep papers like this? At the very least, they should go into some sort of inbox so they will all be together. If you have a lot of papers that require action in the future, use some sort of tickler system to remind you when they need your attention.  Of course, if you have papers that require attention, but not necessarily your attention, they can be delegated and put on your assistant’s desk or inbox.

4. Are there things on your desk that don’t belong there?

Right now on my desk I have a plush stuffed dog and a conestoga wagon bank. These belong to my two-year-old daughter and she has brought them to me over the past few days. While they represent clutter, I have absolutely no desire to stop her from sharing her treasures with me. That is one of the big reasons I enjoy working at home. I want to be present as she grows up, and the clutter she adds to my desk is part of that. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. (That said, I probably should take these items back to the play room where they belong.)

Other things that are on my desk that shouldn’t be there:

• Utility knife – I was using it to open some packages and failed to put it away when I was finished.
• Video camera – I use it for video conferencing, but it has somehow made its way off the tripod and onto my desk.
• Spindle of blank CDs – These belong on the storage shelf, but I failed to put them away last time I used them.

As you can see, I have a number of items on my desk that simply need to be put away. This is where a messy desk breeds a messy desk. If my desk were clean, I probably wouldn’t have left out the video camera; I would have put it away. However, with everything else on my desk, there is no mental anguish in adding yet another item.

5. Do you have enough storage space?

One of the best things I’ve done to help keep things organized is that I brought in an eight drawer dresser. Multiple small drawers make it easy to sort items and these drawers provide a great deal of storage space. Of course, the downside of storage is that you’ll end up keeping things that you should really get rid of, but not having enough storage for the things you need virtually guarantees that you’ll have stuff on your desk that has no home.

Conclusion

Keeping your desk organized will probably always require effort. Some people keep an organized desk naturally. Others don’t. However, there are significant benefits for everyone who works toward keeping their workspace organized–whether it comes easily, or not.  The five questions above will help you better identify the sources of your disorganization and will lessen the amount of effort it takes to keep the benefits of an organized desk.

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Here are some ways you can facilitate more effective meetings and hopefully get more done in less time.

1. Make people show up on time

If people trickle in over a 10 minute period, that is a lot of wasted time. Often people come late because they know the meeting isn’t going to start on time, anyway. This is kind of a “catch 22,” because if you start the meeting with no one there, it is hard to get anything done. If you wait for everyone, then you make it likely that people will come late to the next meeting. Here are a couple ideas:

• Email everyone to remind them a few minutes before the meeting starts.
• Call or run by the office of people you know are often late.
• Go ahead and start the meeting without everyone. When someone comes in late, ask that they catch up with someone else in the group to find out what they missed.
• Hold the meeting somewhere that being late will make them look bad or at least be more noticeable.
• Ask people to come on time. Depending on your role, this might be as simple as making a request, or a bit more strict, like pointing out that they are being rude to everyone else who came on time.

You can find creative ways to help encourage people to come on time, as well. Once I was having problems with a particular individual who always showed up late for our meetings.  At one meeting, he was late again. I took everyone that was there down to the cafe, bought everyone a drink and we continued our meeting there. The late individual came in and didn’t know where everyone was. The next time, he showed up on time.

2. Always have an agenda

Ideally, you want something with a specific amount of estimated time allocated to each item. This makes it easy for you to identify things that are starting to drag on longer than they should.  Use the agenda to make sure you stay on track. This doesn’t mean you can never discuss something that isn’t on the agenda, but the agenda helps tell you where you should pick back up if you get side-tracked.

Give people the agenda ahead of time. For short meetings, it is probably best to have it in the body of an email. If you send it as an attachment, there is a good chance people won’t read it before the meeting. If you have it in the body, they will probably at least skim it. At the very least, you want to get the meeting agenda into their subconscious mind before they show up.

Having an agenda also helps show that you are organized and have a plan. It sets the expectation that your meeting isn’t going to be a waste of time. It helps put the meeting in the right perspective and makes it carry a more valuable perception.

3. Invite the right people

It is easy to get so many people involved that you can’t get anything done. On the other hand you can’t have an effective meeting if you don’t have the right people there. If you are talking about something that needs to be approved by a number of people, it may be good to have meeting with a small group of people to hash out the ideas and recommendations for the decision makers to look at.

The number of people in a meeting is tricky. You want to avail yourself of everyone’s talent, but you don’t want to have a bunch of dead weight, either. Still, there are other considerations beyond just the contributions of people to the meeting:

• Political – Sometimes you will need to invite someone so they feel important. You can potentially make them feel important without inviting them by scheduling the meeting for a time when they have another meeting scheduled.
• Buy in – Related to the political point, sometimes you have to have people in a meeting because they won’t support your conclusions unless they feel like they were part of it. Sometimes you can get around this by having a one-on-one session with them ahead of time to hear their concerns and make them feel like they were part of the process.

There are also some people you want to make sure you don’t invite. I’ve worked in organizations that had high-level employees who never seemed to do much of anything. They seemed to feel that their sole responsibility in life was to play the devil’s advocate and tell everyone why their ideas wouldn’t work.  These types of people can’t make a decision, themselves, and usually have nothing to add. Occasionally they will help you steer clear of a potential pitfall, but the signal-to-noise ratio is so high that their input is worthless, for the most part. These are people you don’t want to have at your meetings.

4. Use email effectively

Don’t have a meeting for something that can be better communicated via email. If you just need to distribute facts, use email. If you need to argue about the best way to do something, don’t try to do this in your inbox–hold a meeting. Some people try to avoid distributing information via email because it makes them look more important to do it in a meeting. Giving the statistics from last month isn’t the type of thing everyone needs to sit in a room to listen to. It might make someone feel important, but it is pointless unless the numbers are generating a lot of questions–even then email may be a more effective communication medium.

Have you ever noticed how science fiction shows have someone on the space ship whose job appears to be to repeat whatever the captain said to the computer again? Reading numbers off a spreadsheet is usually just as pointless.

5. Use meetings to argue

This sounds bad, but really, this is what makes an effective meeting. Meetings let you get people together and work through differences in person. You can pit various ideas against each other and come up with the best solutions. If you don’t have any arguing going on in your meetings, then you are probably having meetings for the wrong reasons.

You have to learn to argue fair. You are discussing ideas, not personally attacking people. It may take a bit to get a team to open up to the point where they can passionately express their views, but that is what you need for meetings to really become productive.

One common problem is having someone at a meeting that is so important that no one will disagree with him/her. If no one is going to disagree, you might as well just let that person make all the decisions. I had a graphic designer working for me once who would never disagree with me when we were having meetings. I finally asked her about this. She said she didn’t want to argue with her boss. I explained that I was paying her to disagree with me! If I didn’t want her opinion, I wouldn’t have hired her in the first place.

6. Record your decisions

Often decisions are made at meetings, but within a few months, no one remembers why. Taking good notes will help you easily remember not only what was decided, but why it was decided. It also makes it easy for new people to easily catch up and understand the history of a group.  For taking notes, I like tools like SubEthaEdit or EtherPad that let multiple people edit the same document simultaneously. I like these tools because they help keep everyone engaged and don’t require a bunch of time creating “minutes” after the fact.

Another advantage of having good notes is that it gives you a way to pass on the meeting’s contents to people who need to know about the discussion, but can’t come (or you don’t want to come). Ideally, having the notes stored somewhere that everyone can search them is a valuable method of knowledge management for your entire company.

7. Kill the Powerpoints

Powerpoint can be a useful tool for doing training, but if you are spending a lot of time with someone at the front of a room flipping through slides, it is a sign that your meetings aren’t very efficient.  Powerpoint can be a good way to make sure everyone is looking at the same thing as the starting point for discussion.  A good rule of thumb is seven minutes.  If the person controlling the Powerpoint is talking for more than seven minutes without being interrupted or asked a question, then the information probably doesn’t need to be presented in the meeting.

8. Get everyone talking

Don’t let people be silent participants.  If someone isn’t participating, they may not be comfortable with the format–everyone else may be jumping in but they feel like they need to ask permission to talk or prefer something with more structure.  These people need to be included.  Usually it is just a matter of saying, “Joe, what do you think?”  The point is, you need to make a conscious effort to include everyone.  If they aren’t being heard, then it is probably a waste of money for them to be there.

9. End on time

You want people to show up on time for your important meeting.  You need to give them the same level of respect and end when you say you will end. If you keep on top of your agenda’s time schedule, ending on time shouldn’t be too difficult and ending early is always a good thing, too.

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Here is how I’ve started saving those receipts without worrying about printing them out:

I have a folder in my Documents folder called “receipts.”  When I buy something, I simply save the order confirmation page to the folder.  In OS X, this is very simple because I can just print the page to a file as a PDF.  Here is a screen shot showing you how:

So, if you aren’t using OS X, you do still save your receipts to a folder.  Most browsers have a way to save a web page. Most give you an option to save it with all the images in a folder so you can see it as it appeared on the web.  Here is an example of how to choose that option from Firefox:

I suggest naming your receipts with the date and purpose.  For example, if I buy a pair of running shoes online, I’d name it something like:

20070122-running-shoes.html

This makes it easy for me to locate again and I can delete files that are old enough that I don’t need them any more.

Originally published May 15, 2007.

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We set up each of our cell phones to sync with our laptop, but we still had two separate address books. However, after playing around a bit with the .mac synchronization, I was able to set up our address books on the computer to sync with each other.  This has been a much bigger benefit than I had imagined because now we are both looking at the same version of the address book.

As our mutual friends change numbers or addresses, the first one of us to find out updates it everyone with a simple change on the computer or phone.

This is a very simple thing, but it makes a big difference–at least for us.  Not everyone is going to want to use a .mac account, but the idea of having a shared synchronized address book for you and your spouse is worth looking into.  If you have other suggestions about how to technically do this (especially for Windows users) please leave a comment below.

Originally published April 24, 2007.

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Most people put too little emphasis on their surroundings. I’m not saying that you have to spend all your time trying to create the perfect office, but you shouldn’t ignore the things around you. Your productivity can be greatly influenced by your outlook, and your outlook can be greatly influenced by your surroundings.

For years, I never had a picture of my wife on my desk at work. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my wife, but it just seemed like an extra piece of stuff on my desk. Eventually, I ended up with a framed photo of her and decided to take it to work and put it on my desk. I noticed that I was much happier after I put her photo there. Seeing her smiling face made me feel good, and it helped me get more done.

I have also found it helpful to keep framed awards and diplomas on my walls around my work area. It may seem silly, but when I’m stumped on a particularly difficult problem, I tend to lean back, notice one of the awards or diplomas and think “This problem is nothing compared to what it took to earn that!” It is a simple thought, but it helps me keep things in perspective and stay optimistic.

A messy office breeds a messy office. Having a clean office encourages you to keep your office organized. I have heard that the best chefs in the world keep their kitchens clean as they go. When they are finished cooking, they don’t have a huge pile of dirty mixing pans and measuring cups because they clean them as they go. You can take care of your work area in the same way. It is easier to spend a few extra seconds staying organized (when everything is already in order) than it is to invest 5 hours in organizing everything in a messy office.

Originally published February 5, 2008.

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A couple great sources for safety information on foreign countries are the CIA World Factbook and the US Travel Advisory site.

1. Take Copies - Having a copy of your drivers license and the first page of your passport are very handy in getting your visa or vehicle permits.  They also serve as backup if your wallet and passport are stolen.
2. Understand the Law – Make sure you understand the laws at your destination.  There have been many cases of U.S. citizens thrown into Mexican prisons because they had a firearm in their vehicle–something quite common in the U.S., but a very big legal violation if it is found by the Mexican border officials.
3. Know the Altitude - When planning your trip, be sure to take the altitude into consideration.  If you are going from a place that is 800 feet above sea level to a place that is 8,000 feet above sea level, you’ll need to give your body some time to adjust to the thinner air.
4. Get an International Drivers License – This is something you can get from AAA even if you aren’t a member.  It costs about $10 for the license plus the cost of your photo.  Basically, an international license just says you are a licensed driver in the U.S. and it does so in about 15 different languages.  In many places, your U.S. license is valid by itself, but some countries will keep your license if you have a driving violation.  Sometimes this is used as a threat to extract a bribe.  If you give your international drivers license out and someone decides to keep it, you’ll still have your regular state-issued license.
5. Power Adapters - Make sure you know what it takes to use any electronics or laptops at your destination.
6. Cell Phone Rates – If you are taking your cell phone, make sure you understand ahead of time how you will be charged for international usage. You also may need to have your carrier turn on international access in order for the phone to work.  In many countries, you can get a local SIM card that will work in your phone for placing local calls at a much less expensive rate.
7. Emergency Numbers - You should make sure that you have numbers for the U.S. consulate or embassy at your destination.  Also make sure your friends and family know when they should expect to hear from you and give them the emergency numbers just in case you disappear.
8. Credit Cards – Make sure you call your credit card company and let them know you plan to be out of the country.  Otherwise, they may shut down your card, thinking it has been stolen.  Also, be aware that some stores process cards differently, so it is possible that your card might be rejected.  Make sure you have other means of payment available.
9. Addresses – Make sure you have your destination address written down in the local language.  This can make it much easier to communicate with a taxi driver who speaks another language.

Originally published December 14, 2006.

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The My Documents folder is there for a reason. If you don’t have a My Document’s folder, create one. The idea is to keep all of your documents in this folder. This makes it easy to backup your computer and easy to find stuff instead of looking all over your hard drive.

You can take this idea step further and create folders for the types of items you produce on your computer. Here is an example of how OS X sets up your home directory by default:

One of the big benefits of this type of setup is that you can go to one place to start looking for anything you’ve previously saved. It also gives you a single place where you can tell your backup software to start to archive everything. I’ve seen people keep files all over their hard drive. When they need to switch to another computer, it is a nightmare. With files all over their computer it is very difficult to be confident that everything got moved over because you are bound to overlook some obscure folder that contains some of their important data.

2. No Top Level Files

A lot of people just throw their documents directly into the My Documents folder. You organization will improve if you promise not to allow yourself to put documents directly in this folder. Create subfolders and put the documents in there. The advantage to this method is that you create a way to associate similar documents–by putting them in the same folder.

If you have a file that is truly a one-off document and you will never have another similar document, you will still benefit by creating and putting it in a “miscellaneous” folder.

An important way to think about folder creation is to stop asking “where do I save this” and ask “where will I look for this when I need it”. You’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to organize when you start out planning for retrieval instead of focusing just on the storage part.

3. Create a Downloads Folder

Part of using the Internet is downloading files. Many people have their computer set up to store downloaded files on their desktop. If you are extremely disciplined about keeping your desktop clean, this might not be a bad setup. However, if you keep any files on your desktop, the downloaded files can quickly clutter things and make it hard to find what you are looking for.

By creating a folder specifically for downloaded files, you can keep all of these types of documents together. If something is important and needs to be saved, you can move it to a different folder. If your “downloads” folder only contains downloads, then it is much easier to clean out. You can just scan through it to make sure there isn’t anything important and delete the contents every few weeks.

To make this work effectively, you’ll need to make sure your web browser is set to automatically put downloaded files in your new folder. Here is the place to change the setting in Firefox’s preferences. Other browsers have similar settings, as well.

4. Version Control

Version control lets you keep multiple versions of the same document. Instead of keeping a bunch of different versions of the same thing, you keep one version, but you have access to the document’s history to go back to prior versions.

There are several ways to implement this. On OS X, TimeMachine gives you this type of capability. There are several version control systems that will give you this capability as well. Subversion is probably one of the more popular systems for this. Subversion comes already installed on OS X. It can function in a variety of different settings, from a simple local repository to a repository with multiple users on an external server. Both Windows (TortoiseSVN) and OS X (SCPlugin)have some nice add-ons that let you use the version control directly from the graphical file system browser. This lets you use a menu system instead of learning a command line interface.

If you set it up correctly, Subversion can give you version control and backup capabilities. For most users, TimeMachine is quite a bit easier to set up, but it doesn’t give you the full capabilities of version control.

5. Aliases, Short Cuts and Links

Sometimes you need a file to exist in more than one place. For example, you might have your contract stored under each client’s folder and want to have another folder somewhere that contains all of your active contracts all in one place. Normally you wouldn’t want to just make a copy of the documents. Not only would the copy take up additional space, but if you made any changes, you’d have two different versions of the same document.

By creating a short cut, you can make a pointer to the original document. These types of links are also sometimes called aliases. To make a short cut on Windows, right click and copy the file, then right click and select “paste shortcut” in the directory where you want to put the short cut.

In OS X, option click and select “Make Alias”. It will create an alias in the current folder and you can then move it to where ever you want.

Note: Since OS X is based on a Unix style operating system you can also create links using the command line. I’m not going to get into the details here, but links will allow you to basically put the file in two directories at the same time while still only storing it once on the hard drive. From the graphical OS you’ll have a very difficult time telling which one is the original and which is the link. One of the advantages of this is you’ll get a thumbnail preview–something that is missing with the alias function performed with the gui.

Originally published February 26, 2008.

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