Posts tagged Paperwork
Why Clutter Makes Us Unhappy
Aug 9th
You walk into your office to begin your workday only to be greeted by piles of paperwork cluttering your desk. The stacks of paper serve only as reminder of how much you need to get done. You are ready to go home relax, leaving the worries of the day behind you. As you enter into your home, there it is haunting you like the plague. Clutter…toys all over the living room, dishes piled up on the counter, mail piled up on your desk. You know it’s time to clear clutter but you keep putting it off. The are several damaging affects of clutter on your health, your life and your psyche.
The accumulation of clutter leads to high stress levels and anxiety. The time spent searching for specific items such as your keys before you leave the house before an appointment or a vital document you need creates large amounts of anxiety. Time wasted gets in the way of getting the important tasks handled. At the end of the day you are left feeling frustrated.
Clutter drains your energy. The unnecessary items contributing to the disarray and disorder in your home call for your attention. Just thinking about it wears you down. The unessential items require attention, maintenance and repair this takes up your time energy and most importantly your focus.
How do you know what to get rid of? The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule can be applied to virtually every aspect of your life. Twenty percent of what we own, we use on a regular consistent basis. Now this doesn’t mean clearing the other 80 percent. It’s best to start small by tossing out the items you haven’t used in years, then work your way down to the objects you only use once a quarter.
Begin clearing out the clutter in your home with an evaluation of your life. These areas include your home, work, and responsibilities. Assess the difficulty of each area of your life. Start to clear the clutter with the easiest area first. This allows you to build momentum. Before you know it your life will be clear of clutter!!! Start being a happier healthier you today.
The Best Home Filing System
Aug 7th
Consider this scenario: You need an important file from your table immediately. You know you have dumped it somewhere, but just when you need it most, you just cannot remember exactly where. Time is running out and you are shuffling through hundreds of folders with hundreds of files. Your table looks like an avalanche has swept over it, making the search more difficult. Can you relate to the frustration? How long exactly does it take you to sift through your files to retrieve an important document?
Review your home filing system. How do you go about filing your bills, mails, receipts, and other documents? Do you know what papers to shred and toss to the garbage bin and what to keep? A cluttered desk requires you to spend more time, effort and energy sifting through the clutter every time you look for something, but having a simple and organized home filing system can save you from all the trouble.
The best home filing system is a system that meets your needs and grows to adjust to changing needs. It should allocate a place for everything such as mails, bank statements, bills, receipts, advertising fliers, etc. A home filing system should put an end to the seemingly endless struggle to find papers. Find a space in your home — like a filing cabinet or a drawer — to organize paperwork in your home filing system.
Use folders in your home filing system. This will allow you to categorize your papers. You can put all business and financial related documents such as bank statements, receipts, tax returns, etc., in a folder. Other categories should be placed in other folders. For example, personal documents like birth certificates and medical information, should get their own category and folder.
You can also put a document in the top folder that guides you to where you placed your files. This would help you to save time going over a whole folder full of documents. Remember to keep your home filing system simple. Use categories that are broad enough so that you’re not using one document per folder – otherwise you may end up sorting through hundreds of folders instead of hundreds of documents.
Label everything. This is most helpful to spare you from groping your way through the chaos. You may remember what you put in the folders now, but tomorrow, you will forget. Once you get the hang of a home filing system, you can easily access files.
