Greenville, SC Organizing Blog

3 Tricks to Increase Productivity at Work

3/8/2017

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Whether you work from home, operate on the go, or sit a traditional office setting, staying productive is easier said than done. We get by on auto-pilot while our minds wander. Our level of output may rise when a new or exciting project crosses the desk, but for the most part, we’re stuck at status quo. We don’t want to be….but most days, we are.

Like any relationship, our workspaces need us to care for them to keep the magic alive. Here are 3 tips you can use to increase your productivity at work.

Operate Within a Schedule

“But that sounds so boring.” I know. It can be. But in this case, it won’t be because we’re going to be intentional about it. Grab a pad of paper and your favorite colored pen. I want you to write down all the things that you ALWAYS (on auto-pilot) do during the week. Some of these activities will be repeated multiple times a day, but you only need to write them down once. At this point, I just want you to see where you’re spending your time. (If you make 5 stops at the water cooler in a day, you should probably write those down too.)

Now here’s the fun part – the part where we mix things up a bit. In order to increase your productivity (the speed at which you produce profitable output), I want you to pencil in those tasks using this handy time-blocking schedule. (Yes, I said pencil….because you might want to erase things. If you’re a devoted pen user, then you might want to just print another copy OR open an Excel spreadsheet.)

When we schedule our mundane tasks, we create healthy limits and a bit of a game. You’ll need to finish the tasks written into each slot ON TIME in order to maintain your efficiency. When you finish early, your brain responds with a chemical boost. Don’t believe me? Here’s a synopsis of a few studies that looked into the “gaming effect” on the human brain. Now, the opposite effect occurs when we “lose,” so part of this exercise is to adjust your schedule each week based on how much time it actually takes you to complete your tasks.

Creating a schedule will minimize time wasters. It helps you to pay more attention to the tasks at hand, and removes some of that auto-pilot effect.

Set Goals

We can all tout the benefits of setting goals, but how many times do we actually SET goals for ourselves in the workplace? If you’re an entrepreneur, goal setting is your life. You start with the biggest end goal you can fathom and work backwards, breaking each goal down into bite-sized chunks. The same is true for the receptionist of a small company. Start with the end goal (which may be a team effort between all parties in the company), identify what parts pertain to you, and then work backwards. Break the goals into such small pieces that you can work on them for just 10 minutes a day to continue toward your goal.

A recent goal I had for myself was to write an e-book. Sounds a lot easier than done….just like being productive! Writing the content wasn’t even a third of the work it took to get the e-book live. I would have known that, and been better able to plan my evenings (working after the kids went to bed) IF I had taken the time to task analyze each part of the bigger goal on paper instead of just jumping into what I THOUGHT was the proper process. Don’t waste your time, invest it toward something great!

Rethink Your Workspace

Finally, take a look at the physical space around you. Do you even like your workspace? Research has proven that when we are unhappy with our workspace, we tend to work less. We avoid the space, find ways to waste time in the space (like trolling social media), and produce lower quality work. If you don’t like your space, identify why. Do you need better lighting? Buy a lamp. Do you hate your pens? Find ones that write like they cost a million bucks. And what about your desk? Reviews.com just published a recent study identifying the best standing desk. If sitting has got you in a rut, consider upgrading to a desk that adjusts in height. These desks allow your creativity, comfort, and design needs to be met all at once, increasing your productivity.

I’d love to hear from you! How are you becoming more productive at work? Share your stories and strategies in the comments below.

Clutter Coach Lauren Flinte is a professional organizer who transforms chaos into categories, leaning towers into stable storage solutions, and anxiety into peace by way of editing and organizing residential and commercial spaces. She can help you reclaim your joy today! www.UpstateClutterCoach.com #reclaimjoy #organizer #minimalist

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The Bare Minimums of Organizing

5/23/2016

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Getting the whole house organized would be GREAT, but sometimes that's just not gonna happen. So identify what HAS to be done in order to stay sane! www.upstatecluttercoach.com #bareminimum #organizer #declutternow

It’s difficult to know HOW to get your home organized when you don’t know WHAT to organize. Today we’re talking about bare minimums.

Sure, I want you to go full out and organize EVERYTHING, but let’s be realistic.

We know that an organized space can save us time and bring happiness. I’ve got the solution for the greatest impact on your time and sanity when your schedule is insane: bare minimum weekly organizing schedule.

Bare minimum organizing schedule for the week. You can swap these around or eliminate these if you're already an organizing ninja. Until then, use this schedule to help your home stay organized in the midst of busy! www.upstatecluttercoach.com #busylife #getorganized #entryway #shoes #tables

These are the areas you HAVE to tidy up AT LEAST once a week. You can move them around and work on the weekends if you like. I hate work on the weekends, so I cram in all my tidying and cleaning during the week.

Let’s break down each day.

Monday – Trash & Floors

If you miss the Monday activities, that’s not going to kill you because Monday will come around again in 7 days. However, you might have a LOT of trash stinking up your house if you neglect to take it out of the house and into the dumpster. Trash collection day is Tuesday for us, so on Mondays I round up all the trash and then roll the dumpster to the curb. I usually have to take out the kitchen trash more than once a week, but if I do it at least once a week, I’m in a much better position to keep the house uncluttered and so are you.

Floors are another biggie. Go around with a basket and collect all the things on the floors that don’t belong there: trash, dirty laundry, games, legos (you know why!), bags, and books to name a few. All of these items should ideally have homes that they can be returned to, but if you’re just trying to establish a bare minimum survival edit then putting the items in a basket and placing the basket in a central location is better than nothing. (Except for the trash, but you figured that one out, right? It gets returned to its rightful home in the wastebasket.) You can’t mop or vacuum your floors when there’s clutter all around, so set yourself up for the possibility of cleanliness by making your floors accessible and safe to walk on at least once a week.

Tuesday – Meal Plan & Bills

I hate meal planning. Really, you can read about it here. However, meal planning can save you time and money at the grocery store, eliminate the number of random trips you’re making to pick up ingredients you forgotten, and save you TONS of energy when it comes to actually preparing your meals. I use a 4-week list, but even if you can get a 7-day list set up, you’re in for earned time, energy, and sanity.

Bills and paperwork can add up even after just a few days. The best way to stay on top of bills and paperwork is to deal with it daily. But, remember, this isn’t the best-case-scenario. This is how to survive when life is crazy and pulling you in a thousand directions. Give yourself a break by collecting all your mail in a “mail basket” that you’ll only touch once a week. At the minimum, grab the bills and pay them. If you have time, toss the junk mail, file the necessary paperwork, and begin the next 7-day collection with an empty bin.

Wednesday – Entryway & Shoes

No matter how old your family is, the entryway can make or break your entrance and exit of a home. If you can’t find your keys, your wallet, or your volleyball uniform, panic ensues and all-out riffling occurs. Don’t get caught in that drama. Declutter your main entrance/exit once a week to ensure speedy and easy passage.

Shoes go hand-in-hand with entryways. This is typically where most shoes get dropped and left for dead. If you can drop them in a basket or bin, you’re already 1000x better off than the person who lets them flop around as trip hazards. If you’ve got kids, tripping is the least of your worries. The separated pair of cherished glitter shoes can generate a massive meltdown. Put shoes (with their mates) in a designated area. Only keep shoes worn 5x a week hanging out near an entryway (if you must). All other shoes need to go back to the closets they came from, or at least to the owner’s bedroom.

Thursday – Laundry & Dishes

Laundry is the bane of our existence. No one really LIKES to do laundry. Ok, maybe some people. But for the most part, laundry is a stinky task that requires lifting, shifting, and folding stretched out over 45 minute segments. It’s hard to manage your time and REMEMBER to come back to swap loads, unless you’re sitting on top of the machine like you did in college with your econ book and highlighter in hand. To top it off, once the cleaning part is finished, the folding part looks just too hard. It’s a mountain that we just don’t want to climb. I totally hear ya.
But you have to do it. At least once a week. Probably more like two to three times a week if you want it to be EASIER. The biggest problem with laundry today is that people have too much of it – clean AND dirty. When you have enough outfits to get you through two to four weeks between laundering, you have a problem. You’re making laundry impossible. Dealing with the dirty clothes, washing and drying them, and then folding and returning to closets or drawers is a MUST. You’ll save a hunk of time daily when you know exactly what clothes you own and where they are (ready to wear vs. in the hamper). Clothes that get stuck in the Bermuda Triangle of clean clothes piles are worthless. They require additional ironing and a treasure map just to locate.

Dishes are another beast. Can I be brutally honest? If you want to avoid bug infestations, you’ve got to do this more often than once a week. Food is a magnet for mice and roaches. Do you really want them hanging out where you cook? Probably not. Clean up all food items within 24 hours of getting them out if not sooner. If dishes must sit on the counters or in the sink for over 24 hours, make sure they’re rinsed off very well. But I should tell you, you aren’t really saving time by avoiding the soapy part. When you’re living alone, you may only run the dishwasher once or twice a week. I’ve been there. But don’t forget to empty the clean dishes once the load is finished.

Friday – Counters & Tabletops.

Counters and tabletops are also magnets for clutter: snacks, stacks of mail, kids’ school projects, shopping bags, sewing projects, you name it. Clutter sticks to flat surfaces like white on rice. This is your BIGGEST battle --- even more than floors. If you clear your counters and tabletops WEEKLY, your space will have a dramatic improvement! Stress levels are most easily affected by piles and editing these items weekly will combat your stress levels like none other. In all fairness, the task of making decisions about all the random stuff you might find on counters and tabletops will be the hardest. So here’s your bare minimum plan: start with just one counter or tabletop a week until you can get through all of them in your home. Then when you’ve become a counter, tabletop ninja, work to clear ALL of them once a week.

Do you have any bare minimums already in place? If you’ve mastered the clearing, do you have a bare minimum schedule for cleaning? Let us know in the comments below!

Lauren Flinte is a professional organizer who transforms chaos into categories, leaning towers into stable storage solutions, and anxiety into peace by way of editing and organizing residential and commercial spaces. She can help you reclaim your joy today! www.UpstateClutterCoach.com #reclaimjoy #organizer #minimalist

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Making Time To Get Things Done

5/17/2016

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Struggling to get everything done each day? This blog post has some easy strategies for conquering the clock! #webelieve #timemanagement #todo #time #work #entrepreneur #momlife #girlboss #upstatecluttercoach #reclaimjoy

Doesn’t it feel like time is slipping away? Like there just aren’t enough minutes in a day to clear your checklists and feel like you actually DID something?

Busy professionals and stay at home parents have this in common: there just isn’t enough time to get it ALL done.
In the beginning of a week, we’ve got high hopes. We’re making lists of ALL the things we WANT to get done and ALL the things we HAVE to get done. A part of us believes that these lists can be knocked out in the next seven days. Hashtag we believe! ;)

But then something happens. Life. It interrupts our checklists and douses our motivational fires. We quickly realize that “it just won’t happen this week” and that we’ll have to try to knock those tasks out “another day.”

I’m not going to argue with this reality.

However, I want us to consider something for just five minutes. Can you spare 5?

We don’t have to do EVERYTHING on those lists.
We don’t.

In fact, we just need to do the tasks that are due NOW. We must prioritize our lists and crop them down to manageable, achievable jobs.

So here’s your solution.

Grab your massive to-do list for this week and circle all the tasks that need to be done TODAY. Not tomorrow. Just today. These are the items you’re going to make time to complete.

But how do we MAKE TIME when it’s clearly ticking away even as you read this? It’s not as hard as we think.

Jot down how many minutes it will take to complete the jobs next to each circled task. Ignore the uncircled. You’re not focusing on those because they aren’t DUE TODAY. (Once you finish your tasks for today, you can rewrite your list ---- but take heed that rewriting isn’t just an excuse to avoid completing what’s actually ON your list.)

Now, look at your schedule for the day. Where can you plug in each of these tasks so that they will get finished TODAY?

Write in your to-do list tasks into your schedule. We MUST make time for these activities if we ever want to see them completed. Just having the tasks on a list doesn’t finish them. Planning for them does.

When we’re intentional about our to-do lists, things get done.

Tonight, at the end of your day, look back at your big to-do list. See those circled items that you wanted to finish TODAY? Cross off all the ones that actually got done.

How did you do?

I guarantee that you accomplished MORE because you consciously PLANNED to do more. Instead of hanging out at the water cooler and shooting the breeze, you took those five minutes to order the mosquito treatment on your yard. Instead of getting lost in a day dream in between activities, you swapped out the laundry and folded the first dried load. You started on dinner when you needed to instead of waiting until the last minute. Your child finished his homework without a battle because you were “100% there and aware” to help. You even got that blog post finished and updated all your social media for your business.

You accomplished MORE because you MADE TIME to do more. The minutes didn’t slip away today.

The minutes won’t slip away tomorrow either, if you just continue to prioritize and make time to accomplish what you must.

Need help getting control of your schedule? Check out our post on Time Blocking to get the most out of your daily routines.

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Help! My Life is Too Busy!

3/3/2016

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Learn how to schedule your time and implement time blocking so that you can get the MOST out of each minute! When we try to do too many things at once, we actually accomplish less. Get focused and gain time! #upstatecluttercoach #time #savetime #organize #schedule

Have you ever felt like you’re doing EVERYTHING around the house? Would you like your family to pitch in a bit? Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy a break during the week so you can recharge?

The good news is that you can! You can experience freedom and reclaim joy at home simply by restructuring your schedule. Let me show you how!

The business world has this down to a science. They understand that in order to fit everything necessary into a standard work week, they’ve got to have systems and schedules in place. They’ve delegated company tasks to those who enjoy and excel in specific areas. When we apply the business model of work to the home model, life can change dramatically!

I want to take the next few minutes to share the concept of time blocking as it applies to your home life. Much like the business world, you’ll become more efficient when you group similar tasks together and spend dedicated time addressing each task.

For years, we’ve were told that it’s the bees’ knees to multitask. And it might be, but not ALL the time. Although women, in particular, are fantastic multi-taskers, we’re even better single-taskers!

Let me give you an example: meal planning. In total honesty, I HATE meal planning. Cooking isn’t a task I’m particularly excited about. Although I enjoy a good tasting meal, the prep work behind it just doesn’t get me excited. But, meal planning is a crucial part of running a home. If you don’t have a plan, you don’t know what to buy at the grocery store. If you don’t know what to buy at the grocery store, you’re just shopping for things that taste good. And if you’re just shopping for things that taste good, your dinner will consist of pie, hummus, and tortilla chips. Not gonna cut it if there is more than one person living under the same roof.

When meal planning for the week, we must get 100% focused on the task in order to knock it out quickly and completely. If we can sustain our attention, we might even be able to plan an entire month using this free printable. High-fives all around!

If we multitasked meal planning, we'd be busy checking social media (which may have some good meal ideas on it….and the latest gossip….and the latest political argument…..), folding laundry, feeding the kids, and trying to remember where we put the elusive cup of coffee. The simple task of planning meals would take 4x longer than it needed to. Because, when we multitask, we stretch our minds thin. Sure, multitasking helps us GET THINGS DONE, but are we getting them done in the MOST efficient manner that uses the LEAST amount of energy in order to prevent overwhelm? Probably not.

So how do we start single-tasking?

One strategy is time blocking. The best way to understand why you’re exhausted is to visually observe what’s wearing you down --- on paper.

Step 1: Download this Time Map.

Step 2: Start by writing the first hour of the day when you TYPICALLY wake up. Time Maps are not exact. They are general reference points that help us better understand where our energies are going throughout a typical week. My map begins with 7am because that’s when I wake up.

Step 3: Write down the times every 30 minutes until the time you TYPICALLY go to bed (7:00am, 7:30am, 8:00am, etc). For me, bedtime looks like 12am. No, I’m not proud of that, it’s just life. Maybe one day bed time will look like 11pm on a regular basis. A girl can dream.

Step 4: Write in any long-standing and regular appointments or activities for each day. This includes your morning routine (Wake, Shower, etc), meals, school/work schedules, family time, and/or religious activities. (As a side note, if your “work” activities are occupying MOST of your week, you might consider time-blocking your individual work tasks to help you be more efficient in the workplace and spend less time in the office. This might look like only answering emails 4x a day or only working that specific proposal from 2-4pm.)

Step 5: In the spots you have left, pencil in the OTHER activities you need and would like to accomplish each week. These might include: laundry, meal planning, grocery shopping, carpool, dusting, mopping, taking out the trash, lawncare, hobbies, exercise, and plain old rest and relaxation. Be realistic about how much time each activity takes so that you can give it an appropriate amount of time on your map. Also, consider dividing up your cleaning tasks into specific days rather than cleaning specific areas. This will prevent you from trying to dust different rooms each day. Instead, just dust on Tuesdays and vacuum on Wednesdays. If you miss Tuesday dusting, at least you know Tuesday will come around again in 6 more days. Additionally, instead of getting out the Swiffer duster day after day, you’ll only be getting it out and putting it back ONCE a week.

Step 6: If your map is overflowing, you NEED to delegate. Delegating is hard for people. We like control. We like things done our way. But other people are just as capable as us. The end result might not be EXACTLY the same, but the differences are worth the ENERGY you were able to conserve by handing off that job to someone else. Case in point: cleaning baseboards. I’m not a stickler about this, but I like to make sure there isn’t a ton of dust left in clumps. My kids like to clean baseboards too. Their standard of “clean” is very different. But if I let them do it 3 out of 4 weeks a month, three magical things happen:

I save myself the energy.
They have a good old time with my Norwex cloths.
The baseboards get cleaned more often. I know I’m not alone in this. If I demand on doing the task all on my own, I might not actually get to it at all for several weeks on end because I’m busy. But if I let others help me, at least SOMETHING is getting done and some is better than none.

Let go of the pride, share the responsibility with others, and quit complaining about how much you have to do all by yourself. Sure there are things only you can do, but those are few and far between. LET GO and don’t look back. Simply enjoy the extra 15 minutes you found today because you released control of a task that really wasn’t life and death.

Some other tasks you can delegate are:

Laundry (collecting, sorting, loading, running, swapping, folding, returning)
Meals (meal planning, list prep, grocery shopping, putting groceries away, getting out ingredients, meal prep)
Vacation Planning (identifying available dates, scouting hotels/restaurants/activities, packing, driving/flying schedules)
Bill Paying (collecting the mail, sorting mail, identifying bills to pay, paying, filing/discarding)

If you've got preschool or school-age children in the house and are curious as to what tasks would be age-appropriate delegated activities, check out these lists by CleanMama.net. In order to hand off some of these chores to children, I recommend Norwex cleaning products that are safe for children.

As you delegate, be mindful of the systems in place. Your spouse, partner, roommate, or child may use a different system than you to accomplish the same task. That’s OK. If you want to curb overwhelm, you’re going to have to be teachable and gracious.

For more information on Time Blocking in the office, check out this short video and this blog post.