My notebook has these tabs, and here’s how I use them:

Tasks: Daily, Weekly & Monthly
I mapped out recurring tasks, and listed them on separate pages.  I review them everyday.

Marketing Plan
Pretty self-explanatory.  I read this pretty much every morning, just to remind me where I’m going and what I’ll focus on.

Creative Focus
I put items I want to read over that inspire me.  It varies, but contains things like magazine articles.  I read something most everyday.

I also created a tag, and used a great looking notebook.  It’s not only a pleasure to use, but it is helping me stay focused on the important things.

What would you put in your notebook?

A book is no good if it just collects dust.

Too many times, people get organizing books and have great intentions of getting through them.  It’s not that these books aren’t good books (many are brilliantly written!), but because if you’re trying to get organized, you’re probably overwhelmed already.  Then, you read a book that is incredibly detailed and you slow down and eventually may put the book down altogether.  A simple book that tailors organizing to your style is a great book to read, and Organizing For Your Brain Type is one of those books.

What I like best: This book breaks down organizing into 4 different brain types and two learning styles.  You take a quiz (and let’s face it, who doesn’t like taking those to learn something) and find out what your “brain type” is.   Then, you read the chapter on your brain type.  Yes, if you’re looking for a quick read, just read your “brain type” chapter.  How cool is that?

How you can make even more of this book: Once you’ve read your chapter, you can also figure out what your learning style is.  This, combined with your “brain type” is a great way of figuring out what systems and products will work best for you.  To go a step farther, figure out what the brain types of your partner, children or co-workers are.

So, if you’re up for an organizing book, check this one out.  Betcha it won’t become a dust collector.

Where to get it:

Organizing For Your Brain Type

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I look at organizing as a filter.

Organizing is more about deciding what’s important, and filtering out the rest.  It’s really that simple.   How do you organize stuff?  Where do you start?  Here’s one of the most important things I teach clients and audiences at my presentations:

Sort & Edit: aka, FILTER.

When organizing an office, you’ve got to do this first.  What goes and what stays?  Do you like it, do you use it or need it for legal (archival reasons)?  Once you decide and go through your office (some people call it purging, but, eww…) then you know what you have left.

Think of it like draining pasta: filter out the extra.

It takes a LOT of water to cook a small amount of pasta.  In the end, what you really want is the pasta not the hot water.  So, when you’re done cooking it, you dump the pasta in a colander and drain out the water.  What you have left is the pasta.  You filter out the extra and keep what you want (or need).

What sort of filtering do you need to do in your office?

If you work from home, you have the wonderful advantage of decorating and renovating your home office in anyway you please.  If that sounds daunting, there are some small things you can do to get started.  With just a few small changes, and on a budget you can swallow, your home office will call to you instead of repel you.

Put up some art.
Take a piece from another area in your home, search a flea market or treat yourself to a new piece.  Make it something that inspires you when you look at it.  Keep the positive vibes going with a great piece of art.

Remember your wins.
My website, The Home Office Organizer, recently won an award for “Best Web Presence“.  I was so excited and humbled.  The award meant so much to me (it was given to me by my peers), so I put it in my line of site sitting at my desk.  Now, when I’m sitting down working, I occasionally see it out of the corner of my eye.  It makes me smile.
Have you won an award, earned a degree, got a big fat check or received a great letter of thanks?  Hang it on the wall, make a shadow box or put it on a memo board.  Keep it in front of you!

Rearrange & Redesign.
Feeling cramped or like your office isn’t working out for you?  If you have a small budget for changing up your office, consider rearranging your furniture & redesigning the space with what you already own.  If you’re not sure where to start, the book, “Use What You Have Decorating” is a great resource.

Organize.
You knew I had to mention this, right?  Organizing your office so you can find most anything you need in about 5 minutes is the best way to make your office a place you love.  Cut your frustration by purging your paperwork and getting your office in order.  If you’re not sure where to start, begin with what is bothering you the most, like a cluttered desktop.

Hang some window treatments.
The home office is often an afterthought when it comes to decorating.  A simple thing like hanging window treatments can make a room feel more complete.  A soft, beautiful fabric can make all the difference.

What’s “The O Myth”? Well, it’s not what you might think… The O Myth is a weekly podcast where we debate and debunk life’s organizing myths. I’ll bet you’d be surprised at how many there are!

So, go on over and subscribe on iTunes or in an RSS reader here: www.theomyth.com.  Here’s one to start with:

The O Myth: Best Tools for the Job

Can you believe it?  I was interviewed by Rich Sloan of StartupNation’s podcast today!  Woot!  Check it out here:

7 Tips to Get Organized & Be More Effective in Business

TweetGrid
Setup a grid of automatically updated Twitter keyword search results. This isn’t used as a current contact management tool, but more for monitoring specific keywords or hashtags. I personally use this frequently when attending conferences.

TwitterSnooze
TwitterSnooze allows you to push the snooze button on specific people for a preset period of time. Know someone who will be live-tweeting a conference and you really don’t care? Snooze them and you won’t see their updates. A great tool for filtering out the incredible amounts of Twitter noise.

Friend or Follow
Check to see if people you are following are following you in return. Also use this tool to check to see which people are following you that you aren’t following. Included are a variety of sorting tools to better narrow down your lists to ensure you are following the people you want to be and aren’t suffering from any type of auto-follow mistake you may have made.

Mr. Tweet
Find new and interesting people to follow using Mr. Tweet. Recommend people you follow and receive automatic matches based on a variety of factors.

TweetDeck
The current leader for desktop applications to integrate with Twitter and Facebook. Upload images, shorten URL’s and conducting searches are some of the basic functions. Create groups so you can categorize the people you follow as well as using the additional filtering tools to find when those people talked about certain topics.

Seesmic Desktop
Seesmic Desktop is the upgrade to Twhirl. It is still in a beta (just subscribe to the email list to get the download info) and has many of the functions of TweetDeck including groups and searching to filter the noise. The only advantage I have found of Seesmic Desktop is the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts from within the one application.

Tweepler
Similar to FriendorFollow, but with the ability to make batch edits of your follower/following lists. Greater ability to search and sort as well to determine who should stay on your list.

MyCleenr
Find out who you are following and sort them based on the last time they updated. This is definitely more of a simple clean up tool than something that will dramatically help you filter the noise. I typically take a moment to see if something catastrophic happened in the persons life before unfollowing just because they haven’t updated in a while.

Tweepular
This is easily the “prettiest” of all of the contact management tools for Twitter. Sort by mutual following, followers only, following only and soon recent unfollowers. Batch follow/unfollow people, search by keywords and sort the individual categories by several different criteria.

If I were to narrow it down, I would strongly suggest Tweepular for fast and easy list management, TweetDeck for desktop interaction and sorting/filtering and TweetGrid for monitoring specific keywords quickly and easily.

As always, exercise extreme prejudice when sharing your username/password with these sites/services and if you feel you may have a security breach, change your password directly at Twitter.com.

Have you ever felt that way?  Chances are you have at some point.  What did you do about it?

It’s easy to let things get all crazy in your home office if you are working day and night on your business.  The paper piles up, business cards are hiding in every corner and the mail… oh, the mail.  So, how do you get the place cleaned up when it’s all so…. crazy?!

Take it a little at a time.

If you feel overwhelmed at the thought of taking on your entire office in one weekend, don’t.  Start with one corner, one pile or even today’s mail.  Can you sort through that one pile that catches your eye while you’re checking email?  Do that.  Can you sort through the mail and designate one place to put bills and one place for items to read & review at a later time?  Sure you can!  Then, tomorrow, work on something else.

Take it 15 minutes at a time if that’s all you can handle.

If you did that every work day for a month, you’re talking at least 5 hours of accumulated time.  How would THAT feel?  Can you imagine how great your home office would be then?

What can you do in your office for 15 minutes today?

There’s lot of storage products out there, including a big ol’ batch of ugly ones.  However, storage & organizing tools don’t have to be generic or unattractive.  You may already have some great stuff laying around your home office right now.

Think outside the literal box.

I like to use unorthodox organizing tools.  My favorite place to find organizing tools is the kitchen section of the home improvement center and the hardware store.  Bread baskets make great office supply storage containers, and storage baskets double as paper recycling bins.  Lazy susans make the most of small spaces, and galvanized bins & small pots corral pens and other supplies.

Come on, take a chance.  What can you find that looks great and helps you stay organized?

Extra!  Extra! (WHY Magazine)
Tips from the newspaper biz on tackling your daily to-do list

“Knock Knock… Who’s There?”
Megan at Disorder2Order Blog talks about this cool product.  I’d not even seen these!

Ten Gmail Labs Features You Should Enable
Oh I loves me some Google.  This is a great roundup if you use Gmail.

The Daily Docket’s Little Sister
Simple Mom’s got it goin’ on with getting stuff done.  She’s also got a great array of downloads!
(Pssst… did I mention she just may be on an upcoming episode of The O Myth?)

Drop.io: Better & More Secure File Sharing
Need to share stuff so a group of you can get things done?  Check out this review of Drop.io – seems like a great option for file sharing!

Have you ever spent time on your computer trying to find a file you’re looking for?  Did you ever find it?  Maybe it’s time to simplify a bit so you can find stuff.   If you’re not a librarian (and I know I’m not) it makes sense to match up filing + streamline as much as possible.  Here’s a few tips to get you started:

What works best for you?
Do you like filing by numbers?  Names?  Categories?  Look at your current filing cabinet or computer file structure.  Is there one that works better?  Think of migrating the not-so-great one.

Don’t overdo it.
Hey, I get it.  I hate filing too.  So, make it as easy as possible.  Products like this (pictured below) make it a no brainer if you don’t want your head to hurt, or don’t have the resources to hire a Professional Organizer.

A little matching can help.
Remember the last time when you were looking for a file, and couldn’t find it.  Yeah, the one on the computer.  Try matching up your paper and computer files.  Then, when you are trying to remember where to file it, you’ll know right where it goes.  Then, you can find it in under 5 minutes. 

Bonus Tip:  Use a “Projects” file on your computer.
This is a trick I started using recently.  I have a “@Projects” file (nod to Mr. GTD) in the “My Documents” file directory.  Guess what?  I have one on my desktop too.   While I’m working on a project, it goes in here, and then when it’s done, it gets filed away (read: moved to it’s permanent home).  It’s made my life soooo much easier!  Try it out, and see what you think.

How can you simplify your computer & paper files so you can actually find things?

Oh, yeah, I know where that’s at.

I’ve got a new person in my life: an accountant.  Oh yeah, she rules!  On our first meeting, she commented that I was pretty organized.  When she asked me for something, I knew right where it was.  Remember the mantra, “Organized = finding what you need in 5 minutes or less”.  She helped me get things squared around, including a pretty strong recommendation that I move everything to Quickbooks.  (Which I am doing in short order!)

It’s tax time, do you know where your stuff is?

When it’s time to do taxes, do you have a little black storm cloud over your head?  Do you have piles of paper, receipts and unfinished bookkeeping around?  Does your family avoid eye-contact for three months leading up to April 15?  It doesn’t have to be that way!

I’m not an accountant.

You might be, but honey, I’m NOT.  But, I do have two things I use throughout the year that make filing taxes a little less painful.  You can do it too.  Here’s what you need:

Accounting system:  It doesn’t have to be a software, because even a paper ledger bookkeeping book works too.  Whatever you use, stay on top of it, preferrable monthly.  Stay on top of it, and tax time will be just gathering information from….

A place to put the accumulation of important papers. Two words: two folders.  Have two folders for gathering the tax papers throughout the year: “Current Year” and one for “Past Years”.  What to do with them?

In my “Past Years” folder I have an envelope with contains any backup paperwork, tax forms and the like filed away in there, marked with the year.  Why? Because it seems I need to refer to at least last year’s information at least once during the filing process.

The “Current Year” folder is a receptacle for receipts, donations, 1099s and other statements needed to get the tax filing done.  Don’t worry so much about having them perfect: just get them in there.  You’re going to thank me a year from now.  Really.

What’s your Tax Time trick?

How do you keep track of your passwords?  Do you have an index card?  Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, unless you’re like me, and you are so glad your head is attached because, well… you know.  SplashID is a fabulous little program that keeps all your passwords handy.  I recommend this product every chance I get!  One thing I love about this program is its password protection.  It will shut down if there are a number of incorrect attempts to login.  Also, SplashID is portable (and password protected) on your PDA, like a Blackberry or iPhone.  Here’s some things you can keep track of with SplashID:

• Passwords for multiple websites, like shopping or membership sites
• Frequent Flyer numbers (um, why yes I DO have my number handy!)
• Identification numbers
• Calling Card numbers
• Membership numbers

The possibilities are endless with SplashID!  What could you use it for?

*Disclosure:  I am a user of this product, purchased by me.  I was not compensated or paid to write this review.

If you’ve resolved to get organized this year, Storables.com is a great place to start.  Until Jan. 19th, they are offering $5 flat fee shipping!

Check it out here:

Here’s to your success in the coming years!

Standing Desks: They are all the rage, whether you have a stationary desk or a treadmill desk.  Of course, a standing desk isn’t required for a home office (p.s. I don’t have one), but they are a great alternative you’re so inclined!

Simple Paper Management: Life’s hard enough, managing your paper shouldn’t be.  Keep it simple.

Fend Off Productivity Killers:  There will be times when you’re not feeling so productive in your home office.  Here’s a few ways to fend off those pesky productivity killers.  (P.S.  This post made the front page of Yahoo.com!)

Keeping Track of Receipts: Again I say, keep it simple.  Receipts can be kept under control, and not losing your mind is a plus.  (Also, be sure to read my review of the Neat Receipts Scanner.  It’s how I keep track of my receipts!  Also, I have been told that the IRS will accept scanned copies of receipts, but be sure to check with your accountant or tax preparer.)

Tasks & Getting Them Done: How to keep track of them?  Here’s a tip for the “dailies” that need to get done.

Keeping Your Sanity:  We’ve been there, nausea & stress sets in.  How do you keep from getting completely overwhelmed?  This post also contains a tip from a high profile “reporter helper”.

One Size Fits All.  Yeah, right. There’s so many things out there that promise the world in getting your stuff done.  Like a good fitting pair of jeans, you want it to fit your curves and not induce mid-section constricting nausea.  Before jumping into any new system, think about how you work, and check out the links in this post.

Just starting out in your home office or business this year?  Have a question?  Leave it here.

Have an experience or resource that saved your bacon in the beginning?  Share that with us too!

Just did a great interview with Peter Walsh on my podcast/radio show, The O Myth.  If you missed it, no worries because you can still listen to it…

Quote of the show: “The things you have in your home should be beautiful and useful.  What you have in your home should be honored and respected.”

Wanna take a listen?  Here ya go:

Peter Walsh on The O Myth

** You can also see the follow-up notes and enter our contest to win one of Peter’s books HERE.

The Butler Bag Hybrid

Ok ladies (and guys looking for a great gift) !  Ok, normally we talk about paper, time management and all that great stuff here on the Home Office Organizer Blog.  But, today I’m talking about this most fabulous bag.  Why?  Because a girl needs a good bag to keep it all together when she’s on the run, and and organized one that looks this great doesn’t hurt either!

Have you seen the Butler Bag? Ok, not only is it easy on the eyes, but here is what makes it really special.  Take a look inside:

Butler Bag (Inside)

How gorgeous is that?  See all those little compartments?  Yeah, that keeps your stuff in place.  So, when you (or your loved one) leave your home office to go see a client, you know just where your keys, cell phone and wallet are.  No more digging.

How smart is this: Cool part of this story…  The creator, Jen Groover, got this idea by looking at her dishwasher’s silverware basket.  Uh, brilliant!

Wanna be able to find your stuff?  Check out the Butler Bag and a variety of other cool accessories and products here.  Tell them I sent ya. 

—–

*Disclosure:  I do not own a Butler Bag.  I was not compensated or paid to write this review.

Here’s how I did this week:

• Package that is WAY overdue to ship.  Almost done.  It’s ready to go to the post office. 
• “Action” folder that’s out of control. Almost done.  Sorting going on, cut out a LOT of stuff.  Now for the data entry.
• Sort thru conference materials and paper. Done.
• Business cards to enter into contact management. Done.
• Stuff that doesn’t belong in my office. Done.
• Those little desktop stragglers. Done.

Want to have your own 7 Day Challenge? It’s not too late!  Post your link below and let us know how it goes.  You can do it!

Since I promised one of the participants pics, here they are.

7 Day Home Office Challenge: "Before

7 Day Home Office Challenge: "After"

by tallchris on Flickr

Ok, I have a pile of receipts in my wallet right now.  It’s not that I don’t have a place for them, because ohhhh I do.  It’s just that it’s time they vacate their home in my handbag and go to where they need to be.

So, how can you handle receipts?  Here’s some ways to manage receipts other than dumping them in the “circular file” or shoving them in your jean pocket (you know who you are).

Know your receipt categories, and treat them accordingly.

There’s really two categories of receipts: Action & Archive:

Action = data entry or review.  These you need to deal with in some way, like entering them in QuickBooks, a good old fashioned spreadsheet or folder for passing onto your friendly neighborhood CPA or accountant.  Put them in a folder marked “Action” and set aside a day of the week to take care of them. (Neat Receipts is also a great way to deal with this category quickly and easily).

Archive = needed for reference (80/20 rule applies here).  You may need them for tax purposes (by the way, scanned images are ok too) or for a client project expense tracking, etc.  Use the simplest form of archiving possible, and one you feel comfortable with.  Remember, you’ve only got a 20% chance of looking at these again (see “Action” above), so keep it simple.  Any of the following will work:  accordion file by month or category (i.e. utilities or business expenses), a file drawer or a file box marked “Archive” (receipts are tossed in after data entry).

Receipts can easily get out of control if you are a busy mobile or home office professional.  So, here’s a bonus tip: have an envelope in your handbag or briefcase to corral them.  Once you get home (or your envelope is full), take them out and separate into one of the categories above.  Simple and easy to do.  Isn’t that how it should be? 

Now, I’ve got some receipts to go deal with …

Hello Readers!  Well, it’s back to school time, and I thought it fitting to kick off the school year with a reader survey.  I would love to hear about what you would like to learn about here at the Sparkplugging Home Office Organizer Blog.

Why should you participate? One participant will win my 101 Home Office Tips eBooklet!  It will be yours free, and if you take 1-2 tips a week, you might have a whole new home office by this time next year!

Why am I doing a survey? Because you all rock, and I’d like to know what I can do to help you out in your home office.  I know what a change it can make in your life (it sure changed mine).  You’ve got a story to tell, a product or service that could change the world and the passion to make it happen!  So, how can I help YOU in your home office?   What kind of content would you like to see?  Take the survey, cause I really wanna know!

Where’s the survey? Right HERE, baby.  So go check out, tell me what you think and let’s make this your best year yet!

Take the survey HERE.