Greetings!
We hope that you are well! We are very excited, we have a new logo that we are rolling out, and you, our faithful newsletter subscribers are among the first to see it:
I am thrilled to be the prize for the 2nd year running for the Marbig Australia's Messiest Office competition...click on the pretty box at the bottom...you've got til the end of July to enter...hurry!
We are also moving our offices by the end of the month...lots to get done...packing, logistics, utilities, internet, unpacking, set up. But we know some very good Professional Organisers that can handle it. ;-) Let us know if you have any questions about moving your office.
We keep adding new before and after photos up on Facebook, click on the icon on the right to join us and have a look at the photo albums.
Happy Organising!
Warm regards,
Karen Koedding
A Little Elf
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A Fresh Start: Tackling Your Mail
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Still feeling stress from all of that paperwork and those emails? Small steps will help you reduce some of that overwhelm. July is the month to sort out that snail mail and email. I've had a few wonderful clients that have gotten into a state as a result of not dealing with their mail. A networking contact confided in me that he had 10,000 emails in his email box...how's that for overwhelm? Let's get you sorted.
Ok, the snail mail...
First step is to open all of your mail, everyday, preferably next to the
shredder and the recycle bin. If you can't do it everyday, don't let it
slide beyond a week. Recycle the envelopes right away. Unfold (and don't refold) the mail. Make immediate decisions about the paperwork. Are you really going to do something with it or read it? Most people file things they never need again. Most people don't read the things that they intend to read. Take the mail
that you are keeping and separate it into personal and home office
piles. Then sort it into Action items versus Filing items. Deal with whatever Action items you can right now.
Make one of your Action items (or delegated items) to get you off of mailing lists, and to do whatever you need to eliminate the junk mail.
All of my clients confess that they have a hard time tackling their Action items. So set up a system for getting the Filing done, and completing your Action items. Schedule a time in your diary/datebook, and commit to the appointment you've made with yourself. I've said it before, create a boss in your head that you have to answer to. Your boss won't be happy if you lose things, your office is cluttered, and your tasks are not complete. Make your inner boss happy.
Aren't you sick of sorting through junk mail and bills all of the time? Do not let paper stress you out anymore. Set up an organised system for your mail and you will not have to worry about it for the rest of the year! Create major categories for your filing system and then set sub-folder categories within them. You can consider colour-coding folders but the main point is to take the time to plan your filing system according to how you think and the way you work. Maintain the filing system!
Ok, now the email....
Just like snail mail seems endless and overwhelming, so can emails. Are you receiving tons of emails a day and only about a small portion are important? Have you ever skipped checking your email for a few days and then logged on to an inbox of 300 messages? Yikes!
Schedule a time during the day to manage your emails, do not respond to them all day long and jump to read them...it's highly unproductive. Do not be a slave to them on your phone either. Shut the notifier off (the beeps or vibrate) for when you have a new email, and only check it when you have time. Don't be Pavlov's dog.
Take the time to set up an organised system for your emails, it will save you a lot of time in the future. Emails are the same as snail mail. They need to be dealt with on a regular basis. Read and categorise your e-mails everyday. Set up sub-folders (suggestions):
To Do/Action
Delegated
Clients/Customers/Projects
Personal
Committees and Boards
Resources
Create subfolders for these major categories as needed, for instance, client subfolders or project subfolders. Then create rules so that they are filed automatically. Make part of the rule that if you reply to something, it files it in the same place as the original email.
With the emails you read on your phone, set it up so that it deletes them after 2 weeks, and if you delete it on your phone, it deletes it on your mail server. This way if you're on public transportation and checking your emails you can be cleaning up your computer inbox via your phone.
Make immediate decisions just like your snail mail, delete the junk emails and spam the first time you look at them. And if you're like my networking buddy, create a new folder called Old Emails as of <date>, and move all of your inbox emails into there, and start fresh with your new systems going forward instead of trying to manage a system and recategorising 10,000 emails.
Stay on top of your snail and emails and you will be able to breathe easier. Take the time to set up systems to deal with it. Strive for white space in your inbox. :-)
Good luck! Here's to more efficiency, less stress, and more success!
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| About A Little Elf |  | |
It is a well known fact that disorganisation creates stress. And you
carry
this stress around with you everywhere you go. We will help you to get
organized, giving you more time and energy to do the things that are
important
to you and a new found freedom from chaos and stress.
A Little
Elf provides
organising solutions, ideas, information, and teaches you new skills to
keep up the systems we put in place. We will help you create an
organised space
that will increase your productivity and allow you to take control of
your
belongings, clutter, paperwork - or whatever it may be that is stopping
you
from living a full and productive life, as opposed to these things
controlling
you.
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