14 April 2008

It doesn't have to be perfect!

Hey I'm the Imperfect Organiser - but deep down inside is a mad control freak perfectionist screaming "don't do it unless you can do it perfectly!"


But you know what?  That MCFP is WRONG!  If you have one of these, ignore it.  It's far better to do something, anything, towards a goal than to sit on your hands thinking "but what if I do it wrong?"

What made me think of this topic?  Well you might notice I haven't posted for (gulp!) two weeks.  Ooops.  I thought about it... I was busy... I couldn't think of a topic quickly... you know how it goes.  So I procrastinated.  Then it occurred to me - hey this IS a topic!

01 April 2008

Deal with your mail... NOW!

How many people let their mail pile up and up and then can't face the task of tackling it?


Don't do it!  It's easy to deal with your mail every day.

Firstly, open each item and sort into piles that mean something to you.  Say, items for recycling, items for rubbish, bills to be paid/items for action that has a deadline, items for action with no deadline, information, magazines/catalogues.

Now go and put the recycling and rubbish piles in the places they belong immediately!

Put your bills to be paid/items for action that has a deadline items into whatever system you use to track these (if you don't have one stand by for a future post on this subject).

Put items for action with no deadline into your system too - I keep them separate so I make sure that items with a deadline get first priority.

Look at the information items.  Do you really need to keep these?  Is the information available elsewhere, maybe online?  I strongly urge you to read these, absorb the information, then recycle the items.

Put the magazines/catalogues in a place convenient to where you will read them.  Now this is the important part - TOSS OUT all the previous copies of the same magazine/catalogue that you haven't read.  If you haven't read it by the time the next edition comes out you obviously aren't all that interested in the magazine/catalogue and you should probably consider cancelling your subscription!

There you go - your mail is all sorted and it took under ten minutes!  Way to go!