Archive for the 'Organization' Category

I love Black Friday (The Friday after Thanksgiving). Every year I get up early and get in line at one of our local shopping centers. I pick the store with the best deals to start with. As soon as the doors open I’m in power shopping mode. I have my list and I strategically move through the store picking up sale items. Speed is of the essence as I need to get out of the store in less than 15 minutes or I’ll be entombed in line.

Once I have my purchases I head to the checkout. I have a variety of payment options including cash. In the past few years I’ve been able to get out of a Best Buy or Circuit City in under 15 minutes. Once I’m out of the store it’s off to a Staples or Office Depot in the same shopping center to finish my shopping. The second store may take a little longer, but the hot buys are usually still available.

After the rush, I usually head to the outlet mall or other less frequented center to finish off my shopping. Having strategic coupons here can save a ton of money. I usually have a 40% off of the entire store coupon for the Haggar outlet which lets me clothes shop for all of the guys on our list. The prices are so low it’s like being at a garage sale.

Usually in a couple of hours I have done about 80% of my Holiday shopping for most of my family and friends. The prices on Black Friday are the best they are all year. I usually save hundreds of dollars in this short spree and I can enjoy the rest of the season, knowing that most of my shopping is done.

Here are 15 quick tips that I use to maneuver this crazy but rewarding day.

1. A few days before Black Friday, I peruse the sale lists on the popular Black Friday web sites. I find a single store with the best overall list of items that fit on my shopping list.
2. I’ll visit that store on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to get the lay of the land. I usually ask a clerk or two where the items that I want to buy will be placed. I also try to find out the quantity they will have on hand.
3. I look at the shopping center and find a second store within walking distance. I’ll make a list of sale items and add them to my list.
4. The early bird gets the worm. If you want the deals you have to get up early. Depending on the items on my list and the quantity on hand it may be necessary to get in line at the store before 4am.
5. Here in Southern California it can be very chilly in the early morning. Layering clothes is a must. You need to be light and nimble to get through the store. I usually stay away from big jackets or other bulky clothes that will cause you to roast when you get inside. Layering sweat shirts or a light jacket usually works best.
6. Bring along an iPod or other music player to help you pass the time. I usually fire up an audio book and the time flies by.
7. Get the newspaper the day before (and get up early to make sure you get one) so you will have a list of the deals. Even though I make a list from the Black Friday sites, it’s nice to have the actual ad so you can refer to it in the store if you need assistance from a salesperson.
8. Carry a cell phone and coordinate with other family members to allow you to take bathroom breaks while in line. If you have kids, they can be very helpful once you get in the store to pickup those harder to find items.
9. Make conversation while in line. I’ve met some of the most interesting people while waiting. It also helps you pass the time. If you find a techie type you might learn something about the items you want to buy.
10. Once inside pick up items on your list as you come across them. Depending on the store, you will probably want to stay away from shopping carts unless you are after very large items. I usually try to find a hand basket for smaller items. If you are after a computer or TV which will require assistance, grab a cart and head directly for that department.
11. Many of the stores in our area will hand out vouchers for large items while people are in line outside. This can really save time and let you know up front if you will be able to get the sale item or not. This is one reason it is really important to get in line early. How much is your time worth? Is it worth getting up an extra hour early to save $200?
12. Most Important! Get out early. Don’t waste time trying to find that last CD or DVD for cousin George. Make sure you get in line within 5-10 minutes or you’ll be stuck in the store for hours. I made the mistake of trying to get one more item at a Fry’s computer store one year. In the extra five minutes it took, the checkout line filled up all the way to the back of the store. Never again!
13. Make sure you get rebate receipts and coupons. That great deal you just got will not save you anything unless you get the rebate!
14. Ultra Important! As soon as you get home, go directly to your office or table and fill out any rebates!!! If you don’t do them right then, you will certainly misplace the receipts and lose out on the savings. If you need to cut out a UPC code from the box, use a razor blade and make a clean cut.
15. Shop at stores that offer online rebates. You can do them in just a few minutes and you can track them online. Online rebates usually get back to you faster too.

If you have never ventured out on Black Friday, give it a try sometime. Using the tips above can help you make this a fun and exciting adventure. And your checkbook will get a break too!

P.S. Shop Responsibly. Only buy what’s on your list and realize it may be months before you see the rebate money. A credit card charge while waiting for a rebate will wipe out any savings you may have had.

Have Fun!

I love blogging. It opens the door to new ideas and provides an interactive channel to the world. People like yourself, stop by and read what I’ve written. Sometime you might leave a comment and the conversation becomes interactive. I want to say thank you for sticking with me for the past two and a half years. It has been a great adventure.

But where do we go from here?

My friends ask me all the time… how do you come up with new things to write about? How do you keep going?

The answer for me is an easy one… the more I blog… the more ideas that come along.

I love to create new things. It might be a post, a free download, or a new logo, or graphic.

As a creative person, my passion is in the idea stage. I love to put the pieces together, move them around until they look just right, and then put them out to the world.

Sometimes they bomb… they crash and burn.

But sometimes they bring a smile to someone else and once in a great while they sprout wings and fly.

Sometimes they plant a seed that doesn’t sprout for years.

Ideas are wonderful!

But I have a problem with ideas. I can’t control when they come. When I try to force them, things can become tedious and sometimes they can be downright frustrating.

When I say to myself… John, set aside every Monday to write about ___blank___, I almost always find myself frustrated.

All of a sudden I’ve gone from I want to to I have to.

This to me is the creative curse.

Yet in blogging or most other forms of writing, organization is key.

As a reader you expect a certain flow of ideas. You expect a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. You expect blog posts to be organized by category or topic. You expect to find what you came for… quickly and easily… or you click away in just a few seconds.

As I look to the new year, I have a lot of ideas for posts. I can easily organize them in my mind.

I might say I will blog three days a week in January about PowerPoint. In February I’ll blog about using Excel for organization… in March I’ll blog about flowcharts.

It’s so easy to organize them in my mind…. yet it’s so hard to keep up the posts day after day.

When I have to do something, especially something that is structured in a strict manner, my creativity wanes.

So what is the answer?

I’m not sure… but I have some ideas I want to try.

1. Build up blog posts and post them in the future. This will allow me to write posts as the ideas flow, but upload them in an organized manner that will make more sense to the reader.

2. Write two or more posts in the same day. Once the creative ideas are flowing… just keep going. This may require weekends or evenings, but may be the answer I’m looking for.

3. Work with a Mastermind group to get fresh ideas and get the creativity going. This might have great potential.

I would love to hear your ideas about creativity. How do you get your ideas? How do you stay motivated? What techniques work for you?

Here is to a creative 2008!

Technorati Tags: creativity, organization

Living in Southern California, the hellish Santa Ana winds usually come up in October and many times bring fire with them. This year the winds were unusually strong, with gusts up to 100 miles an hour in some of the canyons. The resulting fire storms caused widespread damage, especially in San Diego county where hundreds of homes were burned to the ground.

In the Temecula area, where I live, we had fires just a few miles away with thick billowing smoke filling the sky. In talking with many of the people that I work with, many had friends or relatives who lost their homes. The sad reality is many of these people had little or no warning that they had to evacuate. When the fire trucks came down the street they had only minutes to get family and pets together and load up any belongings.

I asked myself the question… what would I take if I only had five minutes to get out? I quickly realized that there are a lot of things to consider. There are the irreplaceable items such as photographs and memorabilia that would be important. I would want to take along legal, financial, and insurance documents that would be needed after the fire was over. Computers and electronic data would also be vital. The list quickly grew and I can just imagine how hard it must have been for so many people faced with this situation.

The TV news programs were showing people going through the ashes of their burned homes, looking for anything that remained. This brought up the importance of creating a home inventory that would be used along with the insurance adjuster to provide a list of items that would need to be replaced.

When I actually put all the pieces together, three things became very apparent…

1. The important documents, photos, and memorabilia should be easily accessible and stored in one place.
2. A home inventory should be performed and updated as new items are added.
3. All of these items would need to fit in a car or truck and be able to be grabbed in five minutes.

After considering all the ramifications I sat down at my computer and came up with some inventory and insurance  cards that would be helpful in an emergency situation. I put these cards together into a template for Microsoft word that you can download and print out on your computer.

The MS Word Business Card template contains…

1 & 2. Basic Inventory Cards

Use this card to record the important information about items you have around the house. Create cards for appliances, electronics, and furniture, along with cards for smaller items. Systematically go through your house or apartment one room at a time. Create a card for each item in the room, including the contents of desks, drawers, closets, etc. Describe each item as completely as possible, including color, size and quantity. When you’re finished with all the rooms in your house, don’t forget the garage, patio, outside buildings, etc.

Collect the cards and put them in a stack. You can use a mini clip or business card holder to keep them organized. To back these up, photocopy the cards 10 at a time onto regular paper and file these copies with your important papers.

We also have included a single line description card for small items where a full gamut of information is not available. You can quickly list the contents of drawers, closets, and work areas on the eight lines provided. These cards along with a digital photo of the items should give you a good starting point for a claim.

When you have to evacuate your house, you may need to leave basic information behind for a firefighter or other emergency worker. Here is a simple card that you can fill out ahead of time that you can quickly hand to a neighbor, family member or the fireman standing at your front door. This will give them multiple ways to contact you after the emergency is over.

Like the card above but with contact information for friends or relatives. These can be used for emergencies but they are also helpful to keep in pocket or purse when you have to provide emergency contact information at the doctor’s offices or at your children’s school.

 
We have provided three types of insurance information cards. There is one for Homeowners/Renters insurance, one for Car Insurance, and another for Life Insurance. These can be very important in an emergency since they have your policy number, your agents phone number and the company contact number and address. Having all three of these filled out and available will give you peace of mind. You can make multiple sets and keep these in your car and at work for quick reference.

This quick reference card has a place for your bank and financial account phone numbers and reference information. These cards can be invaluable after an emergency to get to be able to call up your bank or financial institution and report a loss. So many people have their account info memorized on their computer, that if their cpu was lost or damaged would have a hard time remembering each individual account. These cards can help.

If your computer crashes or is damaged in a fire and has to be replaced, do you have the software codes to re-install your operating system? How about your installed programs? This quick reference card has a place for the software name and the codes. You can make a copy of this card and keep it under your monitor for that day that your computer crashes and you can’t remember where you put the CD sleeve with the install code.

This handy card has a place for your utility company phone numbers. This quick reference document is useful to alert your utilities of a loss and also handy when you move. You can quickly cancel or forward service to your next residence. There is also an optional place for your account numbers for reference.

We have also included a full sheet MS Word template of the basic inventory cards along with a front &rear double sided inventory card template that you can print on both sides that has twice the space. Both of these are included in the Zip file.

Instructions for use:

• Download the Inventory Card Template for MS Word
• Open the template(s) and modify as necessary
• Print out on Avery Business Card Stock (10 Card)
• Break cards apart
• Fill out individual cards
• For portability, stack cards in order and clip together with mini clip
• Transport easily in pocket or purse
• Keep in a quick access location like a desk drawer or file cabinet
• Optional: Add info cards to your Walleteer organizer

Here are ten simple things that you can do today to improve your life and help you reach your goals. Pick one of them and take deliberate action to complete it today. You’ll find that action equals results.

1. Take A Different Route To Work: See something new, turn a different corner, and see a different neighborhood. They say that variety is the spice of life and taking a new route actually stimulates your brain. Researchers find that doing this routinely helps the mind stay active and actually helps it learn and remember better.
2. Walking: Turn your walk into an effective interval aerobic workout. When walking outside on the street, walk to the first light pole, then run or jog to the second. Again walk to the third and run to the fourth. Keep this interval up and you’ll keep your heart rate up with a minimal impact on your body. You’ll burn 30-40% more calories with this simple twist.
3. Reduce Caffeine: Next time you go to Starbucks or other coffee shop order a half-caff instead of a full strength coffee. After a few more trips order a third-caff and continue that for a few days. Finally wean yourself to straight decaff. This will allow you to get off caffeine without the usual headaches. Tuning your caffeine intake is a good thing to do every few months.
4. Reduce Carbs & Calories: One of the easiest ways to reduce both carbohydrates and calories at a meal is to eat your sandwich or burger open-faced. Just remove the top bun with all the high calorie mayo and throw it away (or take it home for your dog). Enjoy your burger open faced or bend the bottom bun in half and make a burger “taco” or “gyro.” You’ll reduce about 1/3 of your calories and actually have a tastier sandwich.
   
5. Get Up Earlier: Set your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier tonight and enjoy more productivity tomorrow. As the days go by, slowly set the alarm clock earlier and earlier in 5 minute increments. You’ll soon find you have an extra hour to get things done.
   
6. Set Goals Today: Download our free goal setting toolkit and write down some achievable short and long term goals Today. Don’t wait until tomorrow… tomorrow never comes (when it does come it’s actually called today). Keep these cards on your desk or in your car where you’ll see them on a daily basis. You’ll soon find that the act of writing them down is probably the hardest thing you’ll have to do to achieve them.
7. Drink More Water: When you get up tomorrow morning, start the day with a large glass of water. Have another large glass with each meal throughout the day. This will give you at least four glasses per day out of the recommended eight. Adding more water to your diet will help you naturally lose weight and you’ll feel better if you are properly hydrated.
8. Call A Friend: Download our deliberate actions card-set and print out a page on Avery business card stock. Break the cards apart and write down a few names on the individual cards. Make a deliberate goal to take action on one of them today. The easiest is the phone call or e-mail card. Pick someone you haven’t talked to in a while. You’ll be amazed how this simple action will make your day.
9. Play The Productivity Game: If you are trying to get things done around the house you might find it helpful to play the productivity game with a spouse or other family member. Put some money on the line and let them draw a card. In fifty minutes you’ll see some real progress. It’s a fast and fun way to get going on a lazy Saturday morning.
   
10. Weightlifting: If you do weight training as part of your regular exercise routine try this little trick next time you work-out. Count one to five on the upward stroke and one to five down. This motion keep you going smoothly and slowly. You’ll find you get a lot more workout for your time spent.

Technorati Tags: motivation, productivity, fitness

I hate junk mail! It comes by the bushel full every day. I’ve tried to get my name off of mailing lists, subscriptions and I have even written letter to companies to get them to stop. But the volume is still unbelievably high and it causes real problems in my life. Everyday I throw most of it away… but it’s the unmarked stuff that causes real problems.

Is this yellow envelope junk or is it a legitimate envelope from a state agency?

Is this free offer real or just a come on to get me to a time share presentation?

Questions like these are a daily occurrence.

When I get home at the end of the day I’m usually tired and really don’t feel like opening a stack of envelopes to find out if they are really legit or not. What usually happens is the obvious junk is thrown away and the other mail is stacked on the counter or put into an in-box on my desk. Unfortunately after a few days the stack gets pretty high and sometimes gets mixed in with bills and other important items.

Now I have an unsightly mess.

Now I really don’t want to deal with this stuff!

Yet the stack continues to grow until it gets so big that something must be done.

Let me put one more piece on the top of the stack… oh no.. the stack has fallen on the floor.

Arrggghhh… another 3 hours on Saturday going through this mess?

There must be a better way…

The original strategy came from the popular organizing books by Julie Morgenstern and Donna Smallin.

The idea is to …

Handle Only Once: Put a trash can next to the front door or next to the desk or counter where you usually open the mail. Handle each piece of mail only once. Put Bills into one stack and all other important mail in another. Everything else is opened and thrown away. Put a sign or card saying Handle Only Once where you can see it.

While this cut down on the size of the piles it didn’t go quite far enough. I still ended up with a stack of mail that I had to do something with and the stealth junk mail often went unopened.

Here is the plan…

Daily 12 Minutes: Set aside a daily time period to deal with the inbox. Pay bills as they come in. Answer correspondence when it comes in. File statements in a notebook on the day they arrive. Most bills and other important correspondence really don’t take very long to work with if you set aside a daily work period to focus directly on your inbox.

I usually have two 48 minute work periods back to back in the morning separated by 12 minute breaks. Why not make one of these breaks a time to focus on the in-box on my desk? Most days there will only be a few items to deal with. Anything that isn’t handled one day stays in the box to the next. This cuts down on the overwhelming pile that often exists at the end of the week and makes sure things get handled on a regular basis.

Deliberate Action: I’ve purchased a two tier inbox and will give this plan a go over the next month. I’ll report back at the end of September how well this daily strategy works for me.

Technorati Tags: organization, gtd, clutter

I spend a lot of time in front of a computer and when I find something that can save me time I like to implement it into my daily schedule. One of the best things I’ve found is using hotkeys with different programs. With just a quick key combination I can do things that would require many more steps with a mouse.

Some of the hotkeys that I’ve found have really revolutionized the way I work. I use the popular Control-C for copying files and Control-V for pasting almost without thinking. These keystrokes are ingrained in my memory and they work in almost any program.

The big problem I have with hotkeys is that there are so many of them. Given the number of choices they can be hard to remember and I usually find myself searching the menus of my programs to refresh my memory. To overcome this I put my favorites on printed business cards and keep them on my desktop for quick reference.

I put the 5 most common for each program that I use regularly, so that with a little use they will lodge themselves into my long term memory.I usually have two or three under my monitor for quick reference.

Three of the ones I’ve recently discovered that have been especially helpful are…

Control-Enter in Internet Explorer or Firefox. Just put the name of the site you want to go to in the address bar of one of these browsers and hit control-enter. Viola… the browser automatically adds the http://www to the front of the name and then adds a .com to the back.  The site name plus control-enter = http://www.site.com. This save so much tedious typing and works well as long as the site you are going to is a dot-com.

Control-P in Powerpoint: Open your PowerPoint show and go to a slide that you want to expound on. Hit Control-P and the cursor turns into a pen. You can doodle and highlight things on the screen with just the flick of your mouse. Right click to change pen size, tip shape, and color. One very handy tool. Just click the ESC key to go back to your show.

Windows Key and E: This quick combination opens up Windows explorer (My computer) and is a quick and easy way to copy and move files around. I like this key combination because it opens explorer with all the folders closed which makes navigation quick and easy.

To give you a quick start remembering these popular hotkeys, I’ve put together a free download of the most popular ones in a Microsoft Word Template. Just download the file and print them out on Avery business card stock. Break them apart and keep them by your computer for quick reference. You can easily modify the template and add additional hotkeys as you discover them. You’ll soon be amazed how much time you save each day with these quick keystrokes.

Instructions for use:

• Download the Hotkey Cards Template for MS Word
• Open the template and modify as necessary
• Print out on Avery business card stock (10 Card)
• Break cards apart
• For portability, stack cards in order and clip together with mini clip
• Transport easily in pocket or purse
• Add to your Walleteer organizer

Please note these cards have been tested on WindowsXP and Microsoft Office 2003 applications. They may not work on older windows or Office versions and will probably not work on the Mac.

Technorati Tags: hotkeys, microsoft office