Are you’re struggling with time, more specifically, the challenge with never having enough control over it and need to find a time management system?  In my conversations with clients about solutions to time management issues, it’s the selection of the system (because there are a lot of choices out there!) that is the first stumbling block.

What to Choose:

The two most effective time-management tools out there are;

1. Paper planner/calendar or

2. Electronic planner hand held/computer sync’ing device.

Desk agenda

It’s that simple. Seriously though what I mean in that statement is that you don’t have any post-it notes on the computer, magnets with reminders on the fridge, scribbles on napkins or multiple cute diaries and notebooks for each subject, room, briefcase or purse. One system, one tool. Effective time management starts with having it all in one place – your planner.

Paper or Hi-tech?

Think about your lifestyle: Honestly I think this is a very personal decision. You may not have a lifestyle that is full of meetings and appointments – your struggle with time is more about prioritizing than juggling. Or you may need both paper and technology. The trick is in defining what gets put on paper and what gets taken care of by technology. And remember when I say technology it’s not just whether you choose a blackberry, a palm or an iphone – it’s the applications you install on these devices that will really make the difference.

How many different aspects of your life are you trying to sync up? Are you juggling a busy career, family, hobby or higher education? If you have complex scheduling, particularly if it’s from different aspects of your life and locations then perhaps technology is the answer for you. On the other hand if you scheduling is not the problem but keeping track of what you’re doing and prioritizing then you may simply need an agenda.

Think before you choose: You need to think about how this piece of technology will work for you and how and where you will be using it.

1. How many people are involved in your scheduling network? Do you need a system that can be shared with others and different platforms? What is your major area of frustration when it comes to keeping your day on track? You need to look at your life before you look at how to schedule it.

2. Making time to keep on time. No system, whether it is paper or technology will work for you unless you routinely communicate with it, sync it with your computer and keep updating it. So, before you choose, think about the amount of time that you need to commit to maintaining it. If you are spending a lot of time co-ordinating your time and contacts then you might need to think about some kind of assistance – be it someone who works with you, or a virtual assistant.

3. Give it time to work! Give yourself time to really get to know all the bells and whistles that it comes with and invest that knowledge into how you use it and hang in there – it will take time.

4. Applications. The actual piece of technology you choose is only one aspect of getting on top of time-management. You need to also think about the applications (apps in tech lingo). You can do way more now than just send email, texts, keep contacts and have a calendar. There are a lot of apps out there and some of them are really cool.

I am visual, I scribble, take notes but until recently my scheduling was pretty simple so I had a desk diary/Notebook. I loved it. My lifestyle has changed now. I do a lot of traveling and juggling of my and my clients time. So, I now still have my paper desk diary which I look at every morning to get a “look” at the day and week (so that I can see the big picture). I also have a hand held piece of technology where all the addresses of appointments, contact information and times are logged. It also has a GPS so that I can have the map directions of where I am going. They are my needs and my priorities.

Apple iphone

A couple of my friends got the new Kindle as a gift this year. Wow, it really is a beautiful piece of  technology. My friend John loved his because he is a father and now he can put all his child’s books on the Kindle. Now, when they are travelling, he doesn’t have to carry a huge array of books for reading. But the other thing I learnt is that it is not just books but magazines that you can download onto the Kindle! That really excited me.

So many of my clients get professional and life-style magazines. They love them. The main problem with magazines is that they take up a lot of space and are really difficult to store effectively. The other problem with storing magazines is that most people keep them because they want the articles in them for future reference. Finding that article when it is 6 months or 1 year after you read it entails going through an awful lot of magazines and creating a huge mess as you do so. But not with Kindle:

Newspaper and Magazine Reading

Using Kindle’s 5-way controller, you can quickly flip between articles, making it faster and easier to browse and read the morning paper or your monthly magazine. Want to remember the newspaper or magazine article you just read? Clip and save entire articles for later reading with a single click. Newspapers are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle before they hit news stands.

Bookmarks and Annotations

By using the QWERTY keyboard, you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes. You can highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use. You’ll never need to bookmark your last place in the book, because Kindle remembers for you and always opens to the last page you read.

I really think this is a fantastic solution for individuals who want to keep all their magazines and periodicals.

A great solution for keeping your magazines

Although what I mainly focus on with my clients is about how their home offices can work for them in a more efficient and productive way at the end of the day the space we create must look good, feel good and be the kind of environment that they want to sit down and work in. Particularly when you work from home. There are so many excuses to leave the “office” and pop a load of laundry in the washer… and “oh the mail has arrived, I must take a quick peak at my magazine that’s just arrived”.

My brother Eugene hosted Christmas this year for the family and extended family. All the children bounced, ran, rolled and laughed around the house in a constant hum. And it was really only the dogs who broke up conversations with their power struggles. The subject of home offices came up in conversation – mainly because yours truly was there and everyone wanted advice on their own home office. It got me to thinking about the design of the office as opposed to the functioning of it.

The home office goes in the space or room that is available. Sometimes, that is a corner of the kitchen, bedroom or living room, sometimes (if you are lucky) it’s got it’s own walls, and sometimes it’s split between different rooms.

I did some browsing on the web to see what’s out there on this subject. Most of the information I found assumed you had a room with walls and a door. Check out the following link from MakeUseOf.com:  http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/home-office-design-ideas-and-tips-that-every-web-worker-needs-to-know/  There are some useful tips and web resources in this article.

However, what if you don’t have one room for your office?  How do you even begin to design your home office when it has to be split up?  It comes down to defining the actions involved in your work and the environments best required for them to be accomplished and the time of day involved.

Computer and desk: Only put the computer and desk in the living room if you think you definitely will have consistant and scheduled time to be alone there. If you can’t control the environment then you won’t be able to control your work output. Think about when you work – daytime or evenings. Where you put your desk and computer is VERY important as this is usually the back bone of your work processing.

Paper/File Management: And if it is to be in your living room or bedroom then you will want your “office” to be invisable when it is no longer required as an office. I have found that having a drawer for “Action” (any bills you have pay or items you have to take action on) and a drawer for “Filing” (needs to be put in the filing cabinet) means that papers are kept from becoming piles or getting lost. Being in a drawer also means that they are hidden from sight and are quickly accessible.

Filing: Whatever your filing system – binder or filing cabinet – you will need to assign somewhere for it. The most important thing here is that you can get at it. If you are hiding your filing cabinet in the back of a storage locker then you will never do your filing. When papers get out of control your stress levels go way up. There are many attractive filing solutions out there that don’t look like ugly filing cabinets and can live in any room in any home without offending. A working filing system means that you can find any piece of paper in five seconds but if it takes 15 minutes to get to the cabinet you are kind of setting yourself up for failure. My filing cabinet is in my kitchen and no one would know.

Good luck and drop me a line if you have any specific questions on the design of your office.

I am crap at doing the dishes. It was always a kind of “back burner” kind of issue. I thought is was just one of those things; that most people really, really loved doing dishes. And though personally I never understood why this was so, I fully embraced all the offers of dish doing that occurred during my life. I don’t know who it was now but one day someone told me, very clearly, that I was terrible at doing the dishes. Anyhoo, time passed and during that time I committed to learning how to do the dishes. I even commandeered a good friend to give me lessons. Honestly. Like I am great at cleaning, gardening, cooking… organizing (of course!) but … I don’t know.. is there a talent for doing dishes? Is it a certain kind of “eye” you need for it? All I know is that when I do my dishes I have to concentrate and force myself to do them.

Anyway, today I was baking bread for Christmas Day while also preparing lunch and entertaining a friend who had popped around with seasonal good tidings. She departed, the bread was in the oven and I looked at the mound of washing. I felt so overwhelmed! I didn’t know where to start so rather than doing everything I had been coached to do I just turned on the hot water, filled the cleaning pad with suds, put a tea towel on the counter and got down to it. All seemed to be going well. The “keep the water running” trick generally ensures that the dishes are clean and rinsed. There was water in the sink and the… forgotten it’s name… the plastic thing you fill with water to wash the dishes in… that was full of dirty dish water too. I emptied it into the water already in the sink.

Something was wrong… the sink filled with water… nothing drained. Nothing. I poked around where the drain is in the sink. There was a lid of a tin of tuna in the drain. Easy peasy. I tried to flip it out. Everything, I mean absolutely everything I did seem to seamlessly meld it to fit the drain perfectly. I had permanently pushed the damn thing in place and could not for the life of me get it out.

And do you know what this intense moment of embarassement, horror and confusion reminded me of? It reminded me of when I first meet a client and we walk into whatever area of their home or life is in a state of chaos. They have the same look on their faces as I had in my heart. “I know this should be easy, honestly I have tried but I just don’t know where to start, get depressed… so I leave the room and shut the door”. That was exactly what I wanted to do there and then. But you really can’t do much in a kitchen without a working sink. And, and… because I realised that every day in the work I do I help people to become ‘unstuck” I really should be qualified to do my own “unsticking”.

1. Stand back from the sink (or storage room or office or whatever is making you overwhelmed)! Stand back and take a deep breath. Don’t exit however.

2. Assess the facts. I have a lid from a tuna can stuck in the drain of the sink. I can’t see said lid or drain as the water in the sink is dirty. Knives, forks and fingers have not worked to leverage it out. The tuna lid is metal. The sink is metal. I can’t wash my dishes ever again.

3. Establish goal. I want to wash dishes in the future, drain pasta, and clean vegetables – therefore I want to get the tuna lid out of the drain. And I want to do it without calling my landlord.

4. Set a time line. I have to make a second loaf of bread so will need to wash dishes again soon. Time line is… has to happen NOW.

5. Define your talent areas. I am a great conversationalist. I am great a cleaning my home. I am great at organizing, I am great at fixing things (like machines, furniture etc) and I am developing a talent and taste for wine.

6. See what aspects of your talents shed light on the facts and then what aspects of your talents can facilitate your goals.

And hey presto!  The tuna lid was metal. Knives, forks and fingers had not worked to leverage it out of the drain. I needed to wash dishes in the future and I was good at fixing things (tools) and was developing a talent and taste for wine. I pulled my corkscrew out of the drawer, drilled it into the tuna lid and popped that piece of tin out the the drain in a blink of an eye!!!

We all get overwhelmed. Washing dishes will always unnerve me on some level but by stepping back from the situation while remaining in it I was able to find a solution.

Part 2 - Friday 18th December

Medical: Last night I was up sorting through Lorraine’s files taking a look at all the medical information on Roxanne: reports, assessments, doctors, prescriptions, medical research, support workers… a lot of information, all of it important. I was so keenly aware of how much information and knowledge Lorraine needs to have have in her head and at hand at any given time. So, when you are creating your medical files be very specific with your categories. Particularly when there are other children and family members. Try not to make any “catch-all” categories like – “Info”. It may take more time to set up but it’s worth it.

These are the categories I set up for Roxanne for example: Assessments, Doctors, Medication, Receipts and Medical Research. Your child might have different needs. For example there may be a number of specialists involved – some behavioral and others clinical. So your Doctors categories may look something like this: Doctors – Speech Therapist: Reports, Doctors – Speech Therapist: Excercises. Be specific.

Part 1 – 13th December

I was talking with a friend of mine, Lorraine, a single parent who has a 22 year old daughter who is special needs and she mentioned how she wanted to find more support for her and her daughter. Children are truly the greatest blessing in anyone’s life. That doesn’t mean that rearing them is easy . There never seems to be enough time or energy to stay on top of the “managing” – logistically – of their lives.

But when you have a child that is special needs, a disability, disease,  those demands; time, energy, resources and finances seem to spiral out of control. Your time is focused on immediate needs. I asked Lorraine if she wouldn’t mind showing me all her paper files. She looked so uncomfortable, so sad. “There are no “files” Isolde” she said, “there are just boxes and boxes of papers. I make sure I keep everything but I don’t have the time to sort them”.

After taking a look at all of Lorraine’s files and discussing all the demands of her day to day life I resolved to take up the challenge and use this blog to chronicle the many areas and needs of organizing the life of a child with special needs.

Some of Lorraine's boxes of papers

Categories for filing

Assessments – Medical and Educational: This needs to be kept up to date. Quite often when you are looking to qualify for care, transport, medical accessories, extra curricular activities and government programs you will need to reference these.

Education – Report cards, Schools, Contact information for students and school, Calenders, Correspondence: Roxanne also has a seizure disorder which means that some days Lorraine will be talking to the school a lot or keeping her home. It can be very difficult to keep up to date with every teacher and classmates. There are always forms to be filled out too and keeping on top of these can take up a lot of time particularly when there is medication involved which there is with Roxanne. Keep all the report cards but make sure you keep the other categories current or it can get very confusing when you need a name, number or form immediately.

Extra Curricular Activities: Choir, swimming, art, Summer Camp, Potential, etc: Keep this up to date so that you know when to renew programs. Roxanne is sooooo creative – her art is fantastic. She also has perfect pitch as a singer and can sing every song from the Wizzard of Oz! There are so many programs out there. what usually happens is that you see a flier on a new one that looks promising but forget where you put it when you got home. That’s why it’s important to have a “Potential” file. Put all those fliers, notes etc in there.

Filing: How I love thee, let me count the ways…

Well, as a new blogger, we may not know each other very well – but I’ve got a confession to make. I love filing! I am here today to declare my mission to make filing functional, fast and fashionable. That’s right – Functional, Fast and Fashionable! I love designing filing systems, I love shopping for that perfect filing cabinet, I even love file folders. Yes, file folders (I will write a whole other section on file folders one day soon and you will see why they are the best thing ever!). I’m having a love affair with filing, and I’m not at all afraid to admit it. In fact, I’m so enthralled with efficient, proper filing that I’ve made it my personal mission to get you excited about filing too!

It’s my job to be organized, and I truly love what I do. Just the fact that I can find anything in my office in 5 seconds (sometimes less!) is enough to get me fired up inside. Thankfully my sense of humour gives my obsession some perspective, but the task of locating something in my organized filing system isn’t a chore, it’s a pleasure.

Filing is a personal affair. With all of the cabinets, closets, and offices that I’ve organized, I have never created the same filing solution for any two people. Choosing the right system for your lifestyle, personality and living space is important. The way you organize your life is a statement of who you are and how you live.

I intend to use this blog as an (organized!) space for all things filing; recommendations, tips, great finds and the endless gushing of my passion. I hope that over time you’ll join in my excitement!

Tip # 1

Buying a filing cabinet: Make sure you buy a good, well made cabinet. It is a pet peeve of mine to find flimsy, non-weighted filing cabinets. Seriously. A cabinet that is not properly weighted will tip over and could really injure you. Also, make sure the drawers come out fully otherwise you will never be able to reach the files at the back, and when you do these cheap models hurt or graze you hands. Remember: a proper filing cabinet allows you quick and easy access so that you can keep on top of things. Not the other way round.

Favorite Find #1

Many clients feel the need to fit a bulky cabinet into their home – but seriously, are they not the most difficult item to blend into your home decor? It doesn’t have to be this difficult. Here’s one of my favorite filing cabinets which I discovered at Ikea.

IKEA - Effektiv

Why I like this system: First off, these are properly weighted, very well designed and sturdy. They come in great colour and design combinations. And what I like most, on a purely fashionable-happening level, is that they do not look like traditional, industrial, steel filing cabinets. I have one in my kitchen and no one knows it’s a filing cabinet. I love that. Why filing cabinets have to look so dour is a mystery to me; there is absolutely no reason for it.

This is just the beginning of my love affair – I would love to hear about your filing journey, passions and problems. Leave me a comment and tell me your favourite filing stories – I know you’ve got them!