Manage Your E-Mail

After a couple of days away from the computer, I return and find I have four hundred e-mails waiting for response. Fortunately, this is an infrequent occurrence and I have a system for managing my e-mail that will allow me to deal with this backlog in about an hour, two at the most. This was not always the case. When I was first introduced to e-mail in the work environment, I would often get several hundred e-mails a day. About half of them would go unread until I missed an important event or blundered into a meeting unaware of a breaking development. I had to find a way to cut through the pile of messages while I was still employed.

Folks still struggle with managing e-mail. Seventy per-cent of employees in Fortune Five Hundred Companies admit to having more e-mail than they can effectively handle. Another study states that the average computer user spends about an hour a day searching for stored documents and e-mail messages.

Here are a few tips that work for me:
Check e-mail once or twice a day. Setting up an alert and answering it every time a message pops up is inefficient use of time. Waiting more than twenty-four hours to review your inbox may result in a backlog and in your missing time-sensitive information.

When reviewing e-mail, start with the most recent messages first. This will eliminate answering serial e-mails about the same subject.

Spend no more than two minutes with each message. Make a decision about response to the message at the time you read it. Productivity expert Sally MaGhee suggests the Four D Method. When you read the e-mail make a decision to delete it, do it, delegate it or defer it. When delegating something, turn it into an action item for follow up. When deferring something, turn it into an action item or an appointment so you won’t forget about it. Microsoft Outlook provides tools for doing this quickly and provides good instructions at www.microsoft.com.

Create an effective reference system for items you need to save. (of course you save only the information that is relevant is not stored anywhere else and will be used in the next six months). Create files and search rules that are meaningful for you and the way you work. Purge the file when you no longer need the information.

These simple steps made a big difference for me and now I can afford to spend a day away from the computer when necessary.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

Make Room for Love

“I moved out of my parent’s house so I could meet people and find a guy, but I am ashamed to bring anybody into this mess,” the young professional woman lamented as her eyes swept around her cluttered living room. After six months in her condominium, it was littered with a load of work papers, magazines and an assortment of shoes. Mail was stacked up on the table in the entryway and the view of the kitchen revealed dishes stacked in the sink and cartons on the counter. A tour of the bathroom and bedroom revealed they were in similar disarray. The spare bedroom had turned into storage space for everything that had not yet been put away. There were still unpacked boxes from her move-in.

“ I work hard and when I get home, I just crash,” she told me.

The first step for this client was finding a balance between work and personal life-a hard thing to do when she is trying to impress her boss and hang on to her job. She was able to identify four hours a week she could devote to gaining control of her environment without affecting work performance. She also identified four hours a week to devote to herself and fun things. Now she was ready to tackle the task of getting her home in shape.


The first step was to determine what was really important to her. She decided that she wanted to be able to invite some friends over for an informal gathering. She set a goal for two months to have her space in shape in order to send the invitations. That meant she had to organize the entryway, the living room and the bathroom. She also had to clean up the kitchen which could be viewed from the living area.

For the entryway we set up a mail station using attractive baskets with lids that allowed for the sorting of mail on the spot. One basket was for bills and other mail that needed immediate attention. The other was for mail that could be handled at her leisure. If that basket got full, it needed to be dealt with immediately to make room for the next bunch of mail. This system allowed bills to get paid on time and put a physical limit on how much mail could pile up.

The clutter culprits in the living room were paper, magazines and shoes. She confessed to taking off her shoes at the door and neglecting to tote them upstairs to the bedroom for several days, or weeks. To deal with the shoe problem she bought a hall bench that contained a hidden shoe rack in the base. She put her favorite shoes here so she could pick them up and put them away on her way in and out of the house. She also purchased a step basket that fit on the stairs and allowed her to drop off things that she wanted to carry upstairs on her next trip.

She already had a magazine rack that she didn’t use. It was too small and was not near the sofa where she usually did her reading. A large flat basket on the bottom shelf of the coffee table helped corral the periodicals and gave the appearance of order.

She did her paperwork all over the house, an apt metaphor for work taking over her life. We identified a corner of the room for work purposes and organized all work materials in an attractive trunk that had been in the storage room since her move. She could still review projects sitting on her couch or at the dining table, but they went in her briefcase or in the trunk after review.

The kitchen was a matter of cleanup and adopting new habits of washing dishes at least once a day, since she had no dishwasher. Moving utensil and dish storage nearer to the sink made the job a little easier. A larger trash can with a lid helped minimize used containers on the counter and kept garbage out of sight.

The bathroom suffered from a lack of storage space for toiletries and makeup so these items ended up on the limited counter space. Under sink storage shelves and shower shelves helped provide additional space for toiletries. Makeup was sorted and outdated and unused items were discarded. What was left was stored in the medicine cabinet using plastic and magnetic containers.

She had a successful gathering for her friends and has now started working on upstairs space. Her goal is to have that done in two more months. It seems there is a special guy in the picture and she needs to make room for love.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

Plan Some Winter Cost Savings

Older homes have their charms and a few challenges. One of the challenges is conserving heat in the colder months. With a little planning you can cut down on heating costs without wearing your long johns to cook breakfast.

You can of course insulate, caulk, and install double pane windows, but there are a few things that folks without handyman skills and with limited budgets can do short of major renovations.

The first consideration is the placement of furniture. Keep furniture from blocking heating ducts, radiators and baseboards as much as possible. When it is just not feasible to leave these heating elements unobstructed there is a product that fits over the heating register and redirects air into the open space. It is made of clear PVC and at one and a half inches tall fist under most furniture and is almost invisible.

There are also products that boost the airflow of exposed registers. The Airflow Breeze replaces the register cover and the Equalizer Register Booster pulls air into the room. Both products use electricity and claim to be energy-efficient. The equalizer costs less than a 40-watt bulb to operate. Another adaptation for registers is Cover Up Magnetic Sheets which allows you to cover up registers without dampers in unoccupied rooms.

Another important consideration is to stop drafts. The Twin Draft Guard fits on both sides of the door and moves with the door when it is opened and closed so it does not need to be repositioned every time. Window Stoppers lay on along the windowsill and come in two lengths. You can also opt for a Plastic Window Insulation Kit that comes with channels and vinyl sheeting that is almost invisible. Insulated curtains also help retain heat and can be custom-made or purchased in ready-made sizes.

Check out these websites for these and similar products:
www.solutions.com
www.improvements.com
www.harrietcarter.com

With a little planning and a few products, you can stay cozy in your charming older home.

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net

AVOID HOME OFFICE CLUTTER

A home office has become standard for most residences. In addition to the usual bookkeeping and filing tasks that come with running a home, many workers now do almost as many work related tasks at home as they do during their regular work day. The latest statistics available from the Bureau of Labor indicated that 20.7 million workers bring work home on a regular basis. With home and work related projects crowding the limited space, it is no wonder we sometimes end up with a less than orderly office.

Here are a few tips for avoiding clutter and making it easier to get the work done.

Create separate filing systems and storage areas for home and work files. If you do not have two filing drawers available use a portable box or rolling file that can be kept in a space way from children and pets.

Place only frequently used items on the desk. Store everything else on shelves, in drawers or in stackable filing bins.

Place the things you use most often on your “handed” side of the desk. If you are right handed they go on the right side. For left handed folks they go on the left.

Put the most urgent projects where you cannot forget them. Desk trays and desktop filing systems are some tools that can neatly keep these items in sight.

File frequently used resources on nearby shelves in coordinated binders to create a neat appearance

Use magazine folders to corral professional journals and resource articles

Hang a bulletin board or magnetic board within easy reach for posting notes and reminders

You can find inspiration for organizing your home office at the following web sites:
www.officemax.com
www.target.com
www.potterybarn.com
www.getorganized.com
www.levemgers.com

Beverly & Kristen
www.KeyTransitions.net