Are you avoiding doing your taxes because you still don’t have a system and it’s a huge job just to get all your stuff together?

You know you’re going to do it eventually so why wait until you need to file an extension? You don’t have to be stuck inside with your paperwork while everyone else is starting their gardens.

Make a list of all the tasks involved in getting your taxes finished.
For example:

• Gather receipts
• Go through check register
• Highlight deductions on credit card statements
• Add up house expenditures
• Make an appointment with the accountant

Do one thing from your list. Do one thing today. Don’t wait until you think you’ll have time to do the whole thing. That never happens.

Got piles? Start sorting Instead of rummaging through a mixture of stuff to pull out just what’s tax related, sort it all out. It’s really more efficient in the long run, and less stressful.

How to sort- Get five boxes or bins. Take sticky notes and label the boxes. Everything should fit into one of these categories:

Taxes-Read-Action-File-Toss

Taxes- all tax stuff goes here, for now. (If you have a lot of one kind of tax documents, like medical, make an
additional box for just that)
Read-magazines, catalogs, things to look over
Action-needs a check, a call, an email, an appointment
File-needs to be stored
Toss-shred, recycle.
NOTE-Be ruthless. Save only what you absolutely have to.

NEXT
Once you have all your papers sorted, they will be much easier to manage. Make taxes the priority; you can come back to the other boxes later.

Sort your tax stuff into the various categories you need to do your return.

Make an appointment with your self to work on it for 15 minutes. Keep your appointment. I know that’s not enough, but just start with 15 minutes. When you finish that 15 minutes, you have my permission to do another 15 minutes.

Get support. Call a friend or your sister. Tell her that you’re going to work on your taxes now for 15 minutes. Ask if you can call her back when you finished.

Breaking it down into manageable bits is the way to go. Doing a little at a time instead of having the expectation you’ll do it all in one sitting is the ticket.

Set up a simple system for next year-now

• Visualize and plan as though the deadline is March 15th or even February 15th
• Each day, put all receipts and paid bills in an envelope. Label it with the month. At the end of the year you’ll just have 12 envelopes.
• At the very least, as it comes in, just put all papers you need for taxes in one place; a folder, box or envelope
• Use software, such as Quicken
• Call me.

I’ll work with you to design set up a simple system for managing all your papers so you won’t have to have tax trauma again!

On January 1st, do you promise yourself that you’re going to conquer your clutter? Then what happens? Come March you look around and wonder what happened to your re-solve? Do you feel like you have to start again from scratch each year?

What’s the solution? Let’s finally solve it so you won’t need a re-solution.  Do one little thing, today. Develop the habit of doing one little thing each day. Doing just one little thing each day is much more manageable than trying to take on the whole enchilada. Your place will look tidier, you’ll be able to find things and you will feel light years better.

I know how it is. You say, "Just one little thing? My place needs a complete overhaul. What’s one little thing going to do?"

One thing is better than no-thing! Doing one little thing at a time is the most manageable way to make progress. (Especially if you’re feeling a little stuck!) If you’re willing to move forward a step at a time, I’ll make some suggestions:

Make a list. On paper.
First of all, do you have a list or do you have dozens of tasks rattling around in your head? I know you know what you have to do, but writing it down can help you to sort it out much more effectively.

Assign each task a value.
Write down all the tasks in no particular order. Just get them out of your head and onto paper. Then assign a number to each, using one through five; one being most important or urgent and five being the least pressing. You can use as many of the same number as you want. When you finish, if you have multiples of number one for example, repeat the process, assigning each of them another one through five number.

Do one “number one” item on the list.
Now, just do it. What’s wrong? It seems overwhelming? You feel a knot in your stomach when you think about this thing? Are you on strike?

Ask yourself, “What am I willing to do?”
It’s much easier to keep moving than to begin. Doing something is better than doing nothing and you might just want to continue once you get started. So if you won’t do that thing on your list, doing something else is still productive.

It’s bigger than it looks.
Let’s go back to your list. Perhaps that number one thing on your list is not one little thing. Maybe it’s a big thing. Just because its on a list doesn’t mean it’s small. An item can be deceptively daunting and have many steps to it which is why you avoid doing it.

Break it down.
Let’s take an example: "Clear off bulletin board", seems easy enough but really it can have several parts to it. Make it more manageable by breaking it down into steps so you can see what’s involved. It becomes less threatening because you can see what you have to do. 

1. Take the stuff off the board.
2. Toss anything you don’t want.
3. Find a container for the pushpins.
4. Make a file folder for XYZ stuff you want to keep. File it away.
5. Put phone numbers into your book/database.
6. Buy a new wall calendar.
7. Pin up the new calendar.

Now you can do one little thing at a time.
Then cross it off your list. Ahhh! Isn’t that good?

Parents must decide ahead of time which activities they will agree to for the year before they say yes to any child’s request. The schedules need to be determined so that the child is not taking on too much and the parents not pulled to Janey’s soccer and Jason’s Aikido on the same night.

Once decisions are made, sit down with your child and make a list of all the activities and other components of his school week and estimate how long each takes. Map them out day-by-day to see how all the pieces may fit. Include mealtime and homework and play time.

Next make a step-by-step time line for the morning and evening routines (and/or have your child make a colorful chart). Hang it where everyone can refer to it.

Every evening, make sure children collect everything they need for the morning and place on their hook or cubby near the door. Post a checklist or pictures of everything needed to go out the door.

On Sunday, choose five outfits including socks and underwear and place them in the closet in a hanging sweater holder. Or set aside one drawer and make labels for the days or a tie colored ribbon around each outfit.

Train kids to empty their papers into an In Box for parents to sign. Parents can go over them each evening with the kids, catch up on the day’s events and see that the papers go back in their schoolbag.

Ask your child specific questions in the morning, instead of, “Do you have everything?” Ask, “Do you have your science book?”

Each Sunday, plan the week with your child. Use a large family calendar centrally located, and colored markers, to note activities and appointments. Make a list of to-dos or items needed such as ‘make a play date’, or ‘birthday present needed for classmate’s party’.

Color coding can help. Each child can have a different color dot on all clothing and belongings. Or use it to keep track of which book or notebook is needed on what day. Make a chart so it’s an added visual to grab all blue stuff on Tuesday, math day.

Teach your child that organizing their notebooks and their stuff is part of their homework. All papers, pens, books must go back into their backpacks and placed by the door, ready to go in the morning.

I was facing a blank canvas. Well, not exactly blank: there were lots of weeds, branches, aluminum pie plates and old dog toys. It became clear that I couldn’t begin to plant flowers until I tidied up. I dug and raked and pulled up broken bits of plastic. I got rid of all the outdoor clutter. Slowly I gathered information.  I bought some plants, nice people gave me some and experience taught me a lot.

Now each spring along with the weeds and forest litter, perennials return faithfully. Each year it seems like I’ll never tackle clearing the mounds of post-winter clutter. Somehow it all gets done but it may take until July before I catch up. The great part is that I’m enjoying my garden.

Indoors or out, getting organized is the same. The tasks may be different, but the challenges are similar. Where do you start? What do you do first? Each day there’s a whole garden of decisions to be made. How do you make productive choices and stay focused?

It can be useful to simply ask yourself some powerful questions to cut through the clutter in your head, get to the business at hand, and direct your thinking towards your top priorities.

1. What am I trying to accomplish?
I started with a wish to have a garden. I made a master list of all the tasks that would be needed to achieve my goal. Writing it down means you don’t have to keep it all in your head and it helps clarify your thinking.

2. What are my three most important projects or tasks today?
I couldn’t expect to complete my whole wish list in a day. Deciding on only three things (or even one or two) allows you to forget about all the other things on the list and focus on what’s in front of you.

3. What is the most valuable use of my time right now?
I had to ask myself what to do to get the most out of the time I had.
Some days I only had an hour so I picked a job like weeding a small area. I kept my shopping list with me for when I went into town. You can’t always do the biggest job or spend the time you’d like, but there’s always something useful to be accomplished in the time allotted.

How do I start? Cutting through the clutter is the same indoors and outdoors. Answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully and you’ll make a powerful start. Breaking it down into smaller parts and taking baby steps will get you where you want to grow.

Asking questions can dissolve denial, help us get honest, create something new, and sort out the piles in our heads.

Do you feel gung ho, plan to tackle the clutter, clear up piles of stuff, only to get frustrated and run out of shteam?  Taking on too much can become overwhelming.

15 Minute Shpring! - Clear out the pantry
Or at least pack up some of those things you haven’t used.  The canned eel was a good idea.  So was that jalapeno poultry seasoning…….Time to pack it up and give it away.

From the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce News

by Andrea Feldman

How Organized is Your Home Office?
It’s almost spring and the time to gear up for the summer/fall busy season ahead.  Whether you’re making money or managing your personal life from your home office, it makes good sense to stop and get organized.

You may have a dedicated office where you conduct business or just an area in your home where you pay bills, but everyone requires some form of home office.  With all the amazing technology available even the smallest of spaces can be fully equipped to operate in a professional manner.

While you’re getting those taxes out of the way, take a look around and see how you might like to improve on your current situation.  Are all your receipts in one place?  Are your paid bills organized and accessible?  If you’ve got piles on your desk or your mail lives on the dining room table, you run the risk of slipping up.

Does clutter or disorganization keep you from operating as effectively as you’d like?  Do you find yourself looking for things?  Are you late making payments, or sending out invoices?  What is your disorganization costing you?

Any place there’s clutter, there’s also a time management issue. Many of the people who I encounter with clutter problems are also very busy and often impatient.  Impatience can create piles.  It feels like there’s just no time to deal with the stuff.  I think, for many people, it’s just too painful to take the time to put stuff away.  What seems to go along with this phenomenon is projects going unfinished.  Do you have projects laying around in various stages of completion? 

Things don’t get put away if they don’t have a designated place.  Mail that lives on the kitchen counter won’t just go away.  If your teenager borrows your scissors, that always float from place to place and have no home, you’ll have a hard time finding them when you need them.  If you subscribe to more magazines than you can read in a lifetime, they obviously will pile up.  If you haven’t archived your tax returns since 1987, there’s probably no room in your file cabinet.

So I’m not talking about tidying up.  Tidying up means making it look neat.  Anyone can toss stuff in a closet when company comes, but getting organized requires creating simple systems that you can adhere to.  Staying organized takes a commitment and a desire to make changes in your day-to-day activities. 

Are you ready to get more organized?
Here are some suggestions:

Stop the clutter before it comes in.
One way to begin is by reducing the amount of paper that enters the house.  Once it’s inside, you can prevent it from accumulating.

·        Reduce the amount of unwanted mail by calling or writing to catalogues or charities to take you off their list.

·        Set aside time daily or weekly to process items in your IN box.

·        Use the library instead of buying books and magazines.

·        Make sure paper gets recycled/shredded regularly.

·        Don’t print out e-mail.

·        Use a notebook for your phone message and to do items instead of scraps of paper.

Sort it out
An important way you can prevent piles is to not just drop your stuff anywhere, but sort it out when you come home, ASAP.  A simple sorting system should take care of most everything you need to deal with.

Think R-A-F-T

Read/Review Books, magazines, newspaper, catalogs or any mail that needs more than a glance.  Put it in a reading area, if time sensitive, with your bills.

Action Some response is needed: to be paid, signed, called, e-mailed, etc.  If you don’t have an IN box, put it into a basket or box or at the very least make one pile.

File  Put it away.  Now.  Could be in a file drawer, entered into the computer, rolodex.  Put it where it belongs.

Toss-Be tough.  How important is it?  Do you really need to save it?  Can you get it again?  Will you ever look at it or use it?

 How do you develop better habits around getting and staying organized?

Be realistic.  Forget that all or nothing attitude when taking on an organizing task.  Try going through stuff for 15 minutes at a time.  Or go through 3 or 5 files at a time instead of thinking you’ll go through the whole file cabinet.

Have a plan.  Fail to plan, plan to fail.  Be specific about what you’re going to tackle.  How long will it take and what tools or materials will you need in order to do the job?  Do you need to purchase more file folders or a shredder?  Before you buy anything, take an inventory of what you have.  If your supplies are scattered about, get them all in one place so you can see what you have.

Write it down.  It’s too difficult to keep it all in your head. Once you make your ‘to do’ list, decide on a task or project and break it down into small steps, on paper.  Saying, “I’m going to organize my books” is too broad and can seem overwhelming.  Write out the various actions you need to take to do those books.

For example:

1.    Go through the shelves of college books.

2.    Box up ones I don’t need.

3.    Go online to see if I can sell any text books or bring to the library.

4.    Dust off the empty shelves.

5.    Arrange remaining books in order of usage.

6.    Get the books off the floor in the living room and put them on the shelf.

It may seem simplistic, but breaking it down like this helps to bust through procrastination by giving you manageable bits that can be more easily handled and checked off your list.

Schedule time to do it.  Thinking you can do this anytime, really means NO time.  If you can’t take the time to schedule it, in your calendar, how will you take the time to get it done?  We often feel like it’s OK to break dates with ourselves.  Write it in and keep your commitment.

Schedule appropriately.  Don’t schedule your project at night if you’re a morning person.  Don’t expect to have quiet time when the kids are off from school.  Don’t try to do the big, focused job on the day you’re having workmen in the house.  Don’t overbook! 

Prioritize.  Do the bigger, time sensitive tasks first.  Getting caught up in the little things can cause the time to get away from you.

Make places for things.  Take the time to create a logical place for something to live. If it’s something frequently used, it needs to be handy to where you’ll use it.  It might need a safe place.  (Coffee spills on client files is not a good look.)  It should be labeled well and easily found when needed.  You can’t put something away if there’s no place for it.

Keep like with like
Make sure you have enough space for everything you need to sort, hold, and process your work in the designated area.  Stapler, file folders, printer paper and other equipment should live where you handle and store your papers.  You wouldn’t think of keeping your spice rack in the living room, right?  So, why do mail and other papers end up in different parts of the house?  Keep like with like.   

Put things away.  Repeat after me, “Don’t put it down, put it away.”  And, “It will only take a minute.”  Walk the 5 extra steps and put it where it belongs.  Prevent pile up.  File away those papers, or enter those e-mail addresses in a timely manner.

Keep business and personal papers separate.  Avoid confusion and stay more focused by keeping business and household holding and storage in different places.

If you’re procrastinating around getting organized, ask yourself "What am I willing to do?"  Don’t wait until you are really busy and feel overwhelmed.  Doing something you’ve been meaning to take care of this winter is better than doing nothing, and there’s no time like the present.

Procrastination-to defer, delay, put off until another day

Do you return phone calls in a timely manner?
Are you late for appointments?
Are you keeping things tidy?
Do you pay your bills on time?
Is their something you should be doing that you’re avoiding?

Manana, manana, manana is soon enough for me
I know, I know, it’s nothing to sing about.  All of this can be frustrating and upsetting.

The stress is, of course, exacerbated the longer we procrastinate.  Often, we can feel overwhelmed or depressed as the chaos rises around us.

So how do we get from mounting anxiety to manageability?  What is it that looms largest before you? Maybe you know what to do but not how to get to it?  Here are some suggestions to help you get started:

Make a list  Have you actually written a list, or do you have all this stuff floating around in your head?   Write it down, it’s often not as bad as all that and it will give you something concrete to look at and check off. 

Prioritize List the items in order of their importance or how long they will take.

Make appointments Put it in your date book or calendar.  I’m talking about dates with yourself as well as others.   

Keep the appointment!  Once you’ve made the commitment don’t change it.  Even if it’s a date with yourself to take a bath or read a book.  Downtime is vital.

Just say no  If it’s too much, if you feel too pressured.  Don’t do it.

Bookend  Ask a friend or relative if you can call them at the beginning and end of your project.  “Hello Jane, I’m committing to spending 2 hours writing and practicing my Toastmasters speech this afternoon.  Can I call you when I begin at 1:00 and again at 3:00 when I finish?"

Tidy as you go Don’t put it down, put it away.  Put things in their place as you’re finished using them.

Take baby steps You can’t do it all at once.  Do a little at a time.  Sometimes that’s all we can manage.  But that’s OK. Doing something is better than doing nothing!

Still feeling like it’s all too much?  Then start anywhere, but just start. Whatever you choose to focus on, however, try to complete it.  That’s the ticket.  Completing the task will give you a sense of accomplishment and the confidence to do more.