While I suggest going through your mail daily and at least discarding junk mail, if you’re not doing that, make it a point to go through your mail weekly. Mail management is a real issue in our world today and a problem that I see with clients daily. It can easily get out of control and leave you feeling overwhelmed if you don’t stay on top of it. Assign a place for your mail to land. It is very important that your mail have a home where it always lands when you bring it in the house. Action system. You’ll… read more »

I recently worked with a client that had 7-8 boxes of paperwork sort of scattered throughout her home. Dealing with the paperwork seemed daunting and overwhelming and so she just put it off. In reality though, she was dealing with it every day by not dealing with it. She felt stressed, depressed, overwhelmed and out of control all of the time. As I’ve always said, clutter represents delayed decisions. The impact of putting the decisions off is much worse than taking the time to make the decisions. When we worked together, the client was forced to make the decisions about… read more »

Most people tend to lay all of their papers that require action or follow up on their desktop so that they don’t forget to take action on them. Because there aren’t any systems set up for handling the paperwork or tasks, and there is no rhyme or reason as to where they are placed on the desk, the papers and piles just get moved around on the desktop without getting much of anything accomplished. To combat this problem, a system needs to be put in place for your papers and tasks to help you move them into your workspace and… read more »

Avoid looking at papers and placing them back on your desk. Make a decision on them, and then follow through right away. Don’t keep magazines. Tear out or photocopy relevant articles. Use a follow-up file (action system) to hold paperwork relating to scheduled tasks. Invest in a Freedom Filer system. If you handle paperwork more than twice before taking action on it, you are losing time, money and energy. Sort, file and purge regularly. Work out of your car? Use a spiral notebook for ALL of your notes & never search for those scraps of paper again.