TO DO: Make Every Day Successful!

As we begin our day, many of us feel overwhelmed by all of the tasks we are faced with the minute our feet touch the floor.  There are simple solutions we can use to save us from overloading our brain and adding undo stress to our lives...enter the "revised" To Do List!

Get clarity on what you are doing by putting it into perspective. A simple To Do List just keeps us from forgetting the scheduled tasks we need to accomplish, but add in a Focus List & Don't Do List and you will retrain your brain and move forward to your goals.

A Focus List answers questions and gives direction.

• What is most important to me today? 
• What is my main goal at this moment? 
• What make me happy?

(Sam at Financial Upside wrote the article  11 Ways Successful People Start Their Mornings explaining this very concept.) Time is our greatest resource, but no matter how hard we try we cannot obtain more than 24 hours in a day! So use them wisely and always to your advantage.

The saying "Work Smarter, Not Harder" could not be more true and relevant in every aspect of our lives. Whether you are a stay at home mom with 3 kids or an executive on her way to the top, minding your time means the difference between success and failure.

Create your Focus List each morning BEFORE you enter the chaos of the world around you. If you are focused on what your goals are and what you want and need to get accomplished, you are much more likely to maintain that focus throughout your day and get things crossed off your simple To Do List. 

Create your simple To Do List each night BEFORE you go to bed. Just like studying for a test, read over your list before your retire and it will be at the forefront of your brain when you wake and jot down your Focus List....clarity is a very powerful tool.

So, you have your simple To Do List of "chores" whether it is in the home, at work, or both that you wrote down last night and you have your Focus List with the "Big Picture," but you have one more piece to this puzzle: The DON'T DO List!

This may be the most important list you have for yourself. If you think I am kidding, evaluate all the time you wasted today and where it went. That, is your Don't Do List! And, it needs to be with you at all times to keep you in check. It will keep you honest. It will keep you focused. It will keep you on the road to success.

How many times do you find yourself on facebook, twitter, watching tv, talking on the phone with friends, or reading emails that aren't relevant to your day and goals? Your precious time clock doesn't stop because you are goofing off...it keeps ticking. Rather than watch your time slip away from you, schedule it...give it a place in your day if there is time available.

The Don't Do List needs to be specific to you. For example, my Don't Do List might look like this:

• Facebook Games ONLY from 12:30 - 1:00pm ~ Enjoy!
• No Phone Calls this morning until after 10am ~ Finish up DayBook Additions First
• No Digital Image searching today! You have plenty so save it for another day :)

Do you see where I am going with this...be specific to you and stay focused on the goals you have set for the day. Schedule personal time in with your day, no one can work 18 hours a day without any down time and be happy about it for very long. But, if you learn to retrain your brain and focus on your goals, you can accomplish your tasks and have fun doing it.

If you are ready to regain control over your time then please download this free Revised To Do List :)

I wish you great success on your journey to managing your time and regaining your life!

Click Here To Download

~ Ali

HELP! Where Do I Start?: Week #2

Last week I shared my favorite site for getting you to a clutter free and clean home with no stress: FlyLady 

The focus this week is Clearing Clutter from
Your Life Once and for All!

I am going to share with you my experience (gathered from following some of the best clutter busters, time management experts, and professional organizers and putting their knowledge into practice). My home is not perfect, it is "good enough"...it is where I need it to be to be happy, comfortable, welcoming of company, and ready to implement daily cleaning/organizing schedules into my life's routine.

The biggest trick to controlling clutter is to vow NOT to bring anything new into the home until the old is organized or gone. Sounds simple, but this is the one area that most all of us clutter bugs FAIL at miserably. Sales that are too good to pass up...an opportunity to obtain something you have wanted (but maybe don't really need)...Magazines/Newspapers that will pile up before you even have time to read them...McDonald's toys... Do you see where I am going with this?

It is critical that you make a solid commitment to halt the incoming clutter while you deal with the outgoing clutter. 

Here is my Hot Spot of Clutter: the Dining Room Table. Right at this very moment, it has 4 boxes of newly purchased shoes on it (all sales just Too Good to Pass Up), a barrage of school papers that need to be thrown away, a small bag of kids clothes (hand me downs from a friend, not NEEDED, but of course appreciated), four magazines from the mail/store last week and Sunday's newspaper (none of them even opened and it's now Tuesday), a stack of mail that needs to go to the desk and be filed and 2 McDonald's toys from last Friday's fun day Happy Meals (kids were off school). 
So, I completely understand HOW the new clutter gets into the house and becomes old clutter before we even know what happened...it happens to me every week when I let my guard down. 

Let's get back to where we started: 

"You have to start with vowing NOT to bring anything new into the home until all of the old is organized or gone!"

Until you make a firm commitment to this, you won't be able to get rid of the clutter you have. It is a vicious cycle and there is no end to it until you stop the incoming supply that is robbing you of your sanity. Clutter sucks the life right out of us until we become exhausted, depressed, overwhelmed, embarrassed, and ashamed. 
If this is you, don't give up hope, give up your clutter! 

Don't wait to start tomorrow, or next week...commit to end the incoming clutter right this minute and go and find your Hot Spot - the place in your home that makes you the most crazy, the place that makes you feel embarrassed or depressed every time you look at it and start there and start right now.

Grab 2 boxes and a trash bag (there is no reason to get fancy, you just need to get started). One box is for items that you are keeping, that have a place in your home and just need to be returned there. The other box is for items you are going to donate to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, Freecycle or wherever you take items that are too good for the trash but have no place in your home any longer. And lastly, that wonderful invention, the trash bag! If it can't be put away or donated, the only other place for stuff is in the trash.
--- For those of you (like me) who don't see Craigslist or Ebay on here, there is a very good reason why: If you are in the place in your home that has you so down mentally, you are not at a good place to take the time to sort, clean, and try to sell anything! Trust me on this one...I have been there too many times. You will pull things aside with the best of intentions and all you will be doing is moving clutter from one place to another. Those sites are best used when you have your house back in order and are just maintaining, spring/fall cleaning, etc. Again, right now is not that time. Donate it or throw it away and MOVE ON before another month goes by and you are saying "I should have..."

You need to separate yourself emotionally from the items in your Hot Spot and remove the personal reasons surrounding why you purchased that item. If it is in your Hot Spot of Clutter, it no longer has real value to you (if it ever really did to start) and the only thing keeping it hanging around is your attachment to the reason you bought it...You MUST get past this! You are standing in your own way when it comes to ridding your home of the clutter that is robbing you of happiness.

OK, so you have your 2 boxes and trash bag and are standing in front of your Hot Spot....what to do?
1. Take a deep breath and remember why you are here - to remove the Hot Spot of clutter and return to its original use: ie, dining room table, bedroom dresser, etc.
2. Start with the simple trash...real trash - wrappers, paper, bags, empty containers, whatever
3. Load the box of items to Keep with those items you don't even have to think twice about where they go (you will put those away in just a bit).
4. Load the box of items to Donate with those items you don't feel any attachment to and are happy to give away to someone else who can use them.
5. Now, grab a timer (if you have one) and set it for 15 minutes. You can definitely do anything for 15 minutes :) This one is a little harder, but is so much more satisfying than what you have done up to this point...I promise!

Here's how the rest of it works:
You have 15 minutes to fill the donate and trash bags as full as you can before the timer goes off. The object is to make a decision within a second of touching the item and stick with it. If you pick up an item and can't make a fast decision set it back down and move on quickly. You do not want to give your brain time to start associating feelings to each item of clutter. You are just deciding if the item is trash or worth donating.
When the timer goes off, I want you to go do something else for a bit...laundry, have a cup of coffee and call a friend, figure out what you are doing for dinner, read a book, look at a magazine, or whatever you need/want to do for 15 or 20 minutes. Then, I want you to return and reset the timer for another 15 minutes.

This time, I want you to take another deep breath and say to yourself: 

"These are just things. Things that are taking time and fun away from my life. I don't care how I got them and now they need to go in the trash or to someone else. These things are no longer mine!"

Now, start the timer and GO! Go through the items as fast as you can and again, if you have to hold something or look at something for more than a second, move on. You don't have time to reminisce over items that you no longer own. You should be able to completely clear this Hot Spot this time around, but if not, when the timer goes off this time, go put away the items in your Keep box that you filled earlier. Then, come back and start again.

This is just one area, but if you apply this method to all the clutter spots in your home, picking one or two of them daily, depending on the amount of time you have to do this task, you will see huge differences in clutter reduction in your home in a very short time, especially if you maintain your vow of keeping new clutter from invading your home.

I hope this post has offered you a plan of attack on clearing your home of the clutter that is keeping you from starting to organize and create a regular cleaning and maintenance plan. But, most of all, I want you to know that you are not alone...there are many of us that are working to do the same in our homes too!

Good Luck! and be sure to share your accomplishments and ideas that you have at conquering the clutter that is attacking all of our lives daily :)

~ ali

Think Ahead Thursday: Never Forget Another Birthday!

The holidays are over...we have (hopefully) put the last box away until next Christmas. This is a perfect time to start thinking about areas in our lives that can sneak up and take precious time away from us. For me, birthday cards always seemed to have me running out to the store, last minute, to buy the card that I forgot to put in my day planner...not to mention the time to stand in line at the post office to mail...ugh

No more! A simple Birthday Calendar will save the day ~ I promise. 

Take time this week to Think Ahead about all of the birthdays that will pop up all year long and have your "managed" time thrown into a frenzy to get Happy Birthday wishes out to a friend or loved one. Birthday calendars are a constant. There is no need to spend time filling in every single birthday in your day planner at the beginning of the year. Take time once to create a Birthday Calendar (or download the FreebieI have made for you) and then just keep a copy in your planner.

I created one and made several copies: one for my planner, one to hang next to the calendar at our Command Center and another that is in my Home Management Binder just in case I lose it or it gets destroyed.

Birthday Calendar Freebie Download

This is a very handy little document that can save you hours and hours of time over the course of a year. Trust me, I know all of the birthdays of my loved ones, but in the day to day busy of our life, sometimes it is nice to have that "in your face" little reminder :)

I hope you love this simple little printable and consider Thinking Ahead...

Enjoy!

~ ali

HELP! Where Do I Start?: Week #1

Over the next three Tuesdays I am going to share the best of what I have found on the internet for keeping a clutter free, clean home. These sites offer some of the best information out there for every single personality type there is. If you can't find a method that works for you on one of these sites, well, you may need to consider therapy, a maid service or just giving in to the lifestyle of being a clutter junky :)

Seriously though, these sites will give you the tools you need to start working toward keeping that clean and tidy home that you want so badly and are striving to achieve, or you wouldn't be searching the internet and reading blogs like mine!

One of my absolute favorite ladies is The FlyLady. 

She offers sound advice for those of us suffering from CHAOS: Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome!

She will hold your hand as a "FlyBaby" and offer you simple baby steps to get you going, set and maintain a routine that is manageable, clear your clutter and keep you on track to a sparkly home.

She doesn't lie and tell you it will happen overnight, over the weekend, or by the end of the month...she lays it out that this is a process that will take time. Your house did not get in the state it is in overnight and for many of you it took years, so it isn't going to fix itself overnight and may take you a year to get it to the place you envision when you close your eyes each night.

Her methodology is one that not only breaks down the process of cleaning the house into zones that are manageable, but she talks you through the steps to create better habits for not letting it happen again. "We" are the mess makers and "we" are the problem in our cluttered homes...the clutter just doesn't get dropped their by elves while we sleep, so we need to work on "us" along the journey of de-cluttering and cleaning our homes to create good habits going forward.

I love the way she delivers...it is as if she is sitting across from me at the table saying "Girl, this is how you do it, now GO do it!" You can sign up to receive emails, daily and weekly to keep you up to speed on what areas of the home to work on, reassurances from others that are "Flying" and lots of great advice and tools to use.

I have been "Flying" for a number of years now and love that even when I leave the nest and get away from the routines, that I can pick back up wherever they are, whenever I am ready. 

Her motto: Progress, not Perfection. You can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes.

Simple and direct insight from The FlyLady to get you going and keep you going....I promise!

~ ali

"...what are you doing for others?" MLK

Normally, my Monday morning routine gets off with a BANG!

This morning we enjoyed a 3rd day to sleep in and wake up a little slower before starting our day off school in remembrance and celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's life. As I prepared to deliver a blogpost on clearing the clutter with donations in mind, I was reminded what day today is and decided instead to let my heart lead me in the direction I was called...

Forbes 01/17/13

I won't pretend to be someone that truly celebrates the life and work of Dr. King, but I do truly admire him for the insightful and inspiring soul that he was and is to this nation and world. Rather, I teach my children more about the man than his "Dream" speech that is so loosely taught in our schools. Since Dr. King's teachings and causes were tied so closely to his Christian values, our schools tend to shy away from discussing much more than his speech and that he was a civil rights leader and that he was assassinated...unfortunately, almost in that direct order and with that sad simplicity.

Dr. King broke through barriers that even today with all of our political correctness, civil rights laws, anti-segregation laws and equal rights laws, we as a nation can't break through...His standard: LOVE.

You see, Dr. King, asked the nation to look at others through the eyes of a servant's heart and do for others as you would ask be done for you. He asked people not to see the color of one's skin, the church they attend or the neighborhood they reside in to be the determining factor on the goodness of the person. If we are to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must ask ourselves what he posed as his "most persistent and urgent question": "What are [we] doing for others?" and take the step forward to serve our fellow citizens where the need may arise and we are capable of contributing.

Don't ever become so busy in the details of cleaning/organizing your lives & homes that you forget to make time to make others the center of your world...make serving part of your details!

Not sure where to start?
Keep it simple and take 10 minutes each week to mail or email someone you haven't talked to in awhile a note to let them know you are thinking of them and wish them well. Brighten their day for the shear purpose of brightening their day. The act of putting someone else before you is serving...serving the need to lift someone up. We may never know how important receiving that note is to the other person, but it could be the one thing that person needed right at that moment :)

Every act of kindness sparks an act of kindness...

And, if you don't believe that, talk to someone who just had their latte paid for in the drive-thru at Starbucks from the person in front of them!

I hope this 3rd Monday in January sparks your mind to look at the world with a servant's heart.

~ ali

Think Ahead Thursday: Failures Happen...Are You Protected?

I am finally back up and running...Oh what lessons we learn!
Organization comes in so many forms, and it is important to make sure that you think about all the areas of your life that need to be organized. 

Just because our computers are neat and tidy and dusted on our desk, does NOT mean it too is organized. So, all of your files are in order and it takes mere seconds to find them, but what if the unthinkable happened? ...yes, the unthinkable...for whatever reason you are not able to access your computer, what then?

Last week my faithful companion of over 5 years decided it was her time to take the leap to the other side and needless to say I did not have backup precautions in place. It's true! While I constantly warn of this and advise others to always have a good backup plan, I did not follow my own advice :(

So today, I am sharing my very expensive and very time consuming tragedy with all of you to, hopefully, make you aware of the crucial necessity it is to have a backup plan in place and offer you suggestions on how to put one in place RIGHT NOW!

While many times a hard drive crash does not mean complete loss of your files, sometimes it does, or sometimes it means a very, very expensive visit to a Data Recovery Specialist (not Best Buy) to get the files off of your now crashed drive. For me this means upwards of $500 to get back irreplaceable photos from the last 5 years of my precious family, not to mention countless files for my volunteer projects and business. With that stated, I cannot begin to tell you the number of hours wasted, both crying and taking care of cleaning up the mess. While it was only $60 for me to purchase and install a new hard drive, I still needed to re-install an operating system, my Office programs, Adobe, update java files, iTunes, cloud readers, and this list goes on and on. Hours upon hours of wasted time because of my lack of organization, my lack of making sure that my computer was backed up and protected from data loss.

"Time Managed is Life Regained"...Oh I blew this motto out the window last week!
But, my failure could very well be your lifeline to making sure this never happens to you if you choose to learn by my very expensive and time consuming mistake.

You will need to decide if you want an external drive and the ability to manage your backup yourself or if you want to use a service to do the backing up for you.

I know me, and though I am becoming more organized in my daily life, I knew I didn't want to take the chance that I forget to do a back-up, so I chose to go with a web-based provider. And, while there are many web-based services out there, I was drawn back to carbonite.com when it finally came down to it. 

They provide me with the most cost effective and simple way to completely back up ALL of my computer and not just the files. For only $99/year, I am able to back up a full "Mirror Image" of my computer should anything happen (only $59/year if you only need your files). Understanding that files are important, so are all the programs that you have installed, the way you are used to looking at and finding those files, and more. The time it will take you to install every single program and app (that is if you can remember everything you have on your computer) could take days and you still may have missed something and not remember it until you try to open a file or edit something previously saved and find out you don't have the right software to do it....uh oh! precious time lost in tracking down the software and installing/configuring it before you are back up and working again.

We spend money to insure our lives, our homes, our cars... why wouldn't we insure our computers?!? If your life is on your computer (like mine was), then it is time you insure that you don't lose it. 

Ok, I can already hear a few of you saying, "I don't have $99 right now to spend." Fine, then visit sites like dropbox.com, and box.com to set up a simple cloud back up and keep your photos and files from disappearing until you have time to set up a full back up system to manage your entire computer life. Or, you may find that those sites are plenty for what you do and use your computer for. Just make sure that you "Do Something" and don't get caught like I did.

Please don't wait to take care of this. I lost 5 days of my life crying, fixing my computer, installing software (and not all of it is back on yet) and I still don't have it all back up and running where it was. It will take you 15 minutes or less to get something in place. I wish I had "wasted" (insert sarcasm) 15 minutes 8 days ago...instead I truly have wasted 5 days and am still counting the time that I am having to spend on putting the pieces back together (not to mention the money lost).

Have I got your attention?
Not sure where to start?... Stop by my favorite techy site to compare the options from experts: cnet.com

Get going and you can have this task done before lunch and put your mind at ease :)

~ ali

Sneak Peek at this week's Think Ahead Thursday

Check in with me on Thursday and find out what happened last week when my computer hard drive failed and I didn't have a back up plan in place!

Let's just say it wasn't pretty and I will be paying for not taking my own advice :(

If you are currently in the same place I was last Wednesday (before the crash), then stop by this Thursday and find out what you can do right now to change that.

See you Thursday...ali