I like things to be neat and organized. I love lists and the stores that sell all the different organizational materials. If I walk into one of those stores, I want to buy every single item. I like everything being neat and tidy and it its proper place. Being organized makes me relaxed and happy. When things aren't perfectly organized, I feel like a mess. I have this picture in my head of reaching the peak or organization, but I can never quite seem to get there.
I suppose I can't be too horrible at organization since I never miss doctors appointments or meetings and I can usually find whatever I may need to get my hands on without too much trouble. My biggest problem is probably keeping the kitchen counters uncluttered.
At work Outlook is my biggest ally in terms of organization. I put all my appointments and meetings in there and have the lovely little reminder pop up telling me when I'm supposed to be somewhere. The one little glitch is when I am away from my desk and am not there to see said lovely 15 minute reminder. So far I remedy that with looking at my calender in the morning and memorizing everything on it for that day. I also love the little feature where you can flag and email for follow-up. If I don't have time to reply right away when I see the email I'll flag it so I can easily find it later when I have time to reply. Without this, many emails would get lost in the shuffle and I would forget to get back to them. In terms of organizing emails, I create a folder in outlook for each year, then create a folder under that for each customer, and then a folder for each individual project under that. When an email comes in regarding one of those projects I just move it to the appropriate folder and can easily find it later. My problem there is what do I do with all the other miscellaneous crap I get that doesn't neatly fit into one of those folders. Right now it just sits in my inbox and continues to pile up into one big mess.
At home I have a somewhat cheesy solution where I have a bunch of shoe boxes that I keep bills, cards, paystubs, and other important letters in. I have one shoe box for each year. When mail comes in, like a bill, I have a cute little wooden organizer that my mom bought me for my birthday a few years ago that it goes into. This is my little "to-do" pile. Once a bill is paid I write the date it was paid on the front and add it to the box. I also keep some various coupons or retaurant menus in the little wooden thing on my kitchen counter. I really need something else to keep the small cut coupons in but I haven't been able to find one yet after checking at target and wegmans. I have a binder that I keep all bank statements in. I also have a little filing box with hanging folders for stuff like taxes or maps/directions I've printed out.
When I bought my house at the end of last year I decided I needed to start tracking my finances a little bit better. So I decided to create and Excel spreadsheet and list all of my transactions. I create a new tab for each month. A couple times a month I log into my bank's website and view all the transactions from my credit card and my checking account. I enter them all into my spreadsheet and include a category for each transaction. I then sum up each of the different categories and create a pie chart with totals and percentages of how much I spend in each category. I can see exactly how much I've spent in gas, or groceries, or out to dinner. I also do one total sum of incoming and outgoing so I can see how much I am spending vs. how much money I am taking in. This seems to be working well. I feel like I have definitely control and all the knowledge I need to make good spending decisions. It also doesn't take that much time or effort to do.
My favorite organizational thing to do is create lists. If I just have a huge list of things bouncing around inside my head it makes it hard for me to concentrate on any one item. When the list gets over a few things, I write them down and prioritize. Then I simply work on one item at a time until each thing gets crossed off. It just much easier for me to deal with that way. And then at the end I can see everything that I had accomplished and that usually feels pretty good.
Somehow, despite my best efforts, I feel like my life is still a disorganized mess. Mail somehow piles up on the kitchen counter during the week until I can get to it on the weekend. My desk at work is still messy with various documents related to different projects I'm working on at the time spread across it. "Stuff" is just out and not in its proper place.
So what types of things do you do, and how well do they work?
I suppose I can't be too horrible at organization since I never miss doctors appointments or meetings and I can usually find whatever I may need to get my hands on without too much trouble. My biggest problem is probably keeping the kitchen counters uncluttered.
At work Outlook is my biggest ally in terms of organization. I put all my appointments and meetings in there and have the lovely little reminder pop up telling me when I'm supposed to be somewhere. The one little glitch is when I am away from my desk and am not there to see said lovely 15 minute reminder. So far I remedy that with looking at my calender in the morning and memorizing everything on it for that day. I also love the little feature where you can flag and email for follow-up. If I don't have time to reply right away when I see the email I'll flag it so I can easily find it later when I have time to reply. Without this, many emails would get lost in the shuffle and I would forget to get back to them. In terms of organizing emails, I create a folder in outlook for each year, then create a folder under that for each customer, and then a folder for each individual project under that. When an email comes in regarding one of those projects I just move it to the appropriate folder and can easily find it later. My problem there is what do I do with all the other miscellaneous crap I get that doesn't neatly fit into one of those folders. Right now it just sits in my inbox and continues to pile up into one big mess.
At home I have a somewhat cheesy solution where I have a bunch of shoe boxes that I keep bills, cards, paystubs, and other important letters in. I have one shoe box for each year. When mail comes in, like a bill, I have a cute little wooden organizer that my mom bought me for my birthday a few years ago that it goes into. This is my little "to-do" pile. Once a bill is paid I write the date it was paid on the front and add it to the box. I also keep some various coupons or retaurant menus in the little wooden thing on my kitchen counter. I really need something else to keep the small cut coupons in but I haven't been able to find one yet after checking at target and wegmans. I have a binder that I keep all bank statements in. I also have a little filing box with hanging folders for stuff like taxes or maps/directions I've printed out.
When I bought my house at the end of last year I decided I needed to start tracking my finances a little bit better. So I decided to create and Excel spreadsheet and list all of my transactions. I create a new tab for each month. A couple times a month I log into my bank's website and view all the transactions from my credit card and my checking account. I enter them all into my spreadsheet and include a category for each transaction. I then sum up each of the different categories and create a pie chart with totals and percentages of how much I spend in each category. I can see exactly how much I've spent in gas, or groceries, or out to dinner. I also do one total sum of incoming and outgoing so I can see how much I am spending vs. how much money I am taking in. This seems to be working well. I feel like I have definitely control and all the knowledge I need to make good spending decisions. It also doesn't take that much time or effort to do.
My favorite organizational thing to do is create lists. If I just have a huge list of things bouncing around inside my head it makes it hard for me to concentrate on any one item. When the list gets over a few things, I write them down and prioritize. Then I simply work on one item at a time until each thing gets crossed off. It just much easier for me to deal with that way. And then at the end I can see everything that I had accomplished and that usually feels pretty good.
Somehow, despite my best efforts, I feel like my life is still a disorganized mess. Mail somehow piles up on the kitchen counter during the week until I can get to it on the weekend. My desk at work is still messy with various documents related to different projects I'm working on at the time spread across it. "Stuff" is just out and not in its proper place.
So what types of things do you do, and how well do they work?
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