Thought2Action LLC ®

• Getting Organized is Habit-Forming
• Define Your Clutter to Get Organized
• Get Organized by Keeping Your To-List Small
• Tips to Organize Your Important Files 
• Kids Can Help Organize Family Meals
• Organizing Your Home Office Increases Productivity 
• It's Fun to Get Organized While Stuck Inside
• Quick & Easy Tips to Organize Your Shoes 
• Organize Your Collections for Maximum Enjoyment
• Part 1: Organizing Your Child's Room Starts with Positive Thinking
• Part 2: Organizing Your Child's Room Ends with Lifelong Habits
• Get Organized to Pack for Travel
• Organize Your Toiletries to Save Time and Money
• Organize Your Schedule - Keep a Log to Find Out Where Your Time Goes
• Organize Your Closet and Find a "New" Wardrobe
• Take Back Your Garage by Getting It Organized

With every mail delivery, more paper lands in our homes and offices.  Many people feel obliged to open and review every piece of mail, flip through every catalog, read every flyer.  This takes time, and for most of us, time is our most precious possession.  What are some ways to streamline the keep-sort-toss process and keep the volume of mail -- and waste of time -- minimal?

A few years ago, I decided to take charge of my mail, both in the office and at home.  Once a day, I pull the mail items out of my office box and take them all to sort near the trash can.  I do a quick sort, hanging on to the items I'll carry to my office and immediately throwing out (often unopened) items I don't need.  I don't return to my office with anything that I won't be reading or taking action on.

After my home mail delivery, I take the pile to my kitchen and do the sort near the trash can and recycling bin.  Same idea:  make a pile of items to keep or requiring action, throw unwanted items into the trash or recycling bin.

Whatever their ages, children benefit from forming habits that make life easier as they resume school routines for another year.  Use these tips to organize yourself and your children.

1.          Label everything:  clothing, shoes, backpacks, lunch bags/boxes, books, electronics.  It should not be difficult to find your child’s identification on anything.

2.         Make copies of each child’s emergency contact information, including family names and phone numbers, doctors’ numbers, and medication names, dosages, and frequency.  Have these copies ready to add to each child’s school records.

3.         Help your children organize papers daily that you need to see.  Use three file trays, baskets, or folders for “Please sign” (for papers that need to be returned to school), “Please read” (for notices of school activities and events), and “Please keep” (for papers, artwork or projects to consider keeping).  Have children empty their backpacks and sort through their paperwork each day after school to organize themselves for homework and the next day at school.

4.         Post a family calendar in the kitchen, preferably one that can wipe clean.  Have each family member choose a different color marker (parents, too!) and post individual, family, and school events.  At least once each week, review the calendar to anticipate upcoming events and look for potential conflicts.  On a separate to-do list posted nearby, list items needed for upcoming events: materials, food, equipment, etc.

5.         Choose what to “archive.”  Once a month, review with the children the items from the “Please keep” file.  Help them select what to keep long-term, and move those items to an archival storage box or file.  Once a year on each child’s birthday, pull out the archive to help them see what they have accomplished since the last birthday.

Are your files bursting out of their drawers?  Most people keep personal records - tax returns, copies of bills and invoices, bank statements, credit card statements - MUCH longer than necessary.  Most people just don't know how long they really need these records, so "better safe than sorry!"  Use the following tips as a guideline as you clean out your files.  And, be sure to SHRED your discarded documents.  They contain account numbers and other information that you don't want others to discover in the trash.

TAX RECORDS.  Tax returns provide a complete overview of your financial history, but you don't need to keep supporting records for more than three (3) years from the date the taxes were due.  If you are self-employed or have a supplementary source of income, however, you should keep those supporting records for six (6) years.

HOME IMPROVEMENT RECORDS.  Keep receipts showing how much you have paid for home improvements for two reasons:  (1) If you sell your home, you'll have documentation of how much you spent to improve the property, helping to justify the selling price; (2)  After you sell your home, your home improvement documentation will help reduce the net revenue you must claim on your tax return (if the net revenue would be larger than your allowable tax-free capital gains, currently $250,000 for an individual owner or $500,000 for a couple).

UTILITY STATEMENTS.  These may be thrown away when you pay the bill, unless you plan to deduct utilities (for example, phone and electricity) as part of your home office expenses.  Bank records are helpful here as well, as they document payment; the actual utility bills just document what you owe.

BANK RECORDS.  Unless you need them for tax purposes or warranties, ATM receipts and cancelled checks may be discarded after the bank statement arrives and everything balances.

CREDIT CARD STATEMENTS.  As soon as your payment is posted on the next month's bill, you may discard these.

Don't forget to SHRED, SHRED, SHRED.  And, consider moving to paperless billing and statements.  You may choose to print only the items important for your tax returns or other records (or save them as PDF documents on your computer).

Got kids at home?  Have you ever heard them say "What's for dinner?"  or "We're having WHAT again?"  If you've grown tired of trying to plan nutritious meals your children will actually eat (and perhaps enjoy), put THEM to work planning the meals.  From age five or so, they are old enough to contribute to meal planning.

So, once a week, perhaps on Saturday morning, have each member of the family -- adults and children -- choose a night that suits her/his schedule of activities.  For that night, the assigned meal planner creates a dinner menu, then adds the required ingredients to the week's grocery list.  You may want to retain shopping duties for efficiency's sake.

Establish ground rules for the effort: 

• Each night's menu will be different.
• Only one pasta meal each week.
• Everyone's food allergies or picky preferences should be addressed.
• Each menu must be healthy (you define together what this means).

Include clean-up in the weekly duties as well, so you aren't stuck with a pile of pots, pans and plates at the end of each evening!