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Recently I was working with a new client who had invested hundreds of dollars for a records management organisation to set up a filing system for his business.

The system looked impressive. The only problem was it didn’t work! It had been set up in a very complicated manner. The headings were so detailed that a master sheet with a myriad of categories had to be referred to before information could be filed or retrieved.

The system was far too complex for their specific needs.

Have you ever had that experience where a filing system had been set up for you and/or your department/business and you couldn’t find or file paperwork easily? How much time have you wasted looking for information? Time management is about managing your time. Spending precious time looking for paperwork is a great way to use up even more of your time.

Did you know that The Wall Street Journal once reported in a survey they had done that the average white collar worker spends 6 weeks a year looking for paperwork? If you’re serious about your time management, then having a filing system where you can easily file and find your work is very important.

How Do You Know You Need a New Filing System?

When it takes you longer than a couple of minutes to find something.

When you run out of floor space because there are too many piles of paperwork on the floor.

When colleagues or clients ask you for information and you frequently say, ” Can I get back to you later because I’ll have to find it!”

When you catch yourself saying several times a day “I know it’s here. somewhere”.

When the piles of paper on your desk are taller than you are.

Filing Basics

Clean out all old or irrelevant information.

Write down what types of information you need to keep.

Categories which may emerge include:

• Advertising

• Bank

• Budget

• Clients

• Equipment

• Insurance

• Resources

• Staff

• Suppliers

• Training

If required, sub-categories can be made:

• Advertising

  • Radio

  • TV

• Bank

  • Commonwealth

  • Westpac

• Budget

  • 2001/2002

  • 2002/2003

• Clients
  Hot Tip! Holidays and breaks – it is so easy to feel that we cannot stop working or everything will start to crumble. The descent from enthusiasm and motivation to worry and stress is an insidious one, which we may not even notice, and which has a profound impact on our time management.
  • A separate file for each client

• Equipment

  • Computers

  • Faxes

• Insurance

  • Building/Contents

  • Vehicles

• Resources

  • Newsletters

  • Trade Journals

• Staff

  • A separate file for each person

  • Resumes

• Suppliers

  • A separate file for each supplier

• Training

  • General

  • Files for specific areas ie. Time Management, Work/Life Balance

Depending on your situation a whole drawer/s of a filing cabinet may be required to house some of these categories ie. Clients, Suppliers, Staff.

The Final Word

When you can file your paperwork quickly and retrieve it easily, you know you’ve got a system that works well for you.

As part of your time management, being confident in having systems that are effective and take little time to use, will make your life so much easier.

It’s always the little things that make such a huge difference.

More details regarding the setting up of a successful filing system are available in my manual “How to Gain An Extra Hour in Your Day” and Get Organised-Get a LIFE! Book. (See http://www.office-organiser.com.au)

About The Author

Lorraine Pirihi is Australia’s Personal Productivity Specialist and Leading Life Coach. Her business The Office Organiser specialises in showing small business owners and managers, how to get organised at work so they can have a life! Lorraine is also a dynamic speaker and has produced many products including “How to Survive and Thrive at Work!”

To subscribe to her free ezine visit http://www.office-organiser.com.au

This article may be reproduced providing it is published in it’s entirety, including the author’s bio and all links. For further information please contact Lorraine Pirihi: lorraine@office-organiser.com.au

“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” Benjamin Franklin

“Up to 90 percent of our normal behavior is based on habits,” an excerpt from The Power of Focus by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt. One-by-one daily habits generate a full life. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” In the past, habits formed that served you in some way…the time you go to sleep, how you react in situations, how you communicate, what you eat, how you focus your time, etc. Because habits run on autopilot we forget they are a major influence in the results we experience. Are your daily habits serving you? When was the last time you checked? Here are 5 A’s to support you to move beyond limits and make a long-term positive impact one habit at a time.

Attention- First, pay attention to your daily actions. Are there any to improve, add, or eliminate? One positive, new, long term habit a month results in 12 rewarding habits in place by the end of a year, 60 after 5 years. Wow, imagine how your life might be different then! Secondly, pay attention to new possibilities.Take a look at an Ideas Bank of possible daily habits you may not have thought of at www.StartingNowCoaching.com

Adjust- Make a list of the habits to develop over the rest of the year. What habits do you want to add or eliminate? Instead of eliminating a bad habit you may add a good habit. For example, instead of choosing to stop snacking you may opt to drink more water. The water fills you and automatically reduces snacking. Consider habits with long term results. Then set your plan for each month. You may choose easier habits to incorporate in the beginning. The clearer your focus the better so 1 or 2 a month is sufficient. If you choose more, select one as your primary habit. Tip: Choose what you want, not what someone else wants for you.

Activate- Get in motion by knowing your motivation. What will you gain by incorporating this daily ritual? How will you be different? How will you feel different? What results may you experience long term? Review your motivation daily while instilling the habit.

Accountability- Choose a structure to keep your new habit in front of you daily. It may be helpful to schedule it at the same time daily, add it at the top of your “to do” list, or do it first thing in the morning. Tell the world what you are doing, find a friend to connect with weekly for support, or get a coach. You are welcome to pick up a complimentary Rewarding Daily Habits Chart for tracking purposes at www.StartingNowCoaching.com which includes your motivation and support structure at a glance.

Action- Make a commitment to daily action. Don’t just try it… do it! When you miss a day because life gets in the way, don’t quit. You can do this.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habits is what keeps you going,” according to Jim Rohn. Begin creating habits that lead to extraordinary life experiences… one habit at a time… Starting Now.

Copyright 2006 © Beth A. Tabak, All rights reserved.

Beth Tabak of http://www.StartingNowCoaching.com is committed to small business coaching & personal life coaching. She is also a speaker and columnist. Beth coaches big thinkers to move beyond limits, stand out in the crowd, and experience the vastness of their capabilities. Stop by to see all the gifts available to you and say “hello”.

An important aspect of leadership is having the ability to choose the right people for the right job. This is a vital role that leaders will invariably be called upon to perform. In any team sport, a great deal of time is spent in picking the right players for the game. Selection is done keeping these factors in mind as player’s skill, form, the right place in the team and the likely opposition that the team will confront. As in sports, in business too, leaders need to select the right team and players for a particular job, assign them specific tasks in line with their skills and proficiencies. To field a match-winning team, you first need to understand the game to be played and the skills and abilities required to play it. A football team cannot play baseball if you aim to win at the top. Also, you have to place the right player at the right position.

In order to make the right choice, you first need to simplify the broader team goals into specific, individual tasks. You can write down the task list and rank them in the order of priority. You then have to analyze the competencies required to undertake each task. Weighing the competencies of each team member and assigning tasks that matches their competencies, will help you in selecting the right candidate for the right job.

However, more often you will find that a person may excel in certain areas but may be found wanting in others. Or you may find an employee at a lower rung exhibiting similar skill power. You may find such gaps and overlaps, revealing the need for providing training in those areas where they are deficient. Having back-ups for important tasks in case you lose key people, and ensuring to have a diverse team than with similar background are other critical factors involved in the process of selection.

Thus it will be obvious to you that recruitment is often an elaborate process that begins with advertising, screening resumes, administering test, interviewing candidates, selecting the best candidates and giving them needed training. But the whole set of tasks can be made simpler by using Mind Map.

Using Mind Maps you can clearly outline the specific job position under a main heading and note down all the tasks that the job entails under it. You can then explore at length the traits that will be required for each of the tasks relating to the job assignment. You can use particular color to distinguish fundamental abilities/traits from the general qualities.

Similarly, you can frame a simple outline on those skills and traits for testing the candidates. Highlighting these in a different color, you can decide on the possible methodology that will best bring these out from the candidates, in order to make a proper evaluation. You can then have the basic criteria, not just in terms of test ranking, but also in the soft skills that the candidate brings in, such as communication abilities, confidence level, attitude, disposition, etc.

Matching the hardcore competencies of a candidate with the soft skills, you can set a minimum standard to be eligible for interview. Ranking the candidates on all criteria and choosing the best among them can be greatly facilitated by using Mind Map. Utilizing symbols you can group all those candidates revealing the need for training, and those excelling in most areas for direct task handling.

When you integrate all these entire process of recruitment into one major Mind Map, you will, at a glance, gain a comprehensive picture of the full procedure involved. You will have complete grip over your recruitment process of picking the right person for the right job. Whenever you have new thoughts or ideas on a particular aspect, you can easily incorporate them and comprehend the links and associations between the various stages of recruitment. All these and much more are possible with Mind Map. Mind Map helps you to fine tune your recruitment process and ensure you are on the right track to pick the right candidate for the right job.

About the Author:

Dr. Vj Mariaraj is a Mind Map enthusiast and has been using Mind Maps for the past twelve years. He has created over 5650 Mind Maps. To learn more about mind mapping send an email to freemindmap@aweber.com . He is the founder of BusinessBookMindMap.com that creates Mind Map Summaries of Businees Books. To learn more visit http://BusinessBookMindMap.com/mind-map.php?ea=14

Your time and energy are the two most precious gifts that you have. Evaluate each month where you are placing your time and energy. Here are some ways that I have used to help me honor where I place my time and energy:

Place a yellow sticky note on your telephone answering machine that says “Is this phone call the most valuable use of my time and energy?”

Find who you are on the inside and begin to live your life in accordance with this truth.

Where you place your time and energy today determines who you will become tomorrow.

Learn how to nicely say NO without feeling guilty. Try “Well I’m planning to do _______ then. Would you like to join me?”

Meetings are often a waste of time and energy. Whenever you add a meeting to your schedule, DROP at least one of your other ones.

If you have more than three (3) meetings scheduled throughout the week, get rid of at least one of them as soon as possible.
Begin to notice which people and events drain energy from you and begin to decrease the time you spend with these people or doing these activities.

When you’re spending time with someone or at some event, be aware of how often you look at your watch. If you look frequently at it, you probably would have more fun doing something else. This principle applies to your job as well.
Stop watching the evening news. It is often more upsetting than informative. It usually has very little to do with what really matters in your life.

Try giving up TV for one week. Read a book, write letters, catch up with friends and family, bake a cake, etc. If a week is too long for you to go without TV, don’t watch it during the weekend.

Don’t act in the dramas others create for themselves.

Review your last month, week, day and hour. How did you spend your time and energy? If you could redo your last month, week, day and hour what would you change?

_________________________________________________________________

Bill Austin is a spiritual healer and teacher based in St Petersburg FL. He has assisted hundreds of people around the world in gaining the clarity they need to realize more of their full potential. To find out more about his healing practice, please check out his web site at http://www.HealingHolograms.com

Bill Austin is also the author of Transform YOUR Relationship with Money: A Step-by-Step Guide for Financial Empowerment. For more information about this guide, please check out his web site located at http://TransformYourRelationshipWithMoney.com

Are you looking for ideas or motivation tips to make a difference in your life or for someone else’s life? Are you like most everyone and just don’t have much time? Can you perform random acts of kindness every day?

Honestly, it doesn’t take much time to brighten someone’s life. A few minutes a day can make a difference to a person or a family. Just some kindness and the evidence that someone cares about them can turn their world around.

These five motivation tips from the E-book, 101 Ways to Change the World, don’t take much time, so begin to make a difference today! You’ll feel better — and so will the recipient of your kindness.

1. Send at least one e-mail a day telling someone:

2. Send a note of appreciation to your local police department or Fire Station to encourage the people who make a difference in everyone’s lives. This doesn’t happen nearly enough for these people who put their lives on the line for all of us every day.

3. Put a Thank You note and a cookie in the box for your Paper Delivery person. Can you imagine the last time they were shown a kindness for doing their job?

4. Have everyone in your family (even if it’s just you) drop all their loose change in a large glass jar you keep on the counter. Every six months decide where to send it Make a family ritual out of the event and make a difference in someone’s life almost effortlessly.

5. Buy a few extra items at your grocery store and drop them by your local homeless shelter or food bank. You’ll make huge a difference, simply by adding a handful of extra items and a few minutes to your shopping.

Author Ginny Dye shares how practical acts of kindness can make a difference in our world. Get all 101 tips on how you can make a difference by going to http://www.101WaysSeries.com and request “101 Ways to Change the World”.

People complain about why they don’t make more money or why they’re not in better shape or why they don’t have a better relationship with their kids yet they sit, hour after hour, on the couch in front of the television. I have one suggestion for them - Get Off The Couch! Ten years from now that episode of “Survivor” that you just couldn’t miss will be a distant memory but that business you started, part-time, at night or that book you read or that time you spent with your children could be paying real dividends.

Some people want to feel as if they have no control over their own lives. They feel they won’t succeed no matter what they do. So what they do is nothing. They don’t try anything. They would rather play the role of victim and feel sorry for themselves. In the words of Lee Iacocca, “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” The point is, try something. You feel empowered just by taking action. You’re no longer a victim but you’re taking control of your own life.

Get out and walk, take a class, play with your kids. Do anything as long as you’re doing something. If you want more money, go for it. Start a small business, sell something on Ebay, sell a service. If you want to get in better shape, great! Take a walk, climb the stairs rather than taking the elevator, park as far from the store as you can rather than taking the closest parking spot. Start small but keep working at it. If you want a better relationship with your kids, turn off the TV. Talk to one another. Ask them about their day, help with their homework, go for a bike ride together. The key to any progress is to take action. Don’t just sit there.

The saddest thing I can imagine is facing the end of your life and saying to yourself “If only I…..”. You fill in the blank. Don’t put yourself in that position. Put down the remote control and take charge of your life. Television will always have reruns but you have no such luxury in life. Resolve to make your life all it can be. Get Off The Couch…..and live your life.

John Wagner owns and operates several online businesses including financial web site MoneyCentralUSA, http://www.moneycentralusa.com. Learn more about his new ebook “Money Secrets banks Don’t Want You to Know: http://www.moneycentralusa.com/ebook.com