How can a timer keep me on task?

A secret strategy for productivity management is the implementation of a simple timer to make your results more productive. Take a look at the following steps for information on how this is done.

Choose the Timer

You can use a stop watch, an ordinary alarm clock, or the alarm on your cell phone. The point is to get something that allows you to track a predetermined amount of time. The timer can count down or count up.

Choose the Type of Task Wisely

Not all tasks are conducive to timing. If you have to depend on others to provide essential information or input, it’s probably not a good task for using a timer. Use a timer for tasks and productivity you have control over.

Race the Timer

If you have a difficult time staying focused, set your timer and race it. This creates urgency and helps you to overcome outside interruptions.

Work For 25 Minutes

Research has shown that working in smaller blocks of time can actually increase productivity. By setting your timer to 25 minute intervals you give yourself a fairly short burst of time to concentrate on a project or task before taking a break.

Take a Short Break and Repeat

When you take a break it should be for no longer than about five minutes. You can use this time to stretch your legs, get something to drink or simply to clear your mind. When this time is over you should get back to your project and reset your timer.

Using a timer in this way can have a huge impact on your overall results.

Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

Outsource and Delegate

Today's news about Congress fighting over the Payroll Tax cut reminds me quickly why I choose to outsource and delegate some things.

As a business that has employees, we have to provide payroll regularly. And I am SO glad that I have an accountant that handles all our payroll. I don't want to keep up with all the ever changing payroll and IRS rules.

For instance, if this payroll tax cut is extended for just 2 months as proposed, I would have to remember to change the payroll tax deductions in 2 months. Or if the payroll tax cut is passed for one year, I would have to remember in one year to check to see if he payroll tax cut is still in place OR I would have to have payroll software that is ALWAYS current and up-to-date. Because failing to do so would cause big problems with the government!

Whew that's a lot to think about...when would I have time to actually work my job? While I have accounting that needs to be done in my business, I don't want to be an accountant...that's why I outsource that to the professionals and I can focus on being a professional organizer and not a professional accountant!



Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/ http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com /; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

Total Money Makeover - Recommended Reading

If you are struggling with debt or tired of being stressed every time a bill comes due, I would encourage you to do a Total Money Makeover. Dave Ramsey is the ultimate guru of not only money management but the guru for digging yourself out of a financial mess! The Total Money Makeover is a great place to start getting your life back in financial order!


Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

It's All Too Much - Recommended Book

A few years back I had the opportunity to meet Peter Walsh, the original icon of the organizing industry. You might have seen him on Oprah over the years. He has some great books, but my all time best recommended book for those who struggle with letting things go, is his book "It's All Too Much".

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Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

The Success Principles - Recommended Book

If you are looking to move ahead in your career or just need a kick in the butt, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield is awesome. I heard Jack speak live a few years ago and what an inspiration! If you haven’t read this book, you should. It is one of my all time favorites.

CLICK BELOW ON THE BOOK

TO SEE INFO ABOUT IT

Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

How to organize effective brainstorming sessions

Brainstorming sessions are used to generate creative fresh ideas but the format of a typical brainstorming session makes it easy to let the meeting get out of hand quite quickly. The following are a few tips to be organized and get the most out of your time.

Set an Agenda and Make It Known

When you create an agenda for the meeting and circulate it well in advance your attendees understand the reason for meeting and can come prepared. An agenda also highlights other participants and can underscore why each person is vital to the session’s success.

Designate a Coordinator or Session Leader

The session leader is responsible for documenting ideas, keeping time and steering the focus of the group. When someone is clearly at the helm of the brainstorming session it is easier to direct the other participants to stay on track and to make contributions.

Place a Time Limit on Sessions

Ideally a brainstorming session should last only about half an hour. This is because going for a longer time period distorts the result and participants start to rationalize and this can kill the creativity of more spontaneous responses. If your session has to extend beyond this time it is best to designate short breaks in between so participants can grab refreshments and come back revitalized.

Encourage Participation

The main objective of a brainstorming session is to get solutions that are not run of the mill. This can only happen if people feel free to say anything that comes to mind regardless of how ridiculous it might first appear. The key to achieving this is to suspend judgment and welcome wild ideas.

If you follow these simple tips you can improve the productivity of your brainstorming sessions and generate the results you really want to see.

Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

How to organize mental clutter

If you feel like you have a million things you want to do but you are unable to settle down to anything productive because you simply can’t clear your head for long enough to choose a direction, then you need take a look at the following tips for how to organize mental clutter.

Make a Detailed List
The first thing you need to do to organize mental clutter is to get everything down on paper. This simple step works wonders when it comes to getting organized. On your first attempt at writing everything down you should not worry too much about the order you put things on your list, or if the list appears to represent a logical group of items. The trick is to treat this exercise like a typical brainstorming session capturing everything and leaving nothing out.

Create Categories
When everything is down on paper you can start looking at your items and then group them into logical categories. You may end up with things you want to do around the house, trips you want to take or meetings you have been putting off for work.

Prioritize Within Categories
The next step is to prioritize all the items under their separate categories. After doing this you’ll start to see where you need to start because the things that are urgent will be placed at the top of your list.

Figure Out Your Time Constraints
Of course you don’t have unlimited time, which is part of the reason you may have found yourself in this predicament in the first place, so you need to budget time to get the urgent things done. Then you can move along the line until you have put a timeline on all your outstanding projects and goals.

Create a Schedule
You may be able to use this exercise as a starting point to create a schedule that you can use every week, or even every day. The recurring items can be put into a time slot so you will be better organized in the future.


Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

How To Organize Your Child's School Papers

If your child’s school papers have managed to find their way onto every surface of your house it is time to take control and bring some order to the chaos. Organizing your child’s school papers will not only neaten your home but it will improve productivity as well.



Use the Keep/Toss Method
It might be heart-breaking to decide which of your child’s precious school papers you should keep and which you should toss, but it is simply not practical to hold on to everything. As your child progresses through the school system you will realize that the paper load is just too much and you will start to prune them out of pure necessity. A simple way to help cut back on what you keep is to hold on to all test papers and other graded school work for the length of the term in case any discrepancies arise after which time you can toss them away. If something is really sentimental you can take a picture of your child holding it up before you throw it away that way you can still hold on to the memory.



Set Aside Time to Organize
If you don’t make organizing school papers a part of your routine you will always have a build up. Instead of waiting for it to get overwhelming, you can sort your child’s school bag at the end of every day. Use the opportunity to check for homework, fill out consent forms and pull out things that can be tossed immediately.



Review Your Storage Bin After Every Term
At the end of the school term you can take a second look at your keep pile of papers. You should only keep those things that are really special to you or your child and get rid of the rest.


Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/

How to Recycle VHS Tapes

Yesterday at the Farmer's Market here in Cedar Rapids, someone asked how to recycle VHS tapes. This is a bit of a challenge because the older technology is in much less demand.

If the tapes are movies, the quickest and easiest solution is to donate them to an organization such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army who will resell them. From my experience, the only movies that you might be able to sell yourself are Disney movies. If you are having a garage sale anyway (don't have one just to sell these tapes), you could price them for sale. Craigs List is an option for selling or giving away. Freecycle. org is another option for giving away.

All the suggestions to this point involve reusing rather than recycling. If you have VHS tapes where you have taped programs or family movies on your own, these are more difficult to reuse and less people want them. Recyling them becomes the better option.

Upon some research, I have learned there is a company in Missouri that erases the tapes, sells the ones that are good and recycles the plastic of the others. You can send your tapes to them at ACT, 2200 Burlington, Columbia, Missouri 65202. Their website is www.ACTRecycling.org. If you go to their website, they do have a donation form and it appears the donations are tax deductible.

Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access www.TheOrganizingChoice.com, www.SecondGOAroundAuctions.com; www.ItsSimplySerendipity.com; and www.OutstandingSeminars.com

How to Organize a Family Reunion

Organizing a family reunion can take a lot of time and energy so it helps to formulate a strategy for getting started.


Decide Who is in Charge of Planning
You can decide to grab hold of the reigns to get your next family reunion off the ground or it may be more realistic to recruit a couple of your other family members to help. This all depends on the scale of the reunion you have in mind. A small gathering takes considerably less effort, so it may be possible for one person to do all the scheduling, but as long as you are trying to get a large group of people together you need to consider getting help.

Fix a Date and Location
Setting a date and location for your reunion is not as simple as it would first appear. This is especially the case if your family is scattered across the globe because everyone would need to take time off work and have money set aside to make the trip. The location should be centralized so all family members have an equal opportunity to attend and it should also be set for a time that is convenient to the largest number of people.

Think About Financing
There may be costs to be shared by the group. For instance, the rental of the location for the reunion is a factor to consider, although you may be able to find a place for free. You also need to think about the cost of refreshments or entertainment if you are planning to enlist outside acts to get momentum going.

Communicate with Attendees
It is the responsibility of the designated planners to communicate with all the potential attendees. Updating people on the issues as they arise and passing on the general consensus of the family members.


Activities
Sharing the family history and playing games should be fun for all, so when you are planning your itinerary remember to consider the different age groups that are likely to be present.
Organizing a family reunion doesn’t have to be a very difficult task. A bit of planning can ensure that your gathering is a great success and it just might turn into the first of many.


Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access www.TheOrganizingChoice.com; www.SecondGOAroundAuctions.com; www.ItsSimplySerendipity.com; www.OutstandingSeminars.com

How to Organize Computer Files

When your computer files are disorganized you lose precious time and this can have a huge negative impact on your productivity. Instead of getting frustrated every time you sit down at your computer you can take steps to organize your files and folders so you can find the things you need in an instant.

Use the “Documents” Feature
If you use Windows XP you would recognize the “My Documents” feature, but if you have upgraded to Windows 7 you know that it is simply known as “Documents”. This is a powerful tool for organizing your computer because it is essentially home-base for all your files and folders. If you use it as the root folder for all your work then you simply have to figure out a cascading structure of folders that makes sense for your usage.

Store Like Things Together
Another tip is to store like things together. You might start out with the best intentions but somewhere along the line you may start saving documents in the wrong place. Giving in to this lazy approach to computer organization is a recipe for disaster. You will never be able to find your documents if you don’t consistently put things in the right place.

Choose Intuitive Names
It is important to come up with a standard naming convention for both your computer folders and files and of course to stick to it. This helps greatly when you have to remember where to look for a particular type of document.

Backup Your Data
Finally, you should backup data on some external device or on an online database. While it is perfectly acceptable to use an external hard drive for instance, it is much better to use Dropbox to store your data because then it can be accessed remotely and you don’t need to worry about it ever being contaminated.

Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access www.TheOrganizingChoice.com, www.SecondGOAroundAuctions.com; www.ItsSimplySerendipity.com; and www.OutstandingSeminars.com

Auctions 101 & FAQs

If you have never been to an auction or sold items at an auction, auctions can be intimidating. My first experience with auctions that I remember was when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My dad enjoyed auctions. My mom went along from time to time. My parents found some great things at auctions over the years. While growing up, both of my sisters’ bedroom sets came from auctions. My dad liked the hunt of a great find.


As a consignor (one who sells items at an auction), it’s a pretty simple process. You give permission for your items to be auctioned off. Auctioned off means items will be sold to the highest bidder.


If you are like my dad and like the hunt of a great find, an auction is a super place. While bidding at first might seem scary but once you get the hang of it, it can be exciting and really fun! Yes, auctioneers do tend to speak fast, but if you observe a few bids, you will get the hang of what he or she is saying. Or better yet, go with or stand next to a veteran. They will be more than happy to help you with the bidding process.


When you arrive at an auction, you will want to get a bidding number. Even if you aren’t sure you will bid, get one anyway. That way you are prepared should something come up for bid that you want. Look for the signs that say “Bid Numbers Here” or “Numbers Here”. Sometimes, they are within a stand-alone camper or other times they are available at a table. Be prepared to give them your name, address, phone number and your driver’s license. Should you be successful with bidding and get an item, this is also the same place you usually pay for your items.


Once you receive your bid number, don’t go waving it around as it might be mistaken as a bid on your part. Also be careful about raising your arms or waving hello to someone across the way. This too can be mistaken as a bid.


If you bid on something and get it, be prepared to carry it or haul it out to your vehicle. You will have until the end of the auction to carry your items away. Therefore, if you plan on bidding on big items, you might want to bring along the appropriate transportation. For smaller items, bring along a box or basket. It makes it easy for keeping the items you won together and for carrying out.


How expensive are items at auctions? Well, this varies. Some things go for as little as $1 others like vehicles or lawn equipment can go for thousands. In most cases, personal property auctions, estate auctions or auctions with household, furniture and antiques (like the one we are having this Saturday June 25, 2011) tend to have a variety of items at all prices.


How long do auctions last? This varies depending upon the type and amount of items. However, in most cases 3-5 hours is not uncommon.

Is there a chance to preview items before the auction begins? Some auctions have specifically advertised preview times. For others, previewing is generally allowed 1-2 hours before the auction begins.

Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access www.TheOrganizingChoice.com, www.SecondGOAroundAuctions.com; www.ItsSimplySerendipity.com; and www.OutstandingSeminars.com