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.

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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/

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