10 Easy Maintenance Tips vs Piling on the Chaos

Written by Eve Abbott, the Organizer Extraordinaire


10 Easy Maintenance Tips vs Piling onrepparttar Chaos By Eve Abbott, Excerpted from her new book, How to Do Space Age Work with a Stone Age Brain TM

Whether you are in your own business or an employee (or neither) -- if you have a family and a home you are inrepparttar 141495 business of having a life. I'm betting that none of you went into business to become hot at shuffling papers and reams of e-mail.

Eighty percent ofrepparttar 141496 clutter at work and at home is a result of disorganization, not lack of space! So if it's going to keep coming in and piling up, you've got to have an exit strategy. Regular maintenance isrepparttar 141497 best way to keep your office tuned up, same as your vehicle.

The key 'success' habit is deciding immediately where each piece of paper or e-mail goes and what'srepparttar 141498 next action required from you. Setting anything aside inrepparttar 141499 'decide later pile' just makes it worse. Every piece of clutter at work and at home is an unmade decision.

Use my Daily, Monthly and Yearly Maintenance tips to keep ahead of all that information --whether it's paper or computer. I guarantee you can manage your information more easily and successfully at work and at home when you do.

DAILY Unlike some wines, no piece of information improves with age. Set a certain time each day to sort, toss and refile both paper and e-mail. I do mine after lunch while I get through my post meal 'slump'.

Daily maintenance, like brushing your teeth, keeps you from collecting build-up in your systems.

Sort all your incoming materials daily; stand overrepparttar 141500 recycle bins and get rid of allrepparttar 141501 junk first. Sort into Action categories that make sense to you: to pay, to file, to review, etc. The daily sort is crucial just to keep your filing separate from Action items, and keeprepparttar 141502 discards moving.

At home, your 'To File' first sort can be separated into personal and business filing (try a combination sorter:vertical for action/ horizontal for filing).

At work, separate client or product materials from company administrative files in your first sort. More filing category help under Monthly tips.

Set up magazine files for Reference items (catalogs, magazines). At home, make separate sort places to put receipts that refer to warranties, personal property records, or that you need to reconcile with monthly credit card and bank statements.

Use a compartment, or envelope in your briefcase or purse where you can easily stuff any receipts (especially if you travel). Then, use it. Inrepparttar 141503 office, have a drop box or action file forrepparttar 141504 day-to- day expensed receipts from your briefcase or pockets.

MONTHLY Calendar definite times to do Maintenance and stick to them.

At home, try doing your paper filing only when you pay bills. As long as you schedule your maintenance every two weeks, you'll never miss a payment and you'll be up on your filing, too. In between bill paying time, simply do your daily sort: tossing, and putting bills, receipts, project materials in your Action area to be filed or paid whenrepparttar 141505 time comes.

10 Tips on the Right Time of Day for Your Personal Best

Written by Eve Abbott, the Organizer Extraordinaire


10 Tips onrepparttar Right Time of Day for Your Personal Best By Eve Abbott,the Organizer Extraordinaire Excerpted from her new book "How to Do Space Age Work with a Stone Age Brain" TM

Can choosing which time we do an activity really make a difference in our performance?

Have you ever wondered what would berepparttar 141494 best time of day (or week) to do different kinds of work? Every person's internal clock runs onrepparttar 141495 Human Circadian Timeline. Except those who have been on graveyard shift for years!

This isrepparttar 141496 schedule by which our body systems (including our brain) 'take care of business'. Every work day is divided into cycles that match our naturally heightened abilities - both physically and mentally.

The trick is to take advantage of identifying and using this information to schedule your work and life activities accordingly.

Circadian rhythms are present at birth andrepparttar 141497 body temperature cycle emerges between 6 to 9 months for infants. Byrepparttar 141498 age of threerepparttar 141499 adrenal system is coordinating a complete daily cycle or timeline.

The adrenal glands in coordination with our pituitary, hypothalamus, pineal glands control both our internal clock and our stress reaction.

This means our stress levels are in direct proportion to how far off we are from our natural time cycle.

Body temperature cycle doesn't vary so much from person to person. But, studies show our natural rhythms do shorten as we age. Mental conditions like depression in which sleep disturbance is common and physical illness of any kind disruptrepparttar 141500 daily cycle.

However, healthy people keep their innate circadian cycle throughout their life.

Although each body system has its own rhythm, generally cell replacement peaks between noon and nine pm. The skin andrepparttar 141501 liver arerepparttar 141502 only organs which replenish worn out tissues with new ones at night and this process peaks by midnight.

The brain isrepparttar 141503 only organ that functions without cell replacement - So, we'd better take better care ofrepparttar 141504 one we have!

Setting Your Internal Clock To work and live at our best, we need our internal circadian rhythm in harmony or synchronized withrepparttar 141505 environmental cues (i.e., light and dark, temperature etc).

Human beings grow faster, produce more offspring, enjoy better health, do better work and live longer when time setting environment cycles match.

This makes it easy to understandrepparttar 141506 fact that graveyard shift (midnight to eight am) workers experience more accidents than day and evening shifts combined. Also, more ofrepparttar 141507 worst auto accidents occur after midnight. Our bodies 'know' we should be asleep!

One night of short sleep does not affect overall performance. However, several nights of sleep deprivation leads to dull sensory perceptions (vision, hearing etc.). Plus, longer reaction time, slower motor coordination, reduced memory retrieval, combined with lowered new memorization ability, as well as increased irritability.

These are exactlyrepparttar 141508 functions we need to do good work - including decreased irritability.

Light isrepparttar 141509 number one influence… and most powerful internal clock setting factor for most life on our planet. Obviously, different mammals have different clocks; cats are active at night and sleep all day and people are active duringrepparttar 141510 day and sleep at night.

Reportedly, no one had heart attacks prior torepparttar 141511 1800s (then, city dwelling andrepparttar 141512 rise of industrial work using artificial light).

Number two influence is temperature… For example, people's sleep and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) or dream cycles are disturbed and they awake more often whenrepparttar 141513 sleeping temperature is above 75 degrees.

Whenrepparttar 141514 sleeping temperature is below 65 degrees dreams become unpleasant and contain emotional conflict. Working in a cold room increases your chances of a repetitive stress injury.

Number three is eating. Did you know that Japanese people who are most Americanized have five timesrepparttar 141515 heart disease compared to those who practice more traditional cultural habits and diet?

Number four is sounds for most species. As you might expect, sound is an especially strong factor for auditory dominant learners like myself. Studies have indicated that among people living underrepparttar 141516 airport approach route there is a thirty percent higher rate of admissions to mental hospitals.

Exercise Regular exercise increases everyone's cognition capability and releases stress from our bodies. For most men,repparttar 141517 best time to exercise is inrepparttar 141518 afternoon. Women who exercise inrepparttar 141519 morning raise serotonin levels, which prompts a positive mental state.

If you exercise inrepparttar 141520 evening it disturbsrepparttar 141521 natural slowing down cycle leading to sleep. So a good thing like exercise can be even better if you know repparttar 141522 best timing. Ifrepparttar 141523 only time you can exercise isrepparttar 141524 afternoon - go ahead!

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