Organizing and productivity

May 06

Counter Intuitive Approach to Productivity- The Power Nap

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Expert Articles, Free Articles, Resources No Comments

Napping helps beat fatigue and a quick power nap can have many benefits when it comes to your performance and level of productivity. Studies show that a short power nap can have both physiologically and psychologically benefits and help refresh the mind, increase productivity and improve overall alertness.

Stressing Life

When was the last time you scheduled time for yourself to rest? A 20 minute nap is a great way to relax and let go of accumulated stress in your body. When your body is in constant battle fighting against itself due to high levels of stress, your productivity and effectiveness decreases and your ability to focus on the important tasks may also be affected. Dr. Sara Mednick, a researcher at Salk Institute for Biological Studies, says the benefit of a nap improves your health, helps with hormonal maintenance and cell repair.

Because you are tired, you probably fill your time with busy work and non-productive tasks instead of getting the right things done. A simple power nap can change your focus and you will be able to devote more energy to the high-payoff tasks.

Your Body Needs a Power Nap

Typically, your body will let you know when it needs a rest. If you think you don’t have time to rest, think again. Step back from a state of stress and get into a mode of relaxation. Instead of ignoring the signs like yawning or a slowdown of your mental activity, take time to relax, go for a short walk or take a 20 minute power nap during your lunch break. By doing so, you’ll be energized and it will bring you balance and calm for the rest of the day. In this state your mind you’ll promote performance and alertness during the rest of your day.

Improved Memory Function

In a study done by NASA on napping and sleeping, they found that a nap improves memory function and alertness. Giving your brain a mid-day break helps sort through all the bits and pieces of information you’ve accumulated during the first part of your day. After the nap your mind is in a more efficient and productive state. It’s like clearing out the clutter in your mind and being more efficient.

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

― Albert Einstein

Athlete’s Power Nap

Giving the body a chance to restore itself and build energy between training or before a competition is used by many athletes. Lance Armstrong included naps as part of his overall training routine that helped him win 7 Tour de France bicycle races.

When and How?

Restorative naps, or siesta as they call it in other parts of the world, are most beneficial right after lunch, according to most scientific research. This is a point in your body’s natural sleep rhythm, called your circadian cycle, when your body has a natural tendency to fall asleep. If you sleep too long or nap too late in the day, you’ll affect your sleep time at night. Set an alarm clock, play relaxing music or use nap sounds for a 20 minute power nap. Some may need to add a few minutes before to let the body relax and 5-10 minutes after to transition back into your workday.

There are many apps available for Smartphones and iPad to help you power nap and catch some Z’s. Using soundscapes to mask distracting noises and is a natural sleep aid. My personal favorite is the “Pebble Beach” soundscape from “Power Nap – Soundscapes.” You can download the Power Nap app here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/power-nap-soundscapes/id380494523?mt=8

Do you include a power nap in your routine?

Mar 19

Love0

Reclaim Shelf Space and Organize Your Books with a Kindle!

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Business Organizing, Closet Organizing, Expert Articles, Free Articles, Home Office Organization, Home Organizing, IABO Weekly News, Quick Organizing Tips, Resources No Comments

Before my Kindle

Are you tripping over piles of books on the floor? Is your bookcase bulging at the seams with no room for all your new books? How much time and money are you wasting finding a book or on duplicate purchases? Are you like me, someone who loves to highlight and tag your books for future reference?

Are you feeling a little nervous about letting go of your precious books? I love my books too and when we went to Hawaii a few weeks ago, we decided to buy an e-book reader and test it out on our vacation. We also thought it was about time to get with the times. Someone said to me, everyone in Hawaii has an e-book reader by the pool or on the beach. So we thought we would give it a try.

Having an e-book reader also let’s you travel light. Instead of packing three books each, I only took one book with me and Glen had his new Kindle. The first day by the pool, I looked around and sure enough, 80% had some form of e-book reader. Also, my husband kept saying to me, you’re going to love reading from the Kindle. It’s easier to hold and much lighter than a pocket book, and the wind doesn’t flip your pages around. Oh, and another cool feature is you can change the font size, which for some of us, and I won’t mention any names, is a bonus when the fine print is too small to read.

So, after two days, I finished reading my paperback and I was going back and forth, do I buy a second e-book reader or do we share? We still had another 12 days in Hawaii and I planned on reading several more books. So we decided to go to Best Buy and buy another Kindle. A few days later, we found a vending machine at the Sheraton Waikiki that sells high-end electronics – iPods, iPhones, iPads, Kindles and other items you wish you had while on vacation. How cool is that?

Anyways, all I can say is, why did I wait so long? I absolutely LOVE my e-book reader! I can highlight, makes notes and refer back to my notes easier than I could highlight in a book. No more yellow highlighter to fiddle with, its super light to hold and read, no glare from the sun, long battery life (5-7 days), love the larger print size, and I read faster because I’m not straining my eyes to read the small print. We opted to buy the basic e-book reader because we don’t need a ton of fancy features and a data package. We just wanted an easy way to read and organize our books. We can even share our books with each other.

After my Kindle

Four weeks later, I’m in my office and I notice a very full bookshelf. I thought I had purged as many books as I could and for some reason I was holding onto way too many books. Now that I have my Kindle, I don’t need all these books. As you can see from the before photo, the bookshelf is bulging at the seams. I want you to know that I practice what I teach. So, I approached my bookshelf with a new frame of mind. Knowing that I have my Kindle to store all future books, I asked myself “what’s the reason I’m holding onto all these books?” Here’s my answers:

It’s out of print and its a book I refer to sometimes.
I wrote the book or I’m a contributing author.
The book is a key resource in my business or personal life.
I want to read this book.
I paid a lot of money for this hard cover and I should keep it.
It’s a classic and I want to keep it.
A friend published a book and it was a gift.

Here’s the new question I asked myself because I now have a Kindle, “what books can I let go of, write down in my OneNote file, and if I ever want to refer to it, I’ll buy it on my Kindle?” Here’s the after photos of all the books that I am letting go of and if I want to refer to one of these books someday, I will purchase it on my Kindle. The cost of buying it a second time, if I do, is a fraction of the cost of the space that is now available in my office. I have room to breath and I don’t need to go out and buy a new shelving unit with doors (which I was planning on doing) because I didn’t like looking at all these heavy books.

If I can do it, so can you. Go ahead and purge your bookshelf. If you’re like me and thinking that a Kindle costs too much, think again. I spent less than $90 and the freedom and flexibility I now have is a wonderful feeling. It’s much easier to take my Kindle with me wherever I go instead of a thick book. No more “making room” for books on my bookshelf. The stress I released and the space I reclaimed on my bookshelves and in my office, priceless!

Mar 12

Love4

Organizing & Time Management Statistics

By Sherry Borsheim Blog, Business Organizing, Free Articles, Home Organizing, IABO Weekly News, Resources, Uncategorized 2 Comments

I’ve gathered some interesting statistics on the cost of clutter and disorganization in time, money and quality of life. Seriously consider what clutter and chaos is costing you in your home and/or business. It can be a real eye opener. If you need some help, we have many videos and organizing bootcamps to help you de-clutter your home and office.

Take a few minutes to review the Organizing and Time Management Statistics below and check off the ones that apply to you. Then find your calendar and schedule time to de-clutter your office and home. Start with the area that is driving you crazy the most.

Household Management
Information Management
Organizing Products and Tools
Paper Management
Stress and Work/Life Balance
Time Management

Household Management

It costs an average of $10/square foot to store items in your home
According to the National Soap and Detergent Association, getting rid of clutter eliminates 40 percent of housework in the average home
Escape Magazine, April 2000, says each week Americans spend:If you rent self-storage space to store your excess belongings, you’re contributing to a $154 billion industry. That’s bigger than the Hollywood film business!
1 in 11 American households rent a self-storage space and spend over $1,000 a year in rent
23% of adults pay bills late and incur fees because they can’t find their bills, Harris Interactive
80% of the clutter in your home is a result of disorganization, not lack of space
80% of what we keep we rarely use, Agency Sales Magazine
Realtors say ‘first impression’ is key and de-cluttering closets to be one of the smartest ways to spruce up your home before putting it on the market
We wear 20% of our clothes, 80% of the time. The rest hangs there
U.S. Department of Energy reports that 25% of people with two-car garages fill it with too much stuff that they can’t park a car inside
50% of homeowners rate their garage as the most disorganized room in the house, yet the most frequently used by family members

Information Management

96% of office workers are frustrated by their company’s information management, Harte-Hanks
According to Forbes ASAP, the typical executive today wastes 150 hours a year, almost one month, searching for lost information. For someone earning $50,000 a year, that translates to a loss of $3,842
Typical US worker is interrupted by communications technology every 10 minutes, Institute for Future and Gallup
80% of papers and information that we keep, we never use, Agency Sales Magazine
Email is increasing print volume by 40%, Document Magazine

Organizing Products and Tools

Using the correct organizational tools can improve time management by 38%, Mobile Technology Product
Home storage products have become a $4.36 billion industry, Newsweek 2004

Paper Management

The average American gets 49,060 pieces of mail in a lifetime, one third of it is junk mail
Paperwork has been voted the biggest burden for small businesses
The Wall Street Journal reports that the average U.S. executive wastes six weeks per year retrieving misplaced information from messy desks and files. For an executive earning $75,000 a year, that translates to a loss of $9,221 – 12.3 percent of total earnings. For a company with one hundred executives at that salary, it translates to nearly $1 million in lost productivity.
The average office has 19 copies of each document. Spends $20 in labour to file each document. Spends $120 in labour searching for each misfiled document. Loses one out of every 20 documents. Spends 25 hours recreating each lost document, PricewaterhouseCoopers
It costs about $25,000 to fill a four drawer filing cabinet and over $2,100 per year to maintain it, Gartner Group, Coopers & Lybrand, Ernst & Young
A four-drawer file cabinet full of paper, holds 18,000 pages
Studies show that some executives will pick up a single piece of paper from their desk thirty or forty times before acting on it, Michael F. Woolery, Seize the Day
Time spent mishandling paperwork detracts from the company’s ability to service customers, increase sales, and improve the bottom line, Small Business Administration
Corporations still don’t understand the value of good document management or the costs of bad, Thornton May, author of Imaging World
It costs businesses $120 in labour to track down a misplaced document or $250 in labour to re-create it

Stress and Work/Life Balance

80% of our medical expenditures are stress related as stated by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fast Company 2003
Stress-related illness costs the nation $300 billion a year in medical costs and lost productivity, American Institute of Stress
Perfectionism costs 50% or more of the total effort to squeeze out the last 10% or so of quality, Jeff Olson, The Agile Manager’s Guide to Getting Organized, 1997

Time Management

the National Association of Professional Organizers says we spend one year of our lives looking for lost items
Office workers waste an average of 40% of their workday. Not because they aren’t smart, but because they were never taught organizing skills to cope with the increasing workloads and demands, Wall Street Journal Report
In a 2008 NAPO survey of 400 consumers nationwide:
In Escape Magazine, April 2000,says Each Week Americans spend: The average American will spend one year searching through desk clutter looking for misplaced objects, Margin, Dr. Richard Swenson
- 751 minutes behind slow moving cars and stuck in traffic jams
- 727 minutes waiting for dates and business associates to show up for meetings
- 724 minutes standing in lines to make purchases, renew drivers
- 723 minutes on hold, waiting for someone to pick up the phone
It’s estimated that a manager loses 1 hour/day to disorder, costing the business up to $4,000/yr if earning $35,000/yr or $8,125/yr at $65,000
280 hours (7 weeks) per year are lost by workers seeking clarification due to poor communication
The average American spends one year of their life looking for lost or misplaced items at home and in the office, US News and World Report
According to the American Demographic Society, Americans waste more than 9 million hours each day looking for lost and misplaced articles
For every hour of planning, 3 to 4 hours are saved from redundancy, waiting for information, not being prepared and poorly managed tasks
The average manager is interrupted every three minutes
People who multi-task decrease their productivity by 20-40% are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time. Time lost switching among tasks increases the complexity of the tasks, University of Michigan Study
Sales reps surveyed were most productive when they assigned themselves only three tasks per day. It gave them a great sense of accomplishment when they were able to cross off those tasks, Accountemps
40% of adults say if they had more time, they would spend it with family, Day Runner Survey
Executives waste 7.8 hours each week in meetings, Accountemps Survey