Organize 365 Spring Cleaning and Organization Challenge WEEK 7: The Home Office

April 30, 2013 By lisa 1 Comment

Whether you work from home or not, you have home “office duties.”

Bill paying, home maintenance, tax records and medical files are just the tip of the home office mountain.

Step 1: Create a designated “office space.

Organize 365 Spring Cleaning and Organization Challenge WEEK 7: The Hom Office | Organize365

You can see mine here. It is just a corner of my bedroom, but it is my space for just office stuff.

Step 2: Organize and update your office supplies.

Take inventory of what you have and replenish what you need. There is nothing worse than going to wrap a present and realizing… you’re out of tape!

Step 3: Set office hours.

Pay your bills the same time each week. Designate a time and place to handle mail. Set aside time with your calendar to schedule appointments on the phone.

Step 4: Create a Sunday Basket drop zone.

I have blogged about that here: Sunday Basket.

Step 5: Create a Mobile Office.

See more on Living Dayton:

Organize Your Office

Filed Under: electronics, Living Dayton, On the Go, Paper & Office, productivity, Spring Cleaning Challenge Tagged With: Home, home office, living dayton, mobile office, office, office hours, office supplies, organization, organize, organize 365, pinned, sunday basket, video

Organizing Bug: Rubber band Storage

April 10, 2013 By lisa Leave a Comment

Organizing Bug: Rubber Band Storage | Organize365

I had never seen rubber bands organized this way!

Thanks Jenny for a great idea!

This would also be a great way to organize hair bands!

Filed Under: organization, Organize 365, Organizing Bug, Paper & Office Tagged With: hair band, hair band organization, how to organize rubberbands, organization, organize, organize 365, organizing bug, pinned, rubber band, rubber band organization

Ask the Organizer: How Do I Organize Taxes?

April 5, 2013 By lisa 4 Comments

I am answering the question: How to organize your taxes over on Stockpiling Moms

The questions usually come as:

What papers do I need to keep?
How do I keep track of all my papers?
What tax deductions can I take?

First, I want to make it VERY clear that I am NOT in any way an expert in taxes. I do however love paper.

So will share with you the steps I take to keep my tax write off paper work tidy.

First, our family takes a LOT of deductions.

I use a kitchen counter filing system to track receipts from: received, to entered in my system, to paid.

Medical expenses alone take up half of our take home pay.

The list of allowable deductions is amazing. You can view it here:

Second, You have to be able to “prove” the deductions you are taking.

I will not even pretend to give advice here, except to show you how I keep track of my deductions.

Click here to read more.

Filed Under: Paper & Office Tagged With: deductions, kitchen counter filing system, organization, organize, organize 365, organize taxes, pinned, tax, tax organization, tax papers, taxes, tracking deductions

Only 6% of women in the United States make over $100,000 per year – of those 6%, 80% work in direct sales!

March 22, 2013 By lisa 2 Comments

Only 6% of women in the United States make over $100,000 per year – of those 6%, 80% work in direct sales. {www.dsa.org}

What do you think when you ready that?

Here are my thoughts.

#1 I thought more women made 6 figures.

#2 I have NO idea that 4 out of every 5 women making 6 figures was in direct sales! I LOVE direct sales and have been in numerous great companies over the years. I will continue to encourage MAMAs to find their passion and product in a direct sales industry.

#3 For half a second I thought “Why did I get OUT of direct sales?”! Ok I’ll be honest; I have that thought at LEAST 3 times a day – usually 10 or more.

I have learned about 3 new direct sales companies just this week I would love to join. But I know that my journey now is to help women in ALL direct sales companies GET ORGANIZED and meet their potential selling what THEY love.

So even though I am continually pulled to join into ONE company, I am going to stand firm and help YOU reach your dreams with direct sales. YOU can be in the 6%!

I have just re-released my eBook Organizing the Business of Direct Sales.

Organizing the Business of Direct Sales eBook | Organize365

I would love to have you join me on a FREE webinar next Wednesday at 1:00 EST

This talk is not about how to generate business, but what to do with the business you generate.

Direct Sales Companies do a fantastic job of training their consultants to sell and recruit. I want to share with you what you should be doing in your business when you’re not at a money-making event or meeting. How do you keep track of all that paperwork, follow-up correspondence and training handouts? When do you work? Where should you work? How do you work in different stages of your life?

Key Takeaways

• What are office hours and why do I need them?

• Where will I hold my office hours and what will I do?

• What do I do with all this paper stuff?

• How does focused attention build my business?

• When do I need to hire an assistant?

Filed Under: Direct Sales, organization, Paper & Office Tagged With: direct sales, free direct sales webinar, free webinar, lisa woodruff, organization, organize, organize 365, organizing the business of direct sales, webinar

A Home Office Makeover

March 13, 2013 By lisa 2 Comments

Professional Organizing is such a personal endeavor. There is something about corralling other’s collections and possessions that is binding.

I could share story after story with you of women who became fast friends through organizing projects. I must say the saddest part of my job is finishing!

This January I followed up as I do with a new potential client and had the time of my life! Sondra is such a fun and energetic being. Below is a picture of her second floor room in her home. It is obvious she has a flair for design, she just needed a little help with an office.

I am going to have her share her story with you…

{LOOK at this gorgeous space!! Sondra knows how to decorate!}

What a way to fulfill a New Year’s Resolution!

My disorganized, overcrowded, unattractive home office was completely uninspiring. It was such an unpleasant room, I kept postponing projects that I really wanted to do.

I even dreaded the time it took to keep up with bill paying and minimal correspondence.

Although I enjoy decorating and organizing, I just couldn’t come up with ideas inspiring enough to get me started on this dismal room.

Shortly after submitting an on-line form outlining my needs, I got a phone call from Lisa Woodruff. She arranged to come to my house the very next day to make an assessment and discuss what she proposed to do to help me.

To paraphrase, “She came, she saw, she conquered.” I knew immediately she could offer solutions for me.

Things moved quickly. We shopped together; she took my wild imaginings and vague ideas and formed them into practical choices.

In no time at all, she and a very capable assistant assembled the new furniture we chose and helped me decide what old pieces to keep.

Not only did this all result in what I consider to be a beautiful office, but it the total expense was amazingly reasonable. I could never have achieved this extremely satisfactory outcome without Lisa’s expertise.

Lisa’s talents are obviously wide ranging, but if I had to name the most outstanding one that was helpful to me, it was her exceptional ability to perceive what I needed/wanted, and to focus on achieving just that for me. She is awesome, and has my enthusiastic endorsement for any type of project she attempts.

Thanks Sondra! I had a blast with this quick office makeover!

Sondra should get some credit too! Did you see she repainted the desk and file cabinet?

What a fun team effort!

I’d love to come help you organize your space too!

Filed Under: Organize 365, Paper & Office, Professional Organization Tagged With: home office, home office makeover, home office organization, lisa woodruff, organization, organize, organize 365, pinned, professional organization, professional organizer

The Sunday Basket

March 4, 2013 By lisa 1 Comment

Today I am blogging over at Stockpiling Moms…

What is the Sunday basket?

I cannot believe I have not shared with you my “Sunday basket”!

The Sunday Basket is an idea born out of a major mommy meltdown I had when my babies were babies.

Let me set the stage for you… My 2 year old (later to be diagnosed with MAJOR ADD child) was in the troughs of a horrible asthmatic period of his life which involved hospital trips.

His baby sister was a dream… but wanted mommy all the time.

My business was BOOMING. I had parties, recruits, trainings to conduct, workshops… and was working will OVER 40 hours a week on work.

What I didn’t have was a plan. I was putting out fires left and right. I was afraid I would miss something… and never know what I missed.

And to top it all off… my papers were completely unorganized! My piles had piles and I couldn’t find anything to save me soul!

Head on over to Stockpiling Moms to read the rest!

Filed Under: organization, Organize 365, Paper & Office, productivity Tagged With: guest post, lisa woodruff, organization, organize, organize 365, organize paper, paper organization, pinned, stockpiling moms, sunday basket

On the fifth day of Christmas Organize 365 gave to me: Five Sophisticated File Totes

December 5, 2012 By lisa 5 Comments

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, Organize365 Gave To Me…

FIVE SOPHISTICATE FILE TOTES

I LOOOOOVE these totes! It is MY favorite product I sell. I keep them in stock because I KNOW that having this tote can change your life!

I picked this as day number five because if you are singing the song it’s the climax line. And this is definitely MY climax product.

I’ve done TV segments about the tote.

I’ve had a series of paper organization workshops. {Here’s how I came up with the Paper Organization Workshop idea}

On the Fifth Day of Christmas Organize365 Gave To Me: Five Sophisticated File Totes | Organize365

And I wrote and eBook 10Steps to Organized Paper which uses this file tote to organize ALL your kitchen counter papers

Here are two related blog posts as well: A Home office in a pretty tote and Kitchen Counter Paper Organization

I LOVE my file tote. There are pockets built in that hold a calculator or phone, pens and business cards.

I can select the hanging files I need for the week and go. The tote is so sturdy I can put my laptop inside!

I snapped this photo with my phone at a meeting a few months ago. The file tote fits perfectly in a booth!

Do you see the top strap that snaps over the top of the tote?

Ummmm Yeah – That’s so when you travel with your tote and it falls over in your car… your files stay in place!

Filed Under: On the Go, organization, Paper & Office, Storage & Garage Tagged With: christmas, file, file totes, filing, gift giving, lisa woodruff, organization, organize, organize 365, sophisticated file totes

Do You Work Shift?

September 20, 2012 By lisa Leave a Comment

I am constantly asking other busy women and working moms “how they do it.”

As if someone will one day impart their dubious wisdom to me and I will be struck with the ultimate AH HA! moment and have perfect clarity on how to balance work and home.

I am an ebook junkie. I love anything that talks about productivity and balance. Basically anything that will help me work smarter and not harder!

Last night I came across this awesome new eBook Work Shift. I bought it at 9:30 and had it read by 11!

Click here to visit Anne Bogel.

In reading Anne’s book I realized that the work “balance” I am looking for doesn’t exist. Families today are doing work differently than in the past.

It’s not about being a “stay at home mom” or a “working mom”. Very few women are exclusively either. Most of us are this new hybrid of woman who is at home and at work on flexible terms and flexible positions.

And many men have the same arrangement.

AH HA! That’s me!

I started thinking about my friends… Michelle, Sharon, Kim, Melena, Emily, Maria, Erin, Vanessa, Christine… all my direct sales friends… they ALL Work Shift!

Anne’s book has given me a better perspective of how families are earning incomes today, what that looks like in different stages in life and made me feel OK with that.

It is the stages that spoke to me the most. I mean, I am going to keep plugging at my businesses and dreams and fitting them into my days, but I was frustrated that my summer schedule and fall schedule looked different. No “plan” I make lasts more than a few months.

Activities change, schools change, etc and I am the one flexing my work schedule.

Yes.

:0) I was trying to make a traditional job out of a glorious flexible one.

I now have an answer to the question, “Do you work?”

Yes, I work shift! Do you?

(Note the link in this post is my referral link. You can read my disclosure policy here. Thanks for your support!)

Filed Under: Paper & Office, Time & Money Tagged With: organization, organize, organize 365, time, work, work shift, working

A 72 Year Old Letter.

September 4, 2012 By lisa Leave a Comment

Today I was featured in The Courier in Findley, Ohio

What to toss, what to keep?
By SARA ARTHURS

Staff Writer

Letters, diaries, photographs and other personal papers can have immense sentimental value, but it’s important to know how to organize them so you can find what you need.

Beyond sentimental value, these items are also important for research purposes.

click here to read the full article.

Here is a picture of the letter Sara referenced in the article.

This letter was written 72 years ago. 72 years ago! Both the author and addressee have long passed away, but the letter lives on.

This letter is so powerful. So I will share it with you. Maybe you’ll write one for a special family member of yours…

Written Monday, September 9, 1940 From Owen A Kelly Senior to Owen A Kelly Jr on his first day of college at John Carroll University.

My Dear Son Owen,

This first day of your college experience marks your stop upon the threshold of your manhood. I am more proud of you than it is possible for me to convey! Proud of your splendid record to date, or your fine humanity, your clean life and the fact that you have chosen John Carroll University.

I am satisfied that your record to date is an indication of nobler and more honorable accomplishments to follow.

My advise, “which I offer as a suggestion” is – be democratic – avoid snobs – do not be snobbish yourself. The classification of man is his character not his possessions or lack of them. Be generous, but not foolish.

Avoid excess in all things. Enter freely into the social life but prove your mental strength by refusing any temptation of overindulgence. As you know I have implicit faith in your ability to make your own decisions.

It is better for a young man of eighteen to think things out by himself and not be influenced by mass psychology. Your conclusions regarding many things may differ from mine when you have reached a mature age. If they do I shall be as happy as they agreed as I am sure they represent your own analysis and inquiry.

I have thought of writing this letter for a long time and I pray God that the tie that binds us shall be strengthened by the great hope that I have in you and the great love and appreciation I have for you.

- Dad.