Feliz Natal (Brazil), Sretan Bozic (Croatia), Joyeux Noel (France) or Merry Christmas

I love Christmas!
I am a sucker for Bing Crosby carols and fairy lights. I love giving presents, deciding on what to make for Christmas lunch and decking the halls with tinsel and holly. But most of all I love sharing it all with family, with friends and with the people that have meant something to me in the year before. I love the traditions and the joy only Christmas seems to bring.

However in this highly commercialised world it often feels like the Grinch has stolen our Christmas. Decorations in the shops in September, pressures to provide the kids with the latest and most expensive gadgets and expectations to have our homes looking like a page from the December edition of “Home Beautiful” can all lead to our hearts being “two sizes too small”.

But we can learn a lot from Dr Seuss and the people of Whoville. Despite the Commercial Grinches trying to take away all that is special about Christmas, it is the Spirit of People that shines through and makes the few weeks of December and January so great. Read the rest of this entry »

OH, TO BE A KID AGAIN!

How many times have we or other chronologically challenged people uttered this phrase.

But seriously, I don’t believe I really would like to be a teenager again.

Although challenges have confronted every generation today’s teens seem to have more than their fair share to contend with.

I think we need to hand it to the “youth of today” as they have enormous pressures on them to succeed. They are expected to continue at school even if they would rather not, choose between an array of tertiary study or careers (many of which have only been invented in the last few years), they must be competent at sports, serve their community, maintain contact with a huge number of friends from all over the world, and on and on the expectations go. Social and media pressures are robbing them of what it means to be a kid and it is the adults that complain about them that are the source of this pressure.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s November, you have done the big spring clean, sorted what you are keeping and what you are happy to let go of.

Now what? What will you do with those items that you use, that you love, that you need and that fill you with only positive emotion?

Naturally you will want to preserve your precious items in the best conditions possible.

There are a few things to be considered when making your decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

We are all guilty of it. Boxes of old university notes stuck in cupboards, childhood toys stashed away, slides from long ago holidays that have never been viewed or ceramic vases passed down by distant relatives.

We all have memorabilia in our lives. But do we have too much? When do keepsakes become “for Pete’s sakes”?

When the treasures we have been squirreling away start to weigh heavy on our mind or encroach on our living space then it is time to reassess their value. Read the rest of this entry »

Many people love to keep stuff. Whether its old school records, great Granddad’s war medals, model trains, beer
coasters or clothes that are long out of fashion, we all struggle at times to know what is important to keep and what is simply stuff taking up valuable
space. Garages, wardrobes, spare rooms and sheds are commonly housing many Justins (just in case), Rons (for later on) and the widely popular But (but I might
need it, but it belongs to old Aunty Mabel, but, but, but).

A few statistics for you:

• 80% of what we keep we never use.      Agency Sales Magazine
• The average person burns 55 minutes a day – roughly 12 days a year – looking for things they know
  they own but can’t find.      Newsweek
• We wear 20% of the clothes we own 80% of the time. The rest just hangs there. Calgary Herald
• 25% of people with 2-car garages don’t park any cars in there and 32% parked only one.       US Department of Energy
  80% of the clutter in most homes is a result of disorganisation, not lack of space.    Ottawa Citizen
• 23% of adults say they pay bills late (& thus incur fees) because they lose them. (Harris Interactive)
• Home storage products have become a $4.36 billion industry.   (Newsweek, 2004)

But, you may say, what about my stamp collection, or the souvenirs form our trip to India and my array of 1950’s
vinyl records are worth a fortune. That’s not junk!

Here in lies the difference between what makes a collector and what constitutes a hoarder. Add to that someone who just seems to have lots of stuff everywhere and we have a third category – the clutterer. Read the rest of this entry »

Filing with Finesse; Organising Essentials to Create the Perfect Filing System

Not being able to find specific information when you need it is one of the most frustrating and costly issues of any office. Whether it is the kids’ immunisation records at home or the quarterly budget projections at work, if you cannot retrieve the information quickly and easily you may as well not have kept this information in the first place. Filing documents, information, electronic data, keepsakes or anything else requires a simple system, customised for your situation which takes the minimum of maintenance.

Following on from our Office Organising Essentials let’s look at the essentials for an Entirely Organised Filing System: Read the rest of this entry »

When people talk about organisation they always speak about systems, but

What is a System? and Why Do We Need Them??

If we look at the Big Picture—a system is an arrangement of entities that interact with each other within a boundary to function as a whole.

The purpose of the whole is always different to, and more than, the sum of its parts. Read the rest of this entry »

An office is just a space; another room with a few distinct pieces of furniture and equipment. Nonsense, an office is the lifeblood of a business or family. When the office is in chaos almost all the aspects of modern life or a business can be at risk. A disorganised office can cost you an enormous amount in wasted time, money, productivity and increased and unnecessary stress.

Whether corporate or family, an office houses the really important information that you or others must be able to find in almost an instant. So what are the Essentials of an Organised Office? Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I would share with you some of the interesting and quite amazing facts that arise from Office disorganisation. Whether it is a large corporate office, small suburban business or just the small space from which you run the family finances disorganisation may be costing you much more than you think.

While you ponder just 10 of the many office scenarios out there, think about your office and its own organising challenges.

Are you wasting time, effort and money? Can some simple organising strategies increase your productivity, improve your bottom line and make going to work a pleasure instead of the daily grind? Read the rest of this entry »