Wellrich Organizers for Business

Getting the To Do's to Done

2009-09-16T06:51:00.004-04:00

Third quarter is over and your heading into the final stretch of your financial year. How are you doing on those business goals for your (your choice) a) portfolio b) directorate c) division d) company e) small business?Getting things done, the old to do list, and making goals are all activities with which we are very familiar. Many of you have even been on courses to try and figure out how to

Client Questions - Why do I get stuck on Email?

2009-06-01T11:45:00.003-04:00

The electronic age was meant to speed up the way we work and computers promised to make life easier. They have, however, brought with them their own challenges as witnessed by the common frustrations of managing email. If email is soaking up too much of your day, try these tips:Turn off the email alert on your computer. You know emails arrive constantly. You don't need your computer to remind

Forward Two, Back One - Shall we Dance?

2009-05-27T10:53:00.005-04:00

So how is that desk going? The credenza? The floor? What about your New Year's Resolutions to keep a clutter free, high efficiency work space?Right about now, as second quarter comes to an end and tax time looms for many solo-preneurs and small business owners, the clutter is at an all time high and level of discouragement follows suite.So I thought now would be a good time to revisit an

Back to the Books

2009-05-14T09:40:00.003-04:00

Are you a "sticky note" person? You know what I mean; there are some of us who like to make notes on bits of paper to remind us of things. There are a few by the telephone to remind us to call someone, a few on the filing cabinet to remind us where to find something and a bunch all over our desk with numbers, names, notes and reminders that are so buried under the rest of the paper they are

The Ten Minute Challenge

2009-05-11T13:23:00.004-04:00

The ten minute challenge is one of my favourite organizing techniques. When used regularly, is highly effective at keeping one's home or office organized.Find a bag - the new recycled shopping bags are great for this. Give yourself 10 minutes to fill the bag with items that do not belong in your office and need to return to wherever it/they belong. A common variation on this strategy is to fill

Where's Your Glue Spot?

2009-04-20T10:16:00.002-04:00

More and more I have noticed that most clients have a glue spot in their office or home. You know this place. Whenever something gets put there, it never moves. That specific spot has really good glue all over it and when an item gets put down, its stuck.Sometimes we just don't see the items in this spot once they've taken up residence there. Sometimes the location is hard to clear out

First Quarter Review

2009-04-01T09:55:00.003-04:00

How it happened I hardly know but here we are at the beginning of April. That means first quarter is over. How are those goals coming?Have you checked your progress recently?Do you know where you filed them?Are they still valid?Are they still realistic?Did you implement the tools to measure them?Were they measurable to begin with?Are you happy with the progress?Are you ready to celebrate your

Keeping to the Agenda

2009-03-25T09:29:00.003-04:00

This post is going to make everyone else happy and give you some more work. "Oh great!", I can hear you say. But remember, when your organization makes everyone else happy, you look good.It's not about goals - its about agendas. Do you use them for your meetings? Do you send them out ahead of time? Are they clear and concise and related to the previous meeting's minutes (if there was one)?

Organizing to Maintain your Sanity - 5 Ignore Criticism and Enjoy Bonus

2009-03-23T09:21:00.004-04:00

You've heard it. I've heard it. We all know what it sounds like."Getting a little anal aren't you? Turning into the next Martha S. here at the office?"Here comes the criticism from those people, usually one person in particular, who can't stand to let you reach a higher level of organization in your work. It might even be your boss. Who knows, maybe that person is jealous, envious or afraid

Organizing to Maintain your Sanity - 4 Go Home

2009-03-20T12:47:00.002-04:00

To keep the organizing going, and the clutter at bay, every item in your office needs to go back to its home. In most organizing projects, next to purging, much of the work is in establishing a home for everything whether its paper, files, e-files or other objects. Once an item has a home, it needs to return there when you finish using it.Again, just a few minutes a day to scan your office and

Organizing to Maintain your Sanity - 3

2009-03-20T12:46:00.003-04:00

"If I had time", you say, "I would be more organized!" I know, me too. Unfortunately since none of us have figured out how to put an extra couple of hours into each day, we will just have to work with the 24 hours that we have.Let's start with your calendar. Do you have one? Do you carry it with you all the time? If it is a paper calendar, can you put it into your purse, briefcase, computer bag?

Organizing to Maintain your Sanity - 2 The Entrance

2009-03-17T10:45:00.003-04:00

Have you ever noticed the tendency to walk into your office and immediately put down on the first horizontal surface whatever is in your hands? It is such a common habit that we professional organizers find amongst our clients that if you are missing something, I would suggest you check the first flat surface you find in each of the rooms you have just visited.To maintain your sanity and stay

Organizing to Maintain your Office - 1 The Floor

2009-03-16T14:05:00.003-04:00

I am committed to education. I am committed to educating my clients with new behaviours and habits to keep their lives organized. I have heard it said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If my clients continue to do what they have always done - their lives will once again be full of the clutter that I help them control/purge/manage and they

Declutter the Feeder

2009-03-12T08:34:00.004-04:00

Hop on over to my colleague Marcia Francois at Organizing Queen. Tomorrow she will walk you through an online decluttering exercise - like those feeds to which some of us are addicted but really never use. Sound familiar? Lean and clean to be productive and effective.

Home Office - Not to Abound

2009-03-11T10:43:00.003-04:00

If you are working in a home office, you may have already identified that it is important for your work life balance to set up a form of boundary or border. Separation of work and home life is essential for good organization, good health and productivity. Here are a couple of ways to accomplish these borders:Use screens, room dividers or use a bookcase/filing cabinet or other furniture as a room

Recession Strategies

2009-03-10T09:35:00.004-04:00

"Who has time to organize?" you ask. "My boss has just been let go and a dozen colleagues have been downsized. A neat office is not on my priority list."While a neat office may not be high on your priority list, A1 performance ought to be. In these difficult economic times, you want to be sure your high performance is facilitated by your organization level and not hampered or impeded by your

Books - Enough Already

2009-03-09T09:45:00.001-04:00

Peter Walsh's most recent book Enough Already is now available on Amazon. I highly recommend this to those of you who are overwhelmed not only by your clutter, but by your life in general. True to his character, Peter handles not just the stuff in our lives but the issues of emotional and mental clutter.Whether you are tackling little clutter, big clutter at home or at work, I recommend this read

Quiet Hour for Executives

2009-03-05T11:39:00.002-05:00

How often do you book a meeting with yourself in order to get time alone to work on a priority item? All too often, we feel guilty for booking time to ourselves rather than making ourselves available to the people in our business world. Consider, however, whether or not those priority items are in fact getting done on a timely basis with the number of distractions coming into your workspace

More on Labelling E-files

2009-03-04T11:11:00.005-05:00

You have no problem handling file names with dates attached but now you are wondering "How do I label files so that my most frequently used items come to the top of my list when my computer only files by number or alphabet?"Use letters like numbers to help your computer file by frequency of use. If you use a file often, start the file name label with an A (or AA, AAA depending on the number of

Keep it all Contained

2009-02-26T09:48:00.002-05:00

I'm staying on the limited real estate theme today. With a small desk/work space, it is more important than ever to ensure all your work tools - pens, rulers, paper, drafting tools, memory keys - are as contained as possible. When small items have a home to be returned to, they are less likely to wander around your work space.The containers for these items could be anything at all that works

Solutions for Limited Real Estate

2009-02-25T09:15:00.002-05:00

Is your desk too small for the stuff that sits on top of it? Are you feeling cramped and penned in by hot files, current files, your computer and just the mere presence of your coffee cup?Whenever possible, move to vertical storage and even a vertical desk. what? Put my desk on the wall?Pretty much, that's it. consider placing shelving units above your desk or, if space does not permit, even

Label those E-files

2009-02-24T09:43:00.002-05:00

Enough about organizing paper, I can hear you shouting.OK, let's get a grip on all those files on your desktop.Computers don't read or count. They recognized yes or no. When labeling your files, the computer will automatically try and sort either alphabetically or numerically depending on the symbols you have chosen (letters or numbers). If you want a file sorted by it's name in a date order

Ecofriendly Labelling

2009-02-23T11:57:00.002-05:00

While there is no doubt, many of us print as little as possible, sort only what we can't avoid and file what is left over, paper seems determined to be here for a long time. As a result, paper files are still an organizational structure that must be managed.Here is a tip to limit the number of file folders that end up in the recycling. When labelling the folders, use a file label to write on.

Desktop Disco

2009-02-17T21:43:00.002-05:00

What's dancing on your computer desktop? Virtual clutter can be just as bad as the stuff kicking around the floor of your office.Do you habitually leave documents sitting on your desktop so that you can find them easily the next time you want to work with them?It's not a bad idea - until there are so many files or shortcuts on your desktop that you can't find any of them. That's right; just like

Weight Lifting with your Computer Bag

2009-02-13T10:41:00.004-05:00

When was the last time you cleaned out the laptop bag? First of all, are you still using a carrying bag or have you switched to the more ergonomic backpack yet? These are not always feasible for the business environment but they are certainly better for your back.Clear out those files that you haven't used since the last project finished - and while you are at it, purge the files before putting