Make this tax time an organised one!

June 17, 2019 by Leave a Comment

The end of the financial year is coming up so I thought I’d throw together a few tips for managing your paperwork so that tax time is stress-free moving forward.

  1. Have an easily accessible file for your taxable receipts and make sure they’re separate from non-taxable receipts (an envelope in a drawer works just fine, just label it well with the year)
  2. Keep all your tax stuff together in the one storage type – don’t stash them in different places such as portable files, tubs ore piles on the bookcase.
  3. Always have a “current tax year” folder at hand to drop anything relevant in there as it arrives (no more asking for a replacement group certificate!)
  4. Ask your accountant to send you a detailed list of what you need to keep and for how long so that you can refer back to it when filing, organising and culling
  5. Digitize as much as possible and sort the files with folders by financial year
  6. When you’re sorting through your piles, have one for “current tax year” and the rest can go in one pile for now – it’s the current one (and any not lodged yet) that are important at the moment
  7. Don’t let it build up – work on it throughout the year and it won’t be a) lost or b) overwhelming when the time comes.

If you struggle with paperwork, perhaps setting up a proper household paperwork system that suits your personality might be worth the effort? Make next year’s tax a breeze!

Filed Under: Office, Paperwork

Organising receipts

June 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Receipts cause people stress because they’re hard to find a home for, and they often only need to be kept for a short time.

For small, store receipts, having some envelopes or ziplock bags on hand (near where you do your paperwork) to pop them into can be handy.

If you have 3 month’s worth, you can label them with the month, and when you start a new month, the oldest can be reviewed and either filed permanently (in the case of valuables, warranty items or tax deductions) or thrown away (in the case of clothes, groceries etc). You may wish to keep 6 month’s worth – whatever you’re more comfortable with.

Filed Under: Office, Organised, Paperwork

Saying “No” at work

February 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Whenever you answer your phone, reply immediately to an email or answer a knock on your office door with a “sure, I can help you now”, you’re effectively saying to the person at the other end “Here is my time – you do with it as you wish”.

As soon as you say “Yes” to a request, you’re changing from proactive work to reactive work. It’s not on your terms. Only you know your priorities, and only you should be making decisions about your time.

Sometimes it’s appropriate to respond immediately, of course. But if you’re honest with yourself, a lot of the time you don’t have to.

How to say “No” so you’re working on your own priorities first:

  • Have times during your work day that are proactive, focussed times and your phone goes to voice mail or to a colleague (you can return the favour during their quiet time if you both work together)
  • Turn off your email notifications and choose a few blocks of time a day for email and only check and reply in those times
  • Have a carefully scripted response to people who interrupt you. Something like “I’d love to help you; I can see it’s important to you. Unfortunately my focus is on another task at the moment and I can’t give your issue the attention it deserves. How about I come and see you in an hour?”. And then honour that promise.

You don’t need to say yes all the time – you can still help people and be proactive in your own work at the same time.

 

Filed Under: Disorganised, Email, Office, Organised, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to organise your cords and cables

November 7, 2013 by 1 Comment

One of the things that I see most frequently cluttering up people’s lives are cords and cables. They are very easy to lose, very easy to duplicate and seem to breed when you’re not looking.

Here’s a simple way to organise the ones that aren’t being used much (some live permanently on desks – I know my iPhone one does!). You’ll need a box, some ziplock bags, a label maker (or white paper and some sticky tape will work too) and a permanent marker.

1. Collect them all together
2. One at a time, establish their purpose, what device they belong to and whether you even need it anymore
2. Label the cord with a meaningful description and put it in a ziplock bag, making sure you also label the bag (you can store duplicate cables in the same bag)
4. You may need to have a bag of “Unidentified” cables if you don’t have the courage to part with them.
5. Stand all the bags up in the box. They’ll be labelled for easy identification and won’t get tangled.

Store chargers separately, if they aren’t plugged in at a charging station, but you can still use the same storage method for them.

Filed Under: Home, Office, Organised Tagged With:

What do Activity Based Workstations and Clear Space have in common?

August 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

One of the major trends in corporate workplace design is the move to an Activity Based Workplace environment (ABW).

It is a different type of work environment where workers are not assigned a permanent office, desk or workspace, nor are they assigned a particular type of space based on status or job type. Rather, workers predominantly use mobile devices and choose the appropriate workspace for the activity undertaken on a day-to-day basis or project they are working on at the time.  This is in stark contrast to the tradition of employees arriving at work and heading to a specific ‘owned’ workspace.

ABW strives towards a utopia where humans aren’t territorial or insecure and where the physical environment facilitates maturity and personal responsibility in all workplace situations.  ABW is the hot trend in workplace design because it can save millions of dollars in real estate costs and when done properly, improve productivity.  lt requires a largely paperless office which offers additional benefits, such as a reduced environmental footprint, reduced storage requirements and increased security.

Late in 2013, the Bendigo Bank will consolidate a number of sites in to their new Grenfell Street Head Office, which has been designed as an ABW environment.

Supporting employees with behavioural changes to embrace the ABW revolution is imperative to the successful implementation of the model – and the productivity and efficiency improvements that go with it.  To help with the transition, beginning in September, Clear Space will start delivering a number of workshops for the Bendigo Bank.  A customised program has been developed that will address specific challenges for their staff whilst complementing the other change management strategies the bank is assisting staff with.

Titled “Space, Time and Paper Management”, participants will learn simple yet effective, ready-to-use tips and techniques for instant results and application.  It will appeal to and deliver benefits for individuals working in various departments, and having differing needs and day-to-day objectives.

The elements and learning outcomes from the workshops include:

1)    Space Management

  • effective portability and mobility
  • locker storage and control / avoiding the need to store at home
  • choosing the most suitable ABW area
  • reducing belongings by learning how to let go

2)    Time Management

  • managing interruptions and distractions
  • single versus multi-tasking
  • batching tasks & using digital task lists
  • creating routines

3)    Paper Management

  • knowing what to keep, archive and cull
  • reducing paper use and dependence
  • finding what you need, when it’s needed
  • setting up a suitable system for actionable paperwork

We look forward to helping Bendigo Bank with this exciting transformation.

Filed Under: Office, Organised, Paperwork Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

For the serial task-jumper …

June 16, 2013 by 2 Comments

You know how I’m always on about how unproductive it is to multi-task, or to switch from task to task before they’ve been competed?

I’m also a fan of working with your personality, so here’s something you can try if you really love the variety of multi-tasking but know it’s not getting stuff finished.

Choose 2 or 3 jobs that you want to finish by the end of the day; no more than 3.

Now, allow yourself to jump (as infrequently as you can manage) from task to task, but NEVER deviating from those original 3 projects.

You should find you enjoy your day more AND get stuff done!

Filed Under: Disorganised, Office, Procrastination, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Weekend Weightlifter – cull some paperwork

November 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This weekend we’re going to attack some old paperwork. You don’t need to spend all weekend on it – you can spend as little as 15 minutes and make a difference!

Find some old filing in the home and take a handful of it out of the files.  Assess each piece of paperwork one at a time and ask yourself if you need to keep it or not.

Reasons to keep papers include:

  • It was used as supporting documentation on one of your last five (seven in the US) tax returns (invoices, receipts, superannuation)
  • It has historical significance (your grandfather’s migration documents)
  • You need to keep it for legal reasons (your car registration papers or your Will)
  • You need to keep it for warranty reasons (the receipt for your vacuum cleaner)
  • It’s useful when something goes wrong (your dishwasher user manual)
  • It’s a hand-print of your daughter when she was a baby
  • It proves something (residency, that you paid for something, that you did a certain qualification, medical records etc)
  • You’re going to use it soon (a gift voucher)
  • It makes you very happy. VERY.

Reasons to ditch papers include:

  • It’s a document you can obtain online whenever you need it
  • It’s a user manual for an item you don’t have anymore
  • It’s a bill that was paid 2 years ago and you didn’t claim it as a tax deduction
  • It’s one of 3,000 drawing of stars your daughter drew (a handful of the same drawing from the same age is sufficient)
  • It’s one of 50 payslips from 1987 (again, keep one for nostalgia, sure – but you don’t need them all)
  • You took it out of a magazine several years ago because you thought you might make that stool/soft toy/cake/party decoration one day (you can get SO MUCH online these days)
  • It’s memorabilia that makes you sad/angry/guilty

You can spend as little or as long as you want, as long as you ditch as much as you can in that time!

 

Filed Under: Culling, Home, Office, Organised, Paperwork, Weekend Weightlifter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Productivity Death by Mindless Escape

November 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

We all want to run away from things sometimes

Procrastination affects everyone, but for some it seems to really affect their life – especially their work. It’s a real productivity-killer. I was chatting about it with a friend recently who said that she has become particularly good at some PC games because when she can’t face work, diving into a game helps her to cope. She’s engaging in a mindless escape from a difficult reality.

Most of us engage in mindless escapes – TV is a prime example (most commercial TV at the moment is particularly mindless, but I’ll save that rant for another time, lucky you…). But there is also Facebook (sometimes looking at photos of someone you don’t know seems an entirely useful way to spend time), or Twitter (do the useful links EVER stop coming? It’s Mindless Escape Heaven there) and other things such as watching kittens take on dogs in YouTube videos or reading up on Scandinavian Twig-Chair making.

My friend knows very well she’s escaping, and even talked about the cost/benefit of the escape. However, she still doesn’t know how to stop the escaping and the procrastination associated with it.

I suggested that it’s okay for her to play Angry Birds – that she shouldn’t try to stop altogether. But what she should do is first take 10 seconds to write down what it is she’s escaping from. The act of actually realising what we’re putting off, and then writing it down, means that your mindless escape all of a sudden becomes a conscious choice. And we can control our choices.

You still may engage in the escape, but by being aware, the escape may well be for a shorter time. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break – it’s how long and how frequently you take that break (and the quality of the break) that is important.

What do you engage in mindless escapes to avoid doing? Can you reduce that and be more productive, or at least, more conscious?

Filed Under: Office, Organised, Procrastination, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

6 ways to de-stress your email

September 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Email is a sort of necessary evil. Given the fact that most of us don’t have the option to ditch it altogether (the phone calls I could handle, but could we really go back to just snail mail and faxing in business?), we are pretty much stuck with it.  As awesome as it is in many ways, it can also cause a great deal of stress for many people.

Here are some quick changes you can make that may take a little of the ‘evil’ away.

  1. Keep your inbox to as few emails as possible, and have a habit of emptying it daily. If you can’t action all the emails every day, use a task management tool to record those you still need to action and then file them away. You could also use flags or categories to mark them as Pending Action so you don’t forget about them.
  2. Don’t trust “unread marks”. Sometimes we accidentally mark emails as unread then lose them in the clutter without reading them. If it was an important email, that could really ruin your week.
  3. Think twice before hitting “send”. Could this end up being a chain of emails that take up a lot of time? Would you be better off with a quick phone conversation? Sometimes a 10-email conversation can be made over the phone in just 30 seconds. And the more emails you send, the more emails you get in reply!
  4. Write shorter emails. One line of thought is that you can construct any email you wish in 5 sentences or less (or even three, but my verbose personality objects too strongly for me to try that one!). That will save you a significant amount of time (once you get used to it, of course – the first few times I did it I spent a fair amount of editing time reducing my words!).
  5. Keep your folders to a minimum. Try the ‘no scroll’ rule. If you have to scroll to get to a folder, you have too many. We don’t need a great deal of folders – most email programs have a great search function that enables you to find emails you’ve filed using key words (not to mention that we’d only go looking for less than 20% of the filed emails anyway). If you have too many folders, you spend too long worrying about where to put things, and where to find them again. Keep it simple; only go to second-level nesting, and keep the first level to one screen. Or try having just one and using ‘search’ and ‘sort’ to find them.
  6. Unsubscribe – you don’t have enough time to read them anyway. Instead, bookmark the blog or website so you can go and look at it when you need something or have time for some reading.
Filed Under: Email, Office, Organised Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Small desk syndrome?

August 16, 2011 by 3 Comments

Desks are fabulously useful. You can spend a lot of time sitting at them, pretending to work. And the more stuff you have spread around you, the busier you look, right? Well, what if you have a tiny desk?  How do you manage to look busy (or, more seriously, stay organised) when you have a teeny tiny amount of space on your desk?

Here are a few tips:

  1. Keep your active paperwork vertical. A stand of manilla folders takes up less space than a couple of piles of paper, and a magazine file of journals takes up less space than a pile of them on the desk corner.
  2. Keep your reference paperwork off your desk entirely. Try a filing cabinet, or binders on shelves. If you look at it infrequently, it should be off your desk
  3. Curb your stationery addiction. I know, it’s awfully pretty and fun, and it makes you feel organised, but you don’t need 60 notepads, 7 staplers and a bucket of paperclips. Nor do you need a billion pens that don’t work (throw them out – not back in the drawer!)
  4. Try to use your vertical wall space as much as you can – install shelving or add a hutch to your desk
  5. Have routines that include an end-of-day desk clearing – file your paperwork and put away your stationery. If you do it every day, it will never get out of control. And you won’t come in on Monday to the smell of curdled cappuccino, either.
  6. Try using a magazine file as your inbox instead of an in-tray (which is an unrestrained pile waiting to happen anyway!). And empty it daily (not yearly!).
  7. Ditch everything you don’t use regularly, and limit the amount of personal ‘knick knacks’ on the desk. They’re lovely, but it’s prime real estate that they’re hogging!

Tiny desk = no worries!

 

Filed Under: Office, Paperwork Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,