Top Secret Organization Tools

As a mother of five, I found that I really needed to grow in the area of personal organization. So I sought help from books; which I have always considered to be my friends. The first book I turned to was by Emilie Barnes.

Emilie Barnes is my mentor for organizing and managing a household. A lot of the ideas I have gotten and implemented were from reading her books.

Two of my favorite Emilie Barnes books are: The 15 Minute Organizer and More Hours In My Day. These books have given me lots of ideas, suggestions,systems and emotional support along the way.

In addition, I have also benefited tremendously from reading the Sidetracked Home Executives by Pam Young & Peggy Jones and Organizing From The Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. The main reason I was able to learn so much from these three women were because they started out as messies who became organized. They had to learn new strategies and systems to become organized.

(More on this in a moment...)

In this lens, I want to share the top four insider organization secrets that I have learned from these women.

The first organization insider secret is having an easy accessible address book. For me, this became my blue Zire 71 Palm Pilot. I carry my palm pilot with me in my purse. This allows me to have my address book with me wherever I go. This is a big help,if you need a phone number when you are on the road and away from your computer or address book.

If you are not so technically inclined, then I would recommend a small paper address book for your purse. In addition to an index card address book system at home.

The second organization insider secret is having a portable calendar/date book for appointments. When you are on the go, it becomes so important to be able to check your calendar before making appointments. For me, my palm pilot worked perfectly. It has a day, week, month and the year at a glance. I loved being able to see all of this information at the touch of a button.

The third organization insider secret is having a daily To Do List. Brainstorming a list of things you want to do the night before and them prioritizing your activities is a great way to plan your day. This exercise has helped me organize and prioritize each day. Doing this regularly has helped me to feel on top on my day. But more importantly, it helps me to be more flexible when unexpected events occur. I find that I am less harried and more relaxed with the unexpected, when I have a plan.

Last but not least, the forth insider secret is having a simple filing system. For me this was the last piece of the getting organized puzzle. For this step, I sought help from a good friend of mine. But, only after I found a book called Don't Pile It, File It by Pat Dorff. My good friend helped me to implement two of the systems that I discovered in Pat Dorff's book.

The first system I am going to call the category system. My home and family files are organized in categories. All of my insurances are placed in one or more hanging files with the title of insurance. When my mind thinks of any of our current insurances, I know exactly where to look.(They are all located in one place, just in different manila folders) But more importantly, my family can also find any of our insurances easily.

The category system has allowed me to be able to retrieve items from my files in less than five minutes. My husband is amazed at how well I am able to retrieve documents.

My business files, on the other hand, are filed in an alphabetical system. The first letter of the title is used to file my folders in ABC order. I have fewer files and I am able to retrieve my files easily this way. My filing system is more in tuned to the way that I think and is more personalized.

One of the most life changing ideas I learned from Julie M. is that I need to organize from the inside out. According to Julie, you have to know yourself and the way you think. Then find systems that are natural and work for you personally. I have found success using this filing system because it is more in tune with the way my mind processes or thinks about filing and retrieving information.

These are the four insider secrets that by implementing them into my daily life have given me a greater sense of being organized.

If at this time, you don't already have an organization system that is working for you, I hope that you will find these tools to be useful and easy to implement. Keep in mind that these tools do not need to be implemented in any order. Start with the tool that you feel would be the easiest for you to master. Then add the next tool one after the other as you are able.

At any rate, there are lots of books and articles on the subject of organization for you to read and gain valuable inside from. Consequently, I recommend reading at least four different authors and comparing and contrasting their ideas.

By using a synthesis approach, I believe you are destined to find some ideas that will work for you.