Archive for January, 2009
16) Organize Your Memorabilia
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Where do you store all of your memorabilia? If you’re like many, this could pass as your garage. Now amongst this mess of clutter surely there is more than just some keepsakes. The problem is that you fear losing the important because it is mixed in with the unimportant. So you do nothing.
My goal here is to give you a few tips to organize your memorabilia from a minimalist’s perspective.
Limit yourself to how much you can store away. If most of the items are small like books, framed pictures, binders, crafts or sports keepsakes; then pick too small Rubbermaid bins. You can either buy see-through ones or label them- your choice. I’m not splitting hairs here. If the items are larger get one large Rubbermaid bin, the kind people store Christmas trees in.
Take items like sports shirts, hats and jackets; cut out the emblem, logo or team name and give them all to someone who sews or knits. Have them create a blanket or throw rug. It doesn’t matter what, use your creativity.
Take items like papers, awards or certificates and capture them digitally; then have a backup strategy for your digital images. I’m not getting into this because there are a million ways- choose one and do it. Flickr, Picaso, backup with a flash drive, a second portable hard drive, just try something to start with and you can change it later.
My wife loves to scrapbook, so this helps us store lots of photos and purge down the rest. If you don’t like to scrapbook then people will do this for you for a fee.
I keep a file folder in our filing system and call it Posterity. I put golf score cards, pictures, travel information, kids art projects and many other things in there. Occasionally we go through and frame these things or scrapbook them.You could do the same.
As a minimalist type, I like to keep just the really neat memorabilia on the walls or out for decorations. The rest goes in the bins. The rest is sold or given away. If you put everything neat on the wall or the shelves then nothing gets noticed. Imagine walking into a room though with just one amazing mind blowing print. I bet your guests would mention it. Be hard not to.
15) Organize GTD with Backpack
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After reading a post from Russell Quinn at Spoiled Milk I was inspired to rethink the way I use GTD in combination with Backpack. I have borrowed some from Russell’s system, kept some of my own system and incorporated some other ideas as well. This has all become possible with the great news that you can reorder your sidebar in Backpack.
If you read Russell Quinn’s explanation you will quickly see that I have borrowed the Dropbox/Inbox home page tip. Which I think was the most powerful for me. Before my homepage was a hodgepodge of next action lists, ideas, my @task lists, and even some projects made there way onto the homepage. Next I borrowed the ^ Tasks, ^ Projects, ^ Waiting For, ^ Tickler, ^ To Buy, ^ Someday/Maybe although I was already using a few of these in a similar manner.
The next series of pages are prefixed with *. These pages are strictly reference pages which I might need certain days of the week, times of the month and during meetings.
The next series of pages are prefixed with @. All these pages are projects with more than five actions. Those I keep at the top of the page in the ^ Projects Page. Some of these projects are recurring like my Squidoo lenses, my weekly ezine and some annual events I organize.
Another prefix I use is $ and this marks all the pages for my blogs. These are blogs I run and ones I contribute to with others. It’s easy for me to take ideas in my inbox/dropbox daily and move them into the appropriate @ blog page.
Last is a list with no prefix. These are pages I share with small business and non profit customers. We collaborate on work for their wordpress blogs or social media campaigns. I also use these pages to share video tutorials and screencasts for training and digital coaching purposes.
Backpack is so great and there are so many uses. I recommend it to everyone. Whether you are a small business, a solo professional or a freelancer, sign up for a free account or trial.
14) Organize Your Annual Calendar
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This isn’t a perfect solution and I’m sure that you could find something just a little better at the end of the Internet- if you can make it all the way through. I know a few who’ve done it and lived to speak. For now, this simple little formula might help the 12 readers who frequent this site. The outlet that fills my passion for organization, simple living and GTD.
Take out last years calendar. It’s not too late, it’s still January. Besides you probably just dug out from under the Christmas and New Years work that accumulated while you were out.
If you use Google Calendar, a paper calendar, a day planner, a PDA or whatever else; simply go month by month and jot down the important events you attended each month in 2008. Make a tickler list- I use Backpack and create a folder like this ^Tickler- which lets me know it’s purely a reference folder. If you prefer paper make 12 folders with 12 months and have at it. I’ve done it this way, but I’m getting to where I can’t stand paper invites and clippings. Sorry old schoolers! I do still like to read the occasional physical newspaper like Business First.
Now I’m betting you have at least 4 -5 entries for each month of the year. Next think hard about all the things you do each year (we are creatures of habit). What things do you love to follow like sports, shows or conventions? Does your business or industry have specific meetings or conferences every year? Does your family consistently take vacations each year? Do you play in golf tournaments or scrambles each year? Jot them all down on your list or put them in a monthly folder. Now take a couple hours and go get the dates and times for the events. Use your list to check off the events that go onto the calendar and keep the ones that don’t have a date yet as a tickler/reminder that you still need to schedule it. Most organizations will finalize calendars by late January or early February from my experience.
Do this for a couple years like I have and you’ll know yourself much better and you won’t catch yourself planning a family reunion the weekend of the Masters or scheduling a vacation the same week as your industry conference. Oh yeah keep the list or folder system going each year. Don’t quit things that work, unless you find a better way.
Hope this helps. Give the ship that is your calendar a rudder to guide it. Things will pop up, but instead of being a headache they can become a cool diversion.
12) Organize Google Reader
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Explaining how to organize your Google Reader will be short and sweet. It’s not so much about how you organize it, but more about how you organize your usage.
Here is what I’m suggesting.
- Set limits.
- Batch this task.
- Use star and share.
- Use J and K or the list view.
Set a limit to the number of blog feeds you’ll subscribe to. For me it’s currently 50. If your number gets to be too much or if you’re focusing in then do a Pareto analysis and 80/20 your feeds.
Batch this task by letting the feeds accumulate and then reading them when you have a block of dedicated time. I choose to read mine over the weekend but not during my day of rest. I also read them during the week. I typically do this in the morning after I have completed a few key tasks to gain momentum. It acts as a reward for me.
If I see a post I liked, I will star it so I can come back to it quickly. I may choose to blog about this post or reference it to take some kind of action in my business or personal life. If I see a post my readers might like, then I click share. This feeds into the badge feed I have on my blogs. This way customers or fans can use me as a filter for the really good stuff. “If you could only read two articles this week- choose these two.”
Use the list view in Google Reader or use the expanded view and the shortcut keys J and K. One goes forward and the other backward.
These simple rules should get you reading RSS feeds effectively. You’d better jump in sideways because newspapers are fading fast.
