“Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.” Albert Camus
“Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.” Aung San Suu Kyi
Fear is defined in Webster’s dictionary as, "an unpleasant, sometimes strong emotion caused by an anticipation or awareness of danger". Professionals in the field of human emotions and therapy define fear as a “strong emotion caused by the anticipation of loss”.
Fear is the great paralyzer. It is one of the major factors why some people succeed and others fail. It is one of the major contributors why some people do not achieve their full potential and financial freedom. The majority of people allow relatives, friends and the general public to influence them so they cannot live their own lives, because of fear of criticism, because of fear of rejection.
Fear is the destroyer of dreams, ambition, self-reliance, and the desire to achieve our goals and wealth. Countless numbers of men and women permit relatives to wreck their lives in the name of “duty”, because of fear. Remember that duty has nothing to do with submitting your life to the destruction of your dreams, personal ambitions, and the right to live your own life.
I do not say there is no such thing as fear. Fear does exist. But it exists in your life by your permission only, not because it is needed as a warning against "evil." Fear must be controlled so we can be able to suceed in life and achieve financial wealth.
There are various factors that can create fear and most people don't realize that fear itself is something that is totally internal to their own mind. It is not a real physical thing, you can't point to something and say, "That over there is fear, watch out or you'll trip over it". The good news is that since it is a by-product of our reactions to things, you have the ability to manage your fears. Rudy Giuliani once said: “Courage is not the absence of fear; rather it is the management of fear.
Fear can be controlled. Remove its power to affect you and your potential in life. Having the self-confidence to be able to handle situations will help you. Don’t let fear control you and prevent you from achieving your dreams.
April 28, 2009
April 25, 2009
Develop an action plan for dealing with your credit score
Once you have your credit report and your credit score, you will be able to tell where you stand and where many of your problems lie. If you have a poor score, try to see in your credit report what could be causing the problem:
-Do you have too much debt?
-Too many unpaid bills?
-Have you recently faced a major financial upset such as a bankruptcy?
-Have you simply not had credit long enough to establish good credit?
-Have you defaulted on a loan, failed to pay taxes, or recently been reported to a collection agency?
The problems that contribute to your credit problems should dictate how you decide to boost your credit score. As you read through this ebook, highlight or jot down those tips that apply to you and from them develop a checklist of things you can do that would help your credit situation improve.
When you seek professional credit counseling or credit help, counselors will generally work with you to help you develop a personalized strategy that expressly addresses your credit problems and financial history. Now, with this ebook, you can develop a similar strategy on your own - in your own time and at your own cost.
When developing your action plan, know where most of your credit score is coming from:
1) Your credit history (accounts for more than a third of your credit score in some cases). Whether or not you have been a good credit risk in the past is considered the best indicator of how you will react to debt in the future. For this reason, late payment, loan defaults, unpaid taxes, bankruptcies, and other unmet debt responsibilities will count against you the most. You can’t do much about your financial past now, but starting to pay your bills on time - starting today - can help boost your credit score in the future.
2) Your current debts (accounts for approximately a third of your credit score in some cases). If you have lots of current debt, it may indicate that you are stretching yourself financially thin and so will have trouble paying back debts in the future. If you have a lot of money owing right now - and especially if you have borrowed a great deal recently - this fact will bring down your credit score. You can boost your credit score by paying down your debts as far as you can.
3) How long you have had credit (accounts for up to 15% of your credit score in some cases). If you have not had credit accounts for very long, you may not have enough of a history to let lenders know whether you make a good credit risk. Not having had credit for a long time can affect your credit score. You can counter this by keeping your accounts open rather than closing them off as you pay them off.
4) The types of credit you have (accounts for about one tenth of your credit score, in most cases). Lenders like to see a mix of financial responsibilities that you handle well. Having bills that you pay as well as one or two types of loans can actually improve your credit score. Having at least one credit card that you manage well can also help your credit score.
As you can see, it is possible to only estimate how much a specific area of your credit report affects your credit score. Nevertheless, keeping these five areas in mind and making sure that each is addressed in your personalized plan will go a long way in making sure that your personalized credit repair plan is comprehensive enough to boost your credit effectively.
-Do you have too much debt?
-Too many unpaid bills?
-Have you recently faced a major financial upset such as a bankruptcy?
-Have you simply not had credit long enough to establish good credit?
-Have you defaulted on a loan, failed to pay taxes, or recently been reported to a collection agency?
The problems that contribute to your credit problems should dictate how you decide to boost your credit score. As you read through this ebook, highlight or jot down those tips that apply to you and from them develop a checklist of things you can do that would help your credit situation improve.
When you seek professional credit counseling or credit help, counselors will generally work with you to help you develop a personalized strategy that expressly addresses your credit problems and financial history. Now, with this ebook, you can develop a similar strategy on your own - in your own time and at your own cost.
When developing your action plan, know where most of your credit score is coming from:
1) Your credit history (accounts for more than a third of your credit score in some cases). Whether or not you have been a good credit risk in the past is considered the best indicator of how you will react to debt in the future. For this reason, late payment, loan defaults, unpaid taxes, bankruptcies, and other unmet debt responsibilities will count against you the most. You can’t do much about your financial past now, but starting to pay your bills on time - starting today - can help boost your credit score in the future.
2) Your current debts (accounts for approximately a third of your credit score in some cases). If you have lots of current debt, it may indicate that you are stretching yourself financially thin and so will have trouble paying back debts in the future. If you have a lot of money owing right now - and especially if you have borrowed a great deal recently - this fact will bring down your credit score. You can boost your credit score by paying down your debts as far as you can.
3) How long you have had credit (accounts for up to 15% of your credit score in some cases). If you have not had credit accounts for very long, you may not have enough of a history to let lenders know whether you make a good credit risk. Not having had credit for a long time can affect your credit score. You can counter this by keeping your accounts open rather than closing them off as you pay them off.
4) The types of credit you have (accounts for about one tenth of your credit score, in most cases). Lenders like to see a mix of financial responsibilities that you handle well. Having bills that you pay as well as one or two types of loans can actually improve your credit score. Having at least one credit card that you manage well can also help your credit score.
As you can see, it is possible to only estimate how much a specific area of your credit report affects your credit score. Nevertheless, keeping these five areas in mind and making sure that each is addressed in your personalized plan will go a long way in making sure that your personalized credit repair plan is comprehensive enough to boost your credit effectively.
April 23, 2009
Understand Where Credit Scores Come From
If you are going to improve your credit score, then logic has it that you must understand what your credit score is and how it works. Without this information, you won’t be able to very effectively improve your score because you won’t understand how the things you do in daily life affect your score.
If you don’t understand how your credit score works, you will also be at the mercy of any company that tries to tell you how you can improve your score - on their terms and at their price.
In general, your credit score is a number that lets lenders know how much of a credit risk you are. The credit score is a number, usually between 300 and 850, that lets lenders know how well you are paying off your debts and how much of a credit risk you are.
In general, the higher your credit score, the better credit risk you make and the more likely you are to be given credit at great rates. Scores in the low 600s and below will often give you trouble in finding credit, while scores of 720 and above will generally give you the best interest rates out there. However, credit scores are a lot like GPAs or SAT scores from college days - while they give others a quick snapshot of how you are doing, they are interpreted by people in different ways. Some lenders put more emphasis on credit scores than others.
Some lenders will work with you if you have credit scores in the 600s, while others offer their best rates only to those creditors with very high scores indeed. Some lenders will look at your entire credit report while others will accept or reject your loan application based solely on your credit score.
The credit score is based on your credit report, which contains a history of your past debts and repayments. Credit bureaus use computers and mathematical calculations to arrive at a credit score from the information contained in your credit report.
Each credit bureau uses different methods to do this (which is why you will have different scores with different companies) but most credit bureaus use the FICO system. FICO is an acronym for the credit score calculating software offered by Fair Isaac Corporation company. This is by far the most used software since the Fair Isaac Corporation developed the credit score model used by many in the financial industry and is still considered one of the leaders in the field.
In fact, credit scores are sometimes called FICO scores or FICO ratings, although it is important to understand that your score may be tabulated using different software.
One other thing you may want to understand about the software and mathematics that goes into your credit score is the fact that the math used by the software is based on research and comparative mathematics. This is an important and simple concept that can help you understand how to boost your credit score. In simple terms, what this means is that your credit score is in a way calculated on the same principles as your insurance premiums.
Your insurance company likely asks you questions about your health, your lifestyle choices (such as whether you are a smoker) because these bits of information can tell the insurance company how much of a risk you are and how likely you are to make large claims later on. This is based on research.
Studies have shown, for example, that smokers tend to be more prone to serious illnesses and so require more medical attention. If you are a smoker, you may face higher insurance premiums because of this.
Similarly, credit bureaus and lenders often look at general patterns. Since people with too many debts tend not to have great rates of repayment, your credit score may suffer if you have too many debts, for example. Understanding this can help you in two ways:
1) It will let you see that your credit score is not a personal reflection of how “good” or “bad” you are with money. Rather, it is a reflection of how well lenders and companies think you will repay your bills - based on information gathered from studying other people.
2) It will let you see that if you want to improve your credit score, you need to work on becoming the sort of debtor that studies have shown tends to repay their bills. You do not have to work hard to reinvent yourself financially and you do not have to start making much more money. You just need to be a reliable borrower. This realization alone should help make credit repair far less stressful!
Credit reports are put together by credit bureaus, which use information from client companies. It works like this: credit bureaus have clients - such as credit card companies and utility companies, to name just two - who provide them with information.
Once a file is begun on you (i.e. once you open a bank account or have bills to pay) then information about you is stored on the record. If you are late paying a bill, the clients call the credit bureaus and note this. Any unpaid bills, overdue bills or other problems with credit count as “dings” on your credit report and affect your score.
Information such as what type of debt you have, how much debt you have, how regularly you pay your bills on time, and your credit accounts are all information that is used to calculate your credit score.
Your age, sex, and income do not count towards your credit score. The actual formula used by credit bureaus to calculate credit scores is a well-kept secret, but it is known that recent account activity, debts, length of credit, unpaid accounts, and types of credit are among the things that count the most in tabulating credit scores from a credit report.
If you don’t understand how your credit score works, you will also be at the mercy of any company that tries to tell you how you can improve your score - on their terms and at their price.
In general, your credit score is a number that lets lenders know how much of a credit risk you are. The credit score is a number, usually between 300 and 850, that lets lenders know how well you are paying off your debts and how much of a credit risk you are.
In general, the higher your credit score, the better credit risk you make and the more likely you are to be given credit at great rates. Scores in the low 600s and below will often give you trouble in finding credit, while scores of 720 and above will generally give you the best interest rates out there. However, credit scores are a lot like GPAs or SAT scores from college days - while they give others a quick snapshot of how you are doing, they are interpreted by people in different ways. Some lenders put more emphasis on credit scores than others.
Some lenders will work with you if you have credit scores in the 600s, while others offer their best rates only to those creditors with very high scores indeed. Some lenders will look at your entire credit report while others will accept or reject your loan application based solely on your credit score.
The credit score is based on your credit report, which contains a history of your past debts and repayments. Credit bureaus use computers and mathematical calculations to arrive at a credit score from the information contained in your credit report.
Each credit bureau uses different methods to do this (which is why you will have different scores with different companies) but most credit bureaus use the FICO system. FICO is an acronym for the credit score calculating software offered by Fair Isaac Corporation company. This is by far the most used software since the Fair Isaac Corporation developed the credit score model used by many in the financial industry and is still considered one of the leaders in the field.
In fact, credit scores are sometimes called FICO scores or FICO ratings, although it is important to understand that your score may be tabulated using different software.
One other thing you may want to understand about the software and mathematics that goes into your credit score is the fact that the math used by the software is based on research and comparative mathematics. This is an important and simple concept that can help you understand how to boost your credit score. In simple terms, what this means is that your credit score is in a way calculated on the same principles as your insurance premiums.
Your insurance company likely asks you questions about your health, your lifestyle choices (such as whether you are a smoker) because these bits of information can tell the insurance company how much of a risk you are and how likely you are to make large claims later on. This is based on research.
Studies have shown, for example, that smokers tend to be more prone to serious illnesses and so require more medical attention. If you are a smoker, you may face higher insurance premiums because of this.
Similarly, credit bureaus and lenders often look at general patterns. Since people with too many debts tend not to have great rates of repayment, your credit score may suffer if you have too many debts, for example. Understanding this can help you in two ways:
1) It will let you see that your credit score is not a personal reflection of how “good” or “bad” you are with money. Rather, it is a reflection of how well lenders and companies think you will repay your bills - based on information gathered from studying other people.
2) It will let you see that if you want to improve your credit score, you need to work on becoming the sort of debtor that studies have shown tends to repay their bills. You do not have to work hard to reinvent yourself financially and you do not have to start making much more money. You just need to be a reliable borrower. This realization alone should help make credit repair far less stressful!
Credit reports are put together by credit bureaus, which use information from client companies. It works like this: credit bureaus have clients - such as credit card companies and utility companies, to name just two - who provide them with information.
Once a file is begun on you (i.e. once you open a bank account or have bills to pay) then information about you is stored on the record. If you are late paying a bill, the clients call the credit bureaus and note this. Any unpaid bills, overdue bills or other problems with credit count as “dings” on your credit report and affect your score.
Information such as what type of debt you have, how much debt you have, how regularly you pay your bills on time, and your credit accounts are all information that is used to calculate your credit score.
Your age, sex, and income do not count towards your credit score. The actual formula used by credit bureaus to calculate credit scores is a well-kept secret, but it is known that recent account activity, debts, length of credit, unpaid accounts, and types of credit are among the things that count the most in tabulating credit scores from a credit report.
April 15, 2009
Building Courage for a Better Life
When we develop the habit of courage and unbreakable self-confidence , your whole life changes for the better. Building courage will help you take risks to a better life that you ordinarily would not take. You open doors to a new world of possibilities. When you build courage, you put fear behind you. Courage is the process of admitting that you have fears, yet you are willing to find a way to defeat those fears and not allow them to take control of you.
The good news is that the habit of courage can be learned. To do so, we need to develop a systematic way of thinking to eliminate those thoughts of fear, while at the same time build up positive thoughts of courage that will allow you to deal with the difficult situation(s) that brought those fearful thoughts in the first place. It is a habit that needs to be built in our subconsious mind.
To be able to put under control your fears, we must determine the factor(s) that caused or predisposed us toward the being afraid. Many of the sources of fear have been injected in us since our childhood by our friends and family; “fear of rejection”, “fear of separation or being alone”, “fear of failure” are some of the example of root causes of fear.
Why is it critical that you address your fears now?
Because if you ignore them, your fears will grow until they begin to control every aspect of your life. In addition, as your fears increase you will experience a reduction on your self-esteem, self-confidence and self-respect. You will be making your life decisions based on fears.
Once you build courage, you will learn to self-direct your life. You will learn to accept punishment and rewards gracefully. A courageous person will often feel motivated to accept blame and responsibility (accountability) while reviewing their actions and using what they learn to move forward. Courageous people will step to the front, rather than stepping back when opportunities come their way. On the other hand, a courageous person will step back and take a view at his or her mistakes gracefully, since their self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect are high.
With this new found courage, your life will become more relaxed because of an ability to accept the good with the bad. This acceptance is not the same as settling! Settling is product of fear, where as acceptance is product of courage and self confidence, because even in the bad, you are confident in the fact that good will come; therefore aquiring a less stressful life.
A person willing to improve their life will relax. This person will relax even when plans fail. For instance, if it stormed the next day the person will find something else to occupy his or her time and feel just as happy about joining this adventure. Acceptance as a product of self confidence is your key to happiness and a more relaxed life. When you can learn to accept the good with the bad, you can learn how to live happier and improve your personal life.
To become successful, wealthy and improve your life you will need to learn how to trust yourself. When you trust yourself, you can trust others as well. Unfortunately, we live in a world where trust is hard to find, yet when you trust yourself, you can’t blame others when things go wrong, you are acountable of your own actions. You will begin the process of eliminating your fears when you create the habit of courageous behavior whenever you are faced with a difficult situation. Remember that anything you practice over and over eventually becomes a habit. Therefore, choose the habit to handle life’s difficulties with courage.
The good news is that the habit of courage can be learned. To do so, we need to develop a systematic way of thinking to eliminate those thoughts of fear, while at the same time build up positive thoughts of courage that will allow you to deal with the difficult situation(s) that brought those fearful thoughts in the first place. It is a habit that needs to be built in our subconsious mind.
To be able to put under control your fears, we must determine the factor(s) that caused or predisposed us toward the being afraid. Many of the sources of fear have been injected in us since our childhood by our friends and family; “fear of rejection”, “fear of separation or being alone”, “fear of failure” are some of the example of root causes of fear.
Why is it critical that you address your fears now?
Because if you ignore them, your fears will grow until they begin to control every aspect of your life. In addition, as your fears increase you will experience a reduction on your self-esteem, self-confidence and self-respect. You will be making your life decisions based on fears.
Once you build courage, you will learn to self-direct your life. You will learn to accept punishment and rewards gracefully. A courageous person will often feel motivated to accept blame and responsibility (accountability) while reviewing their actions and using what they learn to move forward. Courageous people will step to the front, rather than stepping back when opportunities come their way. On the other hand, a courageous person will step back and take a view at his or her mistakes gracefully, since their self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect are high.
With this new found courage, your life will become more relaxed because of an ability to accept the good with the bad. This acceptance is not the same as settling! Settling is product of fear, where as acceptance is product of courage and self confidence, because even in the bad, you are confident in the fact that good will come; therefore aquiring a less stressful life.
A person willing to improve their life will relax. This person will relax even when plans fail. For instance, if it stormed the next day the person will find something else to occupy his or her time and feel just as happy about joining this adventure. Acceptance as a product of self confidence is your key to happiness and a more relaxed life. When you can learn to accept the good with the bad, you can learn how to live happier and improve your personal life.
To become successful, wealthy and improve your life you will need to learn how to trust yourself. When you trust yourself, you can trust others as well. Unfortunately, we live in a world where trust is hard to find, yet when you trust yourself, you can’t blame others when things go wrong, you are acountable of your own actions. You will begin the process of eliminating your fears when you create the habit of courageous behavior whenever you are faced with a difficult situation. Remember that anything you practice over and over eventually becomes a habit. Therefore, choose the habit to handle life’s difficulties with courage.
April 9, 2009
Buried in Tasks
Have you been spending too much time on administrative tasks? Not enough time generating new business? Has your personal/family life been reduced to a few hours on the weekend? Does your to-do-list includes hundreds of tasks and many of them don’t seem to accomplish your goals? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to read further. You cannot let the tasks rule your life, it is time to take control of your life.
One solution to this problem is partnering with a virtual assistant. This will allow you the luxury of spending more time in front of your clients and less time behind your desk. It will allow you more time in the planning of your business and the generation of money. Because virtual assistants are independent professionals they come equipped with their own office, their own equipment, the latest software programs, and the know how of running a successful business. They don't, however, come equipped with added expenses like payroll taxes, expensive benefit packages, paid vacations, holiday pay, or "free time" (that you pay for) spent talking to co-workers. They're only there when you need them. Sometimes they're even there when you don't think you need them!
A virtual assistant, or VA, can help you with many of the administrative tasks that we tend to take care ourselves and add to our task list ,like:
o Manage your email
o Manage your calendar
o Tweak or create your presentations
o Make travel arrangements
o Be your own personal concierge
o Write letters
o Transcribe notes and interviews
o Follow up on trade show leads
o Handle literature fulfillment
The possibilities are endless once you start to see how many tasks you really can delegate.
Another problem why we get buried on tasks has to do in the creation of the lists. See using a big, long to-do list (even if you do it in Outlook) makes it harder to manage and use effectively to figure out what are we going to do next. Just the mere fact of looking a long list of tasks all of them being considered “urgent” is overwealming. It can freeze you and frustrate you.
One way to avoid this problem is the creation of master project lists (“MPL”). This should represent the major projects you are working on right now, this list needs to be smaller than your task list. Your MPL represents your outcome, what you want to achieve. Once you have your project list or “outcome list”, decide what will be your action steps you need to work on at the project level to complete each of the projects, this will be your task list.
The advantage of doing it this way, is that when you sit down to think about the projects and the action steps you already have place where to store them instead of keeping them in your head or simply creating a list of tasks with no order and by the time you get to it, you wonder “why am I doing this?”. Another advantage is that you can focus in one specific project and you will know exactly what you need to do to move that project forward without getting distracted with tasks for other projects.
Another step that you need to take anytime you are working on your project planning is the prioritization of the tasks. Otherwise we wont know where to start. This is critical, since it will help you spend your limited time on the most important tasks. You should do the same with the projects, so you can allocate properly your time among them.
While the techniques and tools are constantly being refined, at the “end of the day,” project management is simply the art of organizing tasks in a logical sequence and according to a schedule. By following these basic steps you will give structure and order to your to-do-list so you can use your time wisely, get things done and live a life with less stress.
One solution to this problem is partnering with a virtual assistant. This will allow you the luxury of spending more time in front of your clients and less time behind your desk. It will allow you more time in the planning of your business and the generation of money. Because virtual assistants are independent professionals they come equipped with their own office, their own equipment, the latest software programs, and the know how of running a successful business. They don't, however, come equipped with added expenses like payroll taxes, expensive benefit packages, paid vacations, holiday pay, or "free time" (that you pay for) spent talking to co-workers. They're only there when you need them. Sometimes they're even there when you don't think you need them!
A virtual assistant, or VA, can help you with many of the administrative tasks that we tend to take care ourselves and add to our task list ,like:
o Manage your email
o Manage your calendar
o Tweak or create your presentations
o Make travel arrangements
o Be your own personal concierge
o Write letters
o Transcribe notes and interviews
o Follow up on trade show leads
o Handle literature fulfillment
The possibilities are endless once you start to see how many tasks you really can delegate.
Another problem why we get buried on tasks has to do in the creation of the lists. See using a big, long to-do list (even if you do it in Outlook) makes it harder to manage and use effectively to figure out what are we going to do next. Just the mere fact of looking a long list of tasks all of them being considered “urgent” is overwealming. It can freeze you and frustrate you.
One way to avoid this problem is the creation of master project lists (“MPL”). This should represent the major projects you are working on right now, this list needs to be smaller than your task list. Your MPL represents your outcome, what you want to achieve. Once you have your project list or “outcome list”, decide what will be your action steps you need to work on at the project level to complete each of the projects, this will be your task list.
The advantage of doing it this way, is that when you sit down to think about the projects and the action steps you already have place where to store them instead of keeping them in your head or simply creating a list of tasks with no order and by the time you get to it, you wonder “why am I doing this?”. Another advantage is that you can focus in one specific project and you will know exactly what you need to do to move that project forward without getting distracted with tasks for other projects.
Another step that you need to take anytime you are working on your project planning is the prioritization of the tasks. Otherwise we wont know where to start. This is critical, since it will help you spend your limited time on the most important tasks. You should do the same with the projects, so you can allocate properly your time among them.
While the techniques and tools are constantly being refined, at the “end of the day,” project management is simply the art of organizing tasks in a logical sequence and according to a schedule. By following these basic steps you will give structure and order to your to-do-list so you can use your time wisely, get things done and live a life with less stress.
April 7, 2009
Be Organized, And Achieve Your Goals!
Being forgetful or disorganized is not a good sign of leading a healthy mind and a successful life. The misplacement of files, documents, even where you left your keys this morning will prevent you from achieving your goals. How much time do you think the average American wastes looking for a misplaced paper? There are reports that state that approximately 150 hours are wasted a year looking for misplaced papers (Approximately 3 work weeks of the the year).
Why is it important to be organized?
1. It saves time – you do not waste time shuffling through papers.
2. You have more control of your spare time and space – the time that is otherwise wasted looking for the misplaced document can now be used stress free on other aspects of your life.
3. You will stress less when you can locate things easily.
4. You will get more tasks done – you can reinvest the time wasted in looking for misplaced documents and use it productively to increase your income and wealth.
5. When you are organized, you will feel better, and you will have more time for other things.
One aspect of being organized that few people talk about is that we are not all wired the same way. In other words, since we are not wired the same way, we do not process and store information the same way. One book I recommend that you read that will assist you in establishing an organizational style based on your personality is How to Get Organized in Spite of Yourself by Sunny Schlenger. This is the perfect resource for the modern age of fast-paced business and life styles. The conclusion made on this book is that just one organizational system is not for everyone. This is the reason why we see so many people that succeed with one system and many others that fail and quit at it.
Two of the personalities discussed in Mr. Schlenger’s book are :
1. Some people like to have everything put away neatly.
2. Others like to have everything where they can see it.
Let me make one thing clear, all of these organizational methods are good; they just have to fit your personality. If you try to get organized in a way that is contrary to your personality, you will have difficulty staying organized because it is unnatural to you.
How do people that like to have everything out can get organized?
1. Use bins or trays that are labeled, so any papers you accumulate can be sorted immediately. For example, you can have a bin or space on your desk labeled: “Homework Due Immediately”, “Material to Study for Exams”, and “Graded Assignments”.
2. You can also use color coded papers and assigments according to importance, relevance, due dates, etc.
3. Use bulletin boards/message boards. You should use one board for messages and reminders and a different board for your drawings/sketches.
4. Use clear containers. For example, you can use clear bags, clear notebook dividers, clear folders for storing supplies and papers. They are organized and you can still see them.
How do people that like to have nothing out can get organized?
1. Filing. Any type of paper that you handle on a regular basis should have its own, accessible space. For example, create a folder for each of the projects so that you can read it from the opposite side of the room.
2. Keep these files in the same place all the time. This way, they are out of sight, but always know exactly where they are.
3. Use a day planner. This way you can write everything down, but it is out of sight.
Conclusion, arrange files in a way that makes you feel comfortable. Don’t worry if other people don’t understand your method. Make sure that you can find any paper you need in 3 minutes or less. If you cannot accomplish this, your system needs to change.
Why is it important to be organized?
1. It saves time – you do not waste time shuffling through papers.
2. You have more control of your spare time and space – the time that is otherwise wasted looking for the misplaced document can now be used stress free on other aspects of your life.
3. You will stress less when you can locate things easily.
4. You will get more tasks done – you can reinvest the time wasted in looking for misplaced documents and use it productively to increase your income and wealth.
5. When you are organized, you will feel better, and you will have more time for other things.
One aspect of being organized that few people talk about is that we are not all wired the same way. In other words, since we are not wired the same way, we do not process and store information the same way. One book I recommend that you read that will assist you in establishing an organizational style based on your personality is How to Get Organized in Spite of Yourself by Sunny Schlenger. This is the perfect resource for the modern age of fast-paced business and life styles. The conclusion made on this book is that just one organizational system is not for everyone. This is the reason why we see so many people that succeed with one system and many others that fail and quit at it.
Two of the personalities discussed in Mr. Schlenger’s book are :
1. Some people like to have everything put away neatly.
2. Others like to have everything where they can see it.
Let me make one thing clear, all of these organizational methods are good; they just have to fit your personality. If you try to get organized in a way that is contrary to your personality, you will have difficulty staying organized because it is unnatural to you.
How do people that like to have everything out can get organized?
1. Use bins or trays that are labeled, so any papers you accumulate can be sorted immediately. For example, you can have a bin or space on your desk labeled: “Homework Due Immediately”, “Material to Study for Exams”, and “Graded Assignments”.
2. You can also use color coded papers and assigments according to importance, relevance, due dates, etc.
3. Use bulletin boards/message boards. You should use one board for messages and reminders and a different board for your drawings/sketches.
4. Use clear containers. For example, you can use clear bags, clear notebook dividers, clear folders for storing supplies and papers. They are organized and you can still see them.
How do people that like to have nothing out can get organized?
1. Filing. Any type of paper that you handle on a regular basis should have its own, accessible space. For example, create a folder for each of the projects so that you can read it from the opposite side of the room.
2. Keep these files in the same place all the time. This way, they are out of sight, but always know exactly where they are.
3. Use a day planner. This way you can write everything down, but it is out of sight.
Conclusion, arrange files in a way that makes you feel comfortable. Don’t worry if other people don’t understand your method. Make sure that you can find any paper you need in 3 minutes or less. If you cannot accomplish this, your system needs to change.
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