Let's Talk Organizing

Email Etiquette: Auto-Responder

2009-09-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Auto-Responder

If you only check your emails once a day, turn on your auto-responder and include the information on your email habits, when you will get back to them, and an alternate method to reach you if it’s important. There is nothing worse than not knowing why someone hasn’t responded to a time sensitive matter. It only takes a couple clicks of the mouse to set your auto-responder feature and it is so considerate!

These are just a few examples of email etiquette and there are a slew of others out there. Spell check is another that makes everyone's life so much easier.

What other examples do you have for email etiquette?

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne Babb

Email Etiquette: Sensitivity

2009-09-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

Sensitivity

The same holds true with sensitivity levels of emails as it does with CYA. If an email you are sending sounds or reads peevish, try using different verbiage, include a smiley face, or just call the person on the phone. The precautions you take now will save you valuable time, energy and headaches later.

By the way, there isn’t a smiley face big enough to counter act some scenarios. Don’t fire, reprimand, or otherwise scold a co-worker via email. Talk about tacky!

Email Etiquette: CYA

2009-09-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

CYA

We have all heard the expression of CYA, “Cover Your Ass”. Sometimes we put specific information in emails to cover our fannies or print it out and save the hard copy when it’s really important, but how about NOT sending an email because it could come back to bite you in the butt?

Regardless of whether it’s petty cattiness about a co-worker, sexual harassment, or an email that could be misconstrued as snippy, if you think there is even a remote chance that someone can use it against you, don’t send it. Call the person or have a face-to-face conversation with them, don’t email.

Of course, if the exact opposite is true and you need a paper trail, then definitely email!

Email Etiquette: Subject Lines

2009-09-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Subject Lines

Don’t you hate it when someone interrupts you or drastically changes the subject while you are talking? I know I can’t stand it. It’s beyond rude and the same can be said to irrelevant or non-existent subject lines in emails.

For instance, you are sending over the new pricing to a client how do you label it so he can quickly identify the importance of the email? Do you leave the subject line blank? Heck no! You put in the subject line 2008 Updated Pricing. You don’t just grab the email the client sent you with Meeting Request in the subject line and send the pricing to him. If you did that, he may never read it because he would assume it’s just something in regards to the meeting you already had and irrelevant.

Another scenario would be his inbox is completely overwhelming, he hasn’t had a chance to check emails, and after a couple of days he finally remembers that you sent him pricing. When he does a search for your email with something labeled pricing, he can’t find it. Do you really want to that to happen? Heck no! So take the few extra seconds it takes to create a new email with a relevant subject line.

Having great subject lines can also help streamline your processes and get faster feedback. Let’s take the pricing scenario again; you need to get the pricing approved by your supervisor before sending it to the client. Why not create a subject line that reads: “Needs Approval: Acme Client Pricing”? Your supervisor can visually see that he has an action required of him, he knows who it is for and what it is. This is a great way to save him time; you time, and get back to your client in a timely fashion.

Email Etiquette: ALL CAPS

2009-09-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

Don’t put your elbows on the table, don’t talk with your mouth full, and don’t play with your food. These are the things you and your parents have been repeating for years. It is so important to have good etiquette in life and the same holds true with email.

We are going to cover some of the biggest email no-no’s, why it’s rude, and how you can correct some of your own unintentional bad habits.

ALL CAPS

One of the biggest email no-no’s is using ALL CAPS. ALL CAPS is the equivalent to screaming at someone in cyber space and who likes to be screamed at? However, using ALL CAPS to emphasize a word is fine, but to send an email with all capital letters is just plain rude.

Tips and Tricks to Keep My Inbox Clean

2009-09-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

We just went through a lot of information on how to keep your inbox cleaned out and maintained. We determined your email organizing style, we talked about creating routines, and we even figured out some solutions to some of our biggest issues.

Now we are going to take one last final look at some of the quick ways you can maintain control! You don’t necessarily need to do all of the little suggestions, as a matter of fact there is such as a thing as being over organized. I want you to pick just a couple of things you can and will do to keep your inbox looking spic and span. Don’t over commit, we don’t want to set you up for failure so just pick your favorite tricks and write them down.

Tips and Tricks I Can Do

ü Create specific folders for emails

ü Create Rules for incoming emails

ü Clean out my inbox every evening

ü Clean by conversation once a week

ü Set up my Auto-Archive feature

ü Do & Delete

ü File away my emails as they come in

ü Set up different email addresses for different types of emails

ü Create a daily routine to deal with emails

Once you have your tips and tricks determined I want you to put them into your routine. Use your calendar if you need to and get into the habit now. What other solutions can you come up with to gain control of your inbox?

Tomorrow, we are on to Etiquette!

Happy Organizing!

Keeping the Inbox Clean: The Last Step

2009-09-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Regardless of which style best represents you, you need to make sure you remember the 5 important steps of maintaining a successful inbox.

1. Address what emails need action as they come in

2. Remove emails you do not need

3. File away other emails

4. Create Rules to keep your inbox tidy

5. Set up your routine

Now that your inbox is clean let’s do a couple of things to make sure it stays that way. We will have one step that will be completely automatic and you won’t have to do a damn thing, the other step will definitely take discipline on your part.

Let’s start with the easy step first, shall we?

We are going to set up a few rules for incoming emails into your inbox. An email Rule is a wonderful little feature that automatically sends an incoming email to a place you designate within your inbox. Right now all of your emails are going straight into your inbox as a default. However, we just finished creating folders for a lot of your emails.

Imagine if all of the pesky newsletters, meeting notes, sales reports, etc. automatically went into their respective folders. You wouldn’t have to worry about moving them, having them clog your inbox, and you can review them at your leisure. Creating Rules effectively can be one of the biggest allies you have when it comes to keeping your inbox clean. You can create Rules based on subject or sender and you can change or delete it at any time. If you are afraid you will miss an email from your boss because of the massive amounts of emails you receive in a day, make her a Rule. Every time she sends you an email it will go into her folder and it will be in bold with the number of unread emails. You will never have to worry about missing another email or dropping the ball on a project because you didn’t see the email.

Now that the easy part is set up, let’s move on to what YOU have to do. Creating a routine for your emails is essential to maintaining a tidy inbox. A routine is something you set up for yourself, that makes sense to you, and is easy for you to do on a regular basis.

For example; you could do something as simple as:

1. Address emails as they come in; act, move, or delete.

2. Before you leave for the day, clean out your inbox.

Regardless of your daily routine, you need to figure out what works best for you and you need to continue to do it every single day. Make it a daily goal to have your inbox completely cleaned out before you leave or only have what you need in your inbox. This way when you come back to work the next morning you are ready to start fresh. Very similar to cleaning up your desk before you go home for the night.

Keeping the Inbox Clean: Visual

2009-09-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

Visual

For those of you who are more Visually inclined, you have the most options available to you. Are you going to color code with flags, categorize by topic or action type? What about folders?

A very successful way of organizing your inbox would be to utilize two out of the three solutions. You could create folders similar to the Logical organizing style and then use flags to organize your action emails.

You could also try using your inbox in an Inspirational format and implement categories and color coding as your solutions. The categories in this scenario would replace using folders.

Regardless of which style best represents you, you need to make sure you remember the 5 important steps of maintaining a successful inbox.

1. Address what emails need action as they come in

2. Remove emails you do not need

3. File away other emails

4. Create Rules to keep your inbox tidy

Keeping the Inbox Clean: Logical

2009-09-08T09:49:00.002-07:00

Logical

For the Logical organizers, we need to start by finding homes for the emails that are left. So let’s determine what folders make sense to you and your business.

By Client

Project

Work

Personal

Department

Action Type

What else can you think of?

Once you have your folders created, go ahead and start filing emails away. Sometimes it is easier to file away large groups of emails by sender or by subject. So be sure and take advantage of the sorting feature built into your inbox. You may also want to take advantage of the “Rules” feature for some of your recurring emails, such as weekly reports.

Almost finished with the organizing style solutions for keeping your inbox clean. Tomorrow we wrap it up with the Inspirational Organizing Style!

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne Babb

Keeping the Inbox Clean: Inspirational

2009-09-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

Inspirational

Look through the emails that are left in your new “Inbox September 08” folder. Anything that requires some sort of action on your part, I want you to move it back into your regular inbox. This does NOT mean that I want you replying to them right now. As a matter of fact, I don’t want any of you doing anything with the emails other than moving them around and sorting. No quick replies, no “oh it will only take a sec” excuses. Nada, nothing, zilch. You can go back and play when we are done.

Once you have all of your action needing emails in your Inbox, I want you to decide how you want to handle the other emails you have. Are you comfortable doing a “Do and Delete”? Or do you want to play it safe and keep the emails in the folder for a bit longer? I will leave that entirely up to you and your safety net.

Once you have finished transferring the emails back to your inbox, I want you to write down how many emails you have now!

=) Not too bad, is it? Tomorrow, we will help out all of you Logical Organizers!

Until then,

Happy Organizing!

Keeping the Inbox Clean

2009-09-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

Now that you know your Organizing Style, putting together your plan of attack should be relatively easy. But before we get to the fun part of cleaning it out let’s see where you are at right now. How many emails do you have in your inbox at this very moment?

In this next series, we are going to give you some suggestions for how you can clean out that monstrous inbox of yours and MAINTAIN it! Regardless of what your email situation is, we all have things we love and hate about our inbox. Think about your current situation and I want you to write down what you absolutely hate about your inbox. Those are the things you want to concentrate on changing. As you find new solutions or ideas of your own, be sure and write them down.

I don’t know about you, but I distinctly remember that our Math book in high school had the answers to all of the odd numbered questions in the back of the book. I would be completely lying to you if I swore that I did NOT look at the answers, so let’s face it, I’m a cheater and like I did back in high school I am going to cheat again!

For right now we are going to cheat with our inbox. Sometimes it’s about shoving everything underneath your bed and tackling the nightmare when you are in a better frame of mind. So that is what we are going to do!

Go ahead and create a new folder in your inbox and label it, “Inbox September 08”. Next, move all of your emails into the new folder. Voila! Your inbox is clean and you are all done! KIDDING!

The good part about taking this step is you do get to start with a clean slate, however, it does not mean you don’t have to do something with all of those emails. The quickest way of getting rid of obsolete emails is to Archive. Archiving is wonderful in that you determine how far back you want to leave those old emails in your inbox. The standard time frame is about 90 days, but you can change it to reflect whatever makes you most comfortable. I personally have mine set to 30-days. If you haven’t already set up your Auto Archive feature, go ahead and do it. It will amaze you how many emails will magically disappear from your inbox.

I personally like sorting through all of my emails and deleting all of the crap. That means jokes, witty banter back and forth from my friends, updates from Plaxo, notifications from Facebook, etc. This is all senseless garbage. So I start by sorting my emails by the sender. I can quickly delete every email sent to me by Dan, eliminate all of the updates from social networking sites, and I have just deleted over 200 emails in the matter of moments. How amazing is that?!

The next part is a bit more time consuming, but just as liberating! A lot of email programs have an option of sorting by Conversation. What this does is actually put together email strings. So if you and a colleague have sent 10 emails back and forth on one email string, it will group all of those emails or Conversations together and you can delete all but the most current email. There is no need to keep 9 other emails when you have the entire conversation all in one email! With a simple click on Delete you have just further cleaned out your inbox.

Now that we have all had the wonderful pleasure of deleting all of the memory sucking emails, let’s go ahead and figure out what to do with the emails that are left.

Before we get started though, you need to remember what Organizing Style you are. Are you Visual, Logical or Inspirational? This is going to play a huge part on what steps you are going to need to take to clean out your inbox further.

Steps to Take

1. Create new folder – “Inbox Month Year”

2. Move all emails from inbox to temp folder

3. Auto Archive

4. Clean out the crap

5. Delete by conversation

If you are among the blessed Inspirational organizers, we are going to start with you since you will be the easiest. Stayed tuned to tomorrow's blog post to find out HOW to best keep your inbox clean.

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne

Email Organization: Inspirational

2009-09-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

Inspirational: Do & Delete

For the Inspirational organizer you are definitely the kind of person who needs to feel motivated to work. If you are overwhelmed you can quickly shut down and just not feel in the mood to accomplish anything no matter how insignificant the task. That is why your email inbox needs to be a safe haven. The best way to make the most out of your email experience is to simply DELETE!

Delete

If you don’t need it…delete it! Why clog up your life with needless items?

Once you reply to an email delete the original. Every time you reply to an email it is automatically saved in your sent items. So don’t worry about losing it forever, you do have a simple back up. J

Of course, if you aren’t comfortable with the idea of deleting, you can always create a back up inbox. Instead of Doing and Deleting you can Do and Move. This way your inbox is not overwhelming you, you aren’t stressed about deleting and you only have to worry about one other folder and not a slew of them.

Just remember, having an empty inbox makes you happy and not overwhelmed! You also need to keep everything simple so don’t over complicate your inbox.

*******

Hopefully some of these suggestions will help you identify ways to make your email life a heck of a lot easier in the months to come. I am hoping to continue doing the series on Email Organization so be sure and give me your feedback on what is working and/or NOT working for you!

Until next time,

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne Babb

Email Organization: Visual

2009-09-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

Visual: Coding Your Emails

The biggest threat a Visual Organizer has is out of sight out of mind! If this is you, then you are more likely to be a very Visual person. So keep that in mind when you are going through some of the organizing styles. The great part about being more visual is you have a wonderful world of color just waiting at your finger tips!

Flag Feature

If you have Outlook 2003, consider using the Flag feature to color code your emails; action types, to do’s, etc.

O Orange – To Do

O Green – To Call

O Red – Set Up Appointment

O Blue – Personal

O Purple – Business

Categorizing

Categorize your emails by Action Type. You can sort your emails by sender, by date, by subject and you can sort by Category. Plus you can incorporate the flags into this system to dictate what still needs to be accomplished.

Leave It

Why not just leave all of your emails in your main inbox and don’t file. If you need to find an email sort by sender, subject or category.

If you can’t identify with any of these solutions, don’t worry! You still have one more style to check out. Remember, just because you like the IDEA of being a Visual Organizer does not mean you are one. Keep your mind open to the other two styles and let’s see where that puts you.

Email Organization: Logical

2009-09-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

Logical: Neatly Filed Away

Does this sound like you? You are in constant control, chaos doesn’t even consider coming into your life, now if you could only figure out a way to systemize your inbox!

There are some wonderful ways to systemize your email inbox. You can even take it to the next level and organize your email folders in the same fashion as your paper files! This way you always know where to look, regardless of what application you are using.

Organize With Folders

Determine what folders make sense to you and your business and create folders for your inbox. These can be by client, project, action type, etc. Whatever makes the most sense to you and how you think. I would even recommend setting up your computer folders in the same logic as your inbox and paper files. Keep it consistent whenever possible.

Organize By Action

As soon as you have acted on an email, file it away immediately! Do not let it clog up your inbox needlessly.

To Do’s

For those emails that have an action associated with it create a folder strictly for To Do’s. Just make sure that you are NOT an “out of sight out of mind” thinker. For the Logical organizer it’s very important that your To Do’s are nicely filed away, they aren’t distracting and you control what you do and when.

A key component of being a Logical Organizer is control. If you must have order and control you are more than likely a Logical organizer.

Identifying Your Email Organizing Style

2009-09-02T16:45:00.003-07:00

I haven't done an email organizing post in quite a while, so I figured I should probably start it up again!

What better way to come out of hiding then by identifying your email organizing style?

Knowing your email Organizing Style is very similar to knowing your favorite food. If you are a vegetarian you aren’t going to choose to go to Texas Roadhouse for a steak. Same goes for your inbox. If you are a Visual organizer, filing away your To Do emails would mean certain disaster. We just need to figure out what works best for YOU!

There are essentially three styles of organizing:

Logical
Visual
Inspirational

If you are more Visual you are going to need Everything in One Place, Logical is more of a Neatly Filed Away style and Inspirational is a definite Do and Delete.

During the next several blog posts, think about what makes sense to you and your current habits. NOT what style you would like to be, but what style you ARE. With the listed scenarios you will find that you identify with one more than the others. You may choose the Visual method because of the logic behind it or because it’s the easiest solution. Which ever option you choose, just make sure it makes sense to you.

Fun Tip!

If you can’t find an email, but you know who sent it,

go into your Contacts, open their contact card, click on Activities.

You will now be able to see all of the emails you have ever sent to them,

they have sent to you and it will tell you what folder it is located in!

Tomorrow, I will break down the email organizing for the Logical organizer.

Until then,

Happy Organizing!

Organzing My Stitching Supplies

2009-08-23T20:29:00.002-07:00

Needless to say, I have been busy, busy, busy. School started two weeks ago, my daughter is turning 16 next month, and I have been sewing to my little hearts content! I have been having ball flying to San Diego to find new patterns, driving down to Tucson to pick up specialty threads, and enjoying my quiet time in my Stitching Haven sewing cards for friends and family.

Of course, none of this would have been possible if I didn't organize everything first!

I used one of my all time favorite organizing supplies, the magazine holder, to house all of my cross stitch books by type. They sit nicely up in the top of my closet in my Stitching Haven.
An old floss organizer helps me sort out my Mill Hill beads numerically, plus I limit each section to two bead packets so I can see the color as well.
I use another floss organizer and my label maker to help me sort some of my specialty threads. I love not having to open it up just to see if I have a specific color.
I found this great little file box at Hobby Lobby from Fiddlesticks that keeps all of my card embellishments sorted by occasion! LOVE IT! I can't wait to show you what else I am using it for!
Not to mention each of my sewing projects are organized in their own little case. I have all the threads in numerical order, a pin cushion handy, a spot for my used thread remenants, as well as the threads that I can actual reuse later. (That's why there are two compartments for used thread.) As you can see there are also more sections for the beads and other metallic threads that I am using. LOVE IT!

Since I am working on several projects at one time, the little boxes work out so well!

Life in Suzy's Stitching world would not be complete without a fun blog to go along with it so I naturally had to throw one of those together too! Plus, you will get to see the pictures of the goodies I made up for Ms. Marcia and her little ones!!! Woo hoo!!!

So if you want to see what I have been up to over the last several months, come on over!!!

Until next time,

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne

Stitching Haven is Complete

2009-06-22T20:39:00.004-07:00

Well, my little Stitching Haven is complete! Can you believe it only took me an hour to transform a hideously ugly room into my own little retreat? This is the view from the door and if you look in the mirror you can see the quilt that hangs on the opposite wall next to my comfy chair. The table cloth that is in dire need of ironing is actually one that my step-grandfather's wife made when she was alive. I figured it added a beautiful touch to my little church table that has seen better days!

And this is the view from my chair! I have some great lighting in my room and I can sit in here any time of the day and just sew to my little hearts content. I can easily get to my floss and stack them on the table to get all of the colors that I need for my project. Those wonderful galvenized pails from Target come in quite handy to hold my card stock for some cross stitched embellished cards. The cute little tins are holding some of my specialty floss that can't be put on a bobbin or touch other thread, plus it helps keep the cat and dog hair from ruining them as well!

Everything I need is at my fingertips and it feels absolutely heavenly! Can you believe I even have two desks in this room as well? =) Yep, it is also our office! As soon as I get our desks all put together and the rest of the pictures hung I will be sure and post more pictures. As for right now, this is my quaint little space that I have truly fallen in love with!

Happy Organizing!

Organizing My Stitching Haven

2009-06-18T17:29:00.001-07:00

Shock beyond all shock started last year in December when I announced I was giving up my precious Coke (COLA!) and then when I nearly gave my children heart failure when I started to actually COOK, the world almost stopped turning! I think the reason why Arizona has been having an uncharacteristically mild summer is because Hell froze over and we're all starting to feel the effects. Well, hold on to your seats because it's going to get even chillier! Suzy is going to have a craft room!

Yep, little Miss un-crafty herself is going to have a craft room. Maybe not so much a craft room as it will be my little Stitching Haven.

When I was 10, I learned out to Cross Stitch in school and my Aunt Lesa stitched so she helped me a ton during my little years. Needless to say, once I hit 13'ish, that all went out the window until I had Jordyn. We lived in the middle of nowhere (15 miles from the nearest gas station, 40 miles to town, NOWHERE!) and I had NOTHING to do except take care of infant. Let's face it, Jordyn was a great baby so I did have a ton of nice free time so I picked up cross stitching again. I had every color of floss, books to make any library envious, beads, fabric, projects that were always in a state of completion and it made me so happy! I sewed up until 3 or 4 years ago and I missed it tremendously!

Since I'm doing whatever I can to stay low key, I figured I would take up my golden needle once again and start stitching. Unfortunately, the thousands of dollars of goodies I had is now history and I have had to start all over. Which can be a good thing!

I have all of my threads once again, I have started collecting magazines, books, fabric and a ton of inspiration! Plus, Jordyn has expressed interest in learning so I have had a ball showing her how. :o)

I have missed blogging so much and I figured this is just as good of an excuse as any to start back up again. I figured I could blog about the organizational aspects of organizing a Stitching Haven and on my little CraftBubble site I can blog about the other silly aspects of my stitching frenzy. Like going to San Diego this weekend to visit several shops! Woo hoo!

Before I can start organizing, however, I need to figure out what exactly I need to do!

Find my inspiration for my Stitching Haven.
Clean out the room as it is now...which is HORRENDOUS!
Determine the organizing method for all of my goodies (there are a TON of different options)
Decide if it's going to be a designated craft room or if I am going share it with the fam.
Buy the necessary tools
Decorate
Stitch! (Did I mention Marcia is the first victim for craftiness?!)

Of course, I need to do this quickly because I already placed my order for a bunch of pretties from the store in San Diego and I have to take a special suitcase to bring it back to Arizona! Yikes!

Here is one of the patterns I am going to be working on in my new Stitching Haven, now do you understand why I need to get this going? :)

Next post will be all about my inspiration room and how exactly it turns out! Woo hoo!

Until then,

Happy Organizing!

Cleaning Out the Glovebox

2009-05-28T21:06:00.002-07:00

I don't know about you, but up until yesterday my glove box was the equivalent to my "junk drawer". The really bad part is my Prius has TWO glove boxes! That is double the mindless crap I keep in it! I am talking about half eaten bags of Chex Mix, Pumpkin seeds, outdated insurance cards, pens that didn't work and all of the receipts for all of the oil changes I have had so far in my car.

I cringe at the thought of being pulled over by a cop and NOT because of a ticket! But because of the utter humiliation I will feel when I try to locate my insurance and registration! Eeek! I always THINK about cleaning out my glove box, but it's typically while I am in the car driving and I just don't have the time to stop and go through the disaster area. So I don't. Up until yesterday where I came up with a stroke of genius!

I had Tony drive me around and be my chauffeur yesterday and oh my goodness! Did I get a ton of things done in the car!!! First, I tackled the main glove box. I threw away all of the opened snack crap, pens that didn't work, crinkled up napkins, documents that I didn't need, and any other misc. trash I just happened to throw in there. Next, I took all of the receipts for my car maintenance and folded them nicely and placed them back in the giant envelope with all of my manuals. All of the car records are in one easy to find place. Woo hoo!

I sectioned off a nice little space for the napkins and Kleenex so they were easy to reach in case of emergency. =) It looks absolutely LOVELY and it only took me 5 minutes.

Next came the second and smaller glove box. Since I have this huge paranoia of not being able to find my insurance and registration, I put these two items in one plastic sleeve and my smaller glove box is now home to ONLY my important items. The insurance and registration AND my Lorna Doone cookies! Hey, a girl has got to have priorities!

So next time you are Co-Piloting, think about cleaning out the nightmare that is living in your glove box!

Organizing Multiple Freezers

2009-05-22T14:50:00.002-07:00

A few weeks ago I purchased a freezer for the garage. The freezer in the frig is just way too small and I was tired of going to the store every week for meat. I was absolutely ecstatic when we grabbed one and instantly ran to Sam's Club and bought steaks, brauts, hotdogs, chicken, pork chops, you name it, I bought it! I had to load up my new freezer!

Then came the time to plan out the week for dinner. Can you believe I couldn't remember what I had in the freezer, how many I had or where in the world it was!?! Was it in the kitchen freezer or the garage freezer? My mind was in total turmoil! I needed to get this under control fast or I was going to end up with 10 packages of brauts and no hamburger meat! (which happened, by the way!)

So, I went out and inventoried the outside freezer and wrote everything I had down on a small magnetic white board that stays on the freezer. I also put little tic marks with how may of each things I had.

Next, I inventoried my kitchen freezer.

I decided that since summer is now here and the kids are officially out of school, I am going to use the inside freezer for their summer lunch snacks and the meat that I am going to use for the week.

I did up my menu plan for the week and went "shopping" in my freezers.

For next week, I pulled out a package of brauts, roast, hamburger for tacos and pork chops. Everything that did not pertain to the kids or for dinner got switched over to the garage freezer and I updated the white board.

Now I can see what I have and what I'm out of and the only things in my kitchen freezer are the items I need right now. Talk about a total relief! Now I don't have to feel completely overwhelmed every time I go to get ice!

Checking In and Making a Little Update

2009-05-20T22:01:00.003-07:00

It is amazing what can happen in a few short months! I have moved, rearranged the house 4 different times, learned to actually cook without grossing out the kids, got engaged, chopped off a good ten inches of red hair, tackled and achieved several organizing enigmas and have completely destroyed my home office...twice!

There are a ton of little areas in my life that are in need of some severe organizational help. We are talking a veritable organizing 9-1-1! Thankfully I have been able to get a handle of some of the areas that have been causing me to lose a shit load of sleep. Those are the ones that I figure I will share with you! Just to show that my little hiatus was a little beneficial. (Just a little!)

Organizing Family Game Night

We have and play a ton of games in the family. I even have to give my 15 year old a by from the cuss jar during Nerts just because it gets soooo intense! We even went out and bought three different versions of dominoes so we can play Mexican Train. It's quite sad! My little dilemma with my little game fetish is the fact that I have more games than I have space to store them in! Closets are out of the question, it would be a pain in the butt to get to games in the kitchen cabinets, and the same would go for chests. The games vary drastically in size and it was driving me insane trying to figure out what to do with them. Plus I inherited a crap load of furniture when my fiance moved in so I needed to make room for a heck of a lot more furniture. I called in the design expert aka Mom and we went to work rearranging the house. What started out as an out of the way location for the games turned into an sheer act of brilliance on my mothers part. She placed the games kitty korner in the game room and put a table cloth on our game table. When you walk buy the room you don't see the games visually, but when we need to grab a game they are all right there! Easy to get to, easy to view, and easy to take out the next pawn in my annihilation of the family! Oh ya, baby! Suzy is the Game Master!

Suzy Learned to Cook

I already posted on how I get through the grocery store with my new found passion for cooking more than hot dogs and mac-n-cheese, but now I have all of these wonderful recipes that I have stolen from family and friends and printed from the internet. They were initially shoved in my junk drawer because I really didn't think I would use them THAT much. Now my junk drawer is the resting place for a boat load of really yummy recipes that I pull out for BBQ weekends. Mmmm, strawberry and chocolate crepes! Yummmmmmm!!!!! I thought about doing the little recipe box thing, but that really isn't me. I am afraid I will lose those little cards and quite frankly, I write big and there isn't enough space. Instead, I grabbed my trusty composition book and started putting the recipes in there. I just taped the ones I printed from the internet to the pages (I am way too lazy to hand write them) and then ones that were just scribbled I actually re wrote them and put them in the book. I can always find my favorite recipes because they are the ones covered in goo and oil. :) I'm not really what you would call a "tidy" cook! I can stand up my notebook without fear and it makes me feel just a bit more confident because I LOVE my composition books! I still have my 3x5 cards with the grocery items I need at the store if I get a wild hair up my keister to cook something and that has been worth it's weight in Crabby Cheesey Goodness!

Organizing the Craziness That is My Life

Trying to organize my day, bills, work, the family and remembering where I put my brain has been a NIGHTMARE lately! So when Levenger came out with their new multi-tasker organizer I DIED! I Twittered Steve Leveen and ordered my latest Circa brilliance and I can't tell you how much I LOVE IT! I will blog about it separately now that I am getting back into the swing of blogging, because it is absolutely wonderful and deserves some undivided attention.

Although I was able to get quite a few things put in order, I am far from finished. The garage is in need of a major overhaul, my car is a rolling disaster and pit of doom that my children call their bedroom is scaring the living daylights out of me! Those are my next projects and I promise to blog and take pictures of our progress!

Until next time,

Happy Organizing!!!!

What Do I Need to Make That??

2009-04-06T17:25:00.002-07:00

For those of you who actually "know" me, you will be shocked and amazed to know that I am actually COOKING! Not just firing up the BBQ and making brauts and setting out a veggie tray, I'm talking real live cooking! My kids are beyond shocked and they sit anxiously at the table waiting for the alien that has obviously taken over their mother's body to pop out and eat them for dessert. It's quite funny!

Of course, now that I have found this new love for cooking I'm having a heck of time at the grocery store. I have been doing menu planning for a while, thanks to Marcia's encouragement, but now that I'm cooking I haven't a clue as to what goes into my all of my new little recipes. I am sure that once I get into the full swing of things I will know right off the top of my head, but until that time I am trying to figure this all out.

For things like Renee's recipe for the Cheesy Crabby Goodness and my home made crepe's, I have put together one of my cute little Circa PDA's and put the list of the ingredients for all of my faves. This way, if I have to do a quick fly by grocery run, I can just pull out my purse and crab my notebook and snag what I need.

Which worked out PERFECTLY over the weekend.

For this cooking newby, the recipe list has been a Godsend!

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne Babb

Taking a Hiatus

2009-03-02T09:07:00.002-07:00

For the last 5 years, I have had a wonderful time seeing a dream turn into a wonderful reality. A desire to be home with my children has flourished into a lovely little business, a fun blog, a goofy podcast and most recently Getting Unstuck, an online coaching group with Ariane Benefit.

Unfortunately, life seems to be getting busier and busier and my blogs, podcasts and newsletters seem to be suffering. It has been a heart wrenching experience trying to figure out how to proceed, but I have finally concluded that I am going to need a bit of a hiatus.

Over the next 3 months, I will be concentrating on Getting Unstuck and producing online workshops. My goal is to be back in full blog swing by June so we won't be gone forever and if you just feel completely lonely without me, you can always find me on our monthly coaching calls.

I am so thankful for all of the friends I have met along the way and I look forward to spending a bit more time growing those friendships. =) Thank you, thank you, thank you, to all of you and hopefully I will "see" you all back in June!

Until next time,

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne Babb

Paper for Our Schools - We're Donating

2009-02-15T20:16:00.004-07:00

I can't tell you how much the budget cuts for our schools has really irked me. The fact that we spend more money and place a bigger priority on the standards of our prisoners over that of our children sickens me. Of course, complaining about it without doing anything bothers me even more. So, instead of just standing on my soap box and complaining about it, I'm going to do something positive instead. =) Because let's face it, I can't handle that much negativity in one sitting and if I am going to bitch about it I may as well do something to help out!

From now until February 28, I am planning on taking the proceeds from my eBook sales and purchasing cases of paper for our local schools. Of course, this will be great for the Gilbert Public School District, but how about the rest of the country? Well, I have an idea for that too!

For those of you who are teachers or school administrators, if you would like to participate in our little Paper Drive, please post in the comments section your name and the name of your school. On March 1st, I will go ahead and choose 3 teachers to receive shipments of paper! Ideally, I would like to send paper to everyone and if I can get enough Paper Matchers I will definitely do that!

In the meantime, I am going to be talking with some local businesses to see if we can't get some paper matching going on. How wonderful would THAT be!?!

So, if you are interested in participating and helping out in a small way, please do! For those of you who don't necessarily want to order an eBook, but would like to help out any way, please feel free to click on the Donate a Ream of Paper link and select how many you would like to donate.

Your thoughts, well wishes, and support will not go unnoticed. I will make sure that everyone's name goes on the gift cards to the teachers and schools you have chosen to support. :)

Thank you and as always,

Happy Organizing!

Suzanne Babb

Suzanne on CNN

2009-01-23T10:08:00.003-07:00

So this morning an old co-worker of mine did a Friend Request on Facebook, I quickly hit the Accept button and went about my business. Next thing I know, Kevin is sending me an email saying, "I guess if it OK for my wife to have a guy friend... ;)I ran accross an article this morning on CNN and saw your name. Great article."

I immediately went out to CNN.com and do you know what the first article is under the Living section is? The article that Eric and I were interviewed for back in October! Should Your Wife Have Guy Friends?

Love you, Eric and THANK YOU, Kevin!