If you want to tap the minds of lots of smart people quickly and easily, you'll find our vast discussion board community very handy. I ran across a particularly interesting discussion there the other day, offering many Fools' best organizing tips. Here are a few of many good ideas:
- minnesotagirl suggested: "I set the timer for 15 minutes (10 minutes if I'm in a hurry, five if I'm really desperate!) after the kids go to school and before I go to work and do as much as I can to straighten up the house, starting with the kitchen and moving on to other rooms as I have time. This makes a world of difference at the end of the day."
- NaggingFool advocated "landing zones" or "launch pads," saying: "Everyone in my house has one.... As soon as I come home I put my purse in a large basket in the office that serves as my landing zone (and then I immediately hang up my coat). After everyone leaves for the day to go to work I put all of their stuff in their landing zones."
- cbrown24 offered: "... I go through my mail each day and immediately throw away junk mail and file bills in my accounts payable file. I clean my kitchen every night before I go to bed unless I am sick or have a migraine."
- MarkHiatt said: "When a bill comes in, I sit down at the computer and I pay it.... When I take off my socks, they go in the Ugly Sock Pile (USP) right away. Otherwise the USP pretty much becomes 'the floor in the bedroom.' When I buy a new program for my PC, I fill out all of the registration stuff and rebate stuff right now, because if you let it sit, the pile of coupons and mailings and receipts becomes part of the furniture and you keep putting it off... 'Do It Now!'"
- Cathykk recommended containers and categorizing, advising: "Have a place for everything. In my basement tool area I have a shelf with wooden boxes. In one I have all my sticky, gluey, binding stuff like tapes, special glues, and strings. In another I have all my patching materials.... Another holds painting supplies [and]... another holds plumbing supplies, like special pipe tapes, glues, piping and fixtures..." (Read more of her excellent tips.)
If you like what you read here, know that there's much more available to you on our boards -- try our online community free for 30 days and explore the hundreds of boards we have, dedicated to stocks and investing and many other parts of life, such as cooking, exercising, photography, divorce, pets, golf, relationships, religion, politics, and much more. Among our stock boards, you'll find a dedicated board for every major company and scads of minor ones. Interested in Intel
Or just drop in on our Get Organized! board, for a smaller taste of what we offer.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian does not own shares of any companies mentioned in this article.
