Beyond Folders : productivity, Organization tools

Making the Most of Mondays

Community Manager — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:48:00 GMT

Tired of dreading Monday? We hear you. Stop singing the Monday Blues and instead embrace the week's fresh start with our simple steps for making the most of your Monday.

Aim for Progress, Not Perfection: Begin each week by adopting a very simple formula: aim for progress, not perfection. Don't look at the entire scope of work for the week and think, "ugh, I'm overwhelmed." Look at what you need to do that day, or even that morning, and go task by task. Once you set the wheels in motion, momentum will carry you through the rest.

Self-Awareness Scheduling: Gretchen Rubin, the New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Project, explores different ways of using scheduling tricks to combat the Monday Blahs in 5 Tips for Improving Monday Mornings. Rubin suggests that if hectic Monday mornings always create stress, try to opt for a Monday morning zone free of email, phone calls and meetings. Or schedule enticing Monday lunch dates or evening plans to make the day more appealing. Manage your schedule to make the most of your Monday.

Monday, Monday, So Good to Me: Make Monday a designated day for enjoyable activities. We like the feel good advice from web site Growing Happiness. In 20 Ways to Beat the Monday Blahs tips for combating the Monday Blues include scheduling calls with friends, treating yourself to a small gift (new pen, cool magnet, etc.) and making Monday, not Sunday, your day for a delicious breakfast treat such as pancakes.

How do you make the most of your Mondays? Share your thoughts here.

Productivity Plus: Making the Most of Your Days

Community Manager — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:53:00 GMT

Put that extra "spring" in your step to good use. The season's longer days provide ample time for enhanced productivity as we posted about last month in Making Better Use of Longer Days.

Stay on a productivity roll with our round-up of useful posts from across the web.

Productivity blog Stepcase has three new terrific posts worth a read:

Lifehacker, another site devoted to doing more with less, is taking a look at different productivity strategies linked to each the day of the week. For their seven-days-a-week strategy to a more productive you, read here.

Does procrastination often get in the way of your productivity? We have a fantastic post for you at Gretchen Rubin's blog, The Happiness Project. Read what Rubin, a NYT's best-selling author, learns as she interviews Piers Steel, the author of "The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Getting Stuff Done."

Finally, we leave you with the thought that happiness can contribute to productivity. Leading Fortune 500 consultant Paul David Walker calls it one of the crucial ingredients. Read here for more on the link between feeling good and performing well.

Have you come across any useful productivity resources on the web? Share your thoughts here and at the Pendaflex Facebook page.

by Candie Harris

Here Comes 2011: Tips for Readying Your Office for the New Year

Community Manager — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:19:00 GMT

It's right around the corner: A New Year, a clean slate. Take a few simple steps now to get your office in order for a productive start to the New Year.

Make a List: Don't start tossing stuff willy nilly. Approach the year-end clean up in an orderly fashion by inventorying your files, deciding what to keep, what to store and what to toss. Next, make a master list. For example, if you know you want to keep 2010 customer files for posterity, put them on the archive list. Same goes for invoices, or purchase orders or anything else that has to be transferred to storage. Color code the list so files to keep are one color, files to archive another and so on.

Toss: We've said it before and we'll say it again. Organizing begins with eliminating the unnecessary. So get out that shredder and wastepaper basket and get ready to purge.

Buy boxes, and files and labels: Invest in solid, corrugated file boxes for archiving records to keep. Ready yourself for an organized 2010 by stocking up on files and labels.

Day Planner: Don't spend the first week of January playing catch up with your calendar. Get your day planner now and start filling in January appointments.

Sort Your Desk Drawers: Take 20 minutes to organize your desk drawers, tossing unnecessary items and grouping like supplies (i.e. post-it-notes, pens, staples) together.

Eliminate e-clutter: Does your email box overfloweth? Schedule blocks of time to get through the email once and for all and head into the New Year resolved keep your inbox from filling up again.

Do you have plans to clean up your office as you head into the New Year? What end-of-the-year organizing strategies do you use? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Candie Harris