Beyond Folders : productivity, organizing

Disorganized? Stressed Out? You Could be Hurting Your Health

Community Manager — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:50:00 GMT

Google the phrase "disorganization and stress" and 384,000 results pop up. In .25 seconds flat. Whoa. But Googling isn't the only way of knowing disorganization is linked to stress, just feel your own blood pressure rise as you search messy desk piles for a crucial missing document. Stressed out? Heck yeah!

Being disorganized means more than just being messy, forgetful or chronically late; being disorganized creates stress which can have an adverse affect on your health.

Stress Mess

According to WebMD, people experiencing symptoms of stress may:

Feel cranky and unable to deal with even small problems.
Feel frustrated, lose your temper more often, and yell at others for no reason.
Feel jumpy or tired all the time.
Find it hard to focus on tasks.
Worry too much about small things.
Feel that you are missing out on things because you can't act quickly.
Imagine that bad things are happening or about to happen.

Combating stress is vital for maintaining good health. Heart disease, cancers, high blood pressure and mental illnesses are all linked to stress to some degree.

Ready to combat stress and improve your health? Tackle that to-do list and organize those files. Just as an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so too does being organized. Give it a whirl.

You may wish to review some of our past posts for help getting started:

And finally, we are big believers that organizing can be fun. We like the blog The Happiness Project for tips and techniques for combating disorganization, managing your time effectively and best of all, for its guidance on how to get happy. Start small, read The Happiness Project: Six Tips for Forcing Yourself to Tackle a Dreaded Task. You'll be happy you did!

How do you combat stress? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Carly Fadako

Wasting Away at Work

Community Manager — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:27:00 GMT

We say we waste time, but that is impossible. We waste ourselves.

- Alice Bloch

We have all heard that time is a precious resource that we should not squander. But, in Salary.com's latest Wasting Time at Work Survey, 64% of the full-time workers responding reported wasting one hour or less each day; 22% said they wasted approximately two hours daily; and 14% admitted to wasting three hours or more each workday. The main time-wasters reported were:

Internet use (48%)
Socializing with co-workers (33%)
Conducting personal business (30%)
Personal phone calls (19%)
Long lunches and breaks (15%)

And the primary reasons cited for all this wastefulness were:

Being dissatisfied with a job (48%)
Feeling underpaid (34%)
Waiting for a co-worker to finish something (42%)
Attending work-related meetings or activities (42%)
Doing administrative work (32%)

Acknowledging these stark statistics, the Cyclope-Series Team Blog suggests that employers can curb waste by providing "opportunities for employees to grow personally and professionally." Likewise, employers would do well to recognize the motivating force of "regular praise, respect in the office place, a sense of having a real voice in the business and some level of job security."

For additional guidance, this Wall Street Journal post on Ways to Stop Wasting Time Online compares four online services designed to help distracted computer users stay focused. You can find similar tips in this review of 15 Free Online Time Management Tools. Offering less concrete, but equally valuable, insight is a recent New York Times article - titled Talk Deeply, Be Happy? - that explores the importance of engaging in meaningful conversations.

by Bradley Eggers

Welcome to the Beyond Folders™ Blog

Community Manager — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:05:00 GMT

Beyond Folders™ is a new Community steeped in history. Twenty five years ago, Pendaflex launched the I Hate Filing Club™, delivering information and techniques for organization in the workspace and home. While still providing great ideas and inspiration, Beyond Folders™ goes a step further.

In late 2009 we surveyed our Community members and other professional organizations to ask where they spent time gathering information and inspiration to help make their work and personal organization tasks more productive. We then observed and questioned our members, small business owners and knowledge workers and found several common areas of interest, needs and concerns.

Our communications will be built around these subjects, offering sound advice, ideas and methods to achieve success in these areas. Beyond Folders™ blog contributors are subject matter experts in workplace organization, productivity, communications, time management and more.

Carly Fadako is one of our workplace organizational experts, working daily with our customers to find value added solutions to their organization challenges.

Bradley Eggers is trained and certified to deliver "Lean" processes, studying under Shingijitsu of Japan, Moffit Associates and TBM. He is an expert at implementing Lean and Kaizen as tools that create "TIME" and competitive advantage for companies.

Candie Harris is our marketing and communications guru. She has given over 1000 presentations to audiences of varying size and composition and as VP of Marketing, has been responsible for all aspects of our company communication.

We hope you find our posts interesting, useful and inspirational!
Check them out, and let us know what you think.

Beyond Folders™ will also be on FaceBook and can be followed on Twitter@beyondfolders