It's a Spring Thing!

Spring always seems to signal freshness and renewal, so why not take a fresh approach to removing that ugly clutter monster who has made himself at home all winter in your office and around your house?

Try these 4 approaches to get yourself started this Spring: 

Purge your files.
Look in your file drawer right now and chances are you'll see many papers that are old, outdated and useless. Remove them, they're only taking up space. If you're not entirely sure about throwing them away, create an "archive file" to store them apart from your "live" file, allowing easier access to current files.  

Clean up your hard drive.
Your computer in the office, and also your family computer, probably contains dozens or perhaps hundreds of digital files that are no longer needed. Delete these, they could be slowing the performance of your computer. As with your paper files described above, if you're not certain whether you might need them later on, transfer the outdated digital files to a recordable CD, DVD or Zip drive.  

Organize your shelves.
Is your cubicle being over-run by shelves that are piled high with aging materials? How about the shelves in your home office? Outdated magazines, old letters, last years calendar...these can all be tossed in the trash. Books and binders that may have toppled over on shelves should be stood neatly upright with bookends to support them. And loose papers should be examined if theyre not needed, throw them away, if they are needed, put them in the file before they get lost. 

Organize your organizer.
Whether you're using one of the latest digital palm organizers or an old fashioned paper-bound organizer, there is likely a whole bunch of information stored away that is no longer viable. The meeting you scheduled into your palm unit, the one that happened 3 months ago, delete it. The business card you stuffed into your appointment book, the card for the company you were supposed to meet with 8 months ago but didnt, discard it. The bottom line is, the only way your organizer itself, and ultimately you, can be completely organized is if things are up to date.