In the original article on synchronizing productivity and lifestyle four ways of managing your home were introduced. Over the last few days we’ve looked at Hiring Help, Scaling Down, and Doing it Yourself. Today we look as suggestion #4 – Let things continue to pile up. Yes, let’s hope they’re not piling up too quickly and let’s just let it happen.

This suggestion is about expectation adjustment. Allow yourself leeway and some collecting.

You might live with the idea that your home should be able to be photographed for a magazine spread – clutter free and polished. Let that idea go. Take a look at how many lamps you find in most living or family room shots and ask yourself, "Are these rooms really made for living a life like I have?"

In the original article on synchronizing productivity and lifestyle four ways of managing your home were introduced. Over the last few days we’ve looked at Hiring Help and Scaling Down. Today we look as suggestion #3 – Give up some of the other things you’re busy doing to have time and energy to do the stuff around home that makes you feel guilty, irresponsible, or deficient when undone.

Ok, this is about re-prioritization. Feels like tough-love as I’m writing this. If your house is looking a little more shabby each year, if your siding now needs major repair because it’s been neglected so long that simply painting won’t suffice, if you have got C.H.A.O.S (can’t have anyone over syndrome), or if you could do science experiments with the things growing in the fridge and IF you’re not hiring someone to take care of these things ~ it’s time to make the time to get the things started.

Let’s add one economic aspect to this situation of undone home maintenance. Sometime it becomes a lot more expensive and time consuming to repair the damage of waiting too long to do something than to do regular maintenance. For example, regular cleaning and staining of the deck should save it from rotting and you from having to rebuild it.

We’ve been discussing synching your lifestyle (home ownership) to productivity. In the initial article four options for decreasing the amount of stress related to home ownership were proposed. In Part 2 I overview hiring help. Today let’s approach something people rarely do until ‘later in life’. That would be to reject the American Dream of owning a good-size house on a good-size lot and to redefine a great lifestyle as one with housing that is enough – but not too much. That means not too much maintenance, too much overhead, or too many responsibilities.

For you it might mean divest, downsize, and simplify. Sell the big house, buy a small house, and consider a condo or community with a homeowners association that cares for many of the exterior upkeep.

Clearly a big property – actually any property – requires a lot of things to be taken care of in a big way. That yields a long list of things to do, projects to track, and work to have done. And that’s not your occupation. But, it might be occupying a lot of your mind share.

Last week I began discussing approaches to synching your lifestyle to productivity. The first option to getting yourself more time for the important things is hire someone to do things around home. Having people to take care of things for a lower rate than you earn is the ideal scenerio here. For example, if you earn $75,000 per year (or $36.00 per hour, not factoring benefits or taxes) hiring someone at $10 per hour could be justified because hiring help frees you to do the more profitable activities. Your hourly earnings can bring in someone for nearly one-half day of assistance.

Some of you are thinking, "I’m perfectly capable of trimming my bushes, painting the living room (and I always wanted to do faux finishing!), or doing my own laundry." And, I ask, "If you had a half-day without the responsibilities around home, would you be more refreshed to

I have received some emails triggered by the series on File Drawer Organization. Essentially you are asking, "What about color coding my files?"

For most people I recommend using 1 color of folders – all the same – usually manila. This is because

• Manila folders are readily available in every office
• Having one type of folder keeps office supply management simple
• One color looks clear and vivid to most people, and
• There is a secret way to color code manila folders, if you must

That said, here a few circumstances when color coding seems to make sense:

As Memorial Day is just around the corner many people are taking a deep breath before they tell me how busy they are this weekend with social events and continue listing the multitude of tasks to do around the house. They sigh, they roll their eyes, and they look like they need help!

So, I ask you:

• Are you too busy?
• Is your house demanding an inordinate amount of your time?
• What would you give to have the grass cut, the windows washed, the bushes trimmed, the landscaping improved, the gutters cleaned, and perhaps the garage cleaned out, the pool open and fresh, the lawn furniture sparkling, weeds pulled, fresh blacktop coating and a few herbs planted for cooking?
• How much time, energy and effort would it take inside the house to finish decorating that room, to paint, clean out the closets, to give some order to the tool corner, sterilize the fridge, vacate the attic, or any of the other things on the ‘to do’ list?

There are  four responses you can have to get those things underway ~

1. Hire someone to do this stuff
2. Get rid of the big lists by getting rid of the big property
3. Give up the other things you like to do and do it yourself
4. Let things continue to build up

I’ll comment on these options over the next few days… and encourage you to share your thoughts as we go along.

There is a popular acronym for handling paper called FAT – File Act Toss that is, how shall I say, bunk. Sure it’s easy to remember but just by the order of action you are likely to collect more papers than necessary. Since our last week was spent talking about File Drawer Organization, tips for deciding what gets into that valuable storage is a logical addition. So, let’s talk about FAT.

The first step that FAT advocates is File. The last step that FAT advocates is Toss. That is totally backwards! The first thing someone should do is toss as much as possible before handling papers or emails and working (acting) on them. If you file before you act you will be hanging on to a lot of dead weight and dead trees manufactured into all that paper. Since we’re inundated with so much promotional and c.y.a. correspondence, we must be ruthless in trashing everything that doesn’t contribute to doing our job and having a good life.

In fact, you can benefit by STOPPING the onslaught of mail as described in a Stop Junk Mail past post here. And for those who get a lot of financial offers, go to www.optoutprescreen.com/opt_form.cgi to STOP those offers (or call 1-888-567-8688). Be sure to send the postcard back that they send to confirm your selection.

If you’ve been thinking about FAT rewrite it in your mind as STAFF – STOP it from getting to you, TOSS as much as you can, ACT on it, FILE for easy FINDING (if you must keep it). 

During the past few days we’ve delved into refining and revamping your file drawer organization.  The reason to review and probably revise your filing system is that it isn’t the most supportive of your current work. Often file drawers have collect folders for years without review while job responsibilities, projects, and point of view have changed. The key is that you should be able to find documents you need in just a few seconds.

When you are putting your files in alphabetic order by subject there are some tips that could help you in the organization.

• Run the tabs of your hanging folder in the 1st and 3rd slots from the left. This allows your eyes to skim from the front to the rear of the drawer without a zig zag pattern. You will not miss a file that way. The first and third slots are used so that the tabs don’t overlap.

Do you feel like you have just 2 minutes per day talking with your kids? Are you going one way and they’re going another way? Perhaps they live with your ‘X’ and you see them occasionally. I wanted to connect with my 16-yr old niece more. Perhaps this approach will work for you. Warning: it’s frustrating at first but easily evolves into a fluid and fulfilling connection. It’s what weekends are for – connecting to ones we love.

Your weekend mission should you choose to accept it: Instant Message the kids.

This is going to be easy in some ways. You could be typing on your big computer keyboard. The more difficult version (if you’re over 30) is using the phone keyboard. The easy thing is we speak the same language. The more difficult thing is they use shorthand – that takes some getting used to.

The shorthand eliminates a lot of vowels and uses two or three letters for a whole word. The AIM Acronym Dictionary is a handy for IM shorthand. lol [laugh out loud] and b/c [because] are examples of the quick correspondence you might receive. hi how r u culd u tell me my xm grade = "Hi how are you, could you tell me my exam grade?"

You need to have an IM (instant messenger) account. AOL’s instant messenger is hugely popular and you don’t need to have an AOL subscription to have an AOL account. You sign up for the account  [now, I'm going to go through this but you could as a nearby kid to set it up quickly for you] then you create a screen name. You get the screen name of the person you want to talk to and send a message to that address. If she’s there your conversation has begun. In youths’ world there are always conversations going on – join in – you’ll be glad you did.   

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Friday @ Five entries are written to help you get some R&R so you’re ready for work on Monday! Rest and rejuvenation are the intentions behind Friday @ Five entries. Often these are inexpensive and low key because you recharging your batteries can be more easily achieved without running around and doing, doing, doing. Most Friday @ Five entries are geared to do with your family or friends. You can always click on the category in the right bar here titled "Friday @ Five" for more ideas.

Ben Yoskovitz at Instigator Blog has initiated a collection of 100+ Great Productivity Tips. He’s used a multiplier to get the collection started – one person asks 5 more, those 5 ask 5 each for 25 and on from there. Our objective: to write a post with the single best productivity tip we’ve (I’ve) got. I like to think there are 100s of such tips here at the Productivity Cafe and you need to find the one that works best for you.

My personal single tip for productivity: Step Back and Get Perspective.

When I step back and ask myself "Why am I doing this, interested in this, have this on my list, want to own that, or desire to travel there?" my priorities are highlighted. With vivid priorities it’s easy to pick what activities to do, whom to do activities with, what things to own, and destinations to move toward. This also aids in eliminating things that are influenced from outside such as advertising or the Joneses. Perspective guides me and with good perspective I have a useful to-do list, uplifting collection of friends with whom to seize the day, and projects for professional and personal success.