This weekend i s an easy and gratifying Friday @ Five idea. Get yourself and/or someone who will enjoy them Flowers. Pick a bouquet in your garden, visit a farm market, or find a florist. The best reason to give someone flowers is because they’re in your life – don’t wait for a birthday or hallmark designated holiday! 

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Rest and rejuvenation are the intentions behind the 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. And most Friday @ Five entries are geared to do with your family or friends.

So how do you send a copy of an email to yourself? You could type in your nickname or email address to get a copy sent to yourself. That’s too many keystrokes for most of us who are trying to be streamlined. If you name is Mike you have to type Mike plus space plus the beginning of your last name… that’s 7-9 keystrokes.

Sure, you might have your system keep a copy of all sent emails but those eventually get taken off or have to be searched to grab your copy.

My suggestion is to put a custom and unique contact entry in your address book. I suggest you create ‘QQ’ specifically, with your email address attached to it. Then, when you’re filling in an address line on an email you quickly type qq on the cc: or bcc: line to include yourself. That’s two keystrokes ~ efficient by any standard.

Emails sent to yourself can be quickly dragged into folders for reference. The rest of your sent emails can be deleted confidently in bulk.

Hopefully you’re using keyboard shortcuts more and more often because typing fast and limiting output is the best way to reduce the amount of time you spend at a computer. You’ve got other things to do! So, in the spirit of short and simple, try this key combination.

Hold down the alt key then tap the tab key.

A little menu of the programs you have open comes up. You can use these icons to switch to another program. Tap the tab again (still holding down the alt key) to move to the next program. When you release the alt-tab keys you’ll bring up the last program highlighted. This is particularly helpful when you’re comparing information in two different windows or program.

This post is inspired by Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s, whose book was reviewed last week. It’s also stimulated by Robert Kiyosaki of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books. It’s also a throw back to the long winter evenings indoors during my younger days. My sisters and I would play games for hours and leave the monopoly board with our unfinished game so we could resume the next day.

The escapade of the weekend: Play some games! Do it with your kids, invite some friends, play good music, and bring out the munchies. Put $5 on the game to keep everyone engaged. Here’s a trigger list to get you thinking:

• Monopoly – play the whole game in a sitting or spread it through the weekend
• Ping Pong – have a mini-tournament
• Billiards
• Cash Flow – invented by Kiyosaki with the aim of financial vocabulary and exiting the Rat Race!
• Risk
• Poker – real stakes 9tho’ it doesn’t need to be big money), not for M&Ms or potato chips
• Bocce (you can get a set of Eddie Bauer bocce balls reasonably & easily at Target)

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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.

Do you know when to expect the items that you ordered on-line? Do you think you might have forgotten about things that were expected via UPS or USPS until it was too late (of course you’ve forgotten it but my question has you wondering if you have forgotten something)?

To stay on top of the things you’ve ordered there are a couple options.

1. You could keep a list of items, vendor and e.t.a. (estimated time of arrival). Check this list weekly and ensure your new items have arrived.
2. When you order something on-line you generally receive a confirmation via email. Create a folder and stick all your order confirmations in there. Review it often and delete the emails regarding your orders that have been delivered.
3. Put tasks with a reminder alarm on your calendar. When you receive the e.t.a. put a task on the day by which you should receive it. When the alert pops up you can dismiss it if you’ve received it, start tracking the packing if you’ve been given a tracking number and haven’t received it, you could snooze the alert and give them another week to deliver, or you could start a customer service inquiry or request for refund.

With any of the methods above you free your mind to keep working on worthwhile things while ensuring your goods are received in exchange for your money.

Barb ordered Grey’s Anatomy Season 1 from an Amazon reseller. Four weeks after the e.t.a. she was reminded that it should have arrived. It hadn’t. Barb snoozed the reminder for a week. It did not arrive in week 5 or 6 either. Seven weeks after it was supposed to arrive Barb’s alert popped up again. It absolutely had time to arrive. But, it still didn’t arrive. She contacted the reseller. No response in the ensuing 7 days. In her ‘online orders’ folder Barb had the original order, the shipping promise, a copy of her inquiry about delivery so she could request a refund. Luckily her busy life didn’t distract her from remembering the Grey’s Anatomy DVD order because there is a limit to how long she could request a refund. Surely without the reminders she would have been on to other things and might have lost the money for the purchase. 

I recommend you use an electronic tool to keep from having to remember order delivery status for your on-line purchases.

Dear Readers ~ Today I am leaving for vacation. A three-week vacation in Northern California. While some posts have been written and scheduled for delivery to you while I’m gone, the frequency is going to be half the regular rate.

Isn’t it eye-opening to see how you have it together before you go on vacation? All the really important stuff is identified and handled. The auto-responders are set up, the bills are paid, responses are sent to client, appointments are set and people are lined up to manage things that surface. Ah, that’s a good feeling!

May I suggest that you watch yourself before vacation and see what you do to highlight and execute on the really important things. It will show you (and me) what we spend time on that is just keeping us busy rather than contributing.

There is one tool that has a growing presence on the scene that you should know about. We’ve used them with clients and around home for a few years. The pop-up utility container in this photo has been in service for at least 4 years (I own 3 of them). A collapsed container is to the right of the expanded one to show how flat is goes.

A few  of the benefits of this tool:

• When you are in the mode to toss things you have a huge trash can that’s easily moved around.
• When you have bunch of people over and they’re ready to dispose of their soda cans, paper plates, and other refuse they will be happy to find these strategically placed.
• They store easily since they collapse to a mere 3" high and have handles that can be hung on hooks
• The large version easily holds up to 30 gallons of trash
• People will help clean up when you make it easy for them. This make having a gathering more enjoyable for you. And, if you take one in to work, it may motivate folks to tidy too!
• They’re light-weight
• You can take them to a vacation house and camping as a near-by supplement to what is usually on-hand and inadequate

If you’re interested here are the two versions I recommend and use: Fiskars Kangaroo Utility Container and Rubbermaid’s Spring Bag. The Fiskars 22" diameter is 4.5" larger than the Rubbermaid. That means the Fiskars holds the large plastic construction refuse bags wide open – and that you cannot use whatever bag you have around the house in it because the miscellaneous bags are probably too small. The Rubbermaid container holds smaller liners and the large construction refuse bags might slip down into the bag as it gets full. The smaller one is easier to tote around while it is partially full.

I usually prefer to use the larger Fiskar bag simply because I load up the super heavy duty construction bags and I’d rather use fewer heavy bags than a bunch of smaller bags. That’s entirely personal preference. Lorie over at The Clutter Diet prefers the Rubbermaid because of the versatility of the 18" diameter bag. You won’t regret purchasing either of these choices.

In that Father’s Day weekend is just around the corner, you might consider this for Dad if he’s the type that likes practical gifts. I have purchased the Rubbermaid containers from my local ACE Hardware store (I requested they order it in and they purchased a supply for the store right then and there – it’s Rubbermaid product #1317). The Fiskars version I purchase at Target. Both are in the $12-16 range. (They make good house-warming gifts, shower gifts, and client thank-you gifts too!)

You might be the winner of a home office makeover. Microsoft, HP and Vern Yip (of Trading Spaces fame) are having a contest with the prize being a home office makeover. That’s a $25,000 office makeover ~ terrific!

The contest deadline is July 4 so get out your digital camera and sit at your keyboard for a while to enter. Click here for the Makeover Link.

Good Luck! (I’ll be entering too!) ~Susan~

It’s time for me to get my business cards updated and I thought you might have some input or opinion to give. Please look these over and let me know if you see improvements to consider! I appreciate your regular readership and comments! ~Susan~

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If your cubicle is just another generic one and you’d like to dress it up a bit, spend a few minutes viewing Rachael Ray’s Video on cubicle makeovers for ideas. The spaces in the piece become organized, tidy, and just ooze personality. The cost was low and the impact high. Don’t hesitate to ask your employer to invest a little money too – they’ll often gladly purchase a bookshelf for you or deliver one from another part of the organization where its unused.

This is a set of my own before and after photos. in an office. We used what the client already had in her office after removing loads of things that no longer contribute to her success.

This transformation took 2 days and a lot of energy!