Chris Jordan presented at TED Talks in January – his talk was just posted and is a great way for us visual learners (that’s at least 60% of us) to get a new perspective on excess. He combines art and social lessons. Click the play arrow to see the talk. (11:00)

For more on TEDTalks go to: www.ted.com/index.php/ .

For more of Chris Jordan’s Art go to his website: Chris Jordan’s Photography Website.

The sound of water is soothing to almost anyone. This weekend seek the water and enjoy the calming and rejuvenating effects. Here are ways to hear the gurgling of moving water, to enjoy cool water running over your feet, and to enjoy the weightlessness of full immersion. Enjoy one or two and schedule a more involved outing for the near future…

• Go to a stream or brook nearby. Wear water shoes, crocs or sandals and walk right up the middle – or the side where the water reaches to the middle of your calf if it’s deep. If you get inspired to sit and let the water surround you… go for it!
• Go fishing!
• Sleep on a friend’s boat. Someone you know may have a boat docked at a marina within an hour or two drive. If there is a little breeze or movement the sound of the water lapping on the side of the boat is what we’re after.
• Buy a small water feature for inside your home. Fountains can be found at home stores like Bed Bath & Beyond or hardware stores like Home Depot & Lowe’s.
• Install a medium or large water feature in your garden. This will be strenuous at first and give years of the most appealing background sounds. It will probably attract peeper frogs and other ‘wildlife’. Be sure it’s moving water or the mosquitoes will breed in the still water.
• Take a bath! Most tubs are rarely used – enjoy yours with some bubbles and lavender scent.
• Sit on a porch during a rain shower.
• Borrow or rent some inner tubes and float on a river, creek, lake, pond or in the waves.

What’s your favorite way to enjoy the sound of water? Leave a comment to let us know!

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R & R (rest & rejuvenation) are the intentions behind the Friday at 5:00 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. Your productivity is rooted in your energy being high. Your energy being high is rooted in recreation!

Chances are that you put a great number of your creations in just a few folders. If you’re on a Windows machine, have I got a shortcut for you! You can put those popular folders right in the ‘Look in:’ box. (I will be referring to the image below throughout this post. Double click on it to see an enlarged and readable version.) The ‘Look In:’ box is pointed to by the Red Arrow in the illustration.

Setting things up this way will speed your saving and retrieving whatever it is you put in folders – mind maps, documents, pictures, etc.

Here’s how to do it in 2007:

1. From a program type file open (alt-f o)
2. Highlight the folder you want to put in the Look In Box by clicking on it
3. Move the mouse on top of one of the current locations. In the picture that could be over My Documents.
4. Right click.
5. Select the top choice ‘add highlighted folder’
6. You’re done

In 2003 follow these steps:

1. From a program type File Open (alt-f o)
2. Highlight the folder you want to put in the Look In Box by clicking on it
3. Click on the tools drop down (labeled in pink in the illustration)
4. Click on ‘add to my places’
5. You’re done

After you add a few folders you can right click on them and move them up so the order makes the most sense to you – either alphabetic or perhaps from most frequently used to least.

Does this streamline things for you?

You’ve gotten your estate planning done and collected your documents according to Step 4. Now the question is, "Where are you going to keep all that stuff?" The key to this decision is that those documents need to be found easily. It would be considerate and helpful if you put them in a user-friendly system too. Oh, and tell a couple of trusted people where they are. A friend’s parents won’t talk about this stuff and they have two houses so it’s going to be a chore just to locate the papers. Not talking about these vital resources and documents is unnecessary and possibly troublesome.

I recommend you get a 3-ring binder for your core documents rather than put them in a nice file folder called Estate Documents. I say this based on experience – - – if the documents are secure in a binder and all in one place the Trustee can grab one thing and take care of the task at hand. (Throughout this article Trustee and Executor are used interchangeably and mean ‘that important estate person handling your wishes’). For example, the Trustee will probably have to open a new checking account for the Trust. She can simply take the binder and have whatever the banker asks to see. For example, she will have the first & last pages of the Trust Document, assignment of trustee, and the deceased social security number or the trust EIN.

In the Binder I suggest you put your core documents which include:

• Will
• Trust & Abstract of Trust
• Power of Attorney
• Health Care Directive
• Your Social Security Card
• Burial instructions
• Key Contacts
• Living Will
• Power of Attorney for Health Care
• General Letter to survivors

You can buy binders with tabs for organizing these items (Google ‘estate +organizer’). Or, simply make your own with index pages and  labels.

In a second binder put financial papers such as:

• Last year’s Year-end statements from every Money Account (savings, checking, money market, investment, stocks & bond, etc.
• Contact information for all your account representatives and holders (institutions)
• Inventory of antiques, jewelry, art, and collectables
• Balance Sheet
• List of credit cards, issuer, account number (or a recent statement from each)

The remaining documents a probably suitable for a third binder or file folders. Group things together – no need to put a prenuptial agreement and marriage license in separate folders -  put them together and call them Marriage Documents. Group your Insurance Policies in a folder called Insurance. Put real estate deeds in one folder. You get the idea.

In a folder called Estate Documents put any remaining documents. Also add a note saying where your binders are and what is in them.

There you go – you’re ready for anything now – and your survivors would thank you!

Do you have 2, 4, or 7 boxes of pasta in the pantry?
Do you shop at Sam’s Warehouse, Costco or BJs and buy things in bulk?
What’s in the freezer? Pounds of meat? Bags of shrimp? Containers of leftovers? Packages of frozen veggies?

How long could you prepare meals using the stuff in your cupboards, freezer and pantry? If it’s more than a week take the challenge – eat out of your pantry until you’re just about empty.

Here are the guidelines:

1. You start a menu with something that you have on hand. Let’s say it’s a can of chick peas, potatoes, rice, onions, frozen green beans, chutney, bananas that are starting to turn brown and frozen chicken breast.
2. You decide to make a dish or menu using those items. Let’s say chicken curry with the items above.
3. Put the extra ingredients you need to make the dish on your shopping list. Let’s say you need diced tomatoes to finish the ingredient list.
4. You purchase that item when you grocery shop for perishables like milk and fresh fruit.
5. You make the curry and use all those things out of your stores. And, let’s say you savor every bite!

Go to the top and start at 1. Again with another pantry item.

Repeat until the cupboards, freezer, and other extras are almost gone.

For fun mark your calendar with the date you start this project. Mark it again when you’re doing a replenish the staples shop which you don’t do until you think, "I feel like Old Mother Hubbard with Bare Shelves."

The benefits of doing this:

• You’ll use ingredients before they go bad or expire saving guilt & money
• You’ll be creative and resourceful – be proud of yourself
• You’ll be eating well! – enough said
• You might lose weight – depends on what type of recipes you choose, doesn’t it!?

I’ve been doing this for 8 weeks so far. I think I have 4 weeks more to finish using most of these extras.

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R & R (rest & rejuvenation) are the intentions behind the Friday at 5:00 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. Your productivity is rooted in your energy being high. Your energy being high is rooted in recreation!

At the Productivity Café we’re always sending the message about being streamlined, right-sized, eliminating waste, and having a great life. Sometime that message is overt. Sometime it is sublime. Today I watched a video that brings the impact of not being these things into the spot light. I think it’s a must-see. So, go here when you have 20 minutes: www.storyofstuff.com. Warning: this is a big dose of reality – - it can be overwhelming.

Here are a few things I learned while watching:

• A full 99% of things manufactured or created are ‘in the dump’ 6 months after the process began.
• The 4 major activities we engage in are: work, sleep, watch tv, shop.
• We get over 3,000 messages a day saying ‘You’re broken, we have the thing to fix you, buy it!’
• Those who are part of production are often paying the cost of getting the product to you by sacrificing health care, wages, and more. That’s why a radio costs only $5.99.

Comment below with what impacts you!

Remove One to Add One is great guideline for keeping emails, documents, spare parts, shoes, books, or just about anything. The concepts is just as it says – before you buy, borrow, and otherwise add something to the things you already have, remove one to make room and keep your inventory or stash from exploding. This works especially well if you’ve got ‘just the right number’ of things to start.

Teaching this guideline to kids is a great way of setting them up for success in the future. For example, once they have a collection of DVDs – say 20 or 100, they should pass one on before getting any more. Encourage your kids to give their ‘excess’ to the library, a shelter, a camp, the Y, or other charitable organization – they always have limited budgets!

If you’ve got a glut of things right now modify this rule to be: Remove Two to Add One. Follow that two out step consistently and you’ll have a relatively pain-free reduction of stuff. For example, say you have two thousand people in your contact or address list. When you add a new contact review the names just before and after the new entry and delete two that are inactive. They may be so inactive that you don’t even recognize them anymore. You won’t miss them.

Why do this?

• Less to manage
• Faster Access to what is useful and meaningful
• Lower cost insurance
• Less to clean
• Quicker response from your computer
• Better image
• Good feelings
• Few distractions

Do any readers use this or their own guideline today? Please tell us by leaving a comment!

Most people are visual – picturing things allows us to make things happen. A bush that needs trimming sends us one signal, while a bush that was recently trimmed sends another. And, if we’re the one doing the trimming we have a starting look and a finished look that we’re cutting to achieve.

Would picturing the ‘end result’ work for you if you were clearing up the computer desktop? Is your screen full of icons for documents, spreadsheets, URLs, the recycle bin, shortcuts, folders and more? If you were to reduce the number of icons, would it make finding the ones you’re using easier? Well, the best place to start for you might be to picture what a streamlined, organized, and polished desktop would look like. The remake might include a soothing or plain background and a list of just 10 to 12 items. It might be ‘just like Ray’s’ (or insert your co-worker with a desktop that appeals to you).

This is like planning a drive from your house to Nashville. You have your starting point, what your desktop looks like now (home), and your ending point, what your desktop will look like then (the goal).

Visualizing works for a number of productivity and streamlining activities. Here are some examples:

• Emptying your Inbox – real or electronic
• Clearing the clutter from your brief case, office, closet, drawers, files, etc.
• Redo a room and have a photo from a magazine for inspiration
• Bills paid
• A shop floor from haphazard to systematized
• Tools from in a jumble in a tool box to hanging on the wall in attractive & useful order

What you can imagine & believe you can achieve!

Summer is blazing here in eastern Pennsylvania. Kids are playing outside, trees are done blossoming and offer wonderful shade, and it stays dark late. These are elements calling you to build a tree house (or fort if you prefer) with your kids.

Tree houses offer kids of every age a place to retreat and be themselves. Tree forts fuel the imagination whether of battles like the knights of old or mystery solvers like the Hardy boys. It’s a place to read the Hardy Boys books or Little House series of books. Tree houses are simply cool (or is it sick?)!

A tree house could be built simply as a platform with railings for safety, or complete with windows and a roof. Consider buying some of your supplies inexpensively at the stores associated with Habitat for Humanity ReStores. http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx

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R & R (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. Many Friday @ Five entries are geared to do with your family or friends.

Is your home office organized or tidy and your auto office a mess? Are they both a jumble of stuff? Well, this article is just about your auto office and making it work for you. Your auto office is the vehicle that you use to make your customer calls.  Here’s the test – if a client was to visit your auto office, would you be stuffing an old drive-thru bag with cups, lids, and wrappers? Would you be proud? Would you be making excuses? If the later is your auto office we have some guidelines for you.

Pick the tips that work for you and transform you auto office in half-an-hour.

1. Grab a trash bag and dump all the used stuff – candy wrappers, donut boxes, coffee cups, post-its  etc.
2. Buy some small trash can liners and put one in the car and the box of the extras in the trunk. Use binder clips to hang the bag on the back of the passenger seat to have it in easy reach of you in the driver’s seat. Replace regularly.
3. Buy a plastic file box and stock it with hanging folders and your literature. The trunk is a good place to put this.
4. Borrow some small cup-size containers from the kitchen, or buy them at a discount store, and put your loose change in that.
5. Buy a visor clip for your sunglasses.
6. Coral your sports equipment and extra stuff in a car net. This hangs off the back of the seats in an SUV and keeps balls, groceries, plants, and even small kids from rolling around.

Okay you road warriors – what’s working for you?