Beware of special offers, price cuts, and bargains. Businesses are there to take your custom, there is always some benefit to them for any bargain they offer. There is a large customer base out there who will be influenced by a 10% off, or a 3-for-2 and miss out on what the real saving to them is. Sometimes they will even buy something just because it’s on special offer. Remember, you might save a bit with special offers but you will save even more by not buying it in the first place. If you need the item, great, you’ve saved yourself a few pounds. Otherwise don’t let all those special offer signs and adverts overrule your frugal decision making.

Organize IT recap for 28th April 2007

• Firstly I should say I am on holiday next week so there won’t be any recap. While there won’t be as many updates as normal I still intend to line a few posts up so make sure you keep checking the site out!
• I have done the third part of my Clutter 101 series this week and to accompany it I have added the content to the Clutter 101 Compiled PDF which you can also get to via the sidebar. In case you don’t know about it, it is essentially all the Clutter 101 posts brought together for ease of reference.
• As I mentioned in last weeks recap, readers can happily send in any content or links they feel I will be interested in. Somebody sent me an email about a contacts manager called BigContacts which looks very comprehensive and may be worth a further look.
• Habits are quite a big deal over at Organize IT and I intend to go in the subject a lot more in the near future. In the meantime this is a very interesting article on the topic.

There are two approaches concerning the look of your desktop in terms of productivity. Have it as simple as possible, which speeds your system up and you end up with less visual distractions, or beautify it up with fancy themes, effects, wallpapers etc. It makes your system more personal and nice to look at but can all these fancy features take your focus away? I’d like to hear your thoughts on that one.

Personally, I’ve swapped between both approaches a few times over the years and I am currently in a “good looking desktop” mood. It can be quite easy to spend too much time looking for the perfect wallpaper which is a big no-no, so I have just the one site which I refer to called Socksoff. Below I’ve picked out 5 of my favourite wallpapers from the site.

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Stuff:

1. property, as personal belongings or equipment; things.
2. worthless things or matter: to clean the stuff out of a closet.

Stuff is everything bouncing around our heads, in letters, voicemails and notes that don’t have places for them. They are not formed into something actionable and the desired outcome is far from clear.

All that stuff rattling around in your thoughts - get new batteries from the shops, go grocery shopping, pay the bills, fix the TV - just induces stress and anxiety and slowly but surely bogs your productivity down.

That’s where GTD comes in. It encourages you get all this stuff out of your head. If you put it down in a system you trust, your mind can be confident enough to rely on it for “remembering” projects.

Welcome to the third part of the Clutter 101 series on how to get your home thoroughly de-cluttered and keep it that way (you can read the first two parts, why we keep clutter and how to de-clutter, here and here). In this third post I will be looking at how clutter can be broken down into a number of different types and categories which help to give you an idea of how best to deal and process it. If you think I have missed out any types then leave a comment, it would be great to get feedback.

Trash
This sort of clutter is pretty simple to deal with. It’s rubbish, it can go straight into the bin. It includes stuff like old receipts, scraps of paper and sweet wrappers, and can go straight into the bin.

Reference
This includes stuff like bills and manuals which may or may not be useful in the future but you are obliged to keep them because they contain important and/or useful information. Create a filing system and store your reference material there. That way it takes up minimal room and allows for easy access in an organized manner.

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