Cleaning out your closets

It happens a couple of times a year – the need to clean out your closets and purge all of that “stuff” you’ve been keeping for who knows why. The inspiration hit me this past Saturday and I spent the entire day going through old clothes, desk drawers and my food pantry. About half way through with the closets, my home in a complete state of disarray, I paused, mystified as to why I started this project in the first place. I came close to quitting, but could barely find enough floor space to walk to the door so kept at it.

At the end of the day, I felt a sense of accomplishment and our home definitely felt “lighter.” Seeing all of our unwanted stuff that we don’t use always makes me feel glad that I can pass it along to someone who could really use my clothes or home items more than me. After all, having it under my bed does no good. I happily dropped off six bags at Goodwill on Monday morning.

The helping hand of Fini Concierge is often the “inspiration” (if you can call it that!) that our clients need. Some of our clients ask us to go through closets or basements with them and others have us weed through, sort and organize their stuff so that they can then make the decision to keep or pass items along to someone else or the junk pile. One of the steps that is most helpful to people is our coordination of the “getting rid phase.” It could be picking up items for donation to local charities – home items, construction related leftovers, clothes, or arranging for a junk removal service or charity organization to come and pick up certain items.

Because we can all relate to having a couple of bags of donations sitting in our spare room for months -- never making it out the door.

Save that Number

One of my greatest frustrations comes when I know that I’ve been in too much of a rush to do something simple that will save me lots of time and aggravation later. A simple example of this is saving someone’s contact information in the right place – in my Outlook or on my cell phone.

You know what I’m talking about, right? You’re trying to call back someone that called you last Thursday in the afternoon so you scroll through your phone’s call log and accidently, dial at least one person who isn’t the right one. Now you have to make excuses, “Sorry, I dialed the wrong number, but yes, how are you…” How embarrassing.

Five minutes later, you’re running late and a call that should have taken you two minutes now is taken much longer. Yet, you still don’t know the number! Can you tell that this has happened to me at least once or twice?

I’ve made a new promise to myself. I’m always going to save contact information in the appropriate place starting now.

If you feel my pain, take the pledge!

Keepers of the Lists

I’m reading David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done.” His book outlines methods to increase your organization and therefore, productivity. I’m only on Chapter 2 so I’m sure I’ll have more to share as I delve deeper into his ideas.

So many of us walk around with endless lists in our heads of projects we need to get to and lists of tasks we need to check off. Allen describes this as one major barrier to being organized and getting things done. Our short term memories can only hold a limited amount of information. We clog it up when trying to keep these lists creating distraction, overwhelm and stress.

Allen also talks about the way in which we define our to-do lists. We often make a list of general projects – mom’s birthday or re-do kitchen – as opposed to defining the next step of a project as an action item:

“the real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what the associated next-action steps required are.”

He theorizes that establishing action items for outstanding projects and documenting those actions is a key to both getting them off of your mind so that you can focus on the task at hand and having a to-do list that is relevant.

In addition to reflecting on my own organizational skills it’s an important role that Fini Concierge plays in many of our client’s project/to-do list management. We have become a valuable tool in shaping our client’s to-do list into actionable items.
Working with Fini Concierge, clients can organize their life into actionable items by:

Regular Meetings – Schedule a consistent time to speak with Fini Concierge each week by phone or in person to download your to-do list. It also serves as a placeholder for clients to check in with themselves on the various aspects of their lives and talk things through.

The Fini List – Several of our clients have adopted a list that they keep with them, on their computer or in a notebook, that they review during their week. Clients jot down items that they want to pass along to us. It’s helpful as it gets the items out of their head and they don’t have to remember all of those tasks when they see us.

The Quick Email or Voicemail – As we all know, thoughts come to us at some of the strangest times. As Allen says, if we have a to-do in our head, our brain doesn’t know when to remind us of it or when to do something about it so it keeps popping up, and distracting us from other tasks. Shooting Fini Concierge a quick email, even if the whole project is not completely explained or leaving us a voicemail in the middle of the night is not uncommon from our clients because they know then that it is safely documented.

Fini Concierge serves as the “keepers of the list” for many of our clients. I can’t tell you how many clients have said with a sigh of relief – “Okay, that’s on your list now and I can forget about it, right?” And they can.