This week, I have been attempting to implement a new system in my “house” in an effort to combat PILES of the paper kind.

At the Business Mums conference I attended recently I went to Rebbecca Mezzino from Clearspace’s seminar on eliminating clutter. Rebecca’s seminar talked about and gave tips on organizing one’s office, including how to integrate that with all your personal stuff that tends to follow the other family members home as they walk in the door (especially if you have kids at school or kindy).

Rebecca was fantastic; to be honest, I thought I was pretty organized, this is until I attended.  One of the things I realized I wasn’t doing was managing the paper flow as it comes in the door. I was organized but only if I had time, I would normally have piles of stuff I have to get to, it would be very time consuming, not to mention the extra time it takes to find something in a pile that is yet to be sorted. One of Rebecca’s secrets is to get “vertical” with your paper if its vertical it’s not a pile, then assigning papers to certain tasks  and folders on a daily basis it all makes sense but getting someone to show you how to do it has been invaluable.

So the past week I have been sorting through all of my paperwork that includes all the stuff in my filing cabinet which is no small task i have to tell you.

Creating an “Emergency manual” – Emergencies DO unfortunately happen.

During this time I also have taken the time (while I have all the files out ) to record all my personal and work details from policies, passwords, contacts etc into what I call an “emergency manual”. This is essentially a book which records all of that important information in the one place.
One of the scariest things that I have had to deal with during the past 18 months is coming to terms with the fact that I am on my own in terms of my life goals and plans/ security and kids. It’s a scary thought, so what would happen if something happened to me, how would anyone know all my details. Hence the emergency manual in case of an emergency .. so that is also something I have achieved this week. YAY

One of the most satisfying and therapeutic things during this whole process was to shred my old paper bits and pieces, not only because this is environmentally friendly but it allowed me to let go of a few things I have been holding onto for years and felt guilty about and move on.

For example: I have lots of old printouts of drawing tips, old business cards, old paper work that haven’t looked at it for years, why am I keeping that? I keep telling myself I will look at it one day, but I haven’t so far … so I decided to shred it! Now its gone what a relief! I no longer feel guilty for not attending to that .. it was unfinished business but now I have moved on. It sounds totally ridiculous, and i know some of you will make this connection to my personal life, and maybe there is one there.. but regardless of that,  it felt good so that’s why i am sharing it

And then came the goals..

The other thing I came across in my little expedition was some of the notes I have written down over the year about the directions I want to go, mainly just thoughts and ideas I have had scribbled on some paper and kept.  Some of this was in relation to my goals at the end of last year and the year before.

Lately I seem to have a feeling of not being able to have achieved very much this year, particularly artwise,  but in seeing these notes  I surprised myself to find that I am actually doing things which are working towards some of my goals of things I wanted to do for this year without realizing it or consciously working on it.

Take my sketch group, one of the things I really wanted to do was to improve my freehand / life drawing skills, I feel like this is where I was lacking especially in terms of drawing people. Attending my group has helped me to do this, its not a tangible thing like a piece of artwork or an item that I  can gauge myself on but I know it’s a skill I am learning is helping my creative skills all round both design and art wise. So while I can’t stand up and say look at this,  look at what I did and show it to you, I can quietly hold to myself the fact that I am maintaining a goal, improving a standard, and a skill and that’s better than lying stagnant.

If you need help with organising in your office,  I thoroughly recommend Rebecca, she holds many seminars around the place -  throughout Australia.   Here is a video of her on  Today Tonight in Adelaide, sorting out the SAFM team’s clutter scroll down and click on “Clutter Buster”.

Rebecca’s website is: Clearspace -  www.clearspace.net.au.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 6:20 am and is filed under Art Business, Studio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.