January was Get Organized Month, and hopefully you spent some time getting rid of clutter and bringing order to your home or office. February is designated as American Heart Month, so this month you should be working on removing the clutter from your heart. We think of men, when we hear heart disease, but it is the number one cause of death among women. The great news is that heart disease can be prevented.

Some of the things the American Heart Association suggests you can do to keep your heart clutter free are:

•Get regular check ups.
•Get moving: Become physically active at least 30 minutes a
   day.
•Know your numbers: Cholesterol (LDL and HDL), Blood
   Pressure, and Triglycerides.
•Limit your salt intake to 2300 mg of sodium a day.
•Eat a heart healthy diet, including more whole grains, fish,
   fresh fruits and vegetables.
•Limit food high in saturated fats and dietary cholesterol.
•If you smoke, stop smoking now.
•If you drink alcoholic beverages, drink in moderation.

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If you didn't get around to making resolutions in January, or if you have already forgotten them...you have a second chance. The Chinese New Year starts on Feb 14th, and it just happens to be the Year of the Tiger...let's make that the Year of the Paper Tiger.

What: Maybe your resolutions have always fallen flat, and like me you just stopped making them. You do, however, need to set goals in order to know where you are heading and how you are going to get there. You can’t just punch this in your GPS and expect to get directions, so you’ll have to do a little work.

So What: Once again, get a piece of paper, we are going to write this down. When we are working with a client on organizing, we first start with what we call the Productive Environment Process™. I made a few modifications to the regular steps in the process  to make it work for my goal setting.

1. Design Your Vision: Where would you like to be by the end of the year, or whatever your time frame may be?
Be as broad or specific as you like, because you can break it down later.

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How are you at making or keeping New Year’s Resolutions? I’ll admit I am not good at either one. I guess I just stopped making resolutions, when I had such trouble keeping them.

Well, the other day I was helping my sister, get her second grade classroom back in order during their recent teacher workday. I came across a worksheet that caught my eye, “New Year Reflections”. Now, I thought that sounded like something I would like to do and maybe a bit less intimidating than writing out ‘Resolutions’ (After all I found it in a second grade classroom.).

Try it with me. Get a piece of paper and a pencil and write the answers to the following:

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You may think of your calendar as only a time management tool, but it is also an important organizing tool. Barbara Hemphill, author of “Taming The Paper Tiger at Work”, teaches an organizing method called the Magic 6™, which we use at Living Orderly. The calendar is number three of her Magic 6™. You can eliminate a lot of incoming paper and computer files by using your calendar. 

When you are going through your inbox or email, the key is to take the information you need from a document or email, enter it in your calendar, and ditch or delete the original. If there are details, that are too much to enter into your calendar, keep it but file in a Pending File, Action File or a Tickler File. (I will write more about using a Tickler File later. I use a Tickler File called the Swiftfile, and it is absolutely one of my most essential tools.) Depending on your filing system, you may want to note on your calendar where you filed the document with the details.

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