Busy Bodies Will Appreciate This Organizer

Another featured product for January, the BusyBodyBook Schedule Organizer for 2009-2010 will help you manage your time and save you money. Receive 10% off this month!

With our BusyBodyBook planner, time management is a breeze! Each family member has their own column to organize and track schedules and activities while coordinating with each other side by side.

The unique layout provides the clearest view of your daily & weekly schedules and activities, helping you stay organized, focused and on track. You’ll easily view overlapping schedules and avoid double-booking.

BusyBodyBook organizers are versatile it can be used to manage more than just family schedule. Here are some things to manage with your 2010 BusyBodyBook organizer:

• household projects
• meal planning
• personal goals
• holiday or vacation preparation
• important clients
• school subjects: homework, test and projects
• employees and/or projects

We especially love the perforated pages for creating handy grocery or gift lists. You can either stash your list in your purse, or hand it over to someone else and let them do the shopping!

Organize Your Office, Now!

Tax time is just around the corner, so now is a great time to delve into any organizing projects that involve your office, whether it’s at your place of business or in your home. You’ll save time and eliminate stress if you take the time now to file last year’s papers, organize those receipts, and gather documentation for major purchases or other tax-related items.

If you’re not sure where to start, we suggest taking a few cues from CPO Diane Hatcher, author of Don’t Agonize, Organized Your Office Now! At 80 pages long, her book is a quick read, argeted to busy professionals who don’t have time to read extensive volumes, but want simple, direct solutions to life’s common office, paper, and time issues.

This book is a featured product for January, so you can purchase it from Organized A to Z.com at 10% off!

Learn how to:

• set up workable filing and paper management systems
• make packing for business travel easier
• overcome procrastination and perfectionism
• deal with chronic disorganization issues
• schedule your day more effectively

Since 1998, Diane has operated Time-Savers Professional Organizing Services, Inc. She has assisted hundreds of clients with their organizing issues, enabling them to reach their organizing goals, bringing more happiness into their lives.

Diane has dedicated this book to attorneys, executives, home office entrepreneurs and other busy professionals in her mission to help the world get organized, one person at a time. With her unique “RAFT” paper organizing system, Diane offers hope in this book so you can take back control of your workspace and simplify your life.  She is an Organized A to Z partner, and you can visit her website at www.timesaversusa.com

Keep Track of Important Mail

Organized A to Z’s new Mail.Sorter will help you keep your desk, table, and countertops clutter free and neatly organized. It’s a simple concept, but without the right tool, it can be hard to properly distribute the mail in your household and keep track of the important bills and paperwork that demand your attention. With this handy solution, you’ll eliminate lost mail and save yourself from digging through piles of papers.

Features of our Mail.Sorter include:

• 4 pre-labeled slots: notice me, respond to me, read me, pay me
• side compartment for magazines, catalogs, or miscellaneous paperwork
• wide format that holds mail of all shapes and sizes

Perfect for your office or at home! Let us know how well this works for you and the systems you use to go along with it – we’ll share your tips on our blog!

What’s For Dinner?

It’s inevitable! After a busy day of school and work, everyone wants to know what’s for dinner, and when it will be ready. With our new Menu Planning Home Study Course, you’ll always have the answer!

This convenient and easy-to-use meal planning system shows you how to create a weekly menu and plan your grocery shopping. Save time and frustration! Enjoy dinner time around your own table on a regular basis and eliminate the dollars spent on supermarket delis, high-fat frozen entrees and pizza delivery.

And a built-in bonus -  a section on how to prevent your kids from becoming picky eaters!

The package includes:

• DVD featuring Organized Audrey
• 36-page workbook with step-by-step instructions
• Segment on “How to prevent your kids from becoming picky eaters”
• Sample grocery lists
• Sample menu plans

Create Your Own Tickler System

We’re just 2 weeks into January, so it’s not too late to implement a new system to organize paperwork, bills, invitations, appointments, and other important items. I suggest creating your own tickler system, and we have several products that might help you.

A Tickler System helps you manage your “active papers”. Anything that comes in from school, work or the mail that needs action should be filed in your Tickler System. Each day, you can pull the items from your daily folder and instantly know what needs to get done today! It’s a great way to stay on top of your “To Do” list.

Our recommendation:

Try our Get Things Done Tickler File solution. Documents, notes, and reminders of all sorts can be directly filed in this file set of 43 folders to automatically trigger action and/or review when needed, without loading up daily planners or getting lost in miscellaneous storage. If you want to be reminded to handle something in the future, but don’t want or need to think about it until then, it can be “tickled” to show up exactly on the day or month you’d like to see it again.

Not sure how this might fit into your life? Here are a few ideas:

1. Regular reports and activities, from payroll taxes and performance reviews to computer back ups.
2. Reminder of bill paying on a specific day to maximize your cash flow.
3. Review of “Maybe” actions in catalogs, direct mail or deferred items
4. Follow-ups including delegated actions
5. Tickets of all kinds
6. Travel directions needed for a specific appointment.
7. Warranty expirations, and “Last date to…”
8. Car care, kids events
9. Birthday and anniversary cards to mail

3 Specialty Organizers to Make Things At Home Run Smoother

Organized A to Z would like to introduce 3 new organizers that will make life a little easier for you! Whether you’re planning a night of take-out from your favorite restaurant, determined to send birthday and anniversary cards on time, or tracking maintenance records for your home, we’ve got you covered!

Our Take-Out Menu Organizer recognizes that everyone needs a night away from the kitchen. A stressful day at work and busy family schedules sometimes require a quick and easy call to your favorite pizza place or Chinese restaurant for a convenient and tasty meal delivered right to your door. With this organizer, there’s no more searching for menus or phone numbers. Keep it all within reach, and then enjoy the extra time with your family.

The hardcover 3-ring binder includes a tipping guide, helpful ordering advice, frequently called numbers list, pen and pad and 9 tabbed dividers with storage pockets.

Next, we have our Greeting Card Organizer, a hardcover binder featuring a semi-eternal calendar, birthday tracker, holiday address book, and so much more. The special tabs help you keep your cards ordered by theme/occasion, and offer helpful tips to help you choose the perfect card or gift. There’ll be no more belated wishes from you!

Finally, we present our Home Maintenance Organizer, a handy tool for tracking all of the projects for your home. From recording maintenance dates on your heating and air system to tracking the model number and service contacts for your appliances, this organizer helps you keep it all straight. With easy guidelines for what to do when, along with one-stop storage for project tracking and important documents, this no-nonsense system appeals everyone. Includes a common conversions chart, frequently called numbers list, handy ruler, and so much more.

Resolve to Get Organized in 2010

So here we are again, another year over and a new one just begun. What were your resolutions this year? If you are like many it included: Stop smoking, Get Fit, Lose Weight, Get Out of Debt, Get Organized, and Spend more time with the Family. All great goals to strive for with three things in common – spend less money, feel less stress and have more time!

Let’s start with getting organized…January is the National Association of Professional Organizer’s (NAPO) Get Organized Month^SM. During the first month of the year the professional organizing community dedicates time and resources to raising awareness of the benefits of getting organized and of hiring a professional organizer. Many of the over 4000 Professional Organizers around the globe are partner with organized A to Z.com. Check out our list and if you are at a place where you need help getting started, give one of them a call (consider one of Organized A to Z.com’s professional organizing partners).

If you want to try it on your own then here are a few helpful hints to get you going:

1. Identify why you want to get organized – to make room for a new family addition, to fell comfortable having people over, to be able to find things without stress, to save money by only buying things you need and will use, etc. It is great to say “I want to get organized”, but without a real reason there is little motivation to do other than dream about it. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche
2. Write it down – a dream does not become a goal until you write it down! Keep it posted in a place where you can read it everyday. It takes 21 days to create or change a habit. You need to be repeating your goal for those 21 days so that it “sinks in”. Some people dream of success… while others wake up and work hard at it.  ~Author Unknown
3. Make a plan – decide what you want to do, how you want to tackle it, when you are going to work on it and who is going to help. Read books, Blogs, articles on how to go about creating an organizing plan. We even have some that we have included in previous e-newsletters. Carve out time in your schedule and make a date on your calendar. It took time to get disorganized so you will have to make time to get organized again! And don’t be afraid to ask for help. Whether it is a friend, family members, or Professional Organizer, don’t be afraid to say you need some guidance. We are all gifted in different ways. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. Reward yourself – as you move through the process of getting organized, be it a large project to knock out a closet in a day or small habit changes that lead to the beginning steps of organization, remember to reward yourself. It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.  ~Edmund Hillary

Organizing is not rocket science, but it can be hard work. So roll up your sleeves and just make a start…let us know how your are doing by connecting with us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/organizedatoz) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/organizedatoz). We would over to hear about your progress or answer any questions you might have.

Don’t forget to check out this month’s featured products at Organized A to Z.com! They were chosen to help jump-start your organizing products.

Here’s to your organized 2010!

January’s Storage Plan – Home Office

Welcome to 2010! We hope you’re new year is off to a great start. Throughout this year, we’ll be sharing plenty of organizing tips and advice. Each month, we’ll focus on one room of your home. We know that organizing any room can seem like a big task when approached all at once, so we’ll offer you 4 step-by-step tasks that will get you started. Complete them all in one afternoon, or do one each week. Either way, you’ll end the each month with a neatly organized room and systems that are easy to implement.

So for January, let’s start with your home office and a find a way to clear the paper clutter:

1. Collect all of your passwords and write them down in one, secure spot, then shred the sticky notes and scraps of paper you were using. Our Password.log notebook will help you keep track of them. Once you have them together, store your password notebook in a locked drawer or file cabinet (of even a fire safe) for safe keeping.
2. Go through your stack of unread magazines. If there’s an article you want to read, clip them and place them in a 3-ring binder (sheet protectors work well for this). Recycle the rest!
3. Using wall mount file holders, devise a vertical file system. Label each holder for the intended purpose – mail, bills to pay, school assignments, special events, etc. A vertical system helps you save desk space and makes your papers easy to see and access.
4. Create a file system with horizontal folders. Label with categories or vendors (especially for small businesses) and place in an easy to access file drawer or crate – whatever works for you! If you don’t want to create your own, you might try our MyVitalFiles or our File Solutions Home Filing System.

And that’s it! If you can follow through on each of these tasks, you’ll be able to eliminate those paper piles and save yourself time when you need to refer to important paperwork. Next month, we’ll focus on your kitchen!

Organized A to Z Featured in Better Homes and Gardens

Organized A to Z is proud to announce that our products are featured in a 4-page article in Better Homes and Gardens’ Special Early Spring 2010 Storage Edition that goes on sale today, December 29!

In the article, “Month-by-month Storage Plan”, Organized A to Z owner Kathy Jenkins gives readers an organizing plan focusing on just one room of your home for each month of the year. Along with helpful organizing tips, an Organized A to Z product is featured for each month to help you accomplish your organizing goals.

For each month, we suggest ways to clear the clutter and create organizing systems that work for your needs in that particular room. Each of these mini projects, 4 for each month, takes about 1 hour to complete. You can do them all in one afternoon, or do one each week of the month – whatever works in your schedule!

For example, in January, we suggest focusing on your home office. Our Password.log is a great way to keep all of your passwords in one, secure place while eliminating those scraps of paper or keeping them stored on your computer, where they could be vulnerable to hackers. Additional tips help you creating filing systems and eliminate that pile of backlogged magazines that you’ve been meaning to read.

For June, tackle you kid’s rooms, We suggest reviewing all of their school papers and artwork that they have collected throughout the school year. Store them all in portable storage box, and then go through the box each June to choose the best of the best to keep for scrap books and memory boxes.

These are just 2 examples of the great tips you’ll find in this special magazine article. Follow our guide, and by the end of the month, you’ll have a place for everything and everything in it’s place, giving you a clean, organized look that you can maintain throughout the entire year!

The magazine is available anywhere Better Homes and Gardens is sold. Be sure to get your copy today for a more organized home in 2010!

New Desk Organizers at Organized A to Z.com!

Organized A to Z.com has added Made Smart Desk Drawer Organizers to its product line to help you organize and simply your lives!

These distinctive organizers are ergonomically-shaped with a low profile so they fit in almost any drawer. They blend nicely in any style of office with a chic, sophisticated look featuring rounded corners, soft, textured edges, and a sleek black color. We are carrying various sizes, including a 4-compartment tray, a 5-compartment tray, and an 8-compartment tray, making it easy to find the perfect fit for any drawer. Each compartment features an icon to designate a place for each item and help you remember where to replace items when you’re finished with them.

The desk drawer organizers are manufactured using an innovative, over-molding technology to give each compartment a silicone-like feel that also helps keep items stationary. The no-slip rubber feet also prevent the trays from sliding around in your drawers.

These organizers provide a home for all of you smaller office items – paper clips, rubber bands, push pins, extra staples, pens and pencils, and much more. Rather than searching through a cluttered desk drawer for something that you need, you can achieve a truly organized workspace that is not only functional but also easy to maintain.