Confession Tuesday

Dear Reader,

It's been a full week and one upcoming birthday since my last confession.

Where to begin?  To the confessional--


I confess I basically let my house become a messy kingdom over Christmas break.  I knew it was really bad when my husband said, "Did you see I cleaned?"  When he starts picking up things and organizing, you know it's bad.

And it's not as if he doesn't clean up, but I am the OCD girl, I am the one who likes things in their place, the microwave on 0 (no numbers left in space, please), the mail put away, keys hung on the keyrack, and clean surfaces.  But I let it all go.

I said to my daughter, "We could be on the Hoarders Christmas special."  Manger: ✓. Ceramic Christmas Village: ✓.  7-9 Nutcrackers: ✓.   Shelves of wooden snowmen: ✓.  Scissors, tape, and wrapping paper everywhere: ✓✓✓

Now the house is clean again.  My office is clean again.  The guest room is clean again.  Simple stuff, straightening up, but wow, can it soothe the soul.  It feels good not to be tripping over our overflowing recycle bins.  And I love organizing things.    Ahhhh, I can create again.

~

I confess I've been trying a few new productivity things for the new year and here's a few I love:

Boomerang for Gmail:  http://www.boomeranggmail.com/

If you ever had to read the Personal Efficiency Program  (aka PEP) by Kerry Gleeson, you might really like this.  The PEP program when I read it, was a series of folders you keep in your desk, all dated, and you organized your week, month and year through them.  Basically, if you're not working a project, it shouldn't be in your mind.  So you file it under the right date.

The Boomerang program (which only works on Gmail I learned) does the same thing.  If an email comes and it's something you plan to do in 1hr, 2 hrs, the evening, the next day, etc. --You mark that email with the date/time you want to work on it and it comes back to you (like a boomerang).  That way, your inbox isn't filled with a bunch of gunk to look at that you don't need to do.

To make this even more fun, they have The Email Game - www.emailga.me where you answer, respond, and boomerang emails as quickly as possible to earn points.  If you're competitive, this may be the thing for you.

For example, on my first day, I cleared out my entire email box.  Seriously.  It was empty.  And it was fun to do.

Realize, I am an organization nerd who loves these things and loves finding new systems and ways to do things differently/better.  This has been my best find of 2013 and it's only day 8.

~

I confess tomorrow is my birthday and I LOVE birthdays on Facebook.  That is really what Facebook is good for, wishing people a happy birthday.

Cheers!
Amen.


~ Kells

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