Are you organised for tax time?

Are you organised for tax time?

Many of my clients are asking us to help them get their paperwork ready for tax time.

I happened to put out on Twitter that I was helping a client prepare her Log Book in order to prepare her tax returns.

I then received a very helpful message from Janna of Fletcher Tax Accountants in Sydney offering to send her Individual Checklist – WOW don’t you love the power of social media.

Janna has kindly allowed us to share this fantastic Checklist here with our readers. Just

click here to download the PDF document.

No excuse for not getting organise for tax now!

What is Holistic Organizing?

Guest Blog Post by Erin Wells of Living Peace, LLC

What is Holistic Organizing?” In recent years there have been an increasing number of professional organizers using this term, and while I won’t attempt to speak for all of them. I want to offer an answer that captures how we use the term at my company, Living Peace.

Fundamentally, there are two parts of the organizing process that occur during EVERY person’s life transitions. Holistic Organizing raises awareness and honors the importance of these two experiences as essential to becoming more organized and creating lasting life change.

Holistic Organizing:

1. Increases awareness of the many levels of personal change involved in EVERY life transition: Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual. A holistic organizer should be prepared to acknowledge, honor, and make space for the fullness of the client’s experience as she reinvents her life through the organizing process and creates an environment that can be supportive of her current priorities and goals.

2. Recognizes the central role of loss and grief inherent in ALL life change. Even the joyful events in our lives often mean that we must say goodbye and close previously loved chapters of our personal stories. Most people can recognize the role of loss in events such as divorce or the passing of a loved one. However, we can experience similar emotions and challenges when getting married, having children, starting a new job, or retirement. A holistic organizer will be able to support and honor the confusing and conflicting experiences of her clients as they navigate reorganizing their lives in the midst of such experiences.

To help clarify, what Holistic Organizing is NOT:

• Green/Sustainable Organizing- This work is focused on issues of environmental sustainability, encouraging recycling & reuse, and conscious consumption.

• Faithful or Spiritual Organizing - While a holistic organizer should be comfortable encouraging and supporting a client’s spiritual practices and integrating them into their home, work, or daily life, they should be open to doing so within any faith tradition as determined by the client and not bound to the Organizer’s particular tradition.

• Quick “Results Focused” Organizing- Holistic Organizing acknowledges that life changes occur as part of a process that must be driven and focused by the client’s pace not the Organizer’s. Therefore, holistic organizers are likely to work predominantly side-by-side with the client rather than independently zooming through a project to create a specific quick or attractive superficial result.

While some organizers might integrate some of these other specialties along with their holistic organizing work, I feel it’s important to define the distinctions between these different areas.

At the core Holistic Organizing:

• Centers on the client’s life transition and process.

• Holds the client as the ultimate authority and expert in his/her own life process.

• Provides a hybrid “coaching & consulting” approach that co-creates the best process and outcome for each individual client.

The experience of working with a holistic organizer should be: integrated, authentic, rooted in the present, honoring of the change process, and creating space for peace and growth.

To find a holistic organizer: visit www.Living-Peace.com and visit our listing of holistic organizers throughout the US and Canada under our Resources tab.

To learn more about BECOMING a Holistic Organizer: Purchase our 60-minute Organizer Education Series video on Holistic Organizing - Click Here.

Law and Order: How Pro Helps Tackle Clutter

Law and Order: how Pro Helps Tackle Clutter
Wall Street Journal
9 April 2010

If you're aiming to organize a chaotic and cluttered home, the most dangerous place on earth may be the Container Store.

At least that is what some professional organizers say. That is because most people leave that Mecca of boxes, bins, shelves and hooks (The stores carry more than 50 different types of CD holders alone.) without much of a plan. Armed with good intentions and a host of shiny new products, they often end up with just as much of a jumble. And even more stuff.

"It is the biggest mistake people make," says Laura Leist, president of the National Association of Professional Organizers or NAPO, a trade group. "They think if they buy something to put their things in that is going to solve the problem." (A Container Store spokeswoman says store employees—who receive more than 240 hours of training on storage and organization—can guide customers into making the right decisions about products.)

The most important part of organizing is actually throwing stuff away or "purging," Ms. Leist says. And that is where professional organizers say they can often be the most help, by gently and tactfully encouraging people to get rid of superfluous stuff.

Fantasy Closets

We've all seen magazines showing freakishly organized homes: closets with precision-stacked linens; alphabetized spices; orderly toy cubbies and designated bill-paying stations. Glossy shots like these inspired four lifelong pack rats to get organized—with a little help.

Professional organizers were asked to tackle everything from a home-office overloaded with piles of paper to a closet stuffed to the ceiling with a melange of baby clothes (the kids are teenagers), school artwork and even an old mattress and box spring. Testers in varied living situations—from a two-story house in the Atlanta suburbs to a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y.—were enlisted to hire organizers in our hometowns.

In general, we were thrilled with the outcome and were amazed at how quickly we saw results. Forced to justify what we wanted to keep, we were able to be much more ruthless in our purging. (Though, one of our testers did resort to hiding some purge-worthy note cards from her organizer's eyes.) Our organizers kept us focused and on task, and definitely got their hands dirty, digging into the depths of closets and lugging bags of trash. So we were able to avoid what Ms. Leist says is the second biggest de-cluttering mistake: getting distracted and tackling multiple projects at once, never making much headway in any. All this hand-holding didn't come cheap. Our organizers charged between $75 and $100 an hour (for a two-person team). We also ended up shelling out more money—one tester spent $400—for new storage items that our organizers recommended, but the experts we worked with were sensitive to our budget concerns. Two of our organizers came to our homes for an initial consult and then returned for the actual organizing-an approach that seemed to yield the best results.

Anyone can call himself or herself a professional organizer, though those with the designation of "Certified Professional Organizer" have passed an exam and have a minimum of 1,250 to 1,500 hours of hands-on work with clients. All of the organizers we worked with belonged to NAPO (Organizers are searchable by zip code at napo.net.) We also checked references from previous clients.

In Brooklyn, we found Amanda Wiss of Urban Clarity through word of mouth. We wanted help with an entryway cluttered with shoes, coats, newspapers and baby gear and two front closets that were packed so tightly we could barely open the doors. After an initial consult, Ms. Wiss sent us an email with a shopping list of low-cost storage items to buy from the Container Store (A great place when you have a plan.) When she returned for four hours of actual organizing, Ms. Wiss had us take everything out of the closets and put items into four piles: one for trash, one for things we wanted to donate or sell, one for storage and one for items we'd keep in the apartment.

'Delayed Decision-Making'

She had a terrific solution for our biggest eyesore: the mounds of paper, books and other clutter that marred our beautiful six-foot-long dining room table (and often barely left us enough room to fit two dinner plates.) She had us buy an attractive "in-box" for the day's newspaper and mail and create a "project" shelf in one of our nearby bookcases to house the magazines we were saving to peruse later, travel books for an upcoming trip to Italy and novels we're reading. "Clutter is just delayed decision-making," she says. And the best part is that we've been able to maintain the systems she put in place: Weeks after her visit, we're still clutter free ... relatively.

In Los Angeles, we hired Regina Lark of A Clear Path to tackle a room in a four-bedroom house that does double duty as a home office and guest room. Ms. Lark, who has a doctorate in history, started off by asking, "What's driving you crazy?" While she had us sorting through and purging the mounds of paper on and in our desks, Ms. Lark went through a closet stuffed with photo albums, stationery and office supplies. She had some novel ideas for how to deal with the deluge of memorabilia a family of four had acquired, including a poster the 13-year-old twins had made: Instead of letting it take up space in the closet, we should "take a picture of it and put it on your desk," she says. She also recommended that we "Keep one thing that is representative of a time period, like a picture or letter," instead of several mementos that will just collect dust and create clutter.

In Manhattan, we wanted help setting up after a move to a new, bigger apartment. We settled on In Order to Succeed because the company specializes in relocations. When Robin Reid Hunt arrived for a four-hour session she toured our seven-room apartment and immediately went to work making suggestions; adding hooks in the hallway for coats (so we could reform our prior habit of tossing coats on dining-room chairs) and a second rod for the closet in the children's room to expand room for clothes. Then we tackled our biggest issue: the kids' toys. Here is where we wish we'd had a consultation first—and the opportunity to buy some new storage items before Ms. Reid Hunt did the actual organizing. The organizer did dive in and help us purge and categorize toys, but we knew we needed to buy a new, bigger storage unit.

We did end up buying something similar to what was recommended after our session, but by then we were on our own to do the final set up.

In Atlanta, we needed serious help. A deep basement closet was packed with baby clothes, lamps, mounds of memorabilia from a decade living in Moscow, including nesting dolls and old newspapers, a mattress and even a papasan chair wedged up near the ceiling. Another closet was stuffed with files, luggage, pet food, cases of canned tomatoes and more old newspapers. We knew we had some serious editing to do. One of the best things about the company we hired, Chaos 2 Comfort, was that it recycles or donates purged items for you. Our two-person team was very sensitive to our feelings, suggesting we take a break when we felt overwhelmed and advising us to keep those items that had real sentimental value. In the end, we had five garbage bags full of clothes and toys for our organizers, Susan Fox and Teresa Taylor, to take to a local homeless shelter.

But that night we panicked: In our zeal, we had accidently tossed the blue sweat suit one of the kids had lived in as a toddler—and we wanted it back. So we sheepishly called Ms. Taylor. Thankfully, the items hadn't been donated yet.—

Miriam Jordan, Betsy McKay and Judy Dixon contributed to this article.


Write to Andrea Petersen at andrea.petersen@wsj.com and Jennifer Merritt at jennifer.merritt@wsj.com

Think Organised for the Whole Family

Do you have trouble getting your family on board for being organised? Sometimes, they may just think it's too complicated. What we've learned to do without thinking about it seems so simple to us, but we forget that we haven't communicated what we want from our family members. We just want them on board.

Following are some simple tips to help us get our families to think organized--sometimes without realizing that's what they are really doing!

1. FAMILY MEETING: Hold a family meeting and explain to your family that you need help to be able to maintain the family home. You aren't the only person in the family and shouldn't be the only one doing all the work. BUT, the family needs to know what and how to help you. Don't just dictate what will be done, but ask for their input and take their suggestions seriously. One of the advantages to the whole family working together to keep things organised and clean is that it takes much less time, leaving the whole family free to pursue fun activities together.
   
2. CHORE CHARTS. One of the outcomes of your family meeting can be dividing chores up. With input from the family as to which chores they'd prefer to do, set up a chore chart that lists everyone and the chores they are responsible for. Explain too that none of the assignments are set in stone, they can be re-negotiated in the future. Everyone likes to have some choices and this is a good way to do that.
   
3. MAKE IT SIMPLE. Do your children just toss their clothing into the wardrobe without hanging it up? Maybe the problem isn't that they don't want to do it right, but that they just can't. Is the closet rod too high for them to reach? Are the hangers too big for their clothing? You can lower the entire rod, or if you want to have room for hanging cubes, add a lower rod to one side. You can install a lower rod in half the closet, simply by hanging it from the upper rod. This will leave the other side free for hanging cubes that can also be used for storage. In addition to lower rods, purchase some smaller hangers so that they aren't so bulky and frustrating for the kids.
   
4. DIRTY CLOTHES PILES: Does your spouse consistently toss his/her dirty clothing in a single spot on the floor? Help to get your better half to think organised by placing a hamper in the exact spot he/she tosses those dirties. This way you are making it easier to `think organised' without having to pick up piles of dirty clothes behind your spouse.
   
5. TOYS EVERYWHERE? Do you have toys all over the place with no one putting them away? If you have small children, make it easy for them. First, pare down the amount of toys. Many times, our children have more toys than they ever play with. Find their favorites--those toys they play with consistently. Then pack up the rest. You could donate them, or just pack them up and store them to be rotated. Second, get rid of the toy box. Kids can't find anything in a toy box so they won't use it, or if they do, the mess from trying to find something is all over. Use cubbies, or cubes that you can find in any department store. Third, if your children are very small and aren't reading yet, use pictures to label each bin so that they know exactly what goes where. When there isn't an overwhelming amount to be picked up, and they know exactly where it goes and that they can easily find it later, they are much more able to keep the toy mess to a minimum. You might also make a rule that only one toy at a time can be out. For them to be able to play with a new toy, the old one has to be put away
   
6. LABEL, LABEL, LABEL! Do you despair that nothing will ever be put in its proper place? If you don't already have a label maker, buy one. They are a very helpful too--for your pantry, linen closet, medicine cabinet, kitchen cupboards and drawers. Label what goes where. The labels are small enough to fit on the face of a shelf and big enough to be easily read.
   
7. REWARDS. Don't we all like rewards? Our families are no different. The rewards don't have to be monetary. They can be a favorite meal prepared, a favorite movie or even a day out with Mom or Dad. There are a number of rewards that will work. Very small children love to get stickers, or sweets, or balloons. Older children would enjoy one- on-one time with Mum or Dad, or both. Dad's reward could be an afternoon fishing or golfing. Mum's reward could be spa time (at home or at the spa). There are any number of ways that you can reward the family for 'thinking organised'. Find what works best for your family and your situation.
   
8. MAKE IT FUN: None of us like to do drudge work, including our children. When most people have a bit of drudgery to do, they tend to put it off as long as possible, even to the point of avoiding it altogether. Our families are no exception to this rule. Young children especially like to race the clock, so set a timer and challenge everyone to a beat-the-clock game. In a specific amount of time, see how much stuff everyone can pick up and put away. When it`s fun, everyone enjoys participating.
   
9. REVIEW: This ties in to the family meetings and chore charts. When the family knows that they aren't arbitrarily stuck with a chore forever and ever, it makes it a bit easier for them to be willing to take on a chore they don't particularly like, or aren't familiar with. With periodic reviews, say once a month, or once every two weeks, you and your family will be able to assess how things are going and to decide if you want to redistribute the chores.
   
10. LIGHTEN UP: This is applicable in more ways than one. It is impossible to organise clutter, so if you have too much stuff, you need to lighten your load. Donate items that are in good condition (gently used), or hold a family garage sale. Set the sale up so that each member of the family gets the proceeds from their items. Or, you could agree as a family to combine the proceeds for a special treat, maybe a trip to an amusement park or similar attraction. Give your family an incentive to part with things and they will more than likely be willing participants. Another way to lighten up is in our attitudes. Sometimes we get so focused on the things that need to be done all around us that we forget to just enjoy our families. Don't make that mistake.
    
11. ENJOY YOUR ORGANIZED FAMILY: It only takes doing something 21 times to make it a habit. Introduce these suggestions slowly and when each one is a habit, start on a new one. Then you will have a home that requires less care, one because you have lightened the load, and two because the whole family is taking part in the care and maintenance of the home. This leaves you free to enjoy more family time together.

Easy Organising, Save Time and Money

By Marcia Francois

• Did you know that being organised saves you money?
• You waste moneybuying duplicates of items you didn't know you had.
• You waste money on late charges because you can't find the bills you need to pay, or you forget to pay them on time.
• You also waste money not deciding in the store where you should store the item you're thinking of buying, and then not using it.

So now that you know why you should get organised, let's discuss some practical tips to show you how you can get your fin.ances organised.

It's a big myth that organising is difficult and time-consuming.

Yes, you do have to take some time initially to set up your system but unless you want to make things really complicated, it'll only take you about 15 to 30 minutes.

Put all bills to be paid in a specific folder
When you bring in the mail, throw away the junk mail and envelopes immediately and only keep the actual bill in a dedicated plastic see-through envelope in a specific place. Arrange the bills in order of when they have to be paid so that the one facing you is also the most urgent bill.

This way you and the rest of your family always know exactly where to find all the bills.

Automate as many bill payments as possible
We live very busy lives so if you don't have to think about paying it, all the better for you. That said, schedule a day of the month to check your online payments against your actual budget.

Dedicate a specific day or days of the month to pay your bills
Mark off a date on your calendar when you pay bills. If your bills are due on different days of the month, you may need more than one date.

Because life happens, schedule the date a couple of days before the payment is actually due so you don't incur any late fees.

File
Once your bills are paid, file them in the way that's easiest for you to manage. If you're not a file puncher, don't fool yourself that you will start punching and filing. Rather use a filing system where you simply drop the paper in and it's done.

Maintain
Restrict your filing space so that it forces you to clear out old bills every 6 - 12 months.

Guilt Free De-Cluttering

Are you hanging on to piles and piles of stuff for no better reason than guilt? There are good reasons to hang on to stuff, but guilt is definitely not one of them! Join us as we work to let go of our guilt along with our clutter!

1. Don't Throw It Away: Many times we are unable to let go of clutter because we feel guilty about throwing things away. Letting go doesn't necessarily mean throwing away. Here are just 2 options available: Have a garage sale, or donate to a charity, or even do both at the same time. In a garage sale you have the opportunity to at least recoup a bit of your outlay.You will never recover full value, but some is better than none. If you donate to a charity, someone else can benefit from your generosity, plus you are able to take a tax deduction for charitable donations. If you elect to have a yard sale, schedule a truck from a charity to pick up what doesn't sell.
   
2. But I Spent Money On It! Are you held back by guilt because you spent money on something--even if you are getting no value from it? In this case, you are feeling needless guilt. Once the money is spent, it's gone. Unless you are able to return the item for full value-- doubtful at best--the money is gone. The best thing you can do is to let go of the needless guilt along with the unneeded clutter.
   
3. Helping Others: When you are at the point of letting go of the clutter, try donating items to the following types of organisations: women's shelters, homeless shelters, children's groups at churches, preschools and day cares--even church youth groups, women's ministries and nursing homes. Items like toiletries, clothing and bedding would be greatly appreciated at shelters. Items like craft supplies would be appreciated by preschools, day cares, nursing homes and church groups. Knowing you are helping others can alleviate a lot of unnecessary guilt.
   
4. Wishing you had more time to do fun things with the family? One of the things we often fail to take into account is the amount of time our clutter claims. The more stuff we have, the more we have to maintain , clean, take care of, etc. When you get rid of the clutter, you have more free time to enjoy with your family and friends.
   
5. But it was a gift!! Whatever the gift is--it very likely was given to you without strings. Once given, the recipient gets to decide whether or not to keep it. If it is something you truly don't love and won't use, re-gift it (just be careful not to re-gift it to the original gifter), donate it, sell it, give it away, or toss it. You could also exchange it for something you do love and will use.
   
6. It Has Sentimental Value! Are you hanging on to Great Aunt Agnes' item just because it was hers? Donating the item does not eliminate the memories you have of the person who gave it to you. Take a picture of the item . You will always have your memories regardless of whether you have the item, and looking at a picture will evoke the memories just as well as looking at the item itself, without the clutter.
   
7. Simplicity and Serenity: You Deserve Them! When our lives are cluttered and chaotic, serenity often escapes us. But each of us should be living simplified and serene lives. By removing the clutter from your home and your schedule, you are much more likely to reach simplicity and serenity. If we are honest with ourselves, when we have schedules and homes that are packed to the max with stuff, all we feel is frenzied and confused, not serene. Begin to remove the extraneous stuff and take steps that get you closer to simplified and serene.
   
8. One Person's Trash: You've heard that one person's trash is another person's treasure. It really is true. When you donate items to thrift stores like Lifeline you are helping in more ways than one. The people who can't afford to buy new are able to afford your gently used items and consider it great when they find nice things in their price ranges.
   
9. Less Housework!! How much time does cleaning take you? When you have lots of stuff around, it takes lots longer to clean and dust. Now I don't know about you , but anything that reduces housework is a good thing in my mind! So start donating that extra stuff and you'll find it much quicker and easier to clean your house--leaving you free to do much more fun stuff!
   
10. Drop in guests are not a worry! Do you hate to have drop in guests because there is so much stuff you don't want anyone to see it? When you reduce the clutter, you not only aren't worried about clutter, you welcome guests, planned or drop-in! You may even find that you want to entertain more!

What is Your Time Worth

By Marcia Francois

What's your time worth? We've all heard the saying, "time is money" and to a certain degree, that is true. However, today I want to challenge you by saying that time is more important than money.Why? Because you can always do something to make more money but you can never get time back. never.

See where I'm going with this? But what about your time? Once you fritter away your time on unimportant things, you can never get that time back. An email made its way around about a year ago about a man who gave his son two jars, one empty and one with marbles. There were enough marbles for the weeks he had left to live (assuming a man's average mortality). He told his son to move one marble to the empty jar every Saturday so that he'd realise that he could never, ever get that time back. Yes, the story is a bit hokey but it does have a point ;)

I'm a practical sort of person so I like to do an exercise with my clients that I'd like you to do with me too. Divide your monthly salary by 21.67 (the number of days you work each month).

If you're self-employed, divide your average earnings by the number of days you usually work. That's your DAILY rate. Now take that number and divide it by 7.5 or the number of hours you work every day. That's your HOURLY rate. Now, when you spend an hour surfing the internet, replying to chain letters, reading blogs when you should be working, visualise yourself throwing that money in the bin.

If you're like me, it'll shock you and make you realise the value of your time.