Special thanks to our friend Dan Faulkner, Jr. from John L Scott  for these great ideas.

Many people avoid setting goals for themselves simply because they are faced with a few common challenges.  We have three tips to overcoming these barriers to success so you can being achieving your goals today.

1.  Set Practical Goals.  Often times, people set unrealistic or impractical goals for themselves that they are unable to achieve in the immediate future.  Instead, break large goals up into smaller short-term goals and reward yourself along the way.  For more tips on how to reward yourself check out our recent Goal Setting Success post.

2. Don’t Fear Failure.  While some of us set the bar too high, it is also possible to set the bar too low.  Trying to avoid disappointment by making your goals easy to obtain can stop you from moving forward.  Studies have shown that the additional effort and motivation that is required for challenging goals makes them more fulfilling to accomplish.  Need more motivation?  Try looking at our tips for visualizing success.

3. Have a Plan.  A big part of making goals is coming up with a plan of action to achievement.  You can improve your chances of making your goals reality by creating a deadline and sticking to it.  Deadlines both hold you accountable to yourself and keep you on track to your target.

How do you overcome the obstacles in the way of your goals?  We want to hear about it!

Life Maintenance Toolkit

To continue on with our National Preparedness Month theme, our next two posts will be about organizing your papers and affairs in case something happens to you.  We have two great resources available that we would love to share with you this month.  The first product that I want to talk about is called the Life Maintenance Toolkit, which is a comprehensive guide to organizing the important things in life. 

Some of us are extremely organized individuals that have everything in order and can quickly find things when we need them.  Others of us are not so lucky.  When it comes to the really important things in life, it can be crucial to be organized!  Are your important papers and files organized and easy to find?  Could you or a family member put your hands on them immediately in case of an emergency?  Do you know where a current copy of your will is, your insurance policies, your retirement plans, etc.?  If this task sounds way to daunting for you to tackle, we have good news!!!

This is an outstanding toolkit which includes an assessment tool that helps you prioritize the areas to focus on first and provides you with basic information about how to go about evaluating, executing, and maintaining them.  The toolkit covers topics like budgets, wills, financial recordkeeping, healthcare Power of Attorneys, home inventory, retirement plans, credit report and credit scores, computer backups, living wills, emergency plans, identity theft monitoring, password security, insurance needs, home security, personal health records, and storage of critical documents.

The toolkit also includes:

- An Excel-based Life Maintenance Assessment Tool

- Information on each topic to enable educated decisions

- How-to steps

- Available resources

- Templates and samples

- Recommendations for ongoing maintenance

By having your important life documents in order, it will make it so much easier on family or loved ones that may need to access them if something should happen to you.  We hope you take the time to create your own Life Maintenace Toolkit. 

We would love to help you implement this toolkit in your home.  Please feel free to contact us with questions, or to set up an appointment!

If you do decide you and your family would benefit from a Life Maintenance Toolkit, we can provide if for you or you can order it online. If you order online (through any of the links above), please remember to indicate in the “note to seller” that you heard about it from Simply Placed.

To your organized life!

Is there a silent killer lurking in your home?

September is National Preparedness month. This post is one of several we’ll do this month about things you can do to make sure you’re prepared in case something happens that is beyond your control. Natural disasters are not predicted, nor controllable, but the way you prepare for and organize for one is. Additionally, we’ll talk about small things you can do to prevent “non-natural” disasters, such as carbon monoxide poisoning. Please read this important post by guest blogger Jeff Dyer:

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Don’t invite silent killers into your home

Home is where the heart is. It’s where you share holidays and build family memories.

But your home can also serve as an unsuspecting host to a silent killer. The assassin is actually invited into your home disguised as the accomplice of your trusted common household appliance. This notorious villain has no form; it is odorless, tasteless and causes flu-like symptoms that can lead to brain damage and death.

This killer has a name. It is carbon monoxide. And the cause of death is appropriately named carbon monoxide poisoning. And under normal circumstances the amount of carbon monoxide generated by your oven or your furnace is maintained at safe levels and vented out of your house. But if appliances are somehow damaged or have not been serviced regularly and kept in good working condition can, they can become an unwanted and dastardly visitor in your home. Items that were never intended for indoor use — like a charcoal grill or running your car in a closed garage—can quickly produce dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide. Even swimming behind a motorboat or riding in the back of an enclosed pickup truck can be dangerous.

Symptoms

Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning may include:

Dull headache
Weakness
Dizziness
Nausea
Vomiting
Chest pain
Confusion
Irritability
Impaired judgment
Loss of consciousness

Carbon monoxide poisoning can be especially dangerous for people who are sleeping or intoxicated. The fumes may be fatal before anyone realizes there’s a problem.

Last year there were almost 1,400 deaths blamed on carbon monoxide poisoning across the US. That number equates to approximately one death in every 2,400 people, or 0.04 percent. Every year there are sad stories in the news about families with limited incomes who are overcome by the fumes from an indoor camp stove or charcoal grill they brought indoors for heat.

Special offer
The needless deaths were behind the new regulation adopted into the King County residential code recently that requires Carbon Monoxide detectors in all new residences and multiple-family residents in the county. As a special offer to clients of Simply Placed (and friends of Debbie Rosemont), my company—Custom Sound and Security—can install a top-of-the line carbon monoxide detector in your home for only $39.99 (plus tax). Think of the detector as one more contribution of the service Simply Placed provides for its clients, helping people work and live at their best.

A carbon monoxide detector, installed at the right height in your home, could be a lifesaver. A simple, inexpensive, no-brainer, in our opinions!

One more ominous warning: You can purchase carbon monoxide detector at most hardware stores and home improvement centers. But the key to protecting your loved ones is proper installation. Numerous people with working detectors in our own community have been overcome by toxic fumes in their homes simply because they were installed at the wrong height.

The toxic gas fills a room from the top down, so installing the detector near an outlet (less than 12 inches from the floor) means that people in bunk beds or just standing up in the room could be in serious trouble before the gas mixes with enough air to set off an alarm that is mounted too low. Carbon monoxide does rise act like smoke or the heat from a fire, so simply placing your new detector next to the smoke alarm is also a waste of time (and money).

Whether or not you decide to take me up on my offer,  feel free to contact me for some free advice on where and how your carbon monoxide detector should be installed in your home to best protect your family.

And, please, get the word out on this silent killer. This is one crime we can prevent.

Jeff Dyer / Custom Sound and Security / mrhifi@hotmail.com / 425-205-9509

Some of you have heard me talk about one of our most popular classes or individual consultations, the Email Intervention. We know (and perhaps you agree) that a lot of people out there are addicted to email. Others may not feel addicted, but are stressed out by the sheer volume they receive and overwhelmed by the time it sucks out of their work day and even their leisure time. There are steps you can take to reduce your stress around email and reduce the time you spend in your inbox. Have a collection of hundreds or thousands (even tens of thousands? We’ve seen it!) emails in your inbox and want to know how to start down the path of enjoying some Email White Space? Please enjoy this guest post by fellow blogger and productivity consultant, Jan Wencel of Life Contained.

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How does it make you feel to think about COMPLETELY EMPTYING YOUR EMAIL INBOX?

For those of you who use your inbox as a storage place…

 This may send you into a panic. Do not fret. You can do this.

Start by setting up two appointments: one in the near term & another in six months. In the first appointment delete by age, from the bottom, all the messages you know are extinct and you’ll not need to reference. Then sort by author & delete all the messages from people you know you can eliminate. Next rank by file size & delete the emails with large attachments that you no longer need. The last step may seem drastic, but there are great rewards. Create a folder called “Expired Email.” Choose a date to draw an imaginary line (I suggest no more than three weeks out), then drag all older emails into the expired folder. Any emails retrieved from the expired folder within six months should be incorporated into other reference folders. All others (with few exceptions!) should be deleted during the second appointment you arranged for six months out.

 For those who use your inbox as a to-do list…

 We suggest you break this habit. Although more effective than allowing 1,000+ emails to pile up, using your inbox to prompt on-time follow up can lead to mishaps & doesn’t allow for prioritization.

Start by setting up an appointment to create an action file to hold all the reminders you have. Then add reminders for tasks resulting from emails as well as other tasks you need to complete.

Ah…doesn’t the email white space feel peaceful?

____________________________

 Thanks, Jan, for your insights!

 Jan Wencel is a certifiable GTD/inbox zero nerd. She runs a business in Chicago, Life Contained, Inc., similar to Simply Placed. She has been my invaluable accountability partner since 2006. You can reach Jan at 630-803-6650, jan@lifecontained.com or www.lifecontained.com

Can you believe that summer is just a few months away?  I know if you’re in the Puget Sound area it is hard to imagine with all this rain, but the countdown for summer has definitely begun.  It may seem crazy, but if you haven’t already, it is time to start making your summer plans.  Minimally, this will give you something to look forward to as we get through our (ahem) “Spring”.

Will you go on any vacations?  Will your kids go to camp?  Will you plan any day trips in the area?  What activities will you and your family do this summer?  If you are planning to sign your kids up for summer camp, now is the perfect time to start this process!  Registration for a lot of camps has already begun and some registrations are already closed.  If you aren’t on top of it, your kids may miss the camp they have been looking forward to all year.  We would love to help ensure that this doesn’t happen to you by providing you with a few tips on how to start planning for your summer now:

1. Create a “Family Activity Calendar” where you can record where you will be each week this summer.  You can use a different color pen or highlighter for each family member.  (ie. Suzy at waterski camp in pink and Jordan at soccer camp in yellow).  This way you can take a quick peek at the calendar and know who will be doing what.  Be sure to include dates, times and locations.

2. Keep your “Family Activity Calendar” in a central area like your kitchen.  This way everyone is able to see the calendar and Mom or Dad can add/make changes to it.  If you prefer to go digital, be sure to sync calendars so everyone knows what’s going on.

3. Create a file for “Summer Activities” now that you can be placing notes, registration forms, packing lists, etc. in so you have it all organized and in one place.  This way you won’t spend time searching for your packing list the night before camp. 

4.  Create a reference file for “Future Vacations,” “Future Activities,” “Summer Camps,” etc.  This will provide you with a home for papers you get throughout the year that are of interest to you.  Again this will save you time in the end so you aren’t searching for that Football Camp Registration form that your son brought home from school last month.  Instead you can go straight to your “Summer Camp” file and pull out the form.  How great would that be?

5. Need ideas for what to do with your kids this summer? Check out Extraordinary Mama - a great new subscription service that for pennies a day will deliver customized, targeted emails to you each week with specific, age appropriate ideas and links to great activities and summer camp alternatives in your geographic area.

We hope these 5 simple tips will help you and your family get more organized for the summer.  If you would like ideas for a reference filing system for your family, please let us know.  We would be happy to make a recommendation. 

Do you have any great tips for summer planning? We’d love to hear your ideas!  Feel free to share them with us.

Does the thought of moving give you anxiety?  Moving is usually a very stressful time for people.   Are you or someone you know planning to move in the near future?  My family just recently moved and one of the most stressful and time consuming parts of the process was gathering cardboard moving boxes, building & taping boxes and breaking down boxes after the move.  For those of you that are tired of using cardboard moving boxes, we have a great new resource for you.  FROGBOX offers a simple moving supply service that makes your move easier.  “FROGBOX is the convenient, affordable, and eco-friendly alternative to cardboard moving boxes.”  The process is simple: 

1. They drop off your FROGBOX moving boxes at your home or place of business.
2. You pack your belongings in the FROGBOX moving boxes and move to your new place.
3. They pick up your FROGBOX moving boxes.

You are able to unpack and enjoy your new place without the hassle of breaking down boxes and figuring out what to do with them.  So whether you are moving to a new house or organizing a big corporate move, FROGBOX is the way to go!  Please check out their website for more information.

We hope you find this resouce useful! Please let us know if we can connect you with any other service, products or service providers to simplify your work or life. We’re pretty well connected!

I’m teaching a couple sessions of Organizing Your Finacial Records at the upcoming MoneyWi$e Women’s Conference  in Seattle on 1/15/11. This conference will have over 150 attendees looking for education, empowerment and inspiration regarding managing money. Wouldn’t it be great if we learned all we needed to know about being responsible and organized with money as kids? Now you can give yours the chance.

Christina Marie Kimball, parent coach, in conjunction with Dan Gelhaye, of Sterling Savings Bank in Issaquah are teaming up to offer a great workshop for kids and their parents to do just that. Please enjoy this guest post from Christina Marie, with more information about the workshop:

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Teaching Kids About Finances  

Have you ever heard the expression “we parent the way we were parented”? To some extent this is true. However, as a parent and a parent coach, I have come to believe we are more likely to use the way we were parented as a measuring stick, barometer, or baseline than as a rigid template. All of us love our kids and want them to leave the “nest” as equipped, capable and compassionate human beings – in touch with their unique gifts and abilities and ready to make their mark on the world.    

Part of being a capable contributor (we know) is about learning how to manage our money well; it’s a skill that is forever useful! Part of my parent coaching includes designing and presenting workshops on topics that can really help kids learn how to prioritize, establish goals and grow – and financial training is a topic relevant for toddlers to teens! Learning these skills in their formative years can help them be productive and organized in their adult lives.

 Here are the points we’ll cover in our upcoming workshop, titled Your Kid’s Financial Training, January 20th , from 7:00 – 8:15 p.m., at Sterling Savings Bank in Issaquah. Mark your calendars!

• The Big Picture of Effective Money Management: Why it matters for our kids to learn it now
•  Chores & Allowance: The tenets of responsibility and freedom + when and how much to pay them  
  Money Management Systems: Easy systems any age can benefit from practicing 
• Earning a Wage: Motivations, interviewing for “family jobs”, and fostering a smart, entrepreneurial spirit in our kids 
• Spending: Budgeting, planning and goal setting 
• Saving & Giving: The basics of successful saving + the philanthropic joy of giving 

Space is limited. To register and reserve your spot, click here.

Presented by Christina Marie Kimball with Artful Thinking, a Seattle- and New York-based consultancy firm specializing in parenting and entrepreneurial coaching – in conjunction with Daniel Gelhaye, Financial Services Specialist with Sterling Savings Bank in Issaquah. 

Christina Marie Kimball works with parents and families looking for satisfaction, balance and growth. She a is an expert in the areas of family dynamics, parenting and child development. Her unique blend of experiences and coaching combine to make her a powerful catalyst for change. Christina has hosted parenting and business seminars, retreats and round tables for 25 years. She founded and operated five successful businesses including a business consulting firm, a design firm, a restaurant and art studios. She also has extensive experience leading organizations in institutional settings-in the corporate, hospitality and entertainment worlds. Christina has three grown daughters.

 For more information about Artful Thinking please visit www.artfulthinking.net or feel free to email me at think@artfulthinking.net or call me at 206.718.5103.

We have so many clients who use the FreedomFiler, virtually maintainence-free filing system, we thought we’d pass on this reminder we received from the FreedomFiler company …

Its time to swap your EVEN & ODD year files… no annual purge! (This takes seconds – no need for a big “clean out the files, create new files, set aside the whole day” effort)

You may now swap the position of all your EVEN and ODD year files (simply grab the folders with black-top labels and switch places with the folders having white-top labels in your filing drawers—you can leave the papers inside the folders alone). If you use a binder clip to mark your current month file, move the clip to the “JANUARY ODD YEAR” file and discard automatically the documents left over from two years ago.* You may empty out just the January file and leave the rest of the month files with the papers inside. Then as you progress through the year, continue purging the rest of the month files one month at a time. That’s all you need to do with your FreedomFiler each year! No more file clean out day and no more setting up new folders each year. We want you to enjoy your life and spend less time fussing with papers!

Q: Is it safe to throw away old bills and account statements in Monthly folders after two years?*
A: Because these items were not needed for your taxes and since you will have already filed your tax return for that year, it is generally safe to discard these papers automatically.* Two years allows more than adequate time to resolve any vendor disputes; however, if you would like to keep items longer than two years, use additional labels to create a new set of folders for each added year. The actual legal time limit for lawsuits will vary somewhat from state to state but usually ranges between 2-3 years for nearly all types of claims. Keep in mind that most banks and service providers preserve your statements on file for seven years or more (also according to state laws). If you are concerned about keeping documentation beyond two years for the purpose of applying for future loans, you may use a Permanent folder titled Loan Payment History for keeping a record of regular payments to a creditor (see label sheet 4A in your Deluxe Kit). Refer to your Label Index for a full discussion of issues and available options.

Happy New Year from Simply Placed and the FreedomFiler!

 P.S. If you’re having to do more than this to update your filing system for the New Year, and are interested in the ease and effectiveness of the FreedomFiler system, contact us and we’ll fill you in on how to get your own system, how we can help you set it up if you chose, or get you more information about our next End the Paper Pain class, where you set up the system in class and learn about paper management to set you free.

It’s the time of year for friends and family to reunite and celebrate with one another. Some travel to see family and friends, some travel during a seasonal break from school or work to fun vacation desitinations and “get away” from it all. In either case, joyful anticipation usually fills the air, but for some, there’s also a feeling of dread, when they think about the planning, logistics, lines and potential headaches that can accompany holiday travel.

Does getting ready for a trip, or simply the thought of it, overwhelm you?  We gave some organized travel tips a couple of weeks ago that you might find helpful. Additionally, we spoke to a professional Travel Agent, Tracey Gilbert with Cruise Holidays of Woodinville to get her ideas for smooth sailing (or travels). Whether you’re going by planes, trains or automobile, here are some tips:

1. International Traveler: If you are traveling internationally, notify your credit card company of your travel plans.  Simply call the toll free number on the back of the card and let them know your travel dates and destination.  This will avoid the bank from putting a hold on your card because they think it is being used fraudulently when they start seeing those charges from Rome!

2. Show Me Some ID: Make sure you have consulted with your Travel Agent or trip provider to understand all the proper documentation required.  Passports are now required for almost all international travel, even to Canada.  Some countries such as China, Russia, Brazil, Australia and Turkey require visas for travel.  Did you know that to take a minor child without both parents internationally requires a notarized letter of authorization from the non-traveling parent?  Consulting with a Travel Agent can save you time, money and stress, since they will make sure you’re aware of regulations, requirements and can help with logistical arrangements, among many things.

3. It’s All About Order: When you organize your travel documents for your trip, put your travel details and or vouchers in order of use.  For example, start with your parking reservation for the airport, your airline confirmation, your car rental or transfer details and then your hotel reservation.  Once you have your paperwork in chronological order, tuck it into a folder or document holder.  You can then add your passports and or visas as necessary.

4. Less Worry Equals More Fun: Spending a little time prior to your trip and some simple organization can help make your trip worry and hassle free.

Found these tips to be helpful or perhaps you have a travel destination in mind you would like to feel better prepared for? Please feel free to contact Tracey herself at the information provided below.

Here’s to happy, safe, and worry-free holiday travels!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Tracey Gilbert

Cruise Holidays of Woodiville

425-487-4001

866-487-4001 (toll free)

tracey@luxurient.com