An email gets sent to a group of people and everyone’s email inbox gets jammed full with the Reply All responses. As the coordinator of a meeting, you spend too much time trying to find the most common meeting date & time for everyone to meet.

Here’s a solution to your scheduling nightmares.

Doodle enables you to propose several dates and times through an email to a list of participants. inside or outside your organization, across calendars, and time zones. Participants can indicate their availability online through a poll. Once you choose the most common date from the online poll, you can send an email to set a firm meeting date. Doodle is free of charge and registration is not required.

Have a look at a demo for Doodle.

Doodle Calendar Connect and MeetMe are options worth having a look at. These enhanced features enable you to connect your calendar so you can share your availability, no matter what calendaring system other participants are using and regardless of which organization they are in.

Tungle.me is a similar option to Doodle.

When trying to set up an appointment with a client, by clicking on the Tungle.me link through the downloaded program, you are able to select available time options and send these options through an email. Once a suitable time is selected, an appointment is automatically added to each participants calendar.

Have a look at Tungle.me’s video demonstration:

Instead of spending your time searching for a suitable time to meet, save your time for your meetings instead. Give Doodle or Tungle.me a try and let me know what your preference is.

Gloria Munro of Munro & Company, CGA has these great tax checklists to get you prepared for your personal and business tax filings. Just filing your return on time will save you money on the late filing penalties, even if you are being charged interest on the unpaid tax amounts. According to Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), April 30 (or June 15th, if you’re self-employed) is the deadline to file your taxes. After that, if you owe the government, you will be charged a 5 percent late penalty on the total owed, and 1 percent interest per month, for a maximum of 12 months.

Your business tax receipts may already be in a disorganized pile for this year’s tax filings, but by following these tips you will be in top form for next year. You’ve got one year to rid yourself of more tax pain…

1. Keep your tax documents in one location (section of file cabinet or separate file box)
2. Create Company File Folders for those you use often or receive monthly statements from
3. Create Category File Folders for expenses which may not have the same supplier (auto repairs & maintenance, office supplies)
4. Create Dedicated File Folders for tax accounts and government issued documents (HST, WorksafeBC, etc)
5. File receipts in the year transaction took place and only after they have been entered into your accounting system

Read more about good filing practices from Munro & Company, CGA

Another Workshop Announcement: Stay tuned for our workshop on how to organize your financial papers, co-hosted with financial planner Kendra Sivertson.

Our first expert for this Q & A segment is sixty4media co-founder, Rebecca Bollwitt. Rebecca has been named one of the Top Ten Women in Vancouver Technology to Watch and one of Canada’s Top Ten Most Influential Individuals in Social Media.

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to staying organized?
Trying not to let things fall through the cracks such as unread emails, which are time sensitive.

How do you define work-life balance?
It’s hard when you work from home but I make it my goal to disconnect as much as possible on the weekends. This means not opening the laptop or logging onto my computer. Things have changed though since I got an iPhone.

Can you think of a time when being organized helped you seize an opportunity?
Usually it’s a matter of catching online conversations at the right time. If I notice something on Twitter and follow up right away, it can lead to a business connection, a contract, or a larger conversation.

How important are deadlines?
Deadlines help keep me organized, although I do have a tendency to leave things last-minute. The rush and crunch helps me focus.

How do you manage and organize yourself on your computer or online?
I would be nowhere without Gmail or Google Calendar. Gmail sorts my incoming email into folders (labels) right away so I can see exactly where the communications are coming from. I also manage all appointments, meetings and speaking engagements on Google Calendar. I have a calendar for business, personal, and one that I share with my husband for family events.

Do you use paper or a digital organizer (Daytimer vs Blackberry/iPhone) and why?
My iPhone helps me run a business from my home or anywhere else. We’re also a Mac-only home office so we had to go Apple with our communications. Favourite apps include the Google App (of course, see my previous response) as well as Tweetie for Twitter. Since I cannot be blogging all the time, posting images and updates on Twitter helps keep the content flowing.

Kwela is a Vancouver-based consulting company dedicated to developing business leaders and the systems that will achieve their strategic goals. They believe that leadership and organizational excellence are interrelated. Kwela works with businesses in Leadership Development, Team Development, Talent Management and Training programs.

Their Time Management workshop is designed for the business person to “Get Organized”. Learn how to develop effective workflow practices and sustain them in the long term. Reduce workplace stress and burnout. Focus your time on what is important.

Register for the next Public Program of Get Organized Time Management, on September 17, 2009. Join Kwela’s Principal, Russel Horwitz in this inaugural public program. Linda will look forward to seeing you there.

Out of Chaos was originally called in to assist this busy manager with managing her tasks and creating a prioritized action plan. It was very clear early in our process that activities relating to hiring personnel were not this manager’s expertise.

In consultation with Sandra Reder, Managing Partner of Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting, the following steps in the hiring process can easily bog down the best of managers, especially if they are not in your area of expertise:

1. Placing the advertisement on various job boards, website and possibly in print media
2. Receiving resumes (these days it can be anywhere from 75 to 150 resumes for one position)
3. Screening resumes to the job description and short-listing the suitable candidates
4. Pre-qualifying calls to the short-listed candidates to see how they communicate, as well as to confirm some basic details about them
5. Possibly doing a more in-depth pre-screen on the phone to find out more about their past work experience before bringing them in for face-to-face interviews

“Overall this can take one person well over 20 hours of their time (this is based on 75 resumes if there’s more, then time will obviously go up).”

What is your time worth? Consider the value of outsourcing hiring related activities to the experts and free yourself up to focus on your core business.

No Time to Open All Those Emails
Here’s a quick tip to put into practice immediately, to save precious time when managing your emails. EOM — End of Message. Use this in the subject line to signal the recipient of your emails that they don’t have to open up the email. All they need to know is in the subject line of your email.

This works nicely for things like. “See you Friday at 11:00 am. EOM”, “Congratulations on a great job!. EOM”. Forward this email tip and get organized.

When time is limited, every second, or in this case, every click counts.

No Time to Exercise
One of the common comments that clients share with me is not having enough time for all their to-do’s, not to mention carving out time for themselves to exercise and reduce stress. With this challenge in mind, I approached Innergy Corporate Yoga for a solution.

Innergy provides affordable on-site corporate yoga and pilates classes in the workplace, to help employees “innergize” their bodies and reduce stress. They come to you, so how convenient is that?

This month, I signed up for a private class with Innergy, to experience all the benefits of yoga, at my convenience. My instructor is going to come right to my home and teach me for a full 60 minutes. No more excuses that I can’t make it to a class or don’t have the time.

I work with clients who have challenges focusing on their overwhelming priorities. They keep so busy that they forget about themselves. I’m a culprit to this myself. Innergy advises that “Yoga teaches you to reconnect to your breath, tune into what your body needs and just be in the moment. Not to mention yoga makes you strong and flexible!”

Stay tuned in next month’s issue, where I will let you know about my experience.

If finding time in a busy workday to exercise is a challenge for you, sign up for two corporate or private classes, receive your third free. And if you don’t enjoy the first class, it’s free. Contact Innergy Corporate Yoga for more information. Let them know that Out of Chaos sent you.

No More Filling the Landfill with Inkjet Cartridges
I recently toured the new Grand & Toy store downtown on Granville Street. Many of you may still think that they are for big business, but you will be nicely surprised to see their complete solutions for small businesses.

One such solution is their Refill, Recycle, Reuse program for inkjet cartridges.

Did you know?

• 3 ounces of oil goes into manufacturing an ink cartridge, not to mention energy consumption to manufacture, package, and distribute.
• In the US alone, over 350,000,000 cartridges are disposed of annually. If laid end to end, the cartridges would encircle the world 3 times!
• Disposed cartridges represent almost 60,000 tons of landfill plastic, which would take 1000 years to break down.

Stop filling the landfill with your used cartridges. Consider Grand & Toy’s in-store Ink Refill Service. Your efforts could make a dent in the over 1,000,000 inkjet cartridges that are thrown away every day.

Many companies right now are looking at ways of cutting costs and even laying off staff. But the people who kept everything organized are no longer around, you can see the direct business impact of organization on a company’s productivity and bottom line.

After all, time spent searching through file folders, piles on desks and (in a worst-case scenario) the clutter in your waste-bin means lost productivity. Imagine if the average employee in your organization lost 20 minutes a day at that. The combined wages add up quickly.

If the key people who keep the office organized in your company are let go, files get lost, invoices go missing and important paperwork can get mixed in with clutter and garbage. The gatekeepers who knew where to find everything are no longer around to direct traffic. But it’s as important as ever to keep office processes streamlined.

As I’ve often advised colleagues and clients, having a consistent system for organizing can help mitigate productivity loss, even more when key people leave an organization. This means:

1. A filing system that works. Having a bunch of big metal filing cabinets might work for your office, but how is all this paperwork sorted? Do the files include post-its and scrap paper, not just official records? Do you separate out tax-related documents? Are the files updated regularly? Do some records get purged from your files after a period has elapsed, and if so, how does this take place?
   You need to have these processes in place to make the best use of the file storage you’ve got.
2. Train your employees to organize. Try to create an organization that doesn’t need to rely on gatekeepers. Train everyone in how your filing system works. Even if they’re not actually doing the filing themselves, they must be able to find information when they need it. Train them on what kinds of papers they need to keep and what quickly becomes clutter. Consider combining a 10-minute organizing party with a month-end staff meeting.
3. Keep cubicles and desks organized. Some people believe that a messy desk piled high with papers shows off how busy and important they are. Alternatively, some use it as a crutch to avoid extra responsibilities (ie. “You need me to help you with Project XYZ? Have you seen this pile on my desk?”) I’ve often found that the most productive and successful members of any organization have the cleanest desks.
4. Organize your office supplies. For everything from pens and stationery to scissors and staplers, have a central spot where you keep things. Keep certain items on strings to make sure they don’t wander off to another part of the building. Keeping better track of your inventory will ensure everyone has the basic things they need to do their work and also saves you reordering costs.
5. Get outside help to keep things organized. Outsourcing may seem counter-intuitive for some companies facing restructuring, but a disorganized office status quo can cost a business in productivity month after month. An organizing expert can be a cost-effective solution, helping all members of an office understand how to maintain an organized space.

Emails demand to be read. Refrigerator doors and bulletin boards become graveyards for lost and forgotten sticky notes. And that million-dollar idea you had during the morning commute? Forgotten in the hectic drama of the first fifteen minutes at the office.

Ballantrae Solutions President Jocelyn Coverdale suggests tech solutions for all of these problems that are easy and inexpensive (or free!) to improve your information’s “findability”.

GTDMail
Imagine that a postal worker comes to your door to deliver your mail. You decide you don’t like most of what he’s got for you, throw most of it at the door and leave it there. You repeat this process every day and soon you’ve got hundreds of unopened letters cluttering your entrance. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s how many people deal (or rather, don’t deal) with their email.

This simple-to-use application is a snap for organizing your email. Create categories like Follow Up, Read and Action for various types of responses you might require. Or create a Snooze folder and just have the email re-delivered to you when it’s convenient or as a reminder. Achieve inbox zero.

Jott
Imagine if you could have a private secretary following you around 24/7 taking dictation from your thoughts. Turn your cellphone into a dedicated personal assistant with Jott. Register for free at Jott.com. Next, record a message for yourself or a reminder for someone else. The message can now be played back as a voice recording in Outlook, or can be automatically transcribed for you to read the note in your email.

Did I mention it’s free to sign up?

Sticky Notes
There’s something awfully strange about putting actual sticky notes on a keyboard or computer monitor. Haven’t we entered the paperless Information Age? There are a wide range of applications offering digital sticky notes that you can put on your desktop without actually adding to your paper clutter. They’re actually better than the real thing, because you can insert functioning hyperlinks and program them to pop up when you think you’ll need them.

A Wired World in Need of Organization
At the office and at home, we’re overwhelmed with information.

• 70 per cent of households have Internet access. Almost half have high-speed Internet connections.
• 51 per cent of adults think computers are now a necessity, not a luxury.
• 51 per cent of adults send and use email every day. About 30 per cent of it is “worthless”, such as junk mail or spam.
• 25 per cent of a professional’s day can be spent reading email.
• 63 million Americans do banking online.
• Almost three quarters of adults use cellphones.

Information courtesy of the Pew Internet & American Life Project

Your inbox at work has gotten so high that it has become a workplace safety issue, even though you’re actually taking work home every night. So much for work-life balance.

Meanwhile, the accounting department has just given up asking you for those receipts. All those business travel expenses are coming out of your own pocket.

Finally, you’ve had enough; you know you need to hire a professional organizer.

But where to start looking?

Follow these seven steps to get the professional organizer you need.

1. Think hard about what you want to accomplish. Going through a marathon clean-up will get you organized. But at the end of the day, what most people want is not to get organized, but to keep organized. The organizer should be able to offer a process to help you stay organized over the long term at a price that you are comfortable with.
2. Find out where they operate. Some organizers only work in certain geographic areas. If they have to travel, is that included in their rate?
3. Check if they have a recommended service for disposal. When you are removing clutter from your life, it has to go somewhere. Does the organizer have a partnership with a recycling company? Will they shred documents? Some organizers will even help sell your disposed stuff online.
4. Do a background check. Professional organizers are given access to your personal stuff, with access to anything from your underwear drawer to your most confidential papers. Is this person a Trained Professional Organizer (TPO)? Are they a member of the Professional Organizers in Canada (POC)? How long have they been in business?
5. Have a proper interview. Depending on the job, a phone interview may be enough. Sometimes it may be necessary for the organizer to come to the location to see the scope of the job. Understand the criteria to look for when hiring a professional organizer.
6. Ask about services. Many organizers are specialized. Some work in residences. Others organize offices. Some niche operators will help people with Adult Deficit Disorder or special needs. Make sure they’re offering what you need.
7. Compare prices. Professional organizing services can range from $50 per hour to several hundred dollars per hour. A one-time organizing job might cost $150 for an afternoon, but the total bill for a series of residential appointments using a team of organizing professionals might run up to $15,000 or $20,000 over two years. The price will depend on the type of package you require. Shop around and get a quote.

Following these seven simple steps will ensure you hire the professional organizer that’s right for you.