The very word ‘debt’ all too often strikes fear, or at least great discomfort into the hearts of most of us.

The question  is — are you totally financially free?

OR …

Are you plagued by debts, afraid you cannot manage them, and doubly afraid you may have to declare bankruptcy?

If so, you can finally relax because we have a very special eBook written by author/trainer/presenter, Marilyn Kleiber that is absolutely FREE!

It’s called The Top 6 Ways of Managing and Eliminating Debt, and if you

follow its guidelines, it can help manage and eliminate most debt.

We’ve used these techniques ourselves, and know they work.

So get a copy of our FREE eBook, the Top 6 Ways of Managing and Eliminating Debt, combine it with a little discipline, a positive attitude and you too can win the debt challenge.

In no time, the office would revert to its cluttered state, because you have not changed your work habits or your mindset.

So before you burn or toss paper clutter, let’s clear it with two basic guidelines.

Guideline one is what I call the four-pile-plan. This means sort every item into one of four piles.

Pile one contains items you need to deal with quickly. Example, pay your hydro bill, if you do not want it cut off!

Pile number two is the reading pile and includes; magazines, newspapers, articles, and e-mails you printed because they were so long you got a headache reading them on your monitor. This pile gets rid of paper clutter quickly, because removing the magazines from the general chaos seems to make a big visible difference.

Pile three is all the items that require filing, and which later you will sort by subject.

The final pile is garbage. This actually never becomes a pile, because you wisely sort it directly into the nearest green garbage bag.

Guideline two is to further sort your filing pile, which may often require some difficult decisions.

To help make these decisions, ask yourself the following three very important questions, and answer them as honestly as possible.

Question number one: “Is this item going to be of use to me either personally or in business in the future?”
Question number two: “Do I need it?”
Question number three: “Do I want it?”

Ask all three questions because sometimes you may keep things that are neither useful nor needed. However, some aesthetic principle makes you want to have it around. If you look at it or enjoy it from time to time, keep it.

The usual result of these questions is a bigger garbage pile.

Take care of the items in pile one quickly and efficiently. Put pile number two aside to read at your leisure, then retire them to garbage. Once you have further sorted pile three, file what remains into the appropriate places.

If your office is in major paper clutter, just do a little every day. Start small and work up to the difficult areas. Before long, you will discover the joys of having a clear work area.

Follow this system with every item that enters into your office on a daily basis. Determine which pile, then ask the three questions of the filing pile. This will keep your office clear and it will keep you focused.

Delightfully, you can use this system for paper clutter, clothing or any other general household items.

You will grow to love the feeling of filling green garbage bags with items you can actually enjoy throwing out. Love that pile four!

Give it a try, and have a great uncluttered day!

That is when you take a humour break and relax for about 10 to 15 minutes. A humour break means that you take those few minutes to read or think about something funny.

On a regular basis, when I have encountered something quite hilarious, I write down the account in my laughter journal. Then anytime I need a little lift, when whatever I am doing is starting to get repetitive or boring or overwhelming, I take a few minutes off (my personal humour break) and read a couple of the peculiar incidents that I have written about.

My good feelings restored, I find it easy to go back and tackle that chore.

Let me share a one of my favourites with you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Recently, I pulled out behind a van onto a fairly busy two-lane road. I stared with astonishment at the sign in the rear window of the van. It said: “CAUTION – BLIND DRIVER.”

While I knew intellectually that the vehicle was obviously not being driven by someone without sight, a small voice inside me wondered if there was some other explanation. Perhaps science had discovered a new type of glasses that sent out radar waves, not unlike a bat. Or maybe the driver had learned to follow instructions so accurately that the person in the passenger seat could easily guide him or her to drive in traffic.

My curiosity was at fever pitch, when at last the road opened to four lanes and I was able to draw up alongside the van.  Printed on the side was the advertisement  –  Ed’s Draperies and Blinds. I began laughing so hard I had to pull off on the side of the road.

That man made my day – not only was it brilliant marketing, and in the midst of a busy day, it was the perfect humour break.

In addition to my own writings, I also keep a large supply of quotes by various celebrities, and Zsa Zsa Gabor to me is one of the most delightful women. I particularly like her quote: “I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.”

So, take a little humour break during your bouts of organising. You will find everything flows so much better.

Primarily that means establishing a budget  … and for this you will need a household budget form.

There are a wide variety of budget forms, including; businesses,  organisations to which you belong  and, of course, the form for your own household budget.

It is not necessary to get into complicated software at this point, because in order to have a household budget form that actually supplies you with usable and actionable information, you will need to establish some history of your incoming and outgoing money .

Basically that is all a budget really is — a written form that contains information about the money that comes into your household, and the money you spend to keep the household running.

Let’s look at the supplies you will need to get started:
·    A pen
·    A small notepad (only about 3” by 2”)
·    Some three column paper  (or, if you wish and you feel very comfortable working with a computer,  a spreadsheet program such as either Microsoft Office Excel, Open Office Calc, or iWork’s Numbers for Mac)

Your household budget form will include the following, in the order shown:
·    column one – (either written or on computer) will be for the description of the items of incoming money or outgoing money (expenses)
·    column three will be for the amounts of  income items, such as  salary, residuals, commissions, pension payments, interest earnings, etc, that you receive on a regular monthly basis.
·    column two on the household budget form is for all the amounts of the expense items. These include thing such as rent or mortgage payments, telephone and cell phone, gas, hydro, internet, cable TV, property taxes if you own your own home, insurance (even if you rent, you will have contents insurance) car lease or payments, gasoline, car cleaning or maintenance, health and life insurance, medical and/or dental bills, clothing, entertainment, charitable donations, education, vacation and travel and credit card payments if you have outstanding debts.

Once all of this has been entered, add up each of the columns. Your hope is that column two will be less than column three. If this is the case, it means your household budget form is telling you, you are living within your means.

If the opposite is true, you have a financial problem, and I will discuss bringing this under control in an upcoming article.