3614: [Part 2] 5 Ways to Organize Your Life and Save Money by Emily Guy Birken of PT Money on Better Money Habits

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[00:00:30] And we're live on Match Day as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it! Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too! What a finish! There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match Days deserve Pepsi. This is Optimal Finance Daily. 5 Ways to Organize Your Life and Save Money. Part 2 by Emily Guy Birken with PTMoney.com

[00:00:56] Number 3. Having a laundry system will save you in utilities. How many times have you rewashed the same load of laundry because you forgot about it until it mildewed? This happens at least 2 or 3 times a month in our house, meaning we overspend on utilities and laundry detergent, and sometimes on new underwear when nothing in the house is clean. The problem with laundry is that it's a task that Stephen Covey would refer to as important but not urgent.

[00:01:26] Things that don't have to be taken care of immediately fall into that category, which includes things like retirement planning, exercise, and cleaning the cat box. We tend to be on top of the urgent items, whether they're important or not, like a ringing phone, a crying baby, or a looming deadline. In order to stay on top of those important but not urgent tasks, we need to set up a system and make it a habit.

[00:01:51] For instance, FlyLady.net, the reigning queen of housekeeping and tidiness, suggests doing one load of laundry every day. This means gathering up all the dirty laundry every morning before work and starting a load. Then when you get home from work, transfer the wash into the dryer. After dinner, fold it and put it away. Each one of these steps takes very little time, which is why it's very easy to put it off.

[00:02:18] But that's also why it's easy to integrate each habit into your day. After a few weeks of doing this, you'll find your laundry is always caught up and you'll not be wasting time in the morning looking for a clean shirt or wasting money on your utilities and cleaning supplies. Number four, an organized pantry will save you money on snacks.

[00:02:39] Most pantries are a mishmash of boxes and cans with the requisite dusty food items shoved in the back that no one in the house remembers having purchased. Not only does a disorganized pantry leave you vulnerable to double purchasing ingredients, but it also costs you money anytime someone wants a snack away from home.

[00:03:00] That's because impeccably organized pantries include some sort of snack box or bowl where you can find individually packaged granola bars or trail mix or jerky. Family members who know that they'll be coming home late from school or will be out all day can grab a snack to throw in a purse or book bag and avoid spending money on snacks from a vending machine or a cafeteria where they'll be much more expensive.

[00:03:26] And number five, organizing your paperwork will end late fees. Even with the rise of online banking and bill pay, most American households still receive about 41 pounds of mail per year. Most of it currently sitting on kitchen tables. Among the junk mail are checks, bills, and other important papers you really don't want to lose.

[00:03:51] The problem is that our hands are generally full the moment we walk in the door. So we throw our mail on the nearest handy spot to deal with later. But later never comes until we're frantically searching for our overdue visa bill or for the rebate check we need to deposit before it hits its expiration date. The trick to organizing paperwork is having a simple system.

[00:04:15] David Allen, author of the book Getting Things Done, suggests you do one of three things with paper as it comes into your house. Number one, shred or trash the junk. A good way to make sure you do this is to put your shredder and trash can right by the front door. Make trashing it as convenient as throwing it on the counter. Number two, take care of anything that will take less than two minutes. Call the vet to schedule your dog's appointment the moment the reminder arrives.

[00:04:45] Then it's taken care of and not cluttering up your space. And number three, for anything that needs more time, place it in your action bin. Allen recommends having a single inbox on your desk for taking care of things that require more action, like bill paying or calling to dispute a charge with your cable company. You must plan a time at least once a week when you go through your action bin and take care of everything in it.

[00:05:12] Clearing out your action bin more often will make it like the laundry habit from before. It'll take very little time since it's not overflowing and it will become a daily habit. Setting up the system will require one grand purge ahead of time, but it's liberating to dig yourself out of the paperwork that first time. In fact, many of us are great at the grand purge and have trouble with the habits following it afterwards.

[00:05:38] Take a weekend soon to set this up and you'll save yourself time, headaches and money because you'll always know where your bills and checks are. The bottom line. Getting organized may seem like it requires discipline, but in fact, the opposite is true. Once you put habits in place and make them automatic, you don't even have to think about organization.

[00:06:01] Making the change in habits is a slow process, but even tackling one bad organizational habit will make a big difference, both in your stress level and in your finances. You just listened to part two of the post titled five ways to organize your life and save money by Emily Guy Birken with PTMoney.com.

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[00:07:44] In just about 10 minutes or so, this yoga nidra practice leaves you feeling as refreshed as after a nap. Without actually sleeping. Experience it for yourself on our guided podcast. Search NSDR and look for the one from Optimal Living Daily. For me, the key to staying organized is to limit the amount of tools and systems I use as well as commit to habits.

[00:08:09] While I tend not to have too much physical clutter or paper, I have a ton of mental and digital clutter. This costs me time, energy and ultimately money. One thing that's helped me a ton is a project management system called Asana. It's free and I've set up tasks and planning boards for my business, personal goals and needs for my family. Asana is my home base for long and short-term planning and keeping track of all the tasks.

[00:08:38] And it allows me to schedule due dates and delegate tasks to other people. I also use my calendar and email tools extensively and try to limit the ways people can communicate with me. At one point, I counted up that there were 15 different ways for someone to contact me and realized that to constantly monitor all those points of contact was draining my energy.

[00:09:03] I find stress comes from thinking of a task to do or seeing a communication that needs to be answered and not taking action on it. So my habit has been to either take care of it right away or schedule when I will take care of it by snoozing an email, putting it on my calendar or creating a task in Asana. Simply having a system to write down and track all the tasks and ideas that pop into your head is a great way to keep it all organized. But that's going to do it for today.

[00:09:33] Thanks so much for being here every day. And I'll see you tomorrow for more Optimal Finance Daily, where your optimal life awaits.