How many times during the day do you say or hear someone say, “I am sooooo stressed out!”? Stress is part of life, and there is good stress and bad stress. Good stress helps keep you going, but when stress gets out of control it can have a negative impact on your health, relationships and how you manage your work and personal life. If you let it, life can get very stressful, but you can take some of the stress out of your life with organization.

Next week, October 4 -11, is National Get Organized Week. What a better way to get control of your stress than to get organization into your life! It doesn’t have to be overwhelming steps to get organized (causing more bad stress) even for the most dis-organized person. If you implement a few small organizational tips each week, starting next week, and continuing on through the next year, you can make a big change in your life and reduce some of the bad stress.

If you Google “organizational tips” you will find a multitude of suggestions. For example, Woman’s Day has 100 Ways to Get Organized, at their website, http://www.womansday.com/home/organizing/100-Ways-to-Get-Organized. If it’s your work area that needs the greatest organization, 10 quick tips can be found at http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/82924. Read more at simplemom.net, they offer some advice that can be useful even for non-moms:

1. Think about the why behind the what.  Write down specifically the areas that need organized in your life and then write down the reasons why you think these areas are disorganized.
2. Involve other people. The more the merrier. Make it fun! Involve family or friends to help get your space organized.
3. Don’t wait for perfection. It would be awesome to have all of those neat organizing items at the “big box” store, but don’t wait to organize until you can afford them. Use inexpensive items or reuse items you already have.
4. If in doubt, throw it out! Donate it or Trash it! If you are not sure, put it in a “maybe” box. If you don’t use it within 6 months, you don’t need it!
5. Organization is an on-going fact of life. But the more regularly you do it, the easier and faster it gets.

Whatever area in your life needs organized, remember the two most important tips:

• Start NOW!
• Just do ONE thing at a time!

Check us out at www.facebook.com/barrsinsurance and let us know what area in your life you find the most difficult to organize or what is your favorite organization tip!