4. This Week’s Simplification Tip

Naming File Folders

Finding files easily comes down to filing cabinet organization and file folder labeling. Let’s review file folder labeling strategy to help you avoid unnecessary document searching.

Frequent problems I run across in file system reorganization include:

• titles that are so broad, they could contain any number of subjects, ex. “Misc”

• titles that are so specific that only one or two pages would ever be filed in it and you wouldn’t remember to seek that title anyways

Keep it simple! All you need to remember are Categories and Sub-categories.

Categories should be specific and unique. By unique I mean that running across this name, one and only one type of information will be called to mind. (ex.- “Website”, not “bio page”)

Sub-categories are where additional breakdown of the categories are indicated.

The way to label your folders is simple: “Category - sub-category”

Examples

Business files:
Forms – client intake forms
Forms – fax cover sheets
Forms – call logs

Home files:
Yard – irrigation
Yard – veggie garden
Yard – tree pruning

You can see by the examples that when seeking a file, I’m asking your brain to think in terms of categories, not sub-categories. I find this gives you less to remember. Once your fingers are flipping in the right category, you’ll find what you are looking for.

Finding files can and should be easy. After all, keeping those paper files is supposed to make your life and your business flow more smoothly!

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5. In the News & On the Web

If you know of something in the news or on the web that should be featured here, let us know!

In The News

Business Is Booming for Professional Organizers (St. Louis News-Sentinel)
http://tinyurl.com/mypdh

This article highlights the “booming” professional organizing (P.O.) industry, and explains some of the reasons why a P.O. can help you to get better control of your stuff, your business, and your life. A handful of working organizers and clients are profiled.

On The Web

How multitasking and e-mail waste time (Management-Issues.com)
Part 1: http://tinyurl.com/plg2m
Part 2: http://tinyurl.com/r2tp3

This pair of columns by Dan Bobinski sorts through workplace and psychological research to draw two conclusions: multitasking does not make most people more efficient (huh?), and e-mail is a huge time waster if not properly managed (duh!). He also offers some fairly radical pointers on how to curb your e-mail habit. In his follow-up, he responds to a fellow columnist’s objections to his claims. If you’re sitting at a computer reading this, then email and multitasking are probably a significant part of your life. These articles might give you some food for thought. (”Never check email in the morning”? Say what?!)

Wikipedia
http://wikipedia.org

Those who say “from complexity comes simplicity” could use Wikipedia as their prime example. What could be more complex than creating a centralized online repository of all human knowledge? And yet what could be more simple than being able to find out about any topic by just typing the topic in a search box?

Wikipedia, put simply, is a giant free online encyclopedia.

Hmmm…who is Hans Hofmann, anyway? And what exactly is Permaculture? What’s the history of the simple living movement? Who are all the showrunners in the history of The Simpsons? What about all the Secretaries of Defense of the U.S.? Or all the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.? And what’s barnstorming? (I’ve heard of it, but I never quite knew.)

Wikipedia—created and edited by anyone who decides to contribute, which works much better than one might imagine—has answers to all those questions, no problem. And throughout the text of those answers are links to terms and topics that have to do with the topic you’re reading. (Which means be careful…it’s easy to indulge in over-learning!) They don’t quite have all human knowledge there yet, but there are over 3,000,000 articles (1.2 million in English)—enough to make it likely you will find something on your topic of interest. If you haven’t checked it out before, you may be surprised to find what a useful (and ultimately, simple) learning tool it is.

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

Our Links Page

“Go away! Go find some other website to visit!”

That’s the curmudgeonly version of what we’re trying to say by offering our visitors a page of links to other sites. But we’re not curmudgeons—we’re fairly nice people. So there must be another message behind our Links Page…and indeed there is. It’s something like, “We’ve found these sites to be interesting and useful—maybe they will be of use to you!” Of course, that’s not as fun to yell out the window while shaking one’s fist…but really, curmudgeonliness is way overrated.

Actually, we don’t need to put words in the mouth of our Links Page; it pretty much speaks for itself. There are several dozen useful links pertaining to simplifying, organizing, small business, blogging, and Nevada County, California (where the Project Simplify world headquarters is located). And if you ever want to promote your new blog, our list of blog and RSS feed directories is a great place to start.

The Links Page is still growing into the giant directory it will someday be, which means that it is still a pretty manageable list to scan through. Check it out now while it’s still relatively petite, then check it out later when it has its own field of gravity. :-) In the time in between, send us suggestions for new links to add to it!

Here’s the web address:
http://projectsimplify.com/links

7. Keep Smiling

Eudaimonia

Note from Lance: In searching for this week’s “Keep Smiling” item, I wanted to be clever and find an entry from Wikipedia (see On The Web above). I considered the entries for “Smile“, “positive psychology“, “happiness“, “optimism“, and others, but they didn’t seem right for various reasons. In those searches, I came across the page for Martin Seligman, the researcher featured in last week’s item on The Power of Optimism. It turns out he is considered an expert on “eudaimonia”, and if you haven’t heard of that, you’re not alone—neither had we. But now we (as in you and we) have, and Wikipedia is here to help explain this ancient term, which is resurfacing in the modern positive psychology movement:

Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as ‘happiness’. Etymologically, it consists of the word “eu” (”good” or “well being”) and “daimōn” (”spirit” or “minor deity”, used by extension to mean one’s lot or fortune). Although popular usage of the term happiness refers to a state of mind, related to joy or pleasure, eudaimonia rarely describes a state of mind, and the less subjective “human flourishing” is therefore often preferred as a translation.

In popular usage, eudaimonia often referred to situations of prima facie good fortune, such as material prosperity. In Greek philosophy, however, eudaimonia’s less obvious relation to virtue or excellence (aretē) was an important theme. In Plato’s and Aristotle’s work, we find arguments for the claim that virtue is a necessary, even sufficient, condition for eudaimonia, a claim that also influenced Epicurean and Stoic thought.

Note from Shawn: There is more at Wikipedia on eudaimonia which discusses its place in Greek philosophy, evident in the works of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. But just as a speech about humor doesn’t a humorous speech make, nor does an entry on “happiness”, or some variation thereof, a smile inducer make. I’m editing with an iron fist and including only the part about Aristotle and his unwavering ultimate goal of excellence:

According to Aristotle, the hierarchy of human purposes aim at eudaimonia as the highest, most inclusive end. This is the end that everyone in fact aims at, and it is the only end towards which it is worth undertaking means. Eudaimonia is constituted, according to Aristotle, not by honor, or wealth, or power, but by rational activity in accordance with excellence. Such activity manifests the virtues of character, including courage, honesty, pride, friendliness, and wittiness; the intellectual virtues, such as rationality in judgment; and it also includes non-sacrificial (i.e., mutually beneficial) friendships and scientific knowledge (knowledge of things that are fundamental and/or unchanging is the best).

More from Shawn: I think of the Greeks hanging out at the Forum, discussing the “high purposes” of human endeavor. Then I think of a modern day forum, like Wikipedia, and how we now come together to share ideas, facts, inspirations, and passions in this, now universal, media–the Internet. What would the Greeks have thought?!?!

For more, you can check out this lengthy interview with Martin Seligman entitled “Eudaemonia: The Good Life”.

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Thanks for reading - see you next week!