26 October 2007

A Place for Everything and Everything ... Somewhere?

Greetings,

Are you one of those people who always knows where everything is?

When the plaintive cry goes up, "Mu-um, where's my library book/ blue beanie/ soccer ball?" can you instantly respond, "On the floor next to the lounge where you were reading it/ in your top drawer/ under the house where you kicked it last week!" or do you resort to the time-honoured, "You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on"?

Me?

Oh, I know where most thing things are ... I mean, I can find that photo of the kids taken the first time they saw snow; I know where the fancy serving dish we only use for Christmas dinner is hiding; I can go straight to my dog-eared copy of Macbeth I've had since I was in High School ... Easy-peasy! (Although, as you're aware, funnels are things that have a mind of their own ...  Umm ... and maybe my Everything Drawer does have the occasional black hole.)

What really brings me undone is trying to find articles I've filed -- oh-so carefully -- and promptly forgotten what I filed them under. Have you done that, too?

I just know I've got this really t'riffic piece about whatever I'm currently working on, and all it needs is a bit of a rework and it'll be good to go, but do you think I can remember where I filed it or what I called it?

Nope ... gone ...

And that's very frustrating, because, as you know, I'm very organised in other aspects of my life. (Yes, go on, say it ... there's a term for people like me.) So what I thought we'd do this week is look at ways of keeping track of things.

Since I've just lamented my inability to find things on my 'puter, we'll start with a little ripper of a program I came across recently that makes all your notes, articles, letters, essays, reports etc instantly accessible. 

It does this by giving you the opportunity to assign keywords to everything you write, then, when you're looking for all those detailed notes you made after your meeting last year with your biggest client or that brilliant idea for an article/ story/ novel that you jotted down while you were working on another job or the research notes you took for your thesis, you just have to type in the keywords and up pops all the documents you've allocated those keywords to, and off you go.

No more frantically searching through dozens of files ... just a couple of clicks, type in the keywords and you're in business. Brillo! See more here. (They even have a free trial ... You'll be amazed at all the time you'll save.)

Now, as I metioned, this program saves you time, and that is something we all desperately want ... more time. One of our family mottoes is "Organisation is the key to success." (Another is "It's only money" and still another is the Latin, "Nil desperandum") 

So let's have a bit of a squiz at some ways to get organised so we can all be successful ...

One of my early morning swimming friends told me of a great tip she heard somewhere or other to help reduce the clutter in our lives ... Take everything out of your wardrobe and when you put your clothes back, turn all the coat-hangers facing outwards (you should usually have them facing inwards so you can get your clothes out fast in case of fire). 

Once you've done that, each time you wear something, you return it with the coat-hanger facing inwards, and at the end of six months or a time period of your choice, you go through your wardrobe and bag up everything still facing outwards, because you're probably not going to wear it!

That's better than the tip I read many years ago about the man who only ever kept 50 possessions ... that included clothes, books, household items ... everything. If he acquired a new item, he gave away one item so he always kept the magic 50. Wouldn't moving be a breeze!

You don't have to be quite so strict, but if you're anything like me, you probably have way too much clutter in your life. This week's Little Something Extra has some excellent tips on how to live an organised life and also on how to make a stand against all that annoying spam that clogs up our email accounts and wastes our time.

And if your idea of being organised is multiple coloured post-it notes plastered all over your 'puter, this is for you! 

This week's quiz:

I went to my best mate Google to try to get some terms about being organised for this week's quiz, but what I got was the FBI's glossary on "organized crime" ... (Don't ask. Even Google has a bad day every now and then.) So let's see whether you're the sort of person who crosses at the lights or one of those dastardly types headed for a life of crime ... Match 'em up:

extortion, smuggling, fraud, trafficking, bribery, counterfeiting, embezzlement, laundering, arson, kidnapping

1. malicious burning to destroy property 

2. something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage; intentional deception resulting in injury to another person 

3. the felonious act of extorting money (as by threats of violence); unjust exaction (as by the misuse of authority)

4. to make a copy of with the intent to deceive

5. the practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage 

6. the unlawful act of capturing and carrying away a person against their will and holding them in false imprisonment

7. deal illegally; to trade or deal in a specific commodity or service, often of an illegal nature 

8. the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property entrusted to your care but actually owned by someone else 

9. to disguise the source or nature of (illegal funds, for example) by channeling through an intermediate agent 

10. to import or export (goods) secretly, in violation of the law,  without payment of legal duty 

Since we've had a close encounter with the long arm of the law this week, here are some interesting conversations that ... allegedly ... took place in courts of law:

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Are you kidding me? Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people. Would you like to rephrase that?

Thanks to Wayne for passing those along. And if you're engaged in the practice of Law, please don't send me rude letters ... Some of my best friends are lawyers ... Really.

Last week's quiz:

lollygag, scallywag, palooka, spiv, gormless, spendthrift, latrociny, blather, ha-ha, kibosh

1. voluble, foolish or nonsensical talk - BLATHER

2. foolish, lacking in initiative - GORMLESS

3. nonsense; stuff - KIBOSH

4. to loiter aimlessly; to linger; to lurk - LOLLYGAG

5. highway robbery - LATROCINY

6. sunken fence; wall not visible until you're close to it - HA-HA (Yes, this was the trick question since it's not really anything at all to do with silly people ... unless you call putting a fence below the surface of the ground silly ... OK - forget I mentioned it)

7. second-rate prize fighter; stumblebum - PALOOKA

8. one who is playfully mischievous; an imp - SCALLYWAG

9. one who is unemployed but makes money through dubious schemes; goes about smartly dressed and having a good time - SPIV

10. one who wastes money on improvident purchases - SPENDTHRIFT

And here's a story about ... Well, you'll see:

An 80-year-old man was having his annual checkup and the doctor asked him how he was feeling.

"I've never been better!" he boasted. "I've got an eighteen-year-old bride who's pregnant and having my child! What do you think about that?"

The doctor considered this for a moment, then said, "Let me tell you a story. I knew a man who was an avid hunter. He never missed a season. But one day he went out in a bit of a hurry and he accidentally grabbed his umbrella instead of his gun." The doctor continued, "So he was in the woods and suddenly a grizzly bear appeared in front of him! He raised up his umbrella, pointed it at the bear and squeezed the handle."

"And do you know what happened?" the doctor queried.

Dumbfounded, the old man replied, "No."

The doctor continued, "The bear dropped dead in front of him!"

"That's impossible!" exclaimed the old man. "Someone else must have shot that bear."

"That's kind of what I'm getting at ..." replied the doctor.

A Little Something Extra

"Organized Living draws from every area of life to give an efficient approach to everything. Daunting? Not in the least.

"We must ask the question: What is Organized Living? What does Organized Living look like? What would it really be like to get, be and stay truly organized?

"What would your ideal organized lifestyle include? What are your own specific results right now for your health, security, wealth, intelligence, relationships, and career?

"If things were a little more organized in each of those areas for you, what better results would you get in life? If you improved our degree of organized living by say 10%, what dramatic effects would it have on all areas of your life. Organized Living effects everything of course. (You don't need to spend long on this question to so easily appreciate that being organized is a big key to success.)

"Of course it’s vital for organized living to learn how to get organized. My clients start off their approach to organized living by dividing life into three key areas to start off with ..."

Click to discover how to organise your life. 

And join the fight to close down spammers ... "Since March 1, 2005 KnujOn.com has shutdown over 40 Thousand junk mail sites."

You can forward all the spam you get to this site, and they then contact the spammer's ISP and have the sites shut down. Now that's the way to fight back! I've copied all the addresses to report different types of spam into an email I've sent myself and saved it in a special folder so I can instantly forward any junk mail to KnujOn.

If you think spam's just annoying and not a serious problem, this may change your mind.  

Word of the week: Arraign (vb) to call (an accused person) before a court to answer the charge made against him or her by indictment, information or complaint.

Those of us familiar with TV cops and robbers shows know this word well, but do you know where it comes from?

We've taken it from the Middle English word arreinen, which was pinched from the Old French araisnier, which in turn came from the Latin adrationare meaning 'to call to account.'  So now you know! 

Oxymoron of the week: victimless crime

And this week's Latin phrase will help you in your efforts to get and stay organised:

Semper letteris mandate

[SAYM-payr layt-AY-rees mahn-DAH-tay]

(Always get it in writing!)