Getting organized with Peter Walsh and Office Max

I love this billboard! It's Peter Walsh to a T!

Hoo Boy, organization (or the lack of it) sure did strike a chord with mombloggers. Last Thursday's webcast on workplace organization, sponsored by Office Max and featuring organizer Peter Walsh from the TLC hit series Clean Sweep, took Twitter by storm. Everyone was lamenting over the state of their desks and home offices and kids playrooms, and everyone was asking Peter questions. I was one of the lucky ones who got their questions answered live (what a thrill that was!). You can read about all of Peter Walsh's tips on building good organization habits , on my post at Silicon Valley Savvysource.

Here are some pearls of wisdom that Peter shared:

* Do not let flat surfaces get covered, keep them clear.

* Instead of Post-Its plastered all over your monitor, keep a journal to write your little notes and reminders.

* 80% of what goes into a file never sees the light of day again! So every 6 months or so, go through your files and purge what you no longer need.

* Establish an organizational routine (i.e. spend 10 minutes at the end of each day to clear up, file papers and mail as soon as you get them)

* Before buying any products to help you, consider first your vision of what you want your space to be, what functions you want it to perform. Then set limits on the amount of "stuff" you will permit to "live" in your space. Only then should you look into buying products to sort / organize / store that stuff.

Long after the Peter Walsh OfficeMax webcast ended, Twitter was still full of tweets about how inspired moms were to clean up their messes and get their offices and playrooms and files sorted, and how much they liked Peter's new workspace organization line, the OfficeMax InPlace System. The InPlace System embodies Peter's mantra for any successful organization system -- visibility (clear plastic products so you can see what's inside), accessibility (everything fits together and can be stored within arm's reach), portability (rolling files so that infrequently-used documents can roll out of the way, and rolling carts for workplaces-on-the-go), and reusability (using markers and Post-Its to label files).

I was given the opportunity to preview some of the products from his line, and I'm itching to buy a few more items and put them all to use. I've taken Peter's advice and given each of the kids one folder to store their drawings in. Any drawing that is left around on tables and floors gets put into the recycle bin. Now they choose which drawings they want to save, and it's limited to whatever fits into that folder. As Peter predicted, the kids LOVE having their own files and being responsible for what goes into them. GREAT idea, Peter!!!