6 Tips to Be Your Own Home Adminstrator

Whether you head off to work daily, have a work at home job or are the executive of your own home, one of your added tasks is being the administrative professional for the day-to-day management of your family. In honor of Admin Professional’s Day, I wanted to share with you 6 of my favorite tips on being the administrator in your own home.

Let's keep it simple and focus on just two categories: Organizing digital files and staying on top of emails. Just these two areas alone will save you tons of time and energy in the management of your home.

Organizing files

Whether your files are stored on your computer or in a folder on your desk keeping them organized can save you time and improve productivity.

Why bother organizing files?

Other than improving productivity, having files sorted correctly and using a proper structure system can help when needing to find similar documents or move entire sets of documents from one computer to another without having to spend hours searching for where each document is located.

Tip 1. Don’t put files on digital desktop

Something I see all too often with my clients. it is a hard but important habit to break. We often do this to our physical desktops and the practice bleeds into the digital world.

Keep it clean and it should only contain the recycle bin and any applications that a commonly used. Word, Excel etc.

Tip 2. Folder Hierarchy

Everything fits into a category, start with a main folder and create sub-folders related to the main folder.

Do this for every major category you have files for but it’s not enough to just have the folders there you actually have to place the files in the correct folder.

It may sound easy and you may start off strong, eventually, you will fall back into old patterns and files will be misplaced. Try your best to avoid this and your productivity will skyrocket as locating a document will only take a second.

Tip 3. Naming

Do not create files with meaningless names, I can not stress this enough. At the same time avoid long file names.

Take the extra minute, find a meaningful name that accurately describes the file without repeating the entire full-length name.

Staying on top of emails

If you are like me and get flooded with emails day in, day out. It’s important to stay on top of them, otherwise, they can get out of hand and lead to an inbox full of hundreds of unread emails.

What are the benefits of keeping on top of your emails?

Other than an avoiding a messy inbox full of unread emails, keeping a clean inbox can help avoiding important emails such as deadline reminders or overdue/upcoming bill notices.

Missing theses can become a costly mistake so it’s best to completely avoid this situation but applying the following tips.

Tip 4. Unsubscribe!

If you are receiving an email part of a subscription and you automatically delete it or rarely open it, it’s time to unsubscribe from it. There's a great tool called Unroll.me that you can use to make this process a lot easier. It works for Gmail, Outlook.com and other email system you are likely using for your personal email.

Do this with all unwanted subscriptions, it may take you some time to filter and find theme but it’s worth the clutter-free inbox.

Tip 5. Empty inbox

Keep your inbox empty, do this daily. While inbox zero may not be entirely possible or practical, be sure to clean out any unnecessary emails daily. Strive for as close to inbox zero as you are comfortable.

Keeping your inbox close to empty ensures you don’t miss any important or new emails. It also brings us to our next and final tip.

Tip 6. Folders

Utilize folders and put emails directly into the matching folders.

There are several ways you can organize your email folders by senders or another way is to organize folders based on urgency. “Next Week” “Due Today” “Completed” etc.

Apply the hierarchy rule and you could potentially have an inbox built for super productivity.

Feel free to use any or all of the tips to help you become a better home administrator. 

5 Things to let go of this Evacuation Day

If you've lived in Boston long, you are familiar with Evacuation Day. This unique Bostonian holiday remembers the first major American military victory in the American Revolutionary War. On March 17, 1776, the British troops left or "evacuated" Boston after a battle with the Americans.  

With the history in mind, what type of “evacuation” could you do in your life?  Maybe it could be “evacuating” negative things from your life like people or even foods.  One major thing to eliminate for the season is clutter.  

We all know spring is around the corner and spring cleaning is fast approaching.  Here are 5 tips to “spring cleaning” different things in your life for the year 2017.

1. Eliminate unhealthy relationships – We all have heard the phrase “New Year New Me”, but is that true?  Have you found yourself trying to better yourself but the people around you try to steer you in a different direction?  You may not notice it right away, but take a moment to think about who is in your life and the role they play with supporting you. Always try to surround yourself with people that encourage and support you.
2. Eliminating clutter – Whether you need to clean an office space, your closet, or maybe even your whole house, I clean area makes things so much easier.  Have you ever come in a cluttered area and just get overwhelmed?  That feeling is the worst, but there’s only one way to solve it…..clear the clutter!  Purging can be a great stress reliever and just relaxing time to yourself.  Being in an area that is light on things can help you think clearer and get things done faster.  Now you may think that purging a large space can also be overwhelming, but just remember to go one step at a time and take breaks as needed.
3. Eliminate your fears – This topic is the biggest of them all. Excuses can hinder you from doing things that you want/love to do and a lot of the time, this can be due to fear. Fear is the number one thing that can stop you from doing what you want to do. Will you continue to allow fear to hinder you from your dreams and aspirations?
4. Eliminate the need to stay the same – Allow change into your life. It takes strength to accept change as it awakens the fear inside. Have you ever felt like you do the same thing over and over again and nothing seems to change?  It is time for a little change in your life and FAST! If you have the same daily routine, try switching things up. For instance, if you wake up and from then you are busy all day every day, find some time for yourself to just relax and look at the difference it makes. Start by allowing yourself to change, by eliminating some, or all, of these negative elements and opening yourself up to true happiness.
5. Eliminate the worries of the past – This last one may simply be the easiest, “Don’t Sweat the Past”.  As easy as it may seem, things of the past constantly haunt people. This is bad because holding on the things of the past can and more than likely will affect your future.  Never allow your past to consume you and hinder you from your goals and aspirations in life. 

Whether you are evacuating the negative relationships, clutter, or fears; celebrate Evacuation Day this year with something worth getting out of your life.  By applying these tips, you can live a happier life full of motivation, encouragement, and most importantly…. happiness!