Digital cameras make it easy and fun to capture your memories. Many digital cameras can store hundreds of photos at a time – many more than the 24 or 36 that film cameras can. Organizing the sheer number of photos that can come from one memory card can be a challenge. Managing your digital photos can be easy – and fun – with a few simple tips:

1. Toss the junk. Unflattering photos, bad camera angles, and just plain awful shots can take up lots of space on your hard drive. Before organizing your photos, go through your digital photo collection with a fine-toothed comb, and make sure that you’re only keeping photos that you like. Not only will you free up space on your computer, you’ll make it easier to organize your photos by reducing the number of photos that need to be sorted.

2. Sort and separate. If you’ve been keeping all of your photos in one folder on your hard drive, it can be tough to find the one that you’re looking for. Instead of using just one folder, create multiple folders by month and year, or by month/year and subject or event. Once you have your folders set up, them sort your photos into their new, separated homes. As you take new photos, create folders in the same manner to store your new shots. This will make it easy to find your photos later on when you’re looking for them.

3. Software makes it a snap. Once you’ve set up your folders, managing your photos is easy, using readily available software. On a Mac, iPhoto is the standard, and on the PC, I usually recommend Picasa or Adobe Photoshop Elements. These software tools are designed to make it easy for you to organize, fix, search, and print your digital photo collection. Using software, you can browse your photos in various thumbnail sizes, repair the dreaded red-eye effect, add tags to your photos to make them searchable, and create slideshows to share with your friends and family.

4. Backup for safety. Losing all of your memories if your computer crashed could be disastrous. For that reason, I always suggest backing up your digital photos to CD or DVD (preferably the rewritable variety, so you can reuse your discs again and again). Many of the software programs used for organizing digital photos have a backup feature built-in, which can make the process of storing you files for safekeeping very easy.

Photos (digital and traditional) are meant to be seen. Once you’ve organized your photos, it’s easy to share those memories in photo albums, prints, and slideshows. Spending a little time organizing your photo collection can make sharing your memories easy and fun once again.

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When you are running a business and you have lots of things going on, trying to steward them all into one calendar typically doesn’t work because you run into the problem of having so much information in one place that you can’t see anything. It becomes so cluttered with information that you’ve lost any sense of priority. What’s more helpful is to break things out into separate, overlapping calendars by their overall topic or category, or how they fit into your business. Using electronic calendars like Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook allow you to create multiple calendars that you can turn off or on, showing everything together or focusing on specific kinds of tasks.

I suggest splitting things out into separate calendars that are by topic, category, business type, or action, so that it’s easy to see what you need. For instance, you might have one calendar that lists all your projects, including key tasks and deadlines. Additionally, you might have a social media calendar that has detailed information on specific tweets or blog posts or Facebook updates. Perhaps you have a third calendar that is specifically related to meetings and your real-time commitments and doesn’t include any of your project-oriented deadlines.

By color-coding these different calendars, you can view all the calendars at once and see how each layer of tasks syncs up with the others. On the flip side, by viewing the calendars individually you can focus on the information you want to prioritize at that moment without feeling overwhelmed by data that is not relevant to the task at hand.

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In this video, I share three ways that you can boost your bottom line and fatten up your wallet through the process of getting organized and increasing your productivity.

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You’re running out of space, but you don’t want to get rid of anything—does this dilemma sound familiar? If you’ve reached your breaking point, take this opportunity to revisit everything in your space to make sure that you are really only keeping those things you really use, want, or love. For the things that don’t fit the bill, look for alternative storage methods.

For instance, if you have a lot of paper that you’re not using, scan them so that you can free up some floor space without trashing the important information altogether. You might find that you can eliminate most or all of the contents of your filing cabinets—freeing up room for incoming papers or eliminating the need for that piece of furniture entirely.

This is also a good time to go through each individual space in your office one by one and really open each drawer, cabinet, and shelf and read through what’s there. If you’re not sure where to start, pick an area at random and then start moving through your office in a clockwise order. I would bet that even if you think you don’t want to get rid of anything, you’ll find on closer inspection that are there is a lot that could go and thereby free up some space for you.

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Not every email you receive requires the same kinds of actions—or any action at all. If you’ve got an avalanche of messages in your inbox, the first step to making sense of it all is to create subfolders for each of the different kinds of messages you receive—project-related messages, newsletters, etc. Once those folders have been created, you can use a tool called filters or rules to automatically sort your incoming email. This can be a huge productivity booster!

Filters or rules are found in the settings for virtually any email program. By creating filters or rules, you can automatically file any messages coming in from a particular sender to a designated folder, bypassing your inbox entirely. This way you don’t have to see it or read it until you have time to deal with it. As new messages come in you can skip past those messages you know will not require your immediate attention. They will be in a special folder waiting for you. You’ll know that there are messages waiting for you in that folder because your email program will alert you.

You might use this feature for specific clients, vendors, co-workers, or resources. When it’s time to read through your email, you can go into the individual folders and take the corresponding actions then. Everything is already pre-sorted for you, so it should be easier and less time-consuming for you to go through your inbox.

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And it’s true – when you try to do everything yourself, it can be
challenging to complete all your personal or business tasks. But what’s also
true is that there are often opportunities to spread work around and share
responsibilities with other people – thereby lessening your load. But you have to
do it right. Here’s how to get started:

Find partners. What parts of your work (or your life) could you use some help
with? If you find yourself overwhelmed with particular tasks, especially ongoing
ones, partnering with someone who can help can be a great way for both of
you to benefit. For example, one of my clients in the remodeling industry was
spending a good chunk of his time helping clients choose tile colors and other
design elements for their remodeling projects. This element of the work wasn’t
particularly interesting to him, didn’t bring in any revenue as he offered it to
clients for free, and it also ate up his valuable time. This just wasn’t the right task
for him to doing. But to an interior designer looking for new clients, this would
be an ideal situation, as they would get face time with a new potential client and
have the chance to show off their skills. He has since recruited several designers
that he can now share this task with. Everybody wins – his time is freed up,
the interior designer gets to meet a potential client, and the client gets experts
working on each portion of their project.

Make agreements. In order for any partnership to work, both partners need
to be clear on what the roles and responsibilities of each person are. To avoid
any problems down the line, discuss expectations, tasks, and outcomes with
your partner, and write them down. This is equally true both at home and at
work. Getting everyone clear on who is doing what and why is as important
for household chores as it is for sharing tasks on a work project. Without clear
agreements, it’s impossible for everyone to know what they’re responsible for
doing.

Keep track. For each one of your partners, you’ll want a place to record your
agreement, along with any notes you have about them and/or your work or
projects together. Create a shared notebook in Evernote for each person, and
within there make several notes – one for your agreement, one for meeting notes,
and one for project updates. If you are sharing any reference documents or files
with each other, you can also keep them in this notebook as well. Having all of
these disparate parts collected in one spot will make it easier to keep track of
your relationships and projects with each partner.

Of course, it does take some time to create these partnerships and agreements.
But by doing so, you’ll ideally be able to focus your time a bit better while
simultaneously getting more tasks completed overall.

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Integrating a new employee is a somewhat complicated process that can be made easier the more often you do it. Each person you bring on is different, and thus needs different sorts of guidance and training. Nevertheless it is really helpful to have a set process for how you bring people on board. Here are a few general ways to approach the process of orienting new employees.

Start with the big picture. Even if it you are hiring a part-time employee or a contractor who will be working with you regularly, get them familiar not just with their specific tasks, but who are you as a company. What are you about, what are your goals, what are you trying to do in a bigger sense, and how do they fit into that? Make them feel a sense of place within your organization, even if it is a small piece of it. Understanding their sense of purpose within the grand scheme of things can be really empowering and will help them feel invested right away.

Use a variety of training techniques. Once your new employee understands the bigger picture, you can hone in on their specific tasks or duties. Since everyone has a different learning style, oftentimes it is helpful to give them that information in multiple ways—written descriptions of processes, a short classroom-style orientation on their duties, and/or some experiential sample projects to help get them accustomed to their specific tasks. For the latter style of training, it’s best to give them tasks that are very similar to what they will typically be doing, but not in a scenario where they feel that if they fail they might be fired right away.

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One frequently overlooked benefit of getting organized is that it can actually save you money. In addition to finding cash or checks buried in a drawer, in an old bag or briefcase, or under an old stack of paper, there are multiple other ways that getting organized can help your bottom line. Here are just a few:

Ask for the discounts. Gather bills for the various utilities that you use, including cell phone, Internet, land line phone, and any others. Once you have all the bills together, set aside some time to call each vendor and ask for discounts on each of your services. Just the simple act of you calling and asking for a discount can sometimes uncover deals that you never knew existed. Don’t expect your vendors to contact you and offer you discounts – you need to ask for them. I make a practice of doing this at least every six months.

Lose the late fees. Since you just gathered all of your bills in one spot, look them over for any late fees that you might be paying. Late fees are not only an annoyance that cost you money in the short term; they can also negatively affect your credit rating, which can cost you money in the long term. To help avoid late charges and fees, take a few minutes and sign up for automatic bill payment, which will pay your bills on time every month. I recommend charging all of your bills against one credit card, rather than having your bills debited from your checking account. That way, if a billing error comes about, you can dispute it with your credit card company.

Scrap the extra storage. An offsite storage unit should be looked at as an expense of last resort, something that you pay for only when you absolutely have to. Most of the clients I work with that have storage units generally have very little sense of what’s actually being stored, and mainly keep renting their storage units out of sheer inertia. Granted, taking time to go through and organize a storage unit is not high on most people’s priorities lists, but if you are currently renting one, I urge you to set aside some time to weed through the belongings that you currently are paying to store. With some weeding and consolidation, you may be able to incorporate your belongings into storage spaces that you already have at home or in your office.

Donate for dollars. With tax time rapidly approaching, it’s a good idea to start looking for ways to reduce the amount you owe to Uncle Sam. One possible way to save money on taxes is to donate things that you no longer want, need, or use and receive a tax deduction for your donation. Any money you can save on your taxes is like cash in your pocket!

Of course, this list is not exhaustive–but it’s a great place to start. What are some of your ideas for how to save money by getting more organized?

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In 2012 it’s just crazy not to gather all your favorite blogs and websites into one easy-to-read RSS feed. The question is, which one is the best? Well, it depends on how you keep up with your internet reading: on a computer, a tablet like the iPad, or through your smart phone. Here are some of my favorite programs and apps for each scenario.

For the computer: I really like Google Reader. It has a very simple, clean interface—not many frills, but it gets the job done. It lets you read your feeds easily and simply, and you can organize your feeds into groups—for instance, segregating your tech and sports blogs, or grouping your favorite, must-read blogs into one folder. Other aggregators like My Yahoo will also let you import RSS feeds, so if you are already using My Yahoo you can import your feeds there too and just get them into a site which you are already in the habit of visiting.

For the iPad: Flipboard, which is available in the App Store, is a really beautiful way to view your feeds. It takes all of your different feeds—whether they are RSS feeds, social media, or websites—and presents them in a magazine-style layout. It takes today’s technology and meshes it with yesterday’s presentation format of a magazine, coming up with a really great, usable result.

For the smart phone: If you are on an Android or an iPhone, you might want to look at Pulse, which is a really nice way to read feeds on a smaller screen.

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Time flies when you’re having fun, but what if you’re not having fun and your time still seems to fly away? Do you ever feel like your schedule runs you, rather than the other way around? Maybe you’re feeling like you can’t get everything done, or that you don’t really know where your time goes. Sound familiar? If so, a “time makeover” might be just what you need! Here are some simple strategies to help get your calendar under control:

• Take stock. To truly maximize your use of time, it’s helpful to first find out how you’re currently spending your day. In a journal or on a notepad, write down what you’re doing from hour to hour for a few days. Note what your current daily schedule is (if you have one), what’s working, and what isn’t. Also notice what your energy rhythms are—are you more “up” in the morning, or are you more of a night owl?
• Check it out. After keeping a log for a few days, start looking for patterns. Are you spending most of your time on the things that you want or need to do, or are you wasting lots of time procrastinating or surfing the web? Where is time being used well, and where do you see room for improvement? Also see whether the things that are most important to you are synchronized with when you’re the most “up.”
• Build blocks. Group your different daily tasks into categories, and then make the categories into “time blocks.” Common categories are work time (time you spend at your job or business), admin tasks (paying bills, processing paper, etc.), pleasure time (breaks and other downtime), and kid-related time (carpooling, getting the kids ready for school).
• Fill it in. Look at a blank calendar and start setting up your revised schedule. Put your time blocks onto your calendar based on how much time the tasks within each category take up. As things come up during your day or your week, you’ll now have time literally “blocked out” for the tasks to fit into. Try to group related tasks together—for instance, if you noted in your logs that you were paying bills online on Tuesday and writing checks on Friday, try to group those together on your calendar. Every process that you can group or streamline will make a difference in how efficient you can be.
• Keep at it. After you’ve filled in your time blocks with tasks, you’ll be left with a revamped schedule. Try implementing your new schedule slowly—that way you can make adjustments and tweaks. If something works well—great! If not, see if you can shift a task to another time block or shift the blocks around. Keep with it until you find the mix that works for you.

You can get control over your schedule! With a little advance planning and a few of my tips, you’ll soon be master of your day once more.

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