I have just finished a new office space—three times the space I have now for myself and my program manager. There is a separate resource room and a media presentation room. The problem is that I won’t let myself move into this beautiful new space until I get a control on my files and pa-pers that I have spread everywhere in the current office. I try to start every week clutter-free, with my desk clear. The trouble is that, by Tuesday morning, the desk and the floor around it are starting to get covered with piles of active files and notes from my conversations with colleagues, clients and prospects. I like being able to see my notes and papers while I’m talking. It’s like a security blanket for me. Here are tips I can share with you on my journey toward getting organized.

1. Hire a professional to make yourself accountable. Having someone come into your office is a particularly deli-cate issue, especially if you have a home office. It’s really letting someone into your personal space, so the right chem-istry and personality matter a lot here. I hired an assistant who is very well organized. Pack rats don’t scare her. I’ve known her for years, and feel comfortable with her in my space. She’s the perfect balance of tough and sympathetic, and I trust her opinion immensely. No more excuses—I found the perfect taskmaster to keep me honest here, and she certainly does that.
   
2. Set priorities and get started. We agreed to begin with a few projects she can do, so that I have some time to prepare. It’s kind of like having to straighten up before your cleaning person can actually clean your house. This way we can start building some momentum and begin working together productively. I have receipts to input into spread-sheets, contact files to be updated and general administrative duties to be dealt with—all the things I really hate to do, which is why they pile up. We’re working up to purging old files, throwing out irrelevant information, and giving away things that others might appreciate but I no longer use or need.
   
3. Develop a filing system and stick to it. Whether you have filing cabinets, computer files or both (like me), create a way to organize your work and correspondence so you only keep what’s necessary and you know where to find it when you need to access the information again.
   
4. Go paperless where possible. I have colleagues who’ve done this, and I truly admire folks who don’t require a paper trail of their work-in-progress. Call me old-fashioned, but I really like to see things printed out. I love written to-do lists, from which I can check off items as I complete them. As many of you probably do, I have tons of 5x7 cards in files with ideas for speeches. I’m really going to try to develop a less paper-intensive system in my new clean office. I’m already making progress—drafting articles and speeches online without stacks of paper and notes as a crutch.
   

Organizing your office and your life is a critical part of the intimate dance of balancing work and personal life. Work-life balance is the ever-elusive search for that middle ground where we will be pleasantly busy and challenged, yet able to enjoy life as it comes. It is a constant work in progress and I find that there is not just one way of achieving it. What three things can you do to achieve more balance for the next 30 days?

In addition to being a speaker, Christina is senior VP of operations for Bruster’s Real Ice Cream. Her passion is teaching others how to build resiliency, so that, when adversities in life come, they will be prepared to survive. Christina has been featured in many media outlets and published in over 40 health and educational journals. Contact her at cparker@brusters.net.