Speaker 1: Hi everybody, this is Ruzanna from EfficiencyAndOrganization.com and in today's video I'm going to show you how I use project folders to keep the gazillions of things that I have going on all organized and my goal is to help you to see if you can develop a system like that that will also help you in your run. In case you haven't seen any of the previous videos that I have, I'm an educator, an assistant principal, entrepreneur, writer, author and the creator of EfficiencyAndOrganization.com. In every video I like to share a fun fact about me so I usually do one at the beginning of each video and at the end and the goal is for you to just get to know me a little bit better. A fun fact for today's video is that I love the show The Office. It actually took me a while to start watching it but once I watched it, oh my gosh, it's like one of the best shows I've ever seen. If you're also a fan of The Office, if you could comment on it, I'd love to find out about it. So I want to ask you some questions before I go any deeper in what I want to discuss in today's video. Are you in school right now? Do you have a family? Do you have a large group of friends and family? Do you have a lot of projects, a lot of activities? Do you have any major plans, any trips that you're planning? In other words, are you like a super busy person with a lot going on? So I want to tell you how this whole concept of project folders came about. I found myself doing, having like a lot of things to do. It's really hard when you have a family, when you have a home and you have a job and then you have a side job and then you have school. So it's kind of hard to keep track of everything, right? So what I did was I found myself like losing track and forgetting things. That was the big thing was forgetting things. So a project folder is really just taking an old pocket folder on top of it, stapling a document that I came up with on Microsoft Word. It has three different things. That's it. Just three things. The first one, the first column is a checkmark. The second column is where I list the activity and then the third one is the date, like kind of like a due date. Here is an example. So let's say I'm having a party because a friend is coming over. Let's say the party is going to be on August 31st. So what I do is on top of the folder, on top of that Word document, I say Kate's visit. Then I write down the date, which is August 31st. In the task column, I write down everything I need to do for Kate's party. Send invitations, buy food, buy drinks, buy dessert, make a banner. After that, I go in the right column and I write down when approximately I want to get these things done. So the Kate's party folder becomes one of several folders that are on my desk that I need to prioritize. Even though I have a whole bunch of folders, I might have like 30, 40 folders. What I do is I only put on my desk in my clear view, maybe like four or five that I'm working on that day. After I write down the dates for when I need to accomplish all the activities for Kate's party, I go to my planner. So what I do is I go in there and for each day that I've set on the project folder what I'm going to do, I also write it here because I have two ways of keeping, making sure that I hold myself accountable, not only on the folder, but also in here. So for example, if I'm going to buy drinks on August 30th for the party, I write that here. If I need to set the table that morning, I write that here. So not only is it in the activity folder, but it's also here. I take that document, the word document, so in this case it's Kate's party, and I staple it on top of a used folder of some kind. Usually I make sure it's a pocket folder. So these are all old pocket folders that I have, nothing fancy, and these I purchased from the Dollar Tree. And so what I do is I just staple them on top here. And here I have some examples. So I have one for bills. I have one for employment because pretty soon I'm going to start looking for a promotion. I have another one for student loans because I still owe a ton of money for student loans. It's with the federal government, so I have certain tasks that I need to get accomplished. So I write them here, that way I don't forget. Furthermore, I have project folders for my website. So as I mentioned, my website, efficiencyandorganization.com, I have several pages like most websites do. I have one for small business, one for personal life, one for personal finances, time management, so I have different pages. And each week I focus on just one page because I work full time, I'm an assistant principal, and that takes a lot of my daily hours during the day. So I can only focus on my website, just one page a week. And so this week, for example, it's all about personal finances. That's what I'm writing about. So that's the folder I have on my desk. All the other folders go here. They go on the side, and then when I'm all done with personal finances this week, next week I'll pick one of the other ones that also needs attention. The reason why I tend to use the pocket folders is because sometimes I find coupons and other documents that I put here. Some of the folders, they stay that way because let's say it's something that I need to work on throughout the year, and as I check things off, they just kind of stay there in my bin. However, other times, like in this case, Kate's party, I'm just going to rip that out, throw it away, and use the folder for another thing that's coming up, another activity, another event. These covers, the folders themselves, you could get from anywhere, but the covers are in Word format, Microsoft Word. I have them on efficiencyandorganization.com under products, and I'll have the link down at the bottom. They're just a dollar. For one dollar, you could use as many, print as many as you want. I really hope this is an idea that you can implement if you think it will help you. It's done a lot of good for me over the last couple of years. I use these all the time to stay organized, to stay on top of things. When you visit the website, if you could subscribe, that'd be awesome because once a month only, I don't do it every week, once a month, what I do is I send out an informational, like a resource guide, all the articles I did during the month. I just kind of summarize them on there, and I email them to you. So if you'd like, you could subscribe there. I would love for you to subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell. New videos are released every Saturday at six o'clock. The second fun fact for the video is ever since I've had phones, I've only ever had iPhones. I've never had Samsung. I've tried Samsung, and I'm not a fan. So if you're also an iPhone lover, comment on it. I'd love to find out about it. Also comment if you think this is an idea that you think resonates with you, the whole concept of having project folders, and if you think you could take on something like that. I think in life, a lot of people come off as being lazy, come off as being unreliable, and they're not. They're actually very capable, intelligent people who could do stuff. It's just that they take on too many tasks. They don't know how to say no, and then the disorganization gets out of hand, and it makes them look bad, but it doesn't have to be. All we have to do is come up with a system that'll work to make sure that we are doing everything in time when we're supposed to, and people can rely on us for help any time in the future. I appreciate you being with me, and I'll catch you in the next video.