I once was on a project where we had an hour and a half meeting EVERY SINGLE DAY to update everyone on how the rest of the team was doing.

Nice thought, but pretty f*cking stupid, because I’d get out of there and my brain cells would be wasted, half falling asleep in a meeting, and dull for the rest of the day.

A good part of the productive morning (for me), totally wasted.

A meeting every day?

Seriously?

I kept wanting to skip the meeting to see if they’d miss me, but I was heading a division so… I couldn’t exactly nip off for a nap.

My new proposal

Why do we have meetings?

This may sound impossible, but if you have a meeting it’s for 2 things:

• To make a decision
• To inform people

In both cases, you want or are asking for feedback, which will lead to action on somebody’s part, either to adjust what you’ve just presented, or the parties involved will carry out the actions from the meeting.

If you aren’t doing either, then what’s the point?

If you just want to inform people that things are going fine in marketing, then send an email and if they’re interested, they’ll read it and it’s the same in meetings, so why are you wasting time gathering everyone together physically?

Meeting does not mean Managing

For managers out there, meetings are not managing. “Meeting” is the key word here, not “Managing”. By gathering people together for an hour every morning to chat, it is NOT managing. It is MEETING.

It is not your job to babysit them to MAKE SURE that they are aware of the situation.

It is THEIR job to process that information and to keep alert at all times so that they can execute their daily tasks correctly.

If they don’t read their emails, they’ll learn soon enough that you don’t call for meetings just for the hell of it. That when you call a meeting, you mean it and they’ll show up. And if you email them (don’t email them every hour), it’s an important email.

*Any exceptions to 15 minutes or less?

Of course. If you are gathering for a decision that involves a number of parties, you clearly cannot solve something in 15 minutes. What you can do, is increase that to half an hour, to an hour, depending on the complexity of the problem.

Each party must be informed ahead of time when and what the meeting is about, and come prepared. If they are not prepared, you cut the meeting short and meet at a time when both parties can talk intelligently about what’s going on.

I believe half an hour to an hour (maybe) is enough for a major decision, because what happens in meetings most of the time (from my experience) is people say one point, and then it gets repeated like a broken record for the entire meeting. Everyone wants to chime in on the same point with different perspectives.

That is NOT productive. Get the point from one person, jot it down, move on. If someone else tries to bring it up again, say it’s already on the list. Move on.

Or, if you really want to work on the problem all day, make the teams sit in one room together and as they each work independently, they can call out questions or inform the other party right away instead of having to attend a meeting to give an update.

Who to invite?

Only invite the people who are going to do the actual work, or take action on what the decision is.

Don’t invite people who just want to know what’s going on. They’re useless to the meeting and will probably bog the process down. Inform them later of what the decision is, and get feedback if you wish.

Everyone must be on time

This doesn’t work if Lisa from Marketing wanders in 5 minutes late to a 15 minute meeting, holding a cup of Starbucks in her hand because she left to get REAL coffee.

Everyone, must be on time. And if they’re not, they miss the meeting and have to get the information second-hand.

If they feel slighted, it is not your problem. You set the time for the meeting and if it was that important, they’d have been there.

With that being said, don’t set meetings for 7 a.m. Be reasonable considering the traffic in your city and the normal working hours of a day.

Oh, and don’t be late, yourself.

Agenda & Follow-Up Email

It is also the person’s job (who is hosting the meeting) to set an agenda of what they are going to cover in 15 minutes, and to send a follow-up email of the actions he/she has noted down to let everyone know what they have to get done.

This is not a sign for people to NOT take notes during a meeting. If you don’t come with a notepad and pen, and you don’t jot down important information, don’t expect it to be in the email, other than the noted action items.

Cables are an inevitable bothersome necessity.

If you own any kind of gadget, it will ALWAYS come with a cable, even if you try to go as wireless as possible.

So why not make organizing or looking at them as beautiful as possible?

Lufdesign

Wire Blooms Cable Clips

These are my 5 basic laws to packing lightly.

I also have a separate list of items to pack each time I travel, but since I travel for different reasons to different locations all the time, I tend to switch it up on the fly when I actually pack.

Be flexible.

1. Bring fewer things because LESS IS MORE. Really.

The less you bring, the better. I bring more tops than bottoms because I tend to sweat more around my back, front and under my arms.

My legs? Not so much. Dry as a bone.

I also tend to pack separates, so that I can mix and match. Bringing a jersey dress (that won’t wrinkle) is also a good idea because you can wear a sweater over it, or another top to change it up.

Plus, you never know when you have to dress up a bit for an impromptu meeting or dinner.

Also, roll up everything instead of packing it flat. You’re going to fit more in the suitcase and have fewer wrinkles on your clothing.

2. No big or bulky things, you gotta carry all of that!!

The smaller the better.

I mean.. shoes are a bit of a pain in the butt, but I tend to wear my thick running shoes (meant for comfortable 14 hour days of walking), and put my ballet flats or flip flops into the suitcase.

Which kind of goes against what I like to do — wear flats on the plane so I can take them off and relax.

But sometimes you have to make compromises depending on where you are going and what you are planning on doing.

On business trips, I only bring a pair of flats for the plane & nights out, flip flops to wear in the hotel room and heels for business.

I know women like to pack curling irons, special ionized hairdryers and all that.. but if you TRULY don’t need that (aren’t going to a fancy dinner or wedding) in the time that you are gone, try to go without for the 2 weeks and see how it goes.

I mean, really. Are you going to curl your hair poolside at some beach resort? I wouldn’t.

I’d be swimming and getting my hair wet and frizzy, but that’s just me.

FYI: There’s a low chance that you’ll ever see those people again.

3. If it doesn’t fit, don’t upgrade to a larger bag to carry

RESIST THE URGE!

If you can’t fit in a special set of shoes, then don’t. Pare down. Make decisions. Think about what you might be bringing back from vacation as well.

I mean, you have to carry this stuff around, unless you have a personal butler..

The best thing to do, is decide on your bag to carry (1 carry-on and a small purse) and make it work.

You won’t use or need everything. Trust me. My sister went backpacking across Europe and brought 2 pairs of heels and 2 dresses.

I told her she was crazy and she’d never use them. She said: “But So-And-So says we might go clubbing”

Did she go to a club or wear those items?

Nooooooooooooo!!

Did she regret carrying that excess weight and taking up space?

Hell yeah. She was mad she could have brought an extra pillow or something instead.

4. Make items do double duty

For example, if I plug in my iPod to sync into my laptop, it charges as well. So I don’t bring a separate charger.

Or, I bring my Belkin wall charger with 2 USB ports, and I just plug it into the wall, charge my cell, my iPod, my camera and my laptop all at the same time rather than bring a power bar and separate chargers for my camera and iPod.

If I bring a t-shirt to sleep in, I make sure it’s still a nice t-shirt so I can wear it on my last day or just in case something happens to one of my other tops.

5. Bring things you don’t mind losing or leaving

Bring clothes you don’t want to wear any more, so that you can leave it behind or toss. Or bring books you want to finish reading along the way, and leave them for someone else to enjoy.

I tend to bring shoes that are really ratty and about to fall apart. I wear them and then if they finish breaking, I throw them out and wear my new shoes I got on vacation instead.

This rarely happens, but I’ve been known to do it.

You also don’t want to bring your most expensive dress and shoes unless you are planning on going to a wedding and babysitting the outfit.

Bring something you don’t mind losing so that you don’t cry about having lost your favourite teddy bear or something when you should have left her at home. (True story.)

I’ve written briefly about it before, but I think it’s time to go into detail on how I lead a 95% paperless life.

1. Ask for everything to be changed into an e-bill

Stop the problem at the source.

Every time a statement floats into your mailbox, call or email them to request an e-bill instead.

By doing this, I’ve cut down on 90% of my recurring paper bills (some still come in like bank statements because they won’t or can’t do e-bills by law).

2. Save a PDF format of the bill

If you get an e-bill that is NOT in an Adobe PDF format, you can put it into Microsoft Word, and use the free program CutePDF to convert it into a PDF.

I suggest PDF formats, so you don’t accidentally delete an important part on a modifiable document.

3. Sort your papers

This is a nasty task if you haven’t been organized with neatly labeled folders and files.

Some general categories to start with:

• Government
• Banking/Investing
• University
• Insurance (e.g. Home, Car)
• Bills (e.g. Utilities, Telephone, Cable)
• Receipts/Warranties
• Taxes

4. Separate the items that NEED to stay in hard copy form

Taxes

Certificates (Birth, Marriage, Divorce, even Death of loved ones)

Wills and Testaments

Use your judgement.

5. Buy/Appropriate the following gadgets:

• Scanner (a $50 one will do)
• 2 x USB Key or Hard drive (I recommend Western Digital, Iomega or Seagate, and you won’t need more than 16 GB at the most)
• Shredder (Optional)

URGENT: I strongly recommend buying 2 or 3 USB keys or Hard drives, because once you scan the papers, the hard copy is lost forever once you shred it.

You do NOT want to lose that data.

Instead of buying a shredder, you can use these two cheapo methods I devised when my shredder conked out on me.

D-I-Y Papier-Mache

1. Rip all your statements up into shreds
2. Fill a kitchen sink with warm to slightly hot water (so your hands won’t freeze)
3. Throw the shreds in there
4. Let them soak until they’re really “done”
5. Ball them up into paper balls, papier-mache style, squeezing out ALL the excess water, really padding it down
6. Let them dry overnight on a rack
7. Throw them out, or use them to play catch in the yard.

This works beautifully because now the pieces of paper are all mixed up, and they cannot be peeled off, or read without falling apart in your hands.

Let it Burn

Just burn it. Grab a large metal can (or if you’re doing a wood fire grill outside), burn the papers.

No one can read ashes.

6. Set up the folders on your Hard drive

Use the categories from before:

• Government
• Banking/Investing
• Insurance (e.g. Home, Car)
• Bills (e.g. Utilities, Telephone, Cable)
• Receipts/Warranties
• Taxes

7. Come up with a file naming strategy

Often overlooked, naming files properly is a lost art in my opinion.

Do something along the lines of:

MajorName/Category_BriefDescription_Year-Month-Day

Name it backwards from Year to Day, so it sorts chronologically by year, and then by month, then by day.

E.g. #1 Driver’s License papers for renewal of plates October 19th 2009

Drivers-License-Bureau_Renewal-Of-Plates_2009-10-19

E.g. #2 Bank Statement for the month of November, 2009

Bank-Name_Statement_2009-11

8. Start scanning and shredding

The worst part of all, and the most time consuming.

I did about 20-30 lbs of paper (guessing here), in 3 months, scanning half an hour each night for 4 days.

It might take you longer, or it might be super quick. But it sure won’t be fun.

9. Have a drink

Smile at your super light load of papers, have a celebratory glass of wine (or huge piece of cake in my case) and keep up on it.

I’ll admit. I used to spend about $70 a month on beauty things. Trying out new eyeshadows, Bare Escentuals foundation, concealers, mascaras, hair products, shampoos, lotions.. you name it, I spent it.

Now, my beauty and toiletry spending has been very low. Like… $10 a month or less.

It’s because I stopped dying my hair, wearing a lot of makeup, and makeup everyday, the cost of keeping myself up has gone down.

I really just wear minimal makeup to work, heavy duty when I go to events (but then I find it makes me look a bit older so I tend to lay off the makeup or at least, use techniques that make me look more natural).

What I do spend a lot on is lotions for my skin like moisturizer, exfoliants, toners, cleansers, and acne fighting agents.

What I’ve mostly purchased from is Paula’s Choice, and her stuff is not cheap at around $20 a bottle. I think I spent $90 the last time I went on a splurge and bought enough stuff to last me for the next couple of months and longer since I use small dabbed amounts.

My budget used to be $50/month, but now it’s around $15 a month and if I don’t spend it, I throw it into savings and pull on that if I have to when I go on my little yearly purchase of toiletries and makeup when I run out of products.

Other than that, I find that my skin has responded better to not being covered in makeup, I don’t spend money on buying makeup removers to remove this makeup, and my hair has gotten a lot softer, shinier and more manageable.

(That of course, will NOT put me off wearing makeup or experimenting if only I had girl friends in the city to play with )

Not only that, it helps de-clutter your bathroom and give it more of a minimalist feel.

Which would you prefer, a bathroom filled with half used bottles?

Or a bathroom with just a couple of well-selected products?

It looks more visually appealing with less products, and you also don’t feel as guilty that you didn’t use up all of that lotion before buying another fragrance.

Some options of what to do when you have too much:

1. Toss anything that’s hardened or expired

2. Give them away. It could be a neat thing to try it, like a sample for your friends. It’s also a frugal way to try out your friends’ unused products as well

3. Use it all up and ban yourself from buying any more products until #1 or #2 has been completed