Happy Mice - experiment

A cancer researcher designated two groups of rats. The first group of rats was given tolerance levels of food, light, warmth, space and were also left severely alone, but the other group had optimum light, nice food, warmth, and they were handled everyday with a lot of love and talked to and petted. As a result the second group of rats became very friendly, they were called the ‘happy rats’. This treatment was carried on for many months.

After a few months, the unhappy rats were very aggressive, emotionally neglected and were very angry. The happy rats were very tame now, very friendly, very loving. The researcher them impregnated these rats with a little dose of TB and cancer cells and injected them and carried on with the normal treatment. Within a month, all of the unhappy rats had succumbed to these diseases and died. The happy rats on the other hand had made their immune system so strong that they were able to overcome these deadly diseases and as far as we know are living happily ever after!

Moral – to be happy is not only a desirable state of mind but it is essential to our good health. If we start to look after our minds we actually are protecting our bodies in a very powerful and natural way. We should know exactly what makes us happy and when we think positively, then in a very natural way, the mind becomes stronger, calmer and we become happier and protect ourselves from illnesses by empowering our immune systems.

Tips to Manage Paperwork

Think about the volume of mail you receive everyday along with newsletters, magazines, and paperwork from your employer. This amount of paperwork can be overwhelming so this article will give you a few good tips to manage paperwork.

The first in tips to manage paperwork is to handle the paperwork as few times as possible. Many people will come back to the paperwork and not do anything. Make a decision when you first touch the paperwork on whether you need to take action and keep it or whether you need to throw it away. This can help substantially in managing the inflow of paperwork you need to later look over.

Another important tip is to create locations for where paperwork needs to go. Many people make one stack of paperwork and that can be hard to manage because it can quickly become overloaded. Have one specific location for your bills. Have one location for coupons to buy groceries. Have a location for important papers for upcoming appointments. Many families will have a central calendar where important papers such as dental or doctor appointment cards are kept.

Another good tip is to create a filing system. If you have paperwork that needs to be filed, do this on a regular basis. This could be an activity that you undertake once a month or once a week perhaps. This filing system will encompass all important papers that you need to keep on a regular basis: banking, household, everyday bills, taxes, and any other categories important to you. The filing system should also be broken down so that you can access important documents quickly. You should either place the newest documents in front or in the back. This can allow you to weed out documents as you do not need them. An example may be if you keep your electricity bill. Would there be any reason for you to keep it beyond seven years potentially? Most people would say no. This can allow you to effectively manage how much paperwork is always in the filing system.

These tips to manage paperwork should assist you. The key behind this is that you continue this on a regular basis. This reduces the amount of time that you have to waste on finding papers so that you can be as efficient as possible with your paperwork. You can decide to use whatever tips you want to use but make it work so that it flows with how you live your life. That is the most important part-it must fit naturally with how you work and manage your life.

How to Organise Your Paperwork to Be Your Best

Most people find themselves struggling to find their latest bills or specific documents because they are not organised or know how to become organised. This article will give you basic steps you can take so that you know how to organise paperwork.

The first step can start with your mail. Many people receive a great deal of mail every single day. You can stack this mail in one corner and not touch it for several days which can make it overwhelming when you undertake the task of sorting and organising the mail. A good daily task is to go through the mail and open what needs to be opened and throw out or shred what is not needed. You can then divide the paperwork that needs to be kept into two different piles: immediate response and non-immediate response.

A good rule on thumb when working on how to organise your paperwork is that any mail that can be answered or finished in less than two or three minutes should deserve an immediate response. Anything else will be classified as a non-immediate response.

Be sure to set aside time on a weekly basis to go through everything that would fit in a non-immediate response. This will probably involve bills and any mail you need to respond to which exceed the two-three minute response window.

Have a specific area for your follow-up paperwork as well will be one of the most important tips in your plan on how to organise your paperwork. Many people will put their important papers in different areas so you are not consistent in your placement of papers. If you have a set spot every day to place paperwork, this will help you during your weekly time slot to get through everything quickly and efficiently.

If you have papers you must keep, it is good to have a filing system as well. This can be broken down by the companies to which the bills are paid or a particular category such as anything car-related goes in the car folder. You could have a file for all banking activities or one for all house activities such as repairs, insurance, etc. Have one central location for all of this and a good filing box usually is very inexpensive. It is one of the better purchases that you can make.

These are helpful tips that you should explain how to organise your paperwork. It simply comes down to having a system and following that system on a daily basis. This reduces the amount of paperwork you have so that what you do have is completely manageable.

Different Types of Clutter & How it Affects You

Clutter is about more than unwanted messes and large amounts of unnecessary items accumulating in your home. While this type of clutter is a problem for many people, clutter can also take on the forms of mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, and paperwork. Although some people who cope with clutter do not realise that it is having an effect on them at all, others know that it is bothersome but are not fully aware of how negative it can be to their lives.

One impact of clutter is it will impair your productivity. You will get less done; and what does get accomplished is often not at its best. Clutter hinders your productivity by distracting you from what you need to do, as well as by causing you to waste time when you cannot readily find whatever you need.

Clutter can interfere with your quality of living. You may find yourself thinking too much, worrying too much, and feeling tired, sad, or depressed. You will not be gaining the joy and sense of fulfillment from life when your living space contains an unnecessary amount of clutter. Clutter can affect your physical health, also. The active zest for living which has much to do with spending time in a neat, organised environment, may be slowed down and diminished to the point of losing your overall sense of wellbeing.

A cluttered home has a negative impact on one’s social life. You may be embarrassed to invite people to your home, and, in turn, many people will not be comfortable there. You may start to avoid social contacts, and even the people you like the most may begin to avoid you.

A clear consequence of clutter is that it provides much more work for you. It will require more cleaning, and a considerable amount of time being put into sorting through clutter in order to find the items you need. In addition to leading you to lose important items, you may also be wasting money replacing things simply because you cannot find them or are not certain whether you have them.

At its extreme, clutter can cause you to not like yourself or your home as much as you should. You will not have the full appreciation of the place where you live if it is filled with clutter, and you may even begin to think less of yourself due to your home’s condition.

All it takes is a little effort and motivation to correct the problem. When the clutter is gone from your home, you will soon see the positive effect it will have on your entire life.

© Copyright 2009 Karen Perkins All rights reserved

Karen Perkins of Clear and Clutterfree is a small business owner based in Sydney, Australia. With qualifications in Counselling, Business Management and Training, Karen provides professional decluttering and organising services.

So Why Do People Keep Clutter?

Considering how beneficial it is to every aspect of your life to be organised, neat, and free of clutter, it may seem odd that people would keep clutter at all. After all, it takes so little time and effort to deal with clutter, it would seem only logical to make it a priority.

One reason people keep clutter is because they cannot bear to part with anything. While nearly everyone likes to keep some amount of personal possessions, souvenirs, and other nice things, some go quite overboard with the practice. Instead of nicely displaying favourite items, or putting them away in a cupboard, large and small items alike accumulate around the home and turn into unnecessary clutter. Some people have developed this habit simply because it feels comforting.

Clutter can also accumulate when one does not assign priority to what should be kept and what should not. This can include stacks of paperwork in the office, tools or hobby items, and large amounts of clothing which one never wears. In these instances, clutter can accumulate when one does not dispose of items which are no longer practical or useful.

For many people, clutter accumulates due to too many things or not being organised. Rather than putting items in their proper place, there may be work or school items, toys, clothing, and numerous other objects which are not in use set aside until there is more and more clutter.

Most people who acquire and keep clutter are not lazy, or even unmotivated. For many, it has become a comfortable habit. It can be easier to leave everything where it is, to keep everything which one no longer needs, and allow all of it to build up in the home and in the office. While some people truly hate the thought of disposing of anything, or putting everything away neatly, most who keep a cluttered environment do so because it has become familiar to them. At some point in time, they have probably stopped thinking about the negative effects which can be caused by living or working in a cluttered environment on an everyday basis.

It is a good idea to begin to recognise how much healthier and more productive you will be when you decide to deal with the clutter. No matter which reason for keeping clutter describes you the best, you will surely be glad to see the benefits of not having it in your everyday life.

© Copyright 2009 Karen Perkins All rights reserved

Karen Perkins of Clear and Clutterfree is a small business owner based in Sydney, Australia. With qualifications in Counselling, Business Management and Training, Karen provides professional decluttering and organising services and is a member of Australasian Association of Professional Organisers AAPO.