Get organized in the new year
Clean your work space, and raise your productivity so much you may be able to leave the office earlier. Workers lose more than 15 minutes a day or almost two hours a week looking for lost papers, sorting through unkempt files and otherwise navigating their messy desks, according to a survey of 2,500 people commissioned by office-supply chain store Office Depot.
Busy professionals acknowledge their disorganization is costly. More than half of respondents, 51 percent, fear missing appointments and deadlines; 16 percent are scared of tarnishing their professional reputations; and 14 percent worry that they’ll lose business. How does a work space slip into such chaos? Almost 70 percent of respondents said they simply aren’t sure how to keep everything tidy.
To help workers be more organized, Office Depot’s organizing adviser, Stephanie Winston, has crafted the “Five-Day Office Makeover Plan,” which, among other things, aims to help workers find the paperwork they need in less than one minute. Yes, the plan recommends organizational products found at Office Depot stores, but it contains plenty of great ideas. Find it at www.officedepot.com/getorganized.
– Christine Tatum, The Denver Post
Give your kids true interaction
Most interactive DVD systems for children feel about as interactive as a vending machine. The ZOOOOS Play and Learn DVD System is an exception.
Created for preschoolers by the same team that worked on the TiVo interface, the system consists of a boomerang- shaped infrared remote control with four brightly colored buttons. As with other specialized remotes, there’s a one-time task of entering a code to match your brand of DVD player.
ZOOOOS works with six DVDs, and two of them are included in a $30 starter kit available at www.funrise.com. Other titles ($15 each) feature Spider-Man and Thomas the Tank Engine. The inventor of the system, Billy Pittard, came up with the eight- button remote after wrestling with awkward DVD controllers with 50 or more buttons. ZOOOOS, pronounced like the Greek god, tries to make a DVD player act more like a computer – itself a task of mythical proportions.
– Warren Buckleitner, The New York Times
