It’s New Year’s Resolution time. Do you have your resolutions yet?

Many business owners I know say, “This year I am going to be more organized. This year I am going to keep up on my accounting. This year I am going to keep my office clean.”

We try. But quickly, customer service and care gets in the way of our organizational plans. The filing, accounting, and other office tasks become low priority. Next thing we know, it’s June and we haven’t done any of the office work yet. Frustration sets in.

“Maybe next year I’ll be more organized.”

I have lived this for years. I get it!

I set out to really resolve this. To really find out “what is wrong with me!”

I made my New Year’s resolution last year to read one book a month.

I started the year with “People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It” by Larry Winget.

One tip I took out of that book was, touch a piece of paper only once. What a great line. If we are trying to be more organized and save time in our businesses this seems key. Deal with things as they come.

Example: You get the mail. You flip through it looking for checks and then put the rest on the desk. Later you look for a proposal on your desk so you flip through the mail and move it to the other side of the desk. Then you clean your desk so you move the mail to the cabinet. Later you clean the office so you toss the junk mail and put the rest in the in-box. And so on and so on …

The time spent moving the mail around could have been spent just opening the mail and dealing with each item. Not only do you waste time moving mail around, you also carry in the back of your mind another thing you still have to deal with.

I also read “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfield. This book is filled with many valuable pieces of information. Jack states, “The circumstances you complain about are, by their very nature, situations you can change — but you have chose not to.”

He continues, “Making a change might take effort, money and time. It might be uncomfortable, difficult, or confusing. And so, to avoid risking any of these uncomfortable feelings and experiences, you stay put and complain about it.”

Getting organized might take effort, money and time. All things we feel we don’t have enough of as business owners. Who has time? Who has money? Who thinks they have more effort to give? We are exhausted.

But maybe getting organized will free us in ways that will give us more time, effort and money.

I am finishing the year with “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. Covey quotes Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.”

Basically, Covey is teaching us that everything we do is habit. We can create habits and we can break them. But it takes a great deal of strength and awareness to change those habits.

Awareness is key. Once we start to see, be aware of our bad habits we can begin to change them, break them. As we move the mail stack around the office we need to pay attention to that. Break that habit. Deal with the mail and then on to more important things.

As you set your New Year’s resolutions this year, aim high. Happy New Year Kirkland!

Diana DeAndrea-Kohn is a small business owner and freelance writer in Kirkland. Send writing topics to Diana@Kirklandsba.com