My whole life I have kept blank checks in the check box in a cabinet in my office. For my personal accounts I rarely have to access that box anymore, thanks to the convenience of debit cards.

But I run a small business from my home, and once a month have to pay the printshop in the form of a check.  I hated having to open that cabinet, get out the box of checks, rustle through the stack of check packs from all my various checking accounts looking for my business account.  I guess I was thinking that somehow the blank checks were more “secure” if they were kept all together in the same box they came in.  LOL.

Well today it hit me. Why not pull out that little pack of checks, and put it in my file box with the folder of invoices for my business?!  Why does it have to be kept in that “special” box hidden away in the cabinet.  Sometimes I would even pay the bill late just because the thought of digging out that box was too much work.  LOL!  Silly me.

I discovered this same idea long ago for things in my kitchen.  For example, keeping the box of trash bags in the cabinet closest to the trash can.  It is much easier to make yourself empty the can when the fresh bag is sitting right there next to you!  Keep cooking utensils next to the stove, whether in a drawer or a utensil holder. You don’t want to have to look too hard for that spatula when the pancake is ready to be flipped!  Oh, and a friend visiting one time commented how impressed she was that I kept my coffee filters in the cabinet right above the coffee maker.  She was amazed she had never thought of that!

Why make extra work for yourself and make things extra hard?  Keep things where they make sense.  Where they will get used without having to dread looking for them.  The less motions you have to go through to accomplish something, the more likely it is to get done.  From now on those business checks will be kept right in the file with the invoices, for easy and quick bookkeeping next month.  Who knew it could be so easy?  The trick is to allow ourselves to let go of doing things “the way we’ve always done them” for whatever reasons.