Positive and life-changing things can happen when you are open to getting and staying in touch with people you’ve known. Just ask Brenda Stokes how this simple action enriched her life. Her story of love, separation and fate has inspired people across the country.

In high school, Brenda was in love with a young man named Bart. He even proposed to her and they were excited to start planning their lives together. But the youthful enthusiasm hit a snag when Brenda learned she was pregnant.

As much as Bart wanted to keep the baby, Brenda’s parents had other plans. Brenda finished out the remainder of her pregnancy at a home for unwed mothers. Brenda’s parents didn’t let Bart know her location.

In the end, the couple had a baby boy and Brenda convinced Bart to sign the adoption papers, despite his protest. “We both wanted the baby, but Bart was the one who really wanted to make a life out of it. We were just so young.”

After they gave the baby up for adoption, the stress and complications of the situation took their toll and Bart and Brenda fought a lot. They decided to break up and go their separate ways.

Both married other people, had children and divorced. Bart tried for several years to contact Brenda but didn’t have any luck. Finally in 2003 he registered with Classmates.com, a Web site with 50 million members where friends from school, work and the military can connect and stay in touch with one another. “I couldn’t believe I finally found my Brenda!” said Bart.

“I was so shocked, I just screamed ‘Oh my God!’ out loud,” says Brenda when she received his e-mail. They exchanged updates on where life had taken them and began to talk on the phone every day. In January 2004 Brenda visited Bart for ten days. Hoping to find their son, they drafted a letter to be mailed through a mediator, but fate stepped in first.

While Bart was at work, Brenda had lunch with an old friend and stopped at a car dealership where she began talking to a saleswoman. Brenda shared that she was in town looking for her son. After a string of questions, she found out that the woman’s cousin had the same birthday and matched other details of the son she gave up for adoption.

After exchanging photos and with the blessing of his adoptive parents, they spoke on the phone for the first time with their son, Andy. Shortly after, they arranged a meeting and were able to see the man that their son had become. “It was just incredible,” Brenda says.

Bart proposed to Brenda and today the couple is happily married and have another child together, a daughter. Andy was even able to be there when his sister was born, on Brenda’s birthday. Bart and Brenda asked Andy to choose a name for his sister, Madisyn. After many years, and many bumps in the road, their family is complete.

Internet services for keeping up, and even reconnect with friends, romantic partners or “might-have-been” boyfriends/girlfriends are becoming an increasingly popular.

“We receive a lot of e-mails from members who tell us real-life stories of how they’ve rekindled an old flame or found new love with an old friend through Classmates.com,” says Steven McArthur, President of Classmates Online Inc. “Reconnecting with someone you’ve known is special because your shared experiences are timeless, so it’s never too late for a second chance at friendship, romance or even love.”

Like Bart and Brenda, you can go online to www.classmates.com and register for free to keep up with friends from throughout your life. You may even rediscover friendships that can positively enrich your life today. And because your personal contact information is never revealed unless you decide to share it, it’s a safe and easy way to get and stay in touch with people you care about at your own pace.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Even though you’ve publicly sworn off New Year’s resolutions, privately you’ve vowed to make 2008 the year when you finally get organized. You hope to slim down those piles, file important papers and access them without the help of a search team, and finally get to all of your appointments on time.

The secret to your success may lie in some new advice from Office Depot, which recognizes that each person has an individual work style and getting organized means putting that style to work for you. Playing to your strengths can help you get organized once and for all.

“Once you’ve identified your work style, then you can put into practice a few clear-cut systems to achieve your goals. Best of all, the impact is immediate. As the condition of your office space improves, you will also be more in control,” says expert organizer and Office Depot advisor Monica Ricci.

Identify Your Work Style:

The Go-Getter – You’re the quintessential multi-tasker with a million projects in the air, but you don’t pay close attention to all the little details. You need help streamlining the administrative aspects of your job so important details and documents don’t fall through the cracks.

For starters, stop taking notes on loose pieces of paper, and start using a three-ring notebook to keep all important meeting notes and phone messages together. Use an affordable, leather-bound notebook that you can pick up at any Office Depot, such as the Three-Ring Binder from Foray – it looks good and the ability to move pages around and add to it helps to keep you organized. Also, invest in back-up media to ensure you don’t accidentally dispose of important data. You can be particularly at risk if you travel a lot or work from a home office that lacks robust technology. At a minimum, back-up material on a flash drive, like the Ativa 8GB Flash Drive, which can hold the equivalent of 320,000 sheets of paper.

The Planner – You have all the answers when it comes to possible contingencies and are on top of big and small details. You are probably the most organized of all the work styles, but there still are some areas you’d like to improve.

For instance, you probably rarely make time to store or dispose of inactive files and you keep information longer than necessary, “just in case.” Change this by designating half an hour each week for filing – put it on your calendar and plan for it, like you do everything else. Make use of color-coded files, and remember to simplify the process by using general words as tab headers. Consider using the new secure folders from Office Depot that keep documents contained and prevents papers from falling out. If a file is out of date or unnecessary, eliminate it, but be mindful of confidentiality. Ricci recommends using a shredder like an Ativa diamond-cut shredder because it shreds documents, CDs and credit cards into tiny, unusable pieces.

The Procrastinator – If delayed decision making is your style, you are probably driving colleagues and family members crazy. You probably don’t get around to going through the piles and your office may look like a warehouse of outdated reports and articles. You will need to make the biggest commitment to change, starting by inventing new systems to keep you organized.

Start with your calendar and make sure to use one like the Mead Monthly/Weekly Appointment Book that allows you to keep track of monthly and weekly schedules in one place, giving you a big-picture and detailed view of your work so you stick to your project schedule. Also consider cleaning the clutter. You can begin by investing in Fashion Designer Totes from Office Depot for storing infrequently used documents. They come with a unique re-writable surface that is great for labeling what is in the box and organizing the contents.

The Perfectionist – You are most comfortable doing everything yourself, and even though your work product is superb, this approach has its consequences. Because you take on so much, you can sometimes fall behind schedule and may have trouble delegating to others.

One time-saving strategy is to find the experts and delegate to them. For instance, stop wasting time on photocopying and binding all your presentations in-house. Send these tasks to Office Depot’s Design Print & Ship Depot. They can turn your projects around both quickly and cost effectively.

Ensure that all projects are on-schedule and the team is aware of deadlines by plotting out projects and responsibilities on a wall calendar like the Mead Undated Erasable Wall Calendar. Keep this in your office or a common room where you have staff meetings and encourage the team to update their projects and report on progress on the board, keeping everyone involved and engaged in plans.

For more advice, please visit your local Office Depot store or www.officedepot.com/getorganized.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Busy families across the country can all agree on one thing – there is too much going on and never enough time to get it all done. Keeping track of a family’s overcrowded schedule can require the skills of a master juggler and seasoned negotiator.

It doesn’t just seem like free time is shrinking – it actually is. In the last 25 years, children’s structured sports time has doubled, and children ages 3 to 12 have lost 12 hours per week of free time. Additionally, from 1973 to 2000, the average U.S. worker added 199 hours to his or her annual work schedule.

The good news is that with the right tools and a good organizational strategy, you really can fit more fun and function into your day.

Recent research conducted by MeadWestvaco uncovered common family scheduling problems, including the challenge of communicating between family members, tracking information, juggling appointments and events for multiple parties, and organizing and storing documents.

“The most common complaint is finding an easy way to get the family organized and communicating scheduling changes among family members,” explains Cindy Van Tyle, of MeadWestvaco. “In our quest to find a simple solution to offer busy families, color coding rose to the top as an effective and easy way to manage the details.”

Assigning each family member a color for all aspects of organization is a quick and intuitive way to keep track of everything from schedules to paperwork. The beauty of color coding is how easy it is to put into practice. Even preschoolers can start taking part in family organization.

Once family members know “their” color the practical options are endless. Here are a few tips for families to begin organizing their busy lives:

* Take the color-coding concept and implement it wherever possible, purchase folders, toothbrushes, laundry baskets, towels, etc. in each person’s color.

* Keep a family calendar such as the Day Runner family matters Monthly Wall Calendar to help avoid timing conflicts. The calendar’s color-coded, columnar format let’s you track five schedules at once, making it easy to see conflicts as well as opportunities. Post the calendar in a central spot and update it regularly.

* Try not to over schedule yourself or your kids. If you need to, schedule downtime at least once a week and make it known that nothing else can be scheduled in this time slot. Carry a portable appointment book with you to check your availability before agreeing to any further commitments.

* Identify your most common time wasters and look for ways to organize around them. If you’re looking for the car keys each morning, make a key hook and use it. If you are always forgetting your lunch in the refrigerator, leave yourself a reminder on the door handle or your car mirror. Fun, eye-catching accessories like Day Runner’s color-coded, erasable door reminders help ensure cell phones and gym shoes aren’t left behind.

* Encourage kids to get involved in the organization process. Teach them to check the calendar, file their papers and alert you if conflicts arise. Color coding makes it easy for everyone to participate and starts good organizational habits early.

* Communicate change. Devise the best way for your family to communicate schedule alterations. Whether it is a centrally-located erasable message board or a sticky note system, make sure everyone knows how to spread the word throughout the family.

For more information about the Day Runner family matters product line and other helpful tips on organization, log on to www.dayrunner.com/familymatters. The Day Runner family matters products are available at Office Depot stores nationwide.

Courtesy of ARAcontent