Blog for New World Office, Professional Organizing for your Business

Too Nice to Look At

2013-05-16T21:30:44Z

It is a gorgeous day outside. I really don't want to be working indoors, but I have a lot of work to do. Every now and then I look up, and being lucky to be near a window, I see the sun shining, the trees blowing gently in the breeze, and people walking or skateboarding around. Or it could be considered unlucky to be near a window since I see all the stuff that I can't be a part of today. My natural tendency to procrastinate is fighting to come to the surface. There was a time when it would easily dominate.

Today, though, I'm in control. I planned my day out with activities that needed to get done and put them on my calendar, with alarms, for specific time blocks. The activity that needed most of my brain power I put in the morning so I could get it over with and not stress about worrying to do it the rest of the day. My day was completely planned out, even giving myself breaks so I could go outside for a few minutes.

Then I got out of a morning meeting, and my day had to change. Isn't that always the case? I had work to do resulting from that meeting and had to re-prioritize what I was going to get done today. It wasn't easy, but I pushed some stuff off to tomorrow because there was more than enough that I had to get done TODAY. Put it all on my calendar, now I was good to go.

And every time I look out that window and long to be out there, or get a little stressed thinking about all the work I have to do, I just take a few deep breaths, look at my calendar to see what I need to be working on right now, and plunge in.

Time Wasting in Forbes

2012-07-02T16:14:57Z

I love when well established business magazines write articles about things near to my heart and passion! Here is an article in Forbes I think people will find very useful:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2012/07/02/stop-wasting-time/

Today My Office is...

2012-05-23T15:28:19Z

The workforce landscape today looks very different than it did 50 years ago. Heck even 20 years ago! There are still lots of people commuting to their office jobs in their big companies every day, or going to their retail/restaurant jobs. However, according to IT analytics firm IDC, in 2010 75% of the workforce in America was mobile. That's more than 55 million people, all heading to a coffee shop near you!

IMO, there are 2 factors at play here. One is the economy, forcing companies to re-think their workforce, how much they spend on overhead, and streamlining their productivity; and two, the growing power of technology, and all the gadgets that go along with it.

When I was working in IT in the 90's, I remember reading about companies looking at share spacing (when 2 employees split an office - 1 uses it Mon-Tues, 1 uses it Wed-Fri), and hoteling (a mobile "lounge" where sales people and other mobile workers can have a space to plug into the network and do business there without the cost of separate office space). I'm actually starting to see it happening more now, which is great news! Yet it can present a challenge to those mobile workers from an organizational standpoint. How to keep everything together?

This year for me will be my most mobile ever, and I'm taking full advantage of technology. I just bought my first tablet (nope, I'm not a Mac person), but still need to get a keyboard for it (I'm a touch typer and can't abide by the virtual keyboard thing). Along with that I finally got my own mobile hotspot device so I don't have to rely on a coffee shop wifi to work properly. And of course I have my laptop (when I got rid of my desktop a few years ago) and smartphone. Add to that my thumb drives and cloud software, and I'm fully mobile.

Well, I still need a printer, so I guess I can put my printer in my car trunk and get a battery pack for it. And I'm not sure my file cabinet (which I'll need until I can get all my files scanned) will fit in my Beetle, but if I strap that onto the roof of my car, then there will be room for my portable scanner.

With my bluetooth device in my ear (becoming one of the Borg) I can talk to my Virtual Assistant (still not sure if it's a robot or not since I never met him) and have him send a virtual fax from my virtual server. The only thing tangible here is myself and my client. Welcome to 2012!

What technology are you taking advantage of to help you in our mobile world?

But Where ARE You?

2012-05-15T17:19:36Z

I was researching some things on the web yesterday and came across a service that I thought would be useful to me, and possibly to my clients. Interested in potentially meeting this person, I looked through her website to see where she was located. Then I searched again. Sure that I was missing something, I looked one more time, then gave up and moved on.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. This woman lost a potential client (and more, through my contacts) because she didn't have basic info on her website. I think some people forget that it's not just the people in their area who are looking at their website. Their website is not the equivalent of a local phone book listing. It's global. Anyone in the the world can see your information. So it's crucial to have listed where you do business. Even if you are not limited to where you are located (you might want to travel or be a virtual business), I think it's important for people to know where you are.

if you do local speaking engagements, someone may want to hire you, or check you out before hiring you for their event;
someone may want to meet with you in person, depending on your business
for me personally, if I really like what someone is offering, I like to meet them to see if I could refer them to someone else
it's a conversation piece that may get you more connections. "I noticed you're located in Portland. My sister lives there and her friend really needs someone like you." We're always saying things like "it's a small world", and you may find it's truer than you think.

You should also have your contact information easy to find on your website. Not in teeny tiny print on the bottom of the page. I'm getting older and need to wear reading glasses occasionally. I want to easily find and see the contact info, so don't make me work for it. Really make it easy and available. I can't stress this enough. It may sound really basic, but countless websites I've visited don't have this. So please double check your website right now........go ahead.....I'll wait........

Read on, readers!

2012-05-15T00:03:52Z

Reading is fundamental. At least, that’s what I was taught growing up. Plus I love to read. I’m an avid reader of all types of books, and belong to a book club to boot. I also enjoy reading about business news, especially since I started my own business. Since my profession is organizing offices, I find it fun (really!) keeping up-to-date on the latest and greatest tools for organizing, whether they be tactile or digital. I sometimes drink my morning tea or coffee perusing websites, or I read the Business Journal over lunch. It’s kind of relaxing to me because I see research as a little break from work.

Or, maybe I should be using past tense. It WAS relaxing, I USED to find it fun. And I realize it’s because I USED to have more time to do it all.

In the past month, I have gotten B-U-S-Y. I enrolled in 2 business classes that have a lot of work involved with them, including reading. I have discovered other sites with lots of information for my business I need to be reading regularly. My client base is beginning to increase. And oh yeah, I’m traveling more often. I might have bitten off more than I can chew.

As I think of ways to potentially cut my workload down (which I really can’t), or maybe back out of one of the classes (which I won’t), I realize this is a great learning tool. It’s my profession to help people find the time to do the things they need to do. I need to do all of it. So I need to make it work. (kind of a “duh!” moment for me).

First, I list all of the magazines, websites, and newspapers I need to read on a regular basis. I have things like the Business Journal, some tech blogs, Inc Magazine, etc. Then I list all of the emails that are business related that would drive me to their website to read their stuff. Finally I list the things I like to read that are not really for my business but more of a distraction. I stop listing these because there are too many.

For the first list, I start assigning times to each piece about how long it takes me to read it, and how often it gets printed/updated. The tricky part is that, let’s say, the Business Journal gets printed every 2 weeks, but their website gets updated almost daily. Very similar to most printed materials now that have a website. But it’s not necessary to look at it unless I’m following a particular story, in which case I will get an email from the Business Journal informing me of such. So my chart is starting to look like this:

Biz Journal – 1 hour to read – every other week
Inc Magazine – 1-2 hours to read – once a month
Mashable and other blogs – 3 hours – each week

And so on and so forth. My list began to get pretty long, but I started to look more critically at what I was once reading and discarded the stuff that never really gave me anything worthwhile. I went through the same process with my emails, except this time I created a rule that automatically puts them in a folder – out of the inbox where I will be tempted to read it on the spot.

I then made a calendar of when each piece comes out (daily, every other week, etc) with the time I need to read it all. The total time I need to spend reading still looked a little overwhelming, so I broke it down to make it more manageable. Now I assign myself times during the week to read specific things, and I give myself 1.5 hours each day. Sometimes I break that 1.5 hours up and do 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at lunch, and 30 in the afternoon to help break up the day. I allow myself a little flexibility in an increasingly structured work day/week.

I’m now more relaxed about getting everything done, and not missing out on news that can help me further my business. And with the time limits, I find myself wandering less to other sites that are not important (you know how it is, you’re reading something online, you click a link, read something else, click another link, and before you know it, 34 hours have passed?).

I have 30 minutes leftover in my time allotment today, so I've got to go read Cosmopol...er, Entrepreneur Magazine. Gotta stay on top of this!

What's wrong with Spam?

2012-05-08T20:33:01Z

Last night I was out at a professional association's meeting, and afterwards a few of us decided to go somewhere to socialize. One of the people had just started her own business a year ago (let's call her Sheila), and in the midst of conversation she mentioned that she takes every business card that she gets and puts it on her mailing list. She sends a weekly email (with no opt-out option) to her list. I said "do you ask these people if they want on the list?" Sheila replied "no, but they can send me an email asking me to take them off if they want to".

Does anyone else see what's wrong with this? The basic definition of what Spam is is any kind of unwanted online communication. Usually it refers to large companies sending out massive quantities of unwanted email to bring down servers and cause mass havoc. But it also pertains to being put on a mailing list without your knowledge or consent. A professional courtesy can be shown by simply asking someone right at the get go "I send out a daily/weekly/xxx newsletter/email on _______. Would you like to be put on my mailing list?"

"What's the big deal?" you may ask. "Can't you just delete the email, or email the person to remove yourself?". I'm glad you asked. Why, yes I can do both of those things. It doesn't take that long. For this one email. If this is the only email I ever have to do it with. But of course, it's not.

For busy business people who are out there meeting people and exchanging business cards on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, the amount of mailing lists people are put on is huge. Add to this the mailing lists people get put on from the large number of websites they visit weekly. Removing yourself from all of these unwanted mailings lists is now time consuming.

As a business person whose job it is to help people reduce wasted time, I was shocked to hear a new business owner like Sheila be so blase' about creating a huge time waster for people. In addition, it's not a good business model.

A business man I knew said he put every person he ever meets on his email lists because it sounds good to say he has a lot of people on it. When I asked him how many people unsubscribe because they never asked to be on the list he replied “Most of them. And they’re not happy with me either, but at least I got them for one email.”

I would be one of those annoyed people. I spent 20 minutes last week unsubscribing from unwanted email lists. It's a huge waste of my time, and it makes me wonder about the integrity of the person who put me on their list. Sheila wasn't too worried about that and said if the person gets mad about being put on the list, then she wouldn't want that person as a client anyways. ?!?!?? Because she's talking about me, and let me tell you, if I am your client and like your services, I will be professing them to the world. So to continue ignoring professional courtesy is a great opportunity to say goodbye to potential clients.

To recap, if you put people on mailing lists without their consent or knowledge (Spam), you:

create a time waster for those people who don't want on this list
annoy those same people, the people you were trying to connect with in the first place
say goodbye to potential clients (and all they people that THEY know)

OR, when you meet them and take their business card (or in a followup email to them) you could ask them nicely if they want to go on your list.

The great thing about owning your own business is you get choose how you want to run it. I know which model I'm going for.

No Conference this year

2012-03-20T21:30:07Z

This year the National Association of Professional Organizers annual conference will be held in Baltimore this week. It looks like a great conference with many opportunities to learn about technology, handling client issues, and marketing, to name just a few. However, I won't be attending due to the fact I'm still recovering from my ankle surgery in December. Such a disappointment, since last year was my first conference and I learned so much from it, as well as having an opportunity to get to know some of my local organizers.

The biggest things I learned about last year were Toodledo and Evernote. Such an impact these two tools have had in my life and in some of my clients lives! If I hadn't gone to the conference, I wouldn't have stumbled upon these tools (I literally stumbled upon Evernote since they had a booth which I tripped into. Yes, call me Grace).

The biggest thing I'll miss is watching Bill Rancic as the keynote speaker. I remember watching him on "The Apprentice", and having seen him speak on tv in various settings, I have been very impressed by his business savvy. I would have loved to see how he applied this to the organizing profession.

I do, however, have the opportunity to purchase a recording of any of the seminars that I'm interested in, such as "Organizing the ADHD Brain", using project management to organize, and more tech skills about organizing in the cloud. So I'll be posting the latest info I hear about on my blog.

To Digitize, or Not To Digitize - It's a Big Question

2012-02-10T18:11:07Z

Frankly, it doesn't matter one way or the other for me if my client is still using a paper system (for calendars, contacts, etc) or an electronic one. As long as their system works for them, I don't bother with it. We move on and work on something else. HOWEVER, if their system is NOT working for them, then that's when we have some discussions.

I'll admit it that when it comes to technology, I can go kicking and screaming, dragging my feet into using it. No kidding. I believe if you have something that ain't broke, don't fix it. I also believe that technology changes too quickly and there's always something "better" out there, so that people feel the need to get new phones, laptops, and software every 6 months just to keep up. Yet, that doesn't mean the new stuff isn't bad, and may be worth looking at, even if everything you already have works fine.

Paper calendars are very good tools for the visually inclined, especially those who doodle and like to scribble notes. I was one of those. I would remember a particular date or address because of a doodle I had drawn on that page, or the color of ink I had used when writing it down. Not the most scientific way of remembering, but hey, it worked for me. What didn't work for me was the number of contacts I had and their information and my way of retrieving it. Plus in my business, I have to keep up with what many of my clients are using. It was the job that convinced me to go digital, and my smartphone obsession was born. Ok, it's not an obsession, just a deep, deep respect for what it can do for me.

A smartphone can take some getting used to from someone jumping from a paper system, and there will be a short period of feeling uncomfortable, but everyone I've worked with (and even friends that I don't work with) that I've encouraged to take this step have never regretted it.

Paper System (including datebook, rolodex/address book):

Pros -

it's visual, and writing info is a snap. It's tactile, so it feels good going through the pages. And most likely, it's easy to read.

Cons -

changing dates/names/numbers etc is messy. Unless you write in pencil, your paper system could be full of crossouts and messy scribbles. Moving dates around is cumbersome and ugly.
if you lose this, you are screwed. Royally. Unless you've taken the time to make copies on a daily or weekly basis as a backup, you have none. All of your critical info is gone forever, which could make a huge dent in your business/work.
your system could be big and bulky. Even with a medium sized datebook, it's thick, and doesn't fit well in smaller bigs. And are you carrying your entire rolodex around, or a subset (and then you're missing some information you may need)?

Digital System

Pros -

combine your smartphone with your computer and you've got a system that is easy to access from anywhere. Your entire rolodex, all of your dates (from now until years from now), it's all at your fingertips.
the system has redundancy. If you lose your smartphone, and you've been syncing your info to your computer, there's your backup, And vice versa. You now have peace of mind that you will not lose your critical information.
information is easy to change. No more scribbles or crossouts. It's so easy to move dates around, change times, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. And with people changing jobs and living spaces, it's nice to know this won't take long.
color categorize. Some systems allow you to color categorize, which makes finding information at a glance even easier. And for those visually inclined people, it also makes it easier on the eyes.
faster retrieval. I can find information so much faster on my smartphone or computer than someone with a paper system can. It's proven, and effective, which is important in business when time is money.

Cons -

learning curve. Yup, it's something you have to learn, and for the techno-wary, this is a scary prospect. But jump in. You really have to, because that's the way the world is moving. And then you'll find it's not that bad.
expense. A smartphone and a computer are going to cost a helluva lot more than a datebook and rolodex. Chances are, you have a computer already (how else are you reading this?), so that's one less expense. Most likely, you already have a cell phone, so really, it's not that big of a leap to get a smart phone. And there are some good deals out there, if you have the time to look.
apocalypse. If something should happen where we can no longer have electricity, then all of our info will be lost, unless you've printed out backups on a regular basis. You can no longer use computers or cell phones to get your dates and contact info out. The upside is, that no one else can either, so you don't have to worry about email address or phone numbers. And after an apocalypse, I just bet that 9:30 meeting with your clients/co-workers has been cancelled.

Flexibility is key

2012-02-02T22:33:23Z

Even the BEST laid plans, no matter how cleverly coordinated, can end up in the toilet. Over the next 2 days, I had several appointments set up, some that were not easy to coordinate, that I had to completely re-work. We're having a big snow storm happening this evening and, just like that, the plans are out the window.

I was going to have lunch with a potential client, which I much prefer to do face to face. Fortunately, he was VERY amenable to a video meeting. We had a brief phone conversation about technology, and voila! Meeting back on, in a way I hadn't considered viable for potential clients before. Suddenly, it began to open my mind in how other things are done.

Another appointment was with an associate to catch up and talk about business plans. Due to the snow we're re-scheduling to a day that I was not that comfortable with due to other plans that day making it a very busy one. I wanted to be flexible, so I agreed. I then discovered a friend of hers will also be there, someone I've been wanting to meet to do business with for some time. It's a perfect opportunity to swap ideas with someone new and potentially get into a new market.

Sometimes, when you get thrown a curveball, and you can go with the flow, other, better things can happen. It's all about how flexible you are willing to be.

More about Procrastination

2012-01-24T22:58:02Z

It's not a bad idea to talk about how to avoid procrastinating, especially at the beginning of a new year. Watch the video to get some tips that I hope you find helpful.