Here are the key areas of our business that Deanne suggests we have systems for:

1. Customer Relations Management – simply using the Notes field in your existing customer contact database to record conversations, TY notes sent and referrals is a good place to start.  Also keep track of who subscribes to your newsletter.
2. Marketing and Networking – set goals for your newsletter distribution and track how many subscribers you have, how many you want and how much business comes from your newsletter.  Track how many business cards you give out in a year.  Look at your website analytics regularly.  If you write articles which ones create the most website traffic?
3. Email – create an FAQ section on your website to handle potential customer inquiries and create a standard email in your ‘Drafts’ folder for respond to routine inquiries.  Create a thank you email to send to each new person you meet asking them to subscribe to your newsletter.  Consider including a link to your newsletter in your email signature.
4. Process and Procedure – create an Operations Manual (ugh!) which includes administrative procedures, communication processes, goals, year end procedures, and much more.
5. Social Media – think about what you are saying and to whom.  How often are you saying it and where.  Does it work?  Is your goal to educate or acquire?  Are you connected to your ideal clients?
6. Tracking – what will you track and when?  How will you track it?  Why are you tracking it?

I don’t know about you, but I think I need to hire Deanne to help me figure out how to get all of this done!

I’ve had tickets to the Turbine Showcase event for many weeks and was so excited about finally being able to attend this event showcasing the designs of our own very talented Lisa Drader Murphy.   My friend Leslie had volunteered to model in the fashion show and since it was her first time modeling she wanted to have a few supporters in the audience so a group of us girls got together and bought a table.

Anyway, the one thing I’m never very good it as thinking about what to wear to an event until the day of.  So, yesterday it dawned on me that I was going out to a fashion event with a bunch of fashionable people and that what I wore might be slightly more important than on other occasions.  Sure makes a girl realize how lacking her non-business wardrobe is when she goes digging and can’t really find anything to wear.

I did manage to pull together an outfit which was just perfect for the event I thought.  However, in the process of digging through my somewhat sparse closet I discovered three dresses that were several years old and decided then and there to put them in a bag to go off to charity.  I said to myself that I really did need to purchase a couple of “fancy” new dresses for other events like this that might pop up unexpectedly.  Now buying a “fancy” dress is always very stressful for me.  I’m quite sure that being 5′ 11″ tall doesn’t help the situation whatsoever.

Off to the event I went putting my need for a new dress behind me and looking forward to an evening out with the girls.  There is nothing I love more than either a great live rock band or an equally exciting fashion show.  Having been a model myself way back in the day I fell in love with fashion shows back in the 80′s and have loved them ever since.  Although as never a very good runway model I’m afraid to say - my nerves always got the best of me.

I digress. Back to the purpose of this post.  The fashions were awesome and there were many pieces that I loved and would wear.  However, there was one long dress on a very tall slim model that appeared to be calling my name.  Oh no, I couldn’t possibly, could I?

Being the smart business woman that she is, Lisa offers a “shopping party” at the end of the show.  Now I’m not usually much of an impulse buyer but I couldn’t stop thinking about that dress.  We wandered out in the racking area where all the clothes were displayed and I remember thinking that some other tall woman had probably already gotten her hands on that dress.  I’m flipping through a rack and there it is.  Dare I hold it up and see if there was even a possibility it might fit me? It certainly was long enough which is 90% of the battle normally. 

I grabbed my friend Leslie (can’t buy anything “fancy” without her fashionista eyes) and we snuck off to the washroom to try on the dress in front of the mirror.  You guessed it, a perfect fit! Check out my dress on that tall slim young model.  Do you suppose I’ll look just like her when I wear it?

That awesome dress is hanging in my closet and will be going off to Toronto with me in two weeks to the Professional Organizers in Canada Conference where I will have a chance to wear it at the Gala Awards dinner.

Just goes to show you that letting go of a few old things that are keeping you stuck in the past certainly can make room for a fabulous new thing that will help you move into the future.

Different people have different opinions as to whether excess books should be considered clutter or not.  If you ask a librarian he or she will say that books are not clutter, no matter how many you have.  However, if you ask someone who doesn’t read books they’ll look at you like you have ten heads and tell you how you can get any information you want by searching on the internet, so why on earth would you want to keep books?

Seems to me that somewhere in between these two opposing attitudes is a fabulous compromise.  I believe that books are both useful and decorative.  Perhaps books become clutter when you don’t have nice bookshelves to put them and when you have so many that you can’t find and enjoy them?

As I sit writing this article, I am looking at the bookcase in my living room and how I have organized and displayed my books.  They are grouped by categories such as: decorating and design, fiction, self help, sports, hobbies & interests.  Wait . . . can that be a collection of Columbia encyclopaedias I see on the bottom shelf?  Aren’t those forbidden?  They are certainly not useful anymore – I think my other half had those when he was in school and there they still are, taking up space.  I guess I’d better explain myself, right now.

You see, to the organized eye encyclopaedias are a beautiful thing.   They are all the same color, the writing on the spines is all the same and they are numbered sequentially – what more can you ask for?  They unequivocally have all the characteristics of any good organizing system so I’m keeping them no matter what anyone says about how out-of-date they are.

I am reminded of a bookshelf organizing job I did with a client a while back.  We started by grouping the books into categories such as history, art, fiction, poetry & writing, autobiographies, and so on.  Then we organized them on the shelves by the color and style of writing on the spines. We separated them into beautifully displayed groupings by strategically placing bookends, vases and photos in various places in order to keep them separated into their various categories.  We laid some of the larger art books horizontally on their sides and used that stack to hold up other books placed vertically.  With another client we grouped her books into categories and assigned them various bookshelves throughout the house and then sorted them alphabetically by author. Whew, that took some time I’ll tell you.  We also found that she had several copies of the same book – just goes to show what happens when they’re scattered all over the house with no particular organizing system – you buy duplicates and triplicates because you can’t find the copy(ies) you have.

There are obviously many ways of sorting and organizing books.  Do what works for you and what looks pleasing to your eye. Watch yourself, whatever you do, don’t start reading or your library organizing project will never be complete!

First of all, you need an easily accessible and user-friendly place to store your necessary papers.  Whether you have a busy family or a home-based business, chances are you have a mountain of paper to deal with – magazines, newspapers, school notices, community newsletters, bills, and on and on!  So, basically you will need a file cabinet and a work surface.  The ideal layout for a workspace is in the shape of an L or a U.  If you can get a desk with file drawers built into the desk this is a great way to save space. If not, I prefer a 2-drawer lateral file cabinet as they give you an extra work surface.  In addition, a storage cabinet with shelving and doors to hide it all away is a perfect place to store office supplies, magazines and other items. 

Now for the systems – where do you put incoming paperwork, where do you put action items, where do you put paperwork that needs filing, where do you put outgoing items?  Remember the key to staying organized is to have a place for everything.  Therefore, you need to set up the following: 

1. An ‘IN’ tray or wall pocket for anything you haven’t touched yet.
2. Hanging file folders or a literature sorter for ‘IN PROCESS’.  Label folders or slots according to they type of action you need to take.  For example: ‘Call’, ‘Read’, ‘Pay’, etc.
3. Items that are complete and need to be filed should be put away in the appropriate file immediately to avoid the tendency to say, “I’ll file it later” and then ending up with a huge pile of filing that becomes a tedious job.   If you do it as you go you will never have a ‘To File’ pile.  So, an easy-to-use filing system is essential.
4. An ‘OUT’ tray or wall pocket for complete items that need to be mailed our passed along to someone else.

Many people struggle with the initial set up, as this is not a skill we are taught in school. Hiring a professional organizer to help you set up the space and the systems can be extremely beneficial in your long-term success. And remember, statistics show that we normally refer to 20% of the information we keep 80% of the time!

1. Round up 2 or 3 girlfriends (my better half hates crowds) 
2. Buy tickets
3. Get in the car and drive 3 hours in a torrential downpour
4. Stop at the Big Stop restaurant for a big meal (no food until later)
5. Arrive somewhere in the vicinity of Magnetic Hill concert site
6. Find a place to park (only $30 a steal!)
7. Walk 30 mins. or so uphill to get to the concert site
8. Stand in a lineup for 15 mins. to get to the gates
9. Hike through the mud (oh boy, now the fun really begins)
10. Take a deep breath and head down the hill to see how close we can get to the stage (more mud)
11. Stand in the mud for an hour waiting for U2 to take the stage
12. Jump up and down in the mud for over 2 hours – what a show!
13. Hike up the hill in the mud (made worse by the 74,999 other people)
14. Wait for 30 mins. in a lineup to get out the gates (yikes, that’s a lot of people)
15. Walk another 30 mins. to get back to the car
16. Take off mud soaked clothing in the dark in the parking lot and put on clean clothes (good idea girls!)
17. Take the back road to avoid all the traffic snaffoo’s (is that a word?)
18. Drive 3 hours back to Halifax
19. Arrive home at 5:15 am
20. Fall into bed

Only 20 steps required – now that’s my idea of a good time!  Every single sore muscle I had for the next 2 days was so worth it.  I’d do it again on a moment’s notice, I think - anybody care to join me?

However, as many of you small business owners out there know, taking vacation is filled with feelings of guilt instead.  I notice that some of my associates who have children are really good at just taking the entire summer off, again partially because they have no choice but partially because being with your children all summer definitely does not leave you riddled with guilt.  It seems to be a very acceptable and well-founded decision.

So, why is it that when I, with no children, decide it’s summer and I really want to take a couple of weeks off I just can’t seem to do it?  The knot in my stomach begins to form, the really annoying little voice in my head starts chattering and I cave and delete those days I had marked in my calendar as ‘Vacation’.  How dare I think I can take two weeks off?  Who’s going to pay the bills?  What if I miss an opportunity to work with a client?  What if a new client calls during that time?  What if the sky falls in?  And so on and so on . . .

And then there’s the neverending ‘To Do’ list that could get done while I’m ‘on vacation’.  The  idea here is that I tell my clients I’m taking a week off and then I hide in my office and work on all those projects that are listed on the big white board (actually it’s silver, kinda cool, huh?).  It tells me I have some website revisions to do, I have a new workshop series to pull together for the fall, I have a trip to Newfoundland in September, and so on and so on . . .

But wait, it’s summer.   Summer in Nova Scotia only lasts a few weeks.  I need to take advantage of it or just like last year it will be over and I will not have taken any time off.  OK, here goes.  I’m booking off the last week of July and making plans to do things with people so I’m committed.  I’m also taking off a week in mid August and actually have already booked to go away for two days at the beginning of that week so surely that will force me to complete the week since my brain will already be on vacation.

I’m liking the sounds of this already.  Let’s all be sure to take some vacation this summer.  I’m convinced we’ll be thankful we did when it’s all said and done.  The work will still be there when we return, won’t it?  Apparently vacation is good for my health and wellbeing – imagine that.

Now, I have to figure out how to do that.  I actually do know how to do that because I preach it to my clients all the time.  It's based on the concept that if you think you have ample time to get things done, the things you have to do will expand to fill the time.  Whereas, if you set yourself a limit like I have to get everything done between Monday morning and Friday afternoon, you will be amazed at how quickly you can accomplish tasks and projects. 

Think about how much you get done before you go on vacation.  If you're taking a week or two off you have a bunch of things that you 'have to' get done before then and you just do it.  You might have to adopt the 'done is better than perfect' philosophy in order to accomplish this and you may have to decide to drop a few things altogether – yikes!

Moving, as we all know, is one of those major life events.  Major life events are coupled with stress – lots of stress.  I seem to have successfully absorbed at least 50 per cent of the stress of both of these moves on behalf of my clients. Whew!  Remind me to never move.  Ever!

Now that the moves are both complete, and I have the time to sit back, nurse a hundred sore muscles, and take a breath, I am increasingly fascinated by life and stuff and how they are connected.  Moving, of course, either makes us feel that we should go through all of our stuff and minimize what we take to our next abode or simple ignore how much we have, pack every last possession and take it with us intending to go through it all 'someday'.  One of my clients was so in the right place to go through every clsoet, drawer and box it was truly a pleasure to be a part of the process.  When someone is ready to shed the past and move forward with no 'baggage', it is truly a transformational process.  The new house feels light and airy and truly a happy place to be.  Amazingly, every piece of furniture we chose to keep looks like it belongs in the new house – which it never really did in the old house.

The other move I helped organized didn't go nearly as smoothly as the first.  I now attribute that to the fact that the client kept way too much stuff from the past and just couldn't go through everything, choosing instead to send piles of old furniture and dozens of boxes of 'stuff' to a large storage locker all the while telling me that it just wasn't the right time to truly let go of everything.  I believe that a lot of what arrived in the new house carried with it the energy of the past and the new place just doesn't feel right.

At the end of the fourth day of this move, as we were unpacking in the new house, my client and I did have a discussion about the quantity of 'stuff' kept and how slowly and perhaps painfully going through a box at a time might enable a shift to a brighter future.  I really believe that lightening the load and shedding the pounds of clutter does enable us to gradually emerge on the other side of the clutter and 'stuff' in a new place and ready for wahtever life brings.  I am still amazed by our propensity to collect and collect and collect, filling our houses full of 'stuff' only to move and have to get rid of all the 'stuff' we worked so hard to collect.

What would like be like if we just stopped the collecting?  – Jane Veldhoven, Professional Organizer

What if, instead of constantly striving to be more organized, better organized or even, heaven forbid, perfectly organized we strove for ‘good enough’.  According to Sarah Hampson the author of an article entitled, The Secret to happiness? Live a ‘good enough’ life,  “. . . when you don’t expect much, when you manage the ideas of what you think your life should be, you can be pleasantly surprised – and grateful – for the good fortune that comes your way.”

Somehow this sounds like lowering expectations, reducing the standards of what is acceptable and seems to me like settling for mediocrity.  Not acceptable to someone like me who is a recovering perfectionist and still battling with doing my ‘best’ instead of striving for ‘perfect’.  So, the concept of good enough doesn’t sit well with me but I know for many of you it might be just what you need.

If your kitchen drawers are organized so that you can find what you need but you don’t have those fancy dividers that you saw in a friends kitchen that might just be good enough?  If your clothes are all hanging up but not on matching hangers is that good enough?  If your papers are all off the floor and in tidy piles on your desk where you can put your fingers on what you need that might just be good enough.  If your email inbox is down to 50 messages, instead of 500, maybe that is good enough?

I like the idea of good enough as opposed to perfectly organized as it does allow us to lower our expectations of what organized means and move towards a level of organization that is achievable.  I think this concept is especially important for those who don’t like to spend their time organizing or find it difficult to know when to stop organizing. 

What we see in magazines and on television is often not realistic and perhaps that is where some of our expectations of perfectly organized come from?  Have you ever noticed the desk in the corner of the living room on a makeover show with a computer on it but not a single cord in sight nor a stitch of paper – no matter how organized we are our space will never look like that so perhaps lowering our expectations is exactly what the doctor ordered!

Everything in life seems to come back to deciding what matters most.  As long as your home and office are organized ‘enough’ so that you can function effectively and enjoy your space, forget about what others may think and go with what works for you.  I think the summer is the perfect time to try some ‘good enough’ thinking – at least for you my dear readers even if not for me!

Why is it that we put off planning even though we know that the most successful businesses and individuals dedicate time to planning weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually without fail?

In my experience working with dozens of clients on becoming more effective and figuring out how to get the ‘right’ things done we discover that no planning takes place each week therefore the important activities slip through the cracks in favour of the urgent activities or the priorities thrust upon us by others.

So, here’s what you might want to do to start to ensure that important activities and projects are on your radar and that you delegate more effectively:

1. Block 1 to 2 hours with yourself in your calendar every Friday afternoon
2. Start the weekly planning process by going back over the current week and looking for any promises you made to others. Note them on your ‘To Do’ list or in your calendar
3. Look forward to the coming week and do the same
4. Go through each item on your ‘To Do’ list and decide which ones you will do this week and which ones someone else could do for you
5. Go over all of the other major projects on your plate and block time with yourself to move them forward

Do this faithfully every single week and you will become more productive.