What’s really scary is the growing number of dangers we face online as individuals and as business owners. That’s probably why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declared October to be Cyber Security Awareness Month.

Since these threats know no geographic boundaries, I’m happy to do my part by sharing some information to help you avoid them, beginning with one of my own articles, Tips for Securing Your Online Accounts.

However, if you think changing your passwords on a regular basis will keep you safe, you’d better read Deb Lee’s post, Changing Your Password is a Waste of Time.

Job seekers, who may be particularly vulnerable, should heed the advice offered by Sharon Graham in her article, Job seekers: Beware of spammers, scammers, and schemers.

The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) has free downloadable tip sheets for children, parents, college students, and anyone who uses mobile technology or social media websites.

Have you ever been the victim of an online scam, hacker, or phishing attempt? What did you do about it?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Trick or Treat! Avoiding the dangers of cyberspace.

Here’s what I’ll be up to:

September 12 to 16: Tips and Tools for Virtual Assistants

I’m excited to be part of a panel of VAs who are each experts in various areas in the Virtual Assistant industry. In 10 calls, we’ll be talking about all the pieces you need to know about in order to market your VA business successfully.

Here’s the line-up, along with their areas of expertise:

• Kristi Pavlik: Implementing Systems and Procedures
• Christina Hills: Using Ecommerce and Autoresponders; Why WordPress is the Platform for You
• Alyssa Gregory: Connecting with Others Through Networking
• Rebekah Zobel Jones: Membership Sites
• Michelle Schoen: Video Marketing
• Kathy Colaiacovo: Social Media Strategy
• Erin Blaskie:  Introducing Passive Revenue to Your Business
• Tracey D’Aviero: Getting Support in Your Business

I’ve been invited to speak about Working with a Niche on Monday, September 12th at 4 pm Eastern.

All this information is being offered free of charge, so it’s a fabulous learning opportunity for virtual assistants at any stage in their businesses. For more information and to register, visit Tips and Tools for Virtual Assistants.

October 5: It’s All About Me Conference

This is a private event for City of Hamilton administrative staff, so I won’t tease you with details, other than to mention that I’ll be presenting on Organizing and Your Personality Type, the subject of my popular e-book, Organizing Your Life, Your Way.

November 3 to 5: Professional Organizers in Canada National Conference

I’ve been invited to speak again at this year’s POC Conference, which will be held in Toronto. This will mark the third time I have spoken at this important event, and I am truly honoured. My topic for this year’s Conference is Blogging: Beyond the Basics, and I look forward to sharing some of my favourite blogging strategies with professional organizers from across Canada and beyond. My session is on Saturday, November 5th at 11:00 am.

Of course, there will be lots of other interesting sessions, including keynote presentations by Erica Diamond on her Top Secrets to Success in Life and Business, and Joe Roberts on From Skid Row to CEO.

Please visit the Professional Organizers in Canada website to download a complete program or to register.

What’s on your schedule for this fall?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Fall Schedule of Events.

But that’s enough about me! In honour of Social Media Day, I’d like to do something for YOU, so I’m offering $5.00 off my Basic Guide for Networking on Twitter, which was launched earlier this year. To take advantage of this special, simply enter the coupon code smday when you place your order. I wouldn’t want you to miss out if you’re taking a tech break over the long weekend, so this offer will remain in effect until midnight on Friday, July 8^th.

I’ve also found a couple of up-to-date free downloads for you (no email address required):

• 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: insight into how over 3300 marketers are using social media to grow their businesses
• The 2011 CMO’s Guide To The Social Landscape: a chart to help you determine which social media tools and channels are your best bet in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic, and SEO

Have you ever met face-to-face with someone you met on social media? Tell us about it!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Free Resources and a Special Offer for Social Media Day.

This year, I refuse to fall into that trap, so I’m planning my blogging topics well in advance. I’ve been a free member of Blog Energizer for over two years, and every week or so I receive a few blogging ideas by email. Sometimes I use them right away, and sometimes I make note of them to use in the future. Occasionally there’s nothing I find relevant to my blogs, but overall it’s a fabulous resource.

Blog Energizer also offers a premium membership which includes access to:

• Daily topics to write about, no matter what market you write in
• Additional “hot button topics” that help you take advantage of hot topics of discussion and tap into the traffic boost it can bring
• Blog title ideas that are sure to grab your readers’ attention
• Affiliate programs to help monetize your blog
• The ability to distribute your promotional content, coupons to other bloggers who are eager to publish your content

They’re currently adding even more benefits, such as:

• Monthly challenges or workshops designed to tackle various aspects of growing your blog
• Social Buzz to tell you what posts people are Liking on Facebook across 9 different niches
• An exclusive WordPress plugin that feeds Premium topic suggestions directly into your blog
• A new system that will let you get involved and be rewarded for supporting other members

Because of these additions, the price is increasing to $20.00 a month effective February 1^st, but if you join this month, you’ll get all these new benefits for the current price of $10.00 a month for as long as you remain a member. Pretty tempting, isn’t it?

To take advantage of this time-limited offer, simply sign up for a free membership at Blog Energizer, and they’ll send you more information. Even if you’re not interested in becoming a member, I recommend that you download the 2011 Blogging Calendar and Planner – you don’t even have to join the mailing list.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Energize Your Blog.

Since then, I learned about some tools to make the job much less onerous, told Kathy I was ready to give it a shot, and we’re both very excited to announce that her new site is now live!

Here’s how I did it:

• Used the Import HTML Pages plug-in to bring in the content from her previous website, so we didn’t have to spend hours copying and pasting over 100 pages of content
• Used the Red Yukon Theme by iThemes, which strongly resembled the design of Kathy’s old site, eliminating the need to create a custom design
• Imported the content from her blog which was hosted at WordPress.com
• Followed instructions in TechBased Training‘s report, How To Change WordPress URL Without Moving Or Reinstalling
• Used the Broken Link Checker plug-in to easily identify and update links to internal pages that no longer existed

Don’t get me wrong; a project of this magnitude doesn’t happen overnight, especially when you factor in the addition of new material and changes to existing content, but having access to that kind of technology can make a huge difference as to whether something is manageable or not.

If you only know Kathy as the author of Red is Best, be sure to check out her new site and see what she’s been up to lately!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Migrating a Large Website to WordPress.

The 2010 Blogging Calendar simply listed monthly, weekly, and daily observances that can be the basis of a blog post (or series of posts). Some of the themes that inspired me were Shameless Promotion Month and Earth Day. I shared my copy with some of my clients, who were able to apply different ideas to their own businesses.

I’m really excited to see that Blog Energizer has really taken things up a notch this time. The calendar has gone from one page per month to a page for every week, with enough space to plan not only your blog topic ideas, but how and when you’ll promote your blog via email or comments on other blogs, guest blogging, and any other related activities. It’s hard to believe they’re just it giving away!

Download your own copy of the 2011 Blogging Calendar and Planner right here.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Get Ready to Blog in 2011.

For example, how do you add someone to your email address book? Do you manually enter the information, risking a typing error? There are way more efficient ways to go about it! In Outlook, you can create a new contact either by dragging an email message from your Inbox to your Contacts folder or by clicking on the contact name in the message header, then right-clicking and selecting Add to Contacts. No matter what email program you use, you can save a lot of time by taking advantage of its built-in features.

This is just one of the helpful tips you’ll find in Maximizing Your Time with Microsoft Outlook. Although based on Outlook 2003, most of the strategies will work with newer editions, and the general principles apply no matter what software you use.

For the rest of this month, we’re offering a Computer Learning Bundle to help you enhance your productivity. For the low price of $18.80, you’ll receive:

1. Maximizing Your Time with Microsoft Outlook 2003 – 30 pages of step-by-step instructions to help you organize your messages, contacts, schedule, and activities, and to reduce the time you spend processing email. (Regular Price: $9.99)
2. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Organizing Your Computer – a 75-minute audio file with comprehensive handouts which I developed along with Marcia Francois of Take Charge Solutions. (Regular Price: $37.00)

That’s a savings of 60%!

In addition, leave a comment below, and you’ll receive a free downloadable recording of one of my teleseminars on Organizing and Your Computer. No purchase necessary! Just answer one or both of the following questions:

1. What is your #1 time-saving computer tip?
2. What computer task is consuming too much of your time and/or energy or causing you frustration?

I’ll share the answers to your questions in an upcoming post.

Photo Source: turtlemom4bacon

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on A Free Gift and A Special Offer for Computer Learning Month.

One of the challenges many of us face as solopreneurs is that we don’t want to come across as selling, and we go so far in our attempt to avoid typical advertising pitches that our messages just aren’t strong enough to motivate potential customers to take the next step.

Certain words are more likely to trigger readers to take action than others. One of those, not surprisingly, is “free.” That’s why so many marketers offer a free newsletter, report, e-book, or other item to get you to join their mailing list. After all, who can resist a freebie?

“Free” is in fact one of the top ten words that will increase sales if you use them in your ad copy. You can find out the other nine by downloading Sweet Marketing Lingo: The Top Ten Words That Say Buy and Why They Work. Yes, it’s totally free – no opt-in required!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on 10 Words That Say “Buy”.

At the same time, I would create an invoice in Excel, save it as a PDF, and email it to my client, who would then send me a cheque or pay by PayPal. In some cases, the client would email to ask how to make a payment using PayPal, generating yet another step. If I knew ahead of time that the client preferred to pay by PayPal, I could use the PayPal invoicing tool, but then I didn’t have the option of including my business logo on the invoice.

Once Scott assumed responsibility for these tasks, the burden shifted to him. He tried using PayPal’s Payment Request Wizard for Outlook, but found that it didn’t really eliminate any steps, it just changed what the steps were. For myself, although I was freed from doing the work, I no longer had easy access to the information when I needed it.

Fortunately, I learned about some free online resources that have simplified both of these functions, and they just might work well for your business too.

EchoSign

EchoSign is a secure online signature service that makes things a little easier at our end, and a whole lot easier for our clients. We still create our agreements in Word and save them as PDFs, but after that, the entire process is automated.

When we upload the PDF to Echosign and enter the client’s email address, a copy is sent to him or her. Once they’ve reviewed it, they only need to click to indicate their acceptance, and a copy of the “signed” agreement is emailed to us. It’s that easy!

The only drawback is that the email shows as coming from echosign.com and not from us, and is occasionally blocked by our client’s spam filter, but it hasn’t been a big problem.

We’ve been using the free version for over a year, which allows for up to five signatures per month, but if at some point it no longer meets our needs, we will happily upgrade to the paid version, because it works so well. In addition to unlimited signatures, the four premium versions offer a variety of additional features to meet the needs of small business through to global enterprises. It can even be integrated with other applications, including Google Apps, Salesforce, and eFax, for even further streamlining.

Billing Boss

If EchoSign is the best thing since sliced bread, then Billing Boss is the best thing since… bread. It is exactly the tool I’ve been looking for since day one.

With Billing Boss, you simply upload your logo and enter your business information, and you’re ready to start sending invoices. There are only eight styles to choose from, but some are quite basic, so with the addition of your own logo, it’s not hard to find one that’s suitable.

You can either import your client list or enter the information as needed. It will then be stored within the application for future use.

Select the client, enter your invoice details, and send it by email. If you accept PayPal, there will be a space on the client’s copy where they can click to make a payment. Other online payment methods may be added with an optional upgrade. Mobile payment processing is another optional upgrade that would be useful for professionals who don’t always work from their office.

By using the system to track when you receive payments, you can see at any given time which invoices are outstanding or overdue, and generate reports to track your income. Because the invoices are all stored within your account, you can easily resend an invoice if the client needs another copy, either for payment or for year-end tax purposes.

You can also give read-only access to your bookkeeper or accountant, eliminating the need to hand over printed copies.

I am just thrilled at the ways these tools have streamlined our operations. In an ideal world, we could integrate the two processes, but who knows… that day may come!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on How to Streamline Operations without Breaking the Bank.

Today is day three of the special Time Management series from my guest blogger, Rodger Constandse. Be sure to come back every day this week for a chance to win valuable prizes to enhance your productivity.

Are you struggling to find enough hours in the day? Do you feel like you have too much to do and not enough time? Are you wondering when you’ll finally get caught up and get everything done?

One of the most important lessons in time management is to realize that you’ll NEVER be able to get EVERYTHING done. In our modern day world, there’s more available for us to do than we could ever accomplish in our entire lifetime.

What this means is that we need to figure out how to use our limited amount of time in a better way, focusing on the really important things, the ones that can truly make a difference in our lives and business. And your time management approach makes a HUGE difference in how well you do that.

Here are three signs that your current time management approach isn’t really working for you…

1. You find yourself wasting time on unimportant things. Just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re actually being productive. Your time management approach isn’t working if you feel busy but you’re not really accomplishing what you want or taking steps toward your important goals.
2. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and have no time left for your friends and family members or for the hobbies, interests and passions you enjoy. You’re probably overwhelmed because you’re spending your days spinning your wheels and focusing on low value tasks and busywork.
   
3. If you feel as if you, and your attention, are being pulled into several different directions. The result is scattered and unfocused thinking. Multitasking is what people call it but the truth is multitasking doesn’t work. You’re much more effective and efficient if you can focus your time and attention on one thing for a block of uninterrupted time.

If you find you’re experiencing any of the above, then chances are your time management approach isn’t working for you. You’re probably spending too much time on low-value activities and busywork instead of accomplishing what really matters to you.

The right time management approach helps you create goals that have purpose, passion and vision. It helps you create strategies to achieve those goals and provides tools to make it happen.

Effective time management is a skill that you can learn and improve with practice. And when you do and you apply it to your life, it helps you achieve your most important goals and still have the time and energy left for a little fun.

For more information, tools and resources on how to accomplish what really matters to you, check out Goals to Action.

Do you have any insights or lessons that you’ve learned about time management, productivity and getting things done that you’d like to share?

The prize for the best comment is a free copy of my Effective Time Management course.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Is Your Time Management Approach Working For You?.