Of course, I know it’s not a real award, not like the Thomas Leonard International Virtual Assistant of Distinction Award I was nominated for in 2009. It’s really just a meme, but memes can be fun, so I’m happy to have an excuse to use one in my blog, and thank Erika for thinking of me.

There are four simple rules for The Versatile Blogger Award:

1. Post a link to the person who gave you the award.
2. Tell your readers seven random things about yourself.
3. Award 15 newly discovered blogs.
4. Send them a note letting them know you nominated them.

So, here are seven random facts about me:

1. I won second prize in the Discover Mississauga Photo Contest several years ago for this interior shot of Mississauga City Hall.
   
   (This is a photo of the photo, through the glass of the frame, so doesn’t really do it justice.)
2. I usually carry the same purse for months, and sometimes don’t even switch with the change in seasons, but I love shopping for purses. Shoes, not so much.
3. I love to play trivia games and am pretty good at them too.
4. I was a matched Big Sister for many years, and am still friends with my Little Sister, who is now all grown up and recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.
5. I have signed up for Google+, but haven’t yet figured out what, if anything, I will do there.
6. I was into Reduce-Reuse-Recycle before it was even a trend.
7. I make my own granola.

And here are the 15 blogs I’m nominating for the Versatile Blogger Award, in alphabetical order:

1. LinkedLearning by Margarita Ibbott: Help with using LinkedIn and other social media.
2. Daily Blogging Ideas by Michelle Shaeffer: Wonderful inspiration for both personal and business blogs.
3. Fabulous After 40 by Deborah Boland and JoJami Tyler: Fashion advice for those of us who aren’t as young as we used to be.
4. Garious Blog – Up to date information about social media.
5. Grow with Stacy: Tips for personal development, as well as blogging and social media.
6. The Lady Bloggers Society headed by Stepfanie Cuevas: Once a week they hold a Lady Blogger Social Tea Party to give readers a chance to share their blog posts – a great way to connect with other bloggers!
7. Marian Schembari: More goodies on social media and blogging.
8. MS Outlook for Business: Valuable tips for using email and discovering features of Outlook you never knew existed.
9. The Other Side of Organized by Linda Samuels: Explores the emotions connected with making changes in your life.
10. Site Sketch 101 by Nicholas Cardot: A wealth of information about blogging.
11. Solo-E.com by Terri Zwierzynski: Articles on all aspects of running a small business, including marketing, productivity and more.
12. Sunday Stealing hosted by Judd Corizan: A great place to find out about different blog memes of all types.
13. Teatime with Tina by Tina Chase: All about food and cooking.
14. Virtually Yours by Joanne Burgess: Fabulous tips about social media and small business topics.
15. WordPress Jedi: Information about WordPress themes, plugins, and security issues, as well as SEO and social media tips.

If you enjoyed this post, why not nominate yourself for a Versatile Blogger Award? If you do, please leave a link to your post in the Comments, so we can learn more about you and the blogs you read.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on The Versatile Blogger Award.

Here are five tips to help you do just that.

1. Identify the sites that offer the most value for your business

If you use Facebook mainly to play games and reconnect with old friends, limit your visits to non-work times. You can still share your blog posts, post your business events, and link to your website, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that the time you spend on Facebook is helping you grow your business.

2. Connect with people in your target market

It’s great to network with other people in your industry – you can probably learn a lot from each other – but keep in mind that this should not be your main focus. If your goal is to find new clients, you need to connect directly with people in your target market, or with people who can introduce you to potential clients.

3. Choose your contacts wisely

Remember that networking isn’t about numbers; it’s about relationships. Don’t feel you have to accept every connection request you receive, especially from people who don’t explain why they want to connect with you. If you’re afraid of closing the door on a potentially valuable relationship, initiate a conversation. If the person does not respond, they’re not really interested in getting to know you, and you don’t need them on your contact list.

4. Create a schedule for your social networking

Unlike live networking events which may conflict with your best working hours, online networking can be done at any time of the day or night. Schedule specific times to visit high value sites. For some people, it may be 15 to 30 minutes at the end of each day; others may prefer to block half a day every week. The important thing is that you don’t allow it to cut into your billable hours.

5. Hire a virtual assistant to help you stay on top of things

Although you can’t really outsource relationship building, there are many ways a VA can reduce the time you spend on social media, including setting up your profiles, locating appropriate people for you to connect with, and logging into your accounts on a regular basis to deal with routine items and let you know about those that require your attention.

If you’ve avoided social media because you think it will be too time-consuming, you may be missing out on a valuable marketing tool. When you strategically select your sites and contacts and use your time wisely, you will be pleasantly surprised to see what can happen!

Today’s Question: How do you keep yourself on track when using social media?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Five Ways to Make the Most of Your Social Media Time.

I’ve blogged quite a bit about organizing and productivity, and I invite you to review the archives for tips that will be relevant to your current situation.

In honour of Get Organized Month, I also encourage you to learn from some of the professional organizers I support through my business, Organized Assistant®, who also blog about organizing:

• Geralin Thomas – Cary, North Carolina
• Jane Woolsey – Toronto, Ontario
• Hellen Buttigieg – Oakville, Ontario
• Heather Burke – Ottawa, Ontario
• Tina Blazer – Toronto, Ontario

In addition, I’d like to introduce you to a few women who have been recognized as Professional Organizers Blog Carnival Star Bloggers by participating in ten or more editions of the monthly Blog Carnival on my other blog, Your Organizing Business.

• Angela Esnouf – Melbourne, Australia
• Lelah Baker-Rabe – Los Angeles, California
• Ellen Delap – Houston, Texas
• Jeri Dansky – Half Moon Bay, California
• Elaine Shannon – Rothesay, New Brunswick
• Julie Bestry – Chattanooga, Tennessee

If all this great organizing advice has you overwhelmed and you need a hand implementing it, contact an organizer near you! If no one listed above is in your area, please note that some of these organizers provide virtual organizing services. You’ll find even more people who can help you by searching one or more of these websites:

• POC – Professional Organizers in Canada
• NAPO – National Association of Professional Organizers
• BCPO – The Board of Certification for Professional Organizers
• ICD – Institute for Challenging Disorganization
• AAPO – Australasian Association of Professional Organisers
• APDO UK – Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers UK
• POAA – Professional Organiser Association Africa
• BooND – Büroorganisation Büroordnung Netzwerk Deutschland Germany
• JALO – Japan Association of Life Organizers
• NBPO – Nederlandse Beroepsvereniging van Professional Organizers

I’m just wondering – what part of getting organized is most challenging for you?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Time to Get Organized!.

Know what you can realistically handle, and set limits

Ever since the first Face to Face Job Fair in 2006, I’ve been actively involved in recruiting employers to take part, as well as coordinating the volunteers. With the many new clients I’ve taken on since last year, I knew I couldn’t devote the same amount of time and energy to this project as I have in past years without affecting the level of service to my other clients. Even before it was certain there would be a Face to Face event this year, I let the project leader know that I would only be able to coordinate the volunteers, giving her plenty of time to find someone to fill the gap.

Be open and honest about your availability

I realized back in September that between my current projects, ongoing clients, and the work I’d have to do for the three events, I couldn’t take on any new clients or projects until the events were over and done. I may have missed out on a couple of opportunities because the clients couldn’t or didn’t want to wait, but that was better for my physical and mental well-being than putting in extra long days to try and fit it all in, and better for my professional reputation than if I’d agreed to proceed but didn’t meet deadlines.

Allow yourself enough downtime

This is especially important if you’re an introvert, like I am. I was scheduled to speak at the POC Conference on Friday afternoon, and also wanted to attend the Gala Dinner on Saturday night. Since I was going to be around anyway, I considered registering for Saturday’s educational sessions, but knew from past experience that although it’s a great learning opportunity, it’s a very long and tiring day. I decided to pass on the seminars and instead took a “me” day, something I rarely make time for, even when I’m at home.

Block time for follow-up activities

Depending on the nature of the event, you’ll probably collect at least a few business cards, and possibly other materials as well. You’ll want to follow up with the people you met as soon as possible after the event, while you both still remember what you talked about. Weeks can fly by before you know it, and it’s best to build that relationship while the connection is still fresh in your mind. If you’re attending a conference, or even just a seminar, schedule time to review your notes and any handouts and decide how you’ll put the information into practice in your business. It’s a shame to invest all that time and money into learning some new ideas, just to set them aside when you get home. One of the organizers I spoke to at the POC Conference told me that she purposely didn’t book any appointments this week, for that very reason.

Whether you’re planning a business event, attending a conference, or hosting a holiday get-together, it’s going to take a bite out of your schedule. How will you fit it in? If you have some additional advice, please share!

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on How to Participate in Special Events Without Losing Control of Your Workload.

For one thing, when you set unrealistically high goals for yourself, you may delay starting a project until you have enough time to “do it right,” and then end up having to rush through it just before the deadline.

Perhaps you continue working on something after it’s technically finished, always finding “one more thing” that can be improved upon, instead of recognizing when it’s “good enough” and moving on to the next job. This causes you to spend more time and energy on a project than it actually merits, at the expense of other activities.

As a perfectionist, you might have difficulty with delegation, fearing that no one else can do the job to your exacting standards. As a result, you are often overworked. If and when you do bring yourself to delegate, you don’t gain as much time as you could, because you spend a lot of time checking and redoing the other person’s work.

Perfectionism can lead to stress, which can hinder your productivity even further, and even cause burnout and illness, which will bring things to a screeching halt. Before it reaches that point, consider adopting one or more of the following strategies.

1. Break large projects down into smaller tasks. Focusing on only one task at a time will help you to feel less overwhelmed and free your mind to be more productive.
2. Be realistic about what you can achieve, and list only high priority items on your to-do list. By lowering your expectations, you won’t lose valuable time agonizing over what you “should have” done.
3. Schedule time to work on specific tasks. This will help you to remain aware of the other activities you need to fit into your day, so you don’t feel you have “all the time in the world” to spend perfecting certain jobs. If it’s difficult for you to set time limits, ask for help from a business or life coach, or a colleague.
4. Consider the long-term benefits of delegating routine tasks. Although you may initially have to invest time in training and supervision, it will eventually pay off, leaving you more time to spend on higher value activities.

For many people, perfectionism is a serious problem which affects not only their productivity, but their self-esteem, relationships, and other areas of life. If you are experiencing this, you may wish to read one of the books listed below or even seek professional counselling.

• When Good Enough Is Never Enough by Steven J. Hendlin, Ph.D. – Available from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca
• Too Perfect by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeannette DeWyze – Available from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca
• Everything I Know About Perfectionism I Learned From My Breasts by Debbie Jordan Kravitz – Available from Amazon.com
  

Do you struggle with perfectionism? What strategies work well for you?

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Perfectionism and Your Productivity.

If this sounds like you, it’s time for you to revise your schedule. You may feel that you don’t have a choice, but you do – even if it only means choosing to explore your options.

If you are employed outside the home, here are some changes you may want to consider.

• Take advantage of services such as cleaning, lawn and garden care, so you don’t spend your weekends working at home, after working all week.
• Online banking and shopping will also free up time, allowing you to relax during your lunch hour and go right home after work. In addition, you’ll spend less money on gas, another important consideration these days!
• Hire a Virtual Assistant to keep track of when car service, medical, dental and vision check-ups are due, and to schedule and remind you of your appointments.

If you operate a home-based business, you generally have more flexibility in your work schedule, as long as you are available to meet with or speak to your clients when their schedule dictates. Unfortunately, that doesn’t guarantee balance – a great number of home-based business owners confess to working 60 or more hours a week. When you don’t actually leave your place of work at the end of the workday, it’s very tempting to squeeze in “just one more thing,” especially if you’re passionate about your business.

Nonetheless, there are steps you can take to revise your schedule.

• Set regular working hours and only work outside those hours under extenuating circumstances. Note that this doesn’t have to mean 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. One of the benefits of working from home is being able to plan your work around your family and personal commitments, as well as scheduling your activities to take advantage of your natural energy cycles.
• If possible, keep your home office separate from your living space, so you can physically leave it when your work is done for the day.
• Hire a Virtual Assistant to take over the tasks that are cutting into your personal time.

Although there is a cost involved with some of the above suggestions, don’t let that stop you! Consider it an investment in your peace of mind and physical well-being.

Photo credit: lululemon athletica

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Is Your Schedule Out of Balance?.

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.

For many small business owners, things slow down during the summer due to vacations and other factors, but start up again in full gear in September. If you don’t have good systems in place before you get busy, you’ll find it hard to stay on top of things, as you’ll basically be operating in survival mode, dealing only with immediate concerns. Now is the best time to get yourself and your business organized so you’re ready when fall arrives.

The specific actions you need to take will depend on the nature of your business, your personal work style, and your current situation, but the following four steps will help guide you through the organizing process.

Step 1: Self-Assessment

Identify the problems you hope to solve by getting organized. Are you constantly running late? Do you typically reach the end of the day before you reach the end of your to-do list? Do you waste too much time looking for paperwork in your office or information on your computer?

As you recognize your challenges, try to determine why you have these problems and to think of possible solutions.

If you don’t seem to have enough space in your office, ask yourself if your office is too small, or if you simply have too much stuff! Perhaps you need some proper tools such as a filing cabinet or some type of desk organizer.

Sometimes it’s your own personality traits that stand in your way. Many people who struggle with perfectionism will spend hours fine-tuning a task that is already technically complete and would be considered “good enough” by others.

If you find yourself spending countless hours on work that is outside your area of expertise, weigh the value of taking a course to enhance your skills, or even hiring a professional to handle it for you, so that you have more time to focus on what you’re good at and really enjoy doing.

Albert Einstein once said

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

If you don’t look at new approaches in your business, you’ll never get ahead of where you are now.

Your self-assessment doesn’t just involve what isn’t working. You also need to identify what has worked for you in the past , so you can do more of it, or adapt it to fit your current situation.

Step 2: Planning

It’s not realistic to try and make too many changes at once, so decide what changes are most needed and focus on those.

Research your options. Find out what products and systems are available that might suit your needs and how much they cost.

If you need help getting organized, consider hiring a professional organizer.

Plan what you are going to do, and when you will do it. Schedule it in your calendar.

Purchase any supplies you will need in advance – don’t leave it until the last minute in case they’re not available and you have to delay your organizing project.

Step 3: Implementation

On the date or dates that you’ve set aside, get to work on your organizing project. Treat this appointment the same as if you were working with a very important client – no phone calls, no visitors, and no checking email.

If it’s difficult for you to sit and focus on a task for long stretches of time, set a timer for 1 hour, 30 minutes, or even 15 minutes – whatever is realistic for you – then take a short break.

Regardless of what you are organizing, the process mainly consists of:

• Sorting objects into categories – things you need to access on a regular basis, things you need for archive/storage only, things you can sell, things you can give away, things you should throw out, etc.
• Organizing the things you’re keeping so they are easy to find and access when needed
• Placing those things in suitable containers such as file folders, binders, or boxes, appropriately labelled, so they stay in their new homes

Step 4: Maintenance

The most important thing to remember is that getting organized is only the beginning. It takes effort and commitment and proper systems to stay organized.

You will need to review your system periodically to make sure it is still working for you, and adapt it as needed.

The above post contains the highlights of a presentation I gave yesterday for the People in Connection Burlington Network Group, and to thank you for reading my blog, I am sharing with you a special offer that I made to that group. From now until Labour Day, you can save 40% off all of my products by entering the coupon code PIC2010.

If you’re in the Golden Horseshoe area, you can pick up some additional tips for getting organized and ready for the fall business season at the following upcoming events:

Monday, August 9 – 12:30-2:30: Oakville

Wednesday, August 11 – 8:00-9:30: Hamilton (with guest speaker Julie Stobbe of Mind over Clutter)

Wednesday, August 11 – 11:30-1:00: St. Catharines

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Getting Your Business Organized for the Fall.

In my presentation, I wasn’t really talking about a person who reads their email while talking on the phone, knits while watching television, or (shudder) texts while driving. I was actually thinking of the description in the Larry Demarest’s Looking at Type in the Workplace, where he says,

A person who prefers intuition… works in bursts, awaits inspiration, may skip around, pursuing what “strikes my fancy”

Since only about 25% of the population are Intuitives, it’s not surprising that the idea that this work style can be effective would be foreign to the remaining 75% who are Sensors. The majority of time management experts stress the importance of making a prioritized list and working through it sequentially, and for most people, this works well, but it’s important to realize that we’re not all the same.

If your brain just won’t connect with the first item on your to-do list, you could waste hours trying to get it done while your mind keeps considering other possibilities. Instead, if you allow yourself to work on what most inspires and excites you at the moment, you can be very productive. There is a chance that you’ll fizzle out before you finish, but rather than banging your head against your desk in frustration, you can put that project aside until it calls you again, and move on to something else.

I suppose this isn’t technically “multi-tasking” since you are only working on one task at any given moment, but what should we call it? “Serial tasking” perhaps? The important thing is not to label it, but to recognize it as a valid work style that may or may not be right for you.

To learn more about personality type and organizing style, order my e-book, Organizing Your Life, Your Way.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Is Multi-Tasking a Valid Work Style?.

Earlier this year, Rodger Constandse came by to share his best time management tips, and I’ve enjoyed hearing from my readers about the new strategies they have implemented. Most of us can use a refresher now and then, so today I’m turning my blog over to Janice Russell of Minding Your Matters

Do you feel like you never get to the end of your to-do list? Are there some to-do items that seem to move from list to list? Do you track things to be done on one list, multiple pieces of paper, an electronic device, or in your head? One crucial factor in getting organized is using time wisely. While there are a myriad of ways to approach the 24 hours you are allotted each day, this month we will concentrate on developing a new habit. And the new habit is to learn to differentiate between tasks and projects.

A task is something that can be accomplished in a limited amount of time. This can be 15 minutes, two hours, or a day. But anything that takes more than a day to complete is not a task. It is a project. A project involves multiple steps and takes more than a day to complete. Tasks go on to-do lists; projects don’t.

An example of a to-do list for the home is:

• Grocery shop (it is your decision whether to list the items you need to purchase on this list or on another piece of paper)
• Buy and wrap birthday gift for Sue
• Call sister to determine who will host Thanksgiving this year

If you add “organize garage”, you have listed a project. There are numerous steps required in order to get a garage organized. In no specific order, these might include:

• Determine what types of objects belong in the garage: sporting equipment, lawn care items, tools, etc.
• Decide how these items should be stored: on shelves, hanging from walls, in cardboard or plastic boxes, etc.
• Purchase pieces required to store these articles.
• Sort all items in garage and decide which to keep, donate, dispose, and house somewhere besides in the garage.
• House items in suitable containers and in locations that are accessible.

Each of these chores takes time, some require a trip to the store, and others may be divided into sub-tasks or shared between several people. Although it is possible to organize a garage in a day, it is unlikely to happen. As a matter of fact, more than likely a person will be overwhelmed at the thought of the job and not start it. Whereas if the two tasks on the weekend to-do list are to determine the categories of things that belong in the garage and to sort the objects along the back wall, it feels much more plausible.

Now that you realize the difference between a task and a project, you will need to classify each chore that you believe needs to be completed. Then you will need to record the jobs in the appropriate place and format. Finally, you need to make the time in your schedule to work on the task.

Once you develop the habit of doing this on a regular basis, you will find that you can complete more in less time and without feeling so overwhelmed.

About the Author

Janice Russell, CPO-CD, is the Overseer of Order at Minding Your Matters® Organizing Consultants.  The company consults with business and residential clients with the intention of decluttering and organizing space and time to effect changes which will lead to attainment of personal and professional goals.   Seminars on a variety of organizing topics are also available.

Janice is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers and the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.  For additional informational or to contact, visit www.mindingyourmatters.com.

Please visit From the Desk of Janet Barclay to read and comment on Get Organized This Year!.