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Getting Organized 3/13/2007

A number of the "NOTES From Your Business" have been aimed at how to get and stay organized. Guess who the biggest offender is of NOT staying organized?

Yup - ME!

It seems to be a journey for me to learn about organization, and I'll continue to share it with you along the way in other articles. Here one thing that makes a huge difference for me in terms of being organized:

When my office is messy - I can't work.
Sometimes my office just becomes a mess, and it absolutely stops me from working. Oh don't get me wrong, I can function well enough to handle the most important things, but I'm not really happy there when it's messy. I'm not able to be creative in a messy place.

My remedy for this is to take EVERY PIECE OF CLUTTER and move it out to a "holding area". The holding area for me is my daughter's room. She's away at college, so it is fair game for me to use it. OK - truth be told, my wife isn't so understanding about this, but it works for me....

As soon as I've moved everything, my whole office opens up for creativity and productivity. My "TO DO" list gets its own piece of desk space. Things just start to get done when the office is cleaned up. To me this is some sort of miracle!

Now at some point (and it doesn't have to be the same day I move this stuff) I'll get quite inspired to sort through everything - file things - handle things - throw things away. But notice that this is a separate step. It all doesn't have to do be done at once.

All the best,

posted 3/13/2007

Simple Works!

We have a Next Big Thing, and 5 Deliverables,
right Jerry????

Today I'd like you to brainstorm some ideas one
how to achieve the first deliverable.

Let's just pick a path to get there.

Oh yeah - and I want you to do one
more REALLY IMPORTANT THING with all this....

COMMIT TO DOING IT!!!!!

OK - So I just gave you the nuts and bolts
to project planning:
PICK A NEXT BIG THING
COME UP WITH THE MAJOR DELIVERABLES
PICK A PATH TO EACH DELIVERABLE.

I know that this is simplistic as anything.
I know that they teach endless courses and
even give college degrees in planning.

BUT....

SIMPLE WORKS.

-Your Business

P.S. You'd only be bored if you took a course
in planning anyway, Jerry!!!!

posted 9/14/2006

My Daughter's Plan for Getting Into College

My Daughter's Plan for Getting Into College

Take SAT Tests
Sign up for SAT Exam
Sign up for SAT Prep Course
Attend classes
Do Assigned Homework

Investigate Colleges
Determine What is Important to look for in a College
Visit Colleges / Take Tours
Review price tags with parents
Revive Parents with Smelling Salts (Remember to purchase at drug store)

Have Parents Fill Out FAFSA Forms
Determine Amount of "Contribution" that is expected
Revive Parents again

Acceptance
Prior to acceptance obsess about being accepted
Receive Acceptance Letters
Go To Dinner to celebrate each acceptance

Pick College to Attend

Have Parents Send Money to College
Have Parents Send More Money to College
Have Parents Send Every Last Dollar to College
Have Parents Take Loans to Send More Money to College
Have Parents Sell Home to Send Money to College

Go To College
Come Home on Holidays to ask parents for Money

posted 4/21/2005

Forget Your New Year's Resolution (If you haven't already)

First of all.....Happy New Year! I hope that 2004 is your best year yet. Let's get going on making that happen.

Ahhh New Years, what a celebration!! New Year's Eve parties. Watching the ball drop at Times Square. Parades on TV. And then the inevitable question: "What's Your New Year's Resolution?" At the beginning of 2003 I hired an independent research company to poll the masses for the answer to that very question (data available on request). The results fell into three categories: Alcohol, Diet and Finances. It seems that upon further research, the individuals whose answers revolved around Alcohol had a very bad experience with the substance the night before (or that very morning). That leaves us with Diet and Finances. The survey teams found that those who responded "Diet" and "Finances" had made this very resolution on other New Year Days in the past (averages were 23 years for "Diet" and 35 years for "Finances"). I had the same test population re-polled in early February of 2003 regarding how their New Years Resolution was coming along. 91% responded "What New Years Resolution?", 8% responded "Go Away", and 1% didn't respond, instead... they began to weep. There is even an internet poll that suggests that the "average" length of time that someone keeps their New Year's Resolution is only 17 days!

This is NO WAY to bring in a New Year, dear readers. So again I say "Forget Your New Year's Resolution". That's right. Drop it. Forget about it. Walk away. But let's replace it with something new and better. Ready to play along? Good. Just follow these three easy steps.

Step One: Fast-forward to the end of 2004. Now that you're there, look back on the year. What was the ONE THING that happened during the year that you're very, very happy about? What happened in your life or in your business? What happened in terms of your health? What is that ONE THING that you're reflecting on that has given you great pride and joy? This should be an accomplishment. Examples of business oriented accomplishments: Beating last year's revenue by 25%, Opening a new location, Bringing a new product line or service to market. Personal accomplishments: Taking that Vacation of a Lifetime, Quitting smoking, Having more free time.

Step Two: Now think about that accomplishment, and make a list of all the things that had to have happened for that to occur. Some of these things could be very specific, and some more general. For the ones that were general, continue to explore the very specific things that happened for them to come true. When you've got everything down to specifics, put the actions into present tense and map out what has to occur to make your year-end vision happen along with dates.

Step Three: Follow the actions and dates that we created in the last step to accomplish your goal for the year.

We just replaced your New Year's Resolution with an Action Plan for 2004, centered on the one thing that would make you most proud and happy with the year. There wasn't enough room in this article to give you a full example of this technique for planning, but I did put a great example on my website. Click on January 2004 Newsletter Example to see my plan for sending my youngest daughter to college. I think you'll enjoy it.

Till next time.....

posted 4/21/2005