Fresh Focus On Productivity!™

Welcome back!

The National Association of Professional Organizers has again declared January Get Organized Month!

As we all know, starting a new year is a great way to enact significant changes in both yourself and your space. NAPO has many events scheduled across the country as part of their Get Organized Month. Be sure to check out the calendar to see if there is an event near you. I’m thinking of attending one in my area – are you?

Amazon has created a Top 10 New Year’s Resolution page that includes “#9: Organize and Optimize” with a number of good deals on storage solutions and organizing books. I myself have found great things on Amazon for organization.

So tell me – what commitments did you make in the new year to get organized? What steps have you taken to accomplish this? What is the end goal? Tell me in the comments!

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


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In my corporate America job, I deal with a vendor that I use to purchase supplies and also large format scanning. Recently I presented a project to them for quote that was scanning of old green bar computer sheets.

I was quoted a price per page, and estimated the amount of pages that I had so that I could process my purchase order with the approximate total price of the service.

Courier was dispatched and arrived to pick up the goods and off they went. I thought that I was completed with everything, except a few cursory checks of the scanning to ascertain quality.

When I received an email a couple days later, I was surprised to read what it contained. I had submitted about 1300 pages for scanning and to be OCR’ed, and had been quoted as such. The email that I received stated that the vendor did not have the current version of the OCR software that would allow them to process more than 10 pages at a time. They then gave me an ultimatum: help to pay for the software, or my job would not get completed.

I sat at my desk, astounded. I was livid. I had made myself  abundantly clear on what I needed and how many that I had to process. I thought it extremely unprofessional to ask me to help pay for the software. They knew what I required and should have made sure that they had what they needed to have to process the job. If they didn’t have it, then I expected to see that in the quote, not in an email afterwards. If they did not assure that they had all the tools, tough noogies!

By bringing this to the readership, I hope that it can impress upon you how important it is to be prepared for your clients, and be organized enough to know that you have everything that you need to service their needs. If you do not, you need to tell them up front that it will cost you $XXX and that a portion of that cost will be reflected in the estimate that you present to them.

Had I had the option, I would have dropped this vendor long ago. They hold the lease to some of my equipment and are a friend of my supervisor, so it’s not likely that I could. I will drop vendors for being unprepared. Would you?

How would you have handled this situation? Tell me in the comments.  

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


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If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’ve seen quite a few posts recently stating that GTD is “really effing hard” and that “the amount of time and effort it takes to (according to the book) manage a list of tasks, a calendar and some filing shit has become prohibitively long”.

Hmmm.

I’ve always been a proponent of tailoring everything in your life to suit your needs and the way that you work. I’ve done this with GTD as well as my personal productivity and organization. Why would someone continue doing something that is not making them as happy and as productive as they can be? I guess it puzzles me.

If something that you are doing does not please you, change it. Review what you do and how you do it in order to tailor it to make yourself the most productive that you can. If you need to cut, sew and hem to make GTD fit you, then by all means do so. Nothing in this life is hard and fast. It all well and good to follow a methodology to assist you in being organized and productive, but if it’s a chore and frustrating you instead of helping you, then change it. Keep all the most important tidbits and fit in the fabric that will make the system work for you.

I might also mention that nothing in this life that helps you be productive and organized is easy. Anything worthwhile takes time and persistence. But know yourself and know what to tune and tweak in order to make the system work for you.

How have you tweaked your system to be more efficient and productive for you? Tell me in the comments.

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


__________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’ve FINALLY done it!

I finally finished my Swirly Q GTD Template set! This is the best selling template set that I currently have, and it is now complete with the following templates:

• Notes
• Graph Paper
• Mind Map
• Agenda
• Expense Report
• Phone Log
• Project Planner
• Personal Profile
• To Do List
• Weekly Template
• Monthly Template
• Yearly Template

My other set has been updated for 2009 as well, so you can purchase that update now that the New Year is upon us!

I’m happy to customize these any way that you need as well as do complete custom templates from the ground up. Just let me know what you need and it will be done!

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You've read the series, now get the E-Book! Special EXTRA material not included in the blog series, plus three FREE templates!! Templates included are Time Management Matrix, Goal worksheet, and The Completion Journal. Only $24.99 for the book!


__________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!