Do You Make These Same Mistakes Getting Organized?

Entrepreneurs are busy people. In the midst of their hustle and bustle, getting organized is often at the bottom of their list. They are attacked by their paperwork, versus making the decision to ATTACK IT! Finally, one day, they start mixing up their appointments, spend too much time looking for that most important peice of information, and after tearing their hair out in clumps, they admit defeat: "I've got to get ORGANIZED!"

Fear not, downtrodden soul! I have made plenty of mistakes trying to get organized, and I have to come share with you what not to do, and what to do, so that you will have plenty of getting organized tips to add to your efficiency list this week.

Don't neglect taking the time to get organized in the first place. This is me! I always feel as though there is something more important or more urgent to do. Instead of taking the first important step: sorting all the information on and in my desk, wallet, pockets, etc., I have tended to do anything but take the time to actually sort through my papers, form important categories, and set up important categories so that I can retrieve these papers quickly and easily.


Lately, quest one of my 2009 resolutions of getting organized, I have been reading Julie Morgenstern's bestseller, Organizing from the Inside Out; Sorting is the first order of business. Here are some sample categories you can create to bring order out of chaos:

• Client Files: Each client gets his/her own file. If you have subcategories, you can use color or tab position to indicate the difference between the main client file and the subfiles. Subcategories can include: 'Contracts,' 'Invoices,' 'Work Product,' 'Correspondence.'
  
• Prospect Files: Keep clients and prospects together. After all, you are planning for those prospects to turn into clients, right?! Julie Morgenstern sorts clients versus prospects by tab position: clients have a left tab position, prospects a right tab position. When a prospect becomes a client, invert the folder, turn the tab around, and there is your new client file!
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• Subject Files: include articles, clippings, notes, observations keeping you up to date on your area of expertise. You may want to use this information for a speech, to share with colleagues as part of networking, or for a proposal.
  
• "Spark" Files: may include sample brochures, mailing and marketing pieces, and forms from others in business. By studying your 'competition,' and organizing this information, you get your creative juices flowing for ideas for your own business.
  
• Cash Receipts: An idea here is to have a shoe box or other fancy box that you may come up with. Keep 52 envelopes, one for every week of the year. Put all deductible receipts for your business each week into the envelope for that week. At the end of the week, categorize and total the receipts on the outside of the envelope, and you will have a record of tax deductible expenses, safely stored, which can then be quickly recorded at tax time.
• Notes from Seminars and Courses. Learn and organize at the same time. Go through the course or seminar material, try to condense the main points onto one sheet of paper, and place it in a three-ring binder called "Golden Nuggets." You can keep this folder near you so that you can review these critical ideas daily, or more often if needed.
• Business Ideas. You may have serendipity ideas that strike at any moment, either for a new business, or for your current business. Create a business ideas section for your filing system. You can then add and expand on these ideas at any time.

Congratulations! If you learn from my mistakes, you will do this in the following week:

You will decide that enough is enough! You are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Rather than being attacked by your paperwork, you are going to ATTACK your paperwork by setting aside 15 minutes to start sorting through your papers! Realistically, it will take between 16 and 18 hours total if you have the average entrepeneur's pile of paperwork, but it is best to start small, and keep attacking. You have my promise that I'm going to take my 15 minutes this week and start ATTACKING my paperwork :)

Second, you will not get overwhelmed by all the paperwork, so that you give up and go back to being attacked. As you start attacking your paperwork, refer back to the above categories to sort your paperwork into manageable categories, and to file it into the appropriate sections.

I hope you've enjoyed these getting organized tips. Now go out there and start getting organized!

Sorry, folks, I only got to the first step of my getting organized tips. I have not even covered purging, assigning a home, containerizing, and equalizing. But we can get to that next week!

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Break Up With Lack! Making Money During a Depression

Whoa there! What are you talking about, Steve?! What Depression? I thought this was about success! You are so pessimistic!

I'm glad you're challenging me! But, if you're thinking like the headline of this article, it's time to break up with that mindset! It's time to create your own economy!


Could it be that there are still those of us who worry about losing our jobs during this recession? WHAT?! Your're thinking the wrong way, my friend!


You must have the mindset of the 21st century and beyond employee-preneur! Or, you may already be an entrepeneur. It's time for those of us who have been living in the employee role and mindset to start learning from entrepeneurs around us. You cannot afford to think like an employee and survive very long in this economy. Rather than worrying about what is going to happen in the next week, month, year, years....it's time to start creating your own economy!


But...this is going to come at a cost. You will have to trade short term pleasure for short-term hard work, creativity, and sacrifice. It's way to easy to get comfortable, to come home, sit on the couch, flick on the tv, wake up, go to work, come home, and do the same thing, over and over, until one day you are handed a pink slip. All this time, you've been dulling the pain of uncertainty with a haze of complacency.

Today, I want you to start reading some books which will change your life. Why not start off with some of the books that changed my thinking forever? Robert Allen's Multiple Streams of Income: How to Generate a Lifetime of Unlimited Wealth! Second Edition fascinated me and drove me into a path of greater creativity and possibilities than I could ever have imagined. Robert Kyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!, colored a new paradigm for me that changed my life forever. Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, and Anthony Robbins have blazed the trail before me, providing the daily fuel and how-to strategies that have helped me implement the concepts of passive income, and moving from trading time for dollars and cents.
More recently, Tim Ferris' The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich has put a whole new spin on things.

It's time to be willing to apply yourself, dig within, identify your passions, figure out your vision, identify your mission in this world. Otherwise, you will find yourself living a life of quiet desperation, only to find that one day, Uncle Sam hands you the pink slip.

What are you doing to prepare yourself while you have a job. Mind you, being an entrepeneur does not mean that you quit your job, mortgage your house, and go for broke. Rather, it means that you look for ways to be self-directed at work, to add value to your company's bottom line, to work harder and smarter. Then, ethically look for ways to leverage your time and money outside of work (never interfering with your job) into a passion that pays for what you have to offer.

Robert Frost said it best:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

WHAT ROAD ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE?

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Unlock Emotional Mastery, Part 1

I have been reading Anthony Robbins' classic work, Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny! Chapter 11 has some of the best material I have read regarding how best to respond to our emotions. There are four ways that people deal with their emotions.

First, most people try to avoid painful emotions at all cost. They fear rejection, so they shy away from relationships. Or they avoid challenging jobs. Ironically, by avoiding painful emotions, they deprive themselves of feeling the very love, intimacy, and connection that they desire most.

Second, many people deny their emotions. They continuously wonder why bad things happen to them. Again, ironically, as people deny their emotions, those very emotions simply become more painful and more intense until people finally pay attention to them. Unfortunately, by then a lot of damage may have been done.

Third, a lot of people wallow in their emotions. They gain a certain masochistic pleasure from indulging feelings of anger, self-pity, fear. Unfortunately, they become so used to those wallowing that they never move beyond the emotion to doing something constructive.

Headline: Emotions that you have thought to be negative, are merely a call to action. In fact, instead of thinking of them as negative or painful emotions, think of them as Action Signals. By recognizing that you can choose to learn from those action signals, you can then take action to produce positive results in your life.

What is the message that these Action Signals are giving you?

As per Tony Robbins, "They are telling you that what you are currently doing is not working, that the reason you have pain is either that way you are perceiving things or the procedures you are using: specifically, the way you are communicating your needs or desires to people, or the actions you are taking. "

So the key to emotional mastery is to become a student of your Action Signals. When you are feeling the emotions of discomfort, fear, hurt, anger, frustration, disappointment, guilt, inadequacy, overwhelm, or loneliness, you are being called to positive, empowering action, which will result in more positive results for you.

Take Away:
1. Reflect on what your most common reaction is when you are feeling the above emotions mentioned in the last paragraph: Are you a deny-er, an avoider, or a wallower?

2. What has it cost you in terms of your physical, emotional, and spiritual health to deny, avoid, or wallow when you are experiencing emotions of discomfort, fear, hurt, anger, frustration, disappointment, guilt, inadequacy, overwhelm, or loneliness?

3. Take time to notice your 'negative emotions' this week, and determine to re-label those emotions as action signals. How are you perceiving the specific situation/s leading to this emotion? What actions are you using to try to meet your needs? How are you communicating to important people in your life?

Next week, we will look into even more steps to gain emotional mastery.

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Guaranteed Formula to Turn Failure Into Success

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Seneca, Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD.

Did any of you catch the Super Bowl tonight? I sure did, and it was an amazing game. Even more amazing is the story of Kurt Warner, the 38 year old for the Arizona Cardinals. This man's story is inspiration and motivation for each and every one of us.

1. Have faith and confidence in your dream. Kurt Warner made it to the pros, was drafted to Green Bay, and sat on the bench behind three very talented quarterbacks. He ended up leaving Green Bay, and took a job stocking groceries during the graveyard shift at a grocery store. He would work out during the day. Other grocery clerks hoped to make it to a management position. He hoped to make it to the pros again. Everyone looked at him with disbelief. He always dreamed and planned to make it back to the pros.

2. Excel in the current situation you are in. Kurt never stopped his rigorous schedule of working out. He did not take it easy. He let his belief in his dream drive him to continue to do things well daily in search of his dream.

3. When an opportunity comes, go for it! Kurt's opportunity came when he was given the opportunity to play arena football. Many other ex-pro quarterbacks would have scorned playing in a 'more inferior' league. However, he looked at it as an opportunity to play football, continue to hone his skills, and move closer to his ultimate dream. He played arena football consistently, and over time became the best quarterback in the league.

4. You can rest, but don't ever quit. Kurt surely had moments of discouragement over time. When he was drafted to the Rams in 1999, he was a third string quarterback. His moment finally came when the main quarterback was injured. He came into the game and never looked back, leading his team to the Super Bowl that year.

5. Have unshakeable faith in God and in the abilities He has given you. Kurt confessed, in a recent radio interview, that he had become anxious during this last week. So he went to early morning mass to connect with God. And that is what he has done throughout his years in the NFL. That faith in God, coupled with the confidence he has derived from that faith, have enabled him to persevere through many obstacles.

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