Blast O' Joy

How to Manage Email Overload

This just in! My dear buddy Stever Robbins was on NBC Nightly News last night talking about email overwhelm – and who among us doesn’t have it, I’d like to know. (I don’t but only because I finally had to pass most of mine off to someone else to read – but hey, I was turning into something of an em addict.) ANYWAY …. Stever is doing a free teleseminar that can help you manage your own email overload:

Friday, June 30, 2006

Noon, eastern time

register @ http://www.SteverRobbins.com/freewebinar

The Answer to the Towering To-Do List

Want to gain control of the overwhelm that sweeps into our lives and threatens to task us to death? Tired of the towering to-do list? It's time to set aside a few days, sweep your system clear, and institute David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' system. (This starts an amazing book.)

Man - this guy has SO got it going on! I'm a new woman since I overhauled my office. AND even better, I bought his Getting Things Done Add In for MS Outlook's Task manager and now use it religiously. And an interesting thing has happened. I'm no longer feeling haunted by how much I have to do.

I've been careful to put a date on every darn thing I could possibly ever need to do WITH the understanding that unless it's written on my schedule, I can reset those dates and adjust to suit my needs each day. And it's working! I'm getting two to three times as much done in my 10 hour work day. Best of all, I leave the office and shut the door with a sense of completion - which I hadn't had in over a year. Somehow my tasks always seemed to multiply in the night.

You don't have to implement Allen's Outlook Add In to make this work, of course. You can just carefully use the Task Management's own date setting option on your to-do's… I just liked being consistent with his program.

It's all about emptying your head and going by the book (or task list in this case.) So you whip along once you get a pace going, and tasks fly by. I'm lovin' it!

What's the Most Auspicious Color for Your Office?

Recently I posted a Joy Letter all about Feng Shui to create a more favorable or auspicious office. And of course, a big piece of that is color and specifically, decorating.

You can make your office a visually appealing space that really allows you to dig in, live your joy and turn your passion into your every day life. Paint it a favorite color, or one that's auspicious for you.

The Kua Calculator is a Chinese Feng Shui tool that helps you pick your auspicious color based on the time of your birth, date of birth and your gender. That will help you figure out which element is associated with you. Then you can also decorate with whatever nourishes that element.

For instance, if your element is wood, water feeds trees. So watercolors, water-themed visuals, pictures of turtles, lakes, and boats on lakes … these are good for a 'wood' element person.

My Awesome Responsibility

Wow. We had more than 750 people get on our free call this week with productivity expert Neil Fiore - and more than 100 have taken advantage of his great offer on his Productivity Engineering CD's. (Save 65% and bag some serious bonuses but only until Friday at midnight.)

This is really encouraging to me because it means I'm coming up with stuff that can really help you people get on with your dreams. Like … REALLY. As I've said before, this is the year I'm learning all about mental reconditioning and reprogramming techniques for moving forward with goals, dreams, etc.. That's the next frontier as far as I'm concerned.

Michael Lovitch, Neil's publisher, told me he felt the response to the call was because 'people feel they know and trust you. They know you tell the truth and won't give them junk.'

I actually forget sometimes that you guys are out there, reading my stuff, listening to my word, trusting my opinion. (It's that old writerly bug a boo that has us thinking we write for … just us, really.) It's always been this way for me … and it's a mild shock when I realize that people really DO listen to what I say. (Move over, Sally Fields.)

So here's my pledge, fair readers: I'm never going to recommend any product, book, service, etc.. that I haven't personally checked out or used. I only ever recommend things that I truly think will be of service to you. And boy … does that make me feel good.

Performing Office Feng Shui … (also known as the Year End Clean Up)

Every year about this time I seize the opportunity to clean out my office, fix my systems that aren't working, and reorganize my files. And man … does it feel great! (Of course, I squeeze this in around skating parties, sitting around eating with relatives, taking the houseguests skiing, and doing endlessly inventive things with left over turkey.)

The week between Christmas and New Year's is just one of those times that beg for reorganization and regrouping. We want to start the New Year with a bang. Yeah, a little vacationing feels right … but getting the systems back in shape also feels good, too. Especially because I can't seem to ever get to them during the regular work week.

Here's what I'm tweaking, cleaning out and otherwise overhauling this week:

1. Fixing my Address Book. For some reason Outlook has hiccupped all over my contact info, so it no longer works. I will liberate these corrupted contacts and download the latest version to fix it.

2. Resetting my back up system. Like all good home businesses, I have an external hard drive called the Maxtor One Touch that automatically backs up my entire computer and all of its files every night … when I have it set up correctly. It doesn't take much to run the script to automatically do this. But boy, have I been grateful when my entire machine went down and there was my happy back up file cranking along. So lately I've been playing chicken with my files and leaving Maxtor off … again, just haven't gotten around to setting it. But I will now.

3. Cleaning up my computer files. I create documents all day, just about every day. And they all wind up generally in one place - my overcrowded Adminstrator's Documents folder. So it's time to sweep in, and send them all where they belong. It will take a few hours, but I'm so sick of hunting for things I can't wait to clean this up.

4. Cleaning out my stock closet. The other day, while digging for a CD or a file, I got bopped on the head by a piece of my convention booth. Say no more! Time to clean out my stock and utility closet (the tangible items I sell off my site aren't even in there. They live in a warehouse in CO until they're shipped out … but somehow this huge closet is crammed full of my business stuff.

5. Acknowledging all of my Net partners. I need to take time to do this annually, because I'm so grateful for all the folks in my network who support my work, give me encouragement, create products with me, introduce me to their contacts, ply me with champagne on my birthday, and generally make my life better. Time to say a personal thank you to every one of them.

6. Cleaning out my file cabinet. This sounds like a big job, but it's not that bad actually since they're really well organized. (I use David Allen's system from his good book, Getting Things Done.) My files tend to collect and jam up over the course of a year, so it's clean out time here, too. Then my files are roomy and flexible again and I'm ready to add more ideas, energy, resources and … gusto!

7. Setting up a better online access system. In this case a simply modem phone connection … just haven't made time for it!