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!
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