Positive Yarn

Quick: Do you know where your stash of printer ink is so you don’t have to spend an hour looking for it before you can change it? How’s that shoebox full of receipts for tax time working out for you? Can you remember what you just promised that last customer that you’d do for her “sometime this week”?

When I attended Northeast Ohio’s Council of Smaller Enterprises’ annual conference last month, I knew straightaway that one of my must-see seminars would be “De-clutter Your Life and Workspace.” While I put my assignments for my clients at the forefront and maintain them in a fairly organized fashion, my personal papers are a different story. They include a sea of “I love you, Mom” drawings, coupons I hate to throw away but never use, and receipts I keep meaning to file away. I was hoping this presentation could be the kick I needed to fight the onslaught of clutter in my home office.

I’m pleased to say I was not disappointed.

The presenter, Chris Perrow, has 15 years’ experience as a professional organizer through her consulting company, Perrow Systems. The engaging speaker is also a corporate trainer for FirstMerit Bank.

“Nothing I can tell you that’s new, not since Aristotle first organized the species,” she said at the start. “But fast-forward to today, and not only do we have all the stuff we always had to do, but now we have an in-box to deal with, too.”

In fact, she said, the average person performs 580 tasks a day.

Organization basically comes down to chaos control, she said, because we’ve become a society programmed to constantly berate ourselves with “I should do this, I have to do that, I could do this.”

As a result, she said, “our mental filing cabinets might look a lot like our physical space — overflowing.”

The propensity for clutter has spawned a growing industry: When Perrow first joined the National Association of Professional Organizers (yes, such an animal exists) 15 years ago, there were approximately 800 members. Today, there are more than 4,000.

“As a society, we are all drowning in chaos,” she laments.

And now the solution, folks

The important thing to consider is, what are the priorities of your work? “Energy follows thought,” Perrow says. “If you walk into a room of chaos, your energy level drops, which means your level of creativity drops.”

Your immediate goal should be to reclaim 15% of your desk — and brain! “Find your safe harbor,” she says.

But while you, like me, may already have an organizational system set up — maintaining the system is another story. I must confess that I have some fantastic filing space and drawers and… piles of papers in a basket that have been waiting patiently to be filed in said drawers for weeks now.

Perrow stresses there is no right or wrong way, just your way. “Organization is ever-changing because our workload is evolving,” she says. “So what may have worked six months ago may need to be tweaked to work today.”

True words, indeed.

Perrow is a firm believer that organization is more about energy management than time management. “Dr. Edward Hallowell came up with this great term, ‘doom dart,’ to explain those occasions where you are going along fine and then boom! You’re hit with a dart to the brain: ‘I have a meeting tomorrow morning I’m not the least bit prepared for.’ You go into instant stress mode.”

To deflect these potentially lethal darts, Perrow advises making a Top 3 list for the day ahead each day before you leave work. “With daily interruptions, things that come up, etc., you’re probably not realistically going to get more than three things crossed off your original to-do list,” she explains. “If you prioritize the three ‘must-do’ items, they’re much more likely to get accomplished than having a lengthy list of goals.”

So if you decide to get a head start on your New Year’s Resolution and tackle the chaos, let me know how you do by commenting below or dropping me a line at positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com. I’m off to tackle a desk drawer that’s housing some cassette tapes from high school. Wish me luck!

August has been a special month to me personally, as it’s not only my husband’s birthday, but both of our daughters’ birthdays, too. We also have an annual trade show to get to in mid-August, which we’ve once again been preparing for like crazy. Last but not least, the girls go back to school Aug. 24 — not that Mom has been counting down or anything!

Just out of curiosity this morning, I surfed the Web for what other celebrations are being done in August. As I’ve stated in a previous post, celebrating the wacky-but-legitimately celebrated “holidays” can be a fun way to market your sale items. For August, I wasn’t disappointed: There’s Work Like a Dog Day on Aug. 5, followed up five days later by Lazy Day, for example. Think of the classes you could hold on Aug. 13 for Left-Handers Day — perhaps by placing mirrors all around the shop, so righties can teach technique to lefties and vice versa, with $10 free merchandise for all those who can prove they’re southpaws.

But the first Sunday in August — in this case, Aug. 2 — has a golden trio of marketing-worthy holidays:

• International Friendship Day: According to several sites, this day was set aside by U.S. Congress in 1935 and is now celebrated worldwide. Think of the marketing potential of an endcap with friendship-themed patterns, or a sale running where a customer gets a discount (or perhaps double loyalty club points) for bringing in a friend who makes a purchase. Maybe they bring in a friend to stitch-in on Sunday who is new to needlework, and you set her up with a free “starter kit.”
• International Forgiveness Day: Founded in 1996 by the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance, this can be as personal or as public as you see fit. I know that my hometown of Akron, OH, is one of 14 cities that has participated in the past with Fugitive Safe Surrender, and is doing so this year from July 29-Aug. 1 — and I wish them continued success. The program essentially allows people with warrants to voluntarily turn themselves in. It’s not amnesty, but rather, “their first step toward a second chance.” It’s with this second-chance scenario in mind that perhaps your shop could accept completed projects for donation to a local prison program, an addiction-recovery house or other organization that is in the business of helping those who want to get their lives back on track. Or alternatively (or in addition to), maybe it holds no marketing or business cache for you at all… just a good time to quietly reach out to someone for whom the words “I forgive you” are desperately overdue.
• Sister’s Day: There seems to be some disagreement on the exact date, but the prevailing wisdom says “first Sunday in August.” Some (greeting card) outlets also enlarge the designation to include brothers, too. I have to include a link to Purpleunicorn’s Palace, which has a nice Top 10 list about what makes sisters special. I’m an only child, but when taking it from the viewpoint of my daughters, I simultaneously smile and cringe (especially “No one can imitate your mom better”…). Again, displaying sisterhood-themed kits, patterns, matching sweaters, etc., or giving customers a freebie or discount for bringing in their “sister” — blood or otherwise — could make it an easy promotion to do.

Last but not least, Aug. 2 happens to be National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, in case you want to celebrate with snacks. It also kicks off National Simplify your Life Week, so beef up your clearance racks and also put those organizing containers on sale!

As always, I’m interested in what’s working for your business. Comment below or drop me a line at positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com.