Are you using your diary effectively?

"He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life." -Victor Hugo

It is the start of a new year and your journey with your new diary starts…but are you using your diary effectivelyl?

A diary is one of your most important organising tools. It is the only way of keeping track of what you need and want to do, scheduling your time effectively to do it and to balance your life. If you use your diary effectively it will become your professional and business guide, goal achiever, priority highlighter, life balancer, record keeper, financial freedom and abundance enabler, family scheduler, stress reliever, productivity enhancer and life companion. It will free your mind and enable you to concentrate on your tasks at hand. It will give you the back up to say ‘no’ when you can’t fit in yet another commitment. It will prevent you from over promising and then under delivering.

So how do you use your diary effectively? Follow these simple steps.
§ Have ONE master diary which you are able to carry with you. You’re less likely to forget a meeting if you record your business and personal appointments in one place. If you use an electronic diary like Outlook at work, make sure you transfer all your appointments to you master diary which you carry with you at all times.
§ Enter all your appointments and add extra time for getting ready and travel time. Try and schedule your appointments and errands geographically. Record the details required for the appointment, like the address, phone number and directions.
§ Check your diary every morning before you start your day in order to be prepared for what lies ahead.
§ Don’t schedule 100% of your day. You have to allow for unplanned events like interruptions and perceived emergencies.
§ Block out time for lunch, picking up the children, school plays, etc.
§ Plan time for yourself and your family and book it in
§ Allocate time each day for administrative and daily tasks like email, phone calls, etc.
§ If you promise to do something for someone, write a note in your diary on the day you intend to do it.
§ Schedule today, yesterday. Create your to-do list at the end of each day for the next day and block schedule time blocks in your diary for you critical and high priority tasks – ensure that this will be uninterrupted time.
§ Be careful not to fill your entire day with appointments and meetings otherwise you will never be able to get to your critical tasks for the day.
§ Remember to carry over tasks that you did not manage to complete.
§ Use Friday afternoons to plan for the week ahead.
§ Record follow up tasks in your diary.
§ If you have a family or partner who needs to share diary information, it is a good idea to have a wall calendar in a central place where you can share important information. Copy this information from your master diary and transfer any updates on this calendar onto your master diary.
§ Write all your great ideas, dreams and goals in your diary.
§ Keep track of your daily spending – most people spend more per day than they realise
§ Keep track of your potential and projected income and your ideal spending plan and then your actual income and spending – It is your blueprint for abundance.

Selecting a Diary
Your ideal diary should be able to record:
§ Your appointments
§ To Do List
§ Daily Spending
§ Income Sheet
§ Ideal Spending Plan
§ Goals, Notes and Ideas

Beorganised searched high and low and found the ideal diary for 2010. It is Linda’s Abundance Diary. We now have it in stock and you can order it via email (info@beorganised.co.za) or via our website www.beorganised.co.za. We stock the hard cover, soft cover and Filo Fax Inner Pages.

A happy and productive 2010!

BEORGANISED THIS 2010 (and we deliver)
If your new year’s resolution is to be more organised, we have the perfect products to support you in your quest .You can order these via www.beorganised.co.za or via info@beorganised.co.za (We will send you a brochure). We have a range of organising E-Books and fantastic Organising Products. The products include clear storage boxes, handbag organisers, Warrantee/Document Organisers and other great NEW products!

Beorganised - Organising Products

We are very proud to announce that we now have wonderful products available on our website. You can order these via our website http://www.beorganised.co.za/our via email info@beorganised.co.za (We will send you a brochure and all the required payment information). We have a wonderful range of Organising Products from the Organized Living range. They will make the perfect gift for Christmas and will help you start the new year all organised. The products include clear shoe boxes, clear boot boxes, Jewellery organisers, Girls weekly organisers, Gift wrap organisers and handbag organisers:









We have a range of organising E-Books available: Shopping Management Kit, Meal Management Kit, Travel Management Kit and a Hair Management Kit. Why not Spring Clean your life with our E-Course - clear your clutter and organise your life in 28 days, brought to you in association with Kate Emmerson.

Beorganised Detour – Launching POAA

The Impossible Dream
Once I launched Beorganised I wanted to join an association where I could connect with other organisers, gain credibility, have a sense of belonging, grow and connect to the public.

To my disappointment, I could not find such an association in South Africa. What I could find was Tracey Foulkes’s website – Get Organised and of course the other international associations.

So I joined AAPO (the Australasian Association of Professional Organisers) and loved what they offered, except I was still feeling very isolated being their first and only South African member. I also could not benefit from their directory service connecting me to the public, so I listed myself on the Get Organised website which offered this service.

I realised that the Professional Organising business was still relatively new in South Africa (Tracey was one of the pioneers in 2002) so the challenge was not only starting a new business, but also to create awareness of such a service.

And here the seemly impossible dream begins. What if we could have our own association? But it seemed like such a huge and unachievable task.

The meeting, the beginning
Round about this time (when the SA association seed was planted in my head) I attended one of Tracey’s workshops (still adamant to keep growing). I was so pleasantly surprised when she told me that she was thinking of starting an Association for Africa.

After a few months I decided to contact her and tell her that I had they same vision and would love to team up with her to start our own African association.

I was overwhelmed with excitement when she promptly arranged a meeting in APRIL 2008, where we decided to partner up and to take the first step in this thousand mile journey.

Thank goodness were are both organised, because our one challenge was that we live in different locations and most of the work was done via email and phone calls and our second challenge was that we had an extremely tight self-imposed deadline of 1 June 2008.

We had to organise the designs for the logo and website. We had to put together all the content and layout for the website, the conference DVD, bank account, get industry partner members, transfer the Get Organised members, pamphlets, organise the badges, media fact sheet, prepare a newsletter, have a photo session and all our templates and we basically had to do all of this in 2 months!

Both of us worked on our clients during the day and then the POAA night shift would start until midnight most nights. We worked ourselves to the bone and we also reached out to our respective associations - NAPO (American Bases) and AAPO for support.

Friendships
What totally shocked me was to total support we got from AAPO – where they donated all their member resources to Africa! Friendships formed across continents and almost total strangers helped us, advised us and supported us.

It is all POSSIBLE
The most precious moment was when we switched the website on (http://www.poaa.co.za/)! See with a big dream, great planning, good organisation, friends and a very special partner, it is ALL POSSIBLE.

The next challenge was planning for the official POAA launch. We had a cocktail evening on the 29th of August 2008, the eve of our Annual Professional Organiser Conference. We had a fantastic opening and even had 2 Canadian Organisers (Elaine Shannon and Colette Robicheau) at the event. We have some incredible organisers in South Africa and our dream is to have organisers across Africa.


I want to share some of the incredible feedback we received:


INTERNATIONAL FEEDBACK:
Had a chance to look at your POAA website. You have done an excellent job and as I said before, I wish you every success with this Association. You really have done a thorough job and it was fun to look at the Organizers and look at the areas that they work in. Some cities certainly brought back happy memories for me. All the best with your conference in August.Karon van VuurenNAPO

I am so thrilled, the newsletter and the website are fantastic, bravo to you both an amazing achievement
Awesome job it looks great.
WENDY DAVIE
President - Australasian Association of Professional Organisers

Congratulations to all involved! The newsletter looks great. I wish you great success!
Hellen Buttigieg, CPO®
Certified Professional Organizer®, Life Coach, TV Host

I am excited to announce on behalf of POAA Founders, Jeanne Viljoen and Tracey Foulkes that their Association is now LIVE online and open for Membership.
This is a major breakthrough for the Global Community of Professional Organising, and a huge congratulations to all Professional Organisers in South Africa.
Visit the website today at http://www.poaa.co.za/
GLOBAL ORGANIZERS


MEMBER FEEDBACK
I wanted to drop you a note of congratulations!!! The site is amazing! Thanks so much for your hard work!
Suzanne Martin

I am quite excited about this new websiteIt is also more in line with the other major organiser bodiesthanks for your hard work in keeping us "out there"Amelia Schelmmer


Just studied the website in detail ladies. It looks great! Thank you for your hard work, energy and commitment. It is inspiring. Thank you for the support. It is incredible to be part of a team of on the ball, professional, high energy, helpful individuals who want to help others succeed! : )
Claire Burge

Thank you, just checked out the site, it is WONDERFUL
Thank you for all your hard work
Maryann Gillet

Starting the Journey

Once I realised that I wanted to be a professional organiser, I had to take the first steps in starting my business. Oh my goodness, just to decide on a name took forever. I eventually came up with a short list, but then realised all the names where already taken (somewhere in the world). I also wanted a name that is clear and simple and reflects "organised" the best. It then hit me... BEORGANISED and the best was, nobody else was using it. It was mine, it reflected me.

Then the logo, the business cards, business plan, communication plan, promotional material and last but not least, the website. Months of work went into the design and content and all the background stuff, like getting preparing templates for invoices, contracts, assessments, evaluations, feedback, etc. (I am the template queen)!

Finally, my business launched and I was so excited when I landed my first client from one of my first NETWORKING meetings! (I LOVE networking).

I embarked on this amazing journey of self fulfilment, of actually BEing what I was always meant to BE. I always knew I had a talent for helping people and a passion for it and I also know that I have a talent for creating order from chaos - from time to things. And here I could combine it all to improve the lives of many people struggling with the hectic demands that our modern life burdens us with.

Why Beorganised

I have been thinking long and hard about what to do about my blog. I was first going to use it only for organising tips and in a very professional capacity, but I realised that I am already doing all this with my newsletters, articles, products and services. I eventually decided that this blog will be more about the hart and soul of organising. So it is therefor in this spirit that I decided to start my blog by telling you my story, why I started Beorganised.

I have a long and successful career in implementing ERP systems, but always knew that there is something more I wanted to do, but could never quite put my finger on it. It has always been in my nature to want to help people and system implementations are GREAT, a rush, adrenaline, challenging and even exciting, but it still left me a bit empty, since I wanted to do more to improve the lives of the people I worked with. So I was left with a "one day when I grow up I want to......" and I was never quite sure what the '......' was. A few years ago I worked on a project that was extremely demanding and I had to push myself more than ever before to get through it. During this process I felt completely stressed out and drained. The more I felt depleted, the more my life seem to fill up with junk, clutter and chaos...and for someone who is naturally a very organised person, it created even more stress in my life...until one day. I just HAD ENOUGH and decided to take control again. I sorted out my physical world....cupboards, paperwork, personal admin, etc. and to my amazement, this "simple" action help me feel good again, in control again and above all helped me to regain balance AND THEN IT HIT ME...This is it. This is what I want to be "when I grow up" and here the dream begins...and I always believed that it you can dream it you can do it.

I started doing research and realised my passion has a name - I am going to become a Professional Organiser. I was delighted, I could now help others. I could help them in a very practical way to feel good again, to eradicate stress and feelings of helplessness. I could help them have more time for the really important things in there life. I can teach them how to run a highly efficient business ....even from home.