About two-thirds of the population are visual learners, who like to see pictures that illustrate what they’re reading about. That in itself is a good reason to use photos in your blog posts, but the growing popularity of Pinterest makes it more important than ever.

©Depositphotos / Aleksandr Lychagin

Although it’s not impossible to find free pictures you can use legally, it can be quite time-consuming. In most cases, you’re better off purchasing reasonably priced stock photos from a site with a well-indexed database, freeing up your time for client work, writing more blog posts, or some other activity.

I’ve recently discovered a fabulous site called Depositphotos which offers an excellent selection. I signed up for a free trial and am thrilled that their advanced search allows me to view only horizontal images that fit the format I’ve chosen for this blog, which is a huge time-saver. If you look back at my last few posts, you’ll see some of the great free pictures I was able to download. Their prices are a lot better than some of the other sites I’ve used too!

I’m so pleased with this company that I got in touch with them and asked if they’d be willing to sponsor a contest for my readers. Today I’m happy to report that they agreed to provide not one but two prizes, each consisting of a free 15-day subscription with 10 stock photos, illustrations or vector images per day. That’s 150 images you can use on your blog, website, newsletter, or other projects! How amazing is that?

To enter the contest, simply post a comment below. For additional entries you can:

1. Join our mailing list and leave a comment here to let me know
2. Follow me on Twitter and leave a comment here to let me know
3. Follow me on Pinterest and leave a comment here to let me know
4. Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment here to let me know (please include the URL to your blog post)
5. Tweet about this giveaway and leave a comment here to let me know (please include @JanetBarclay in your tweet)

You’re allowed to tweet about the giveaway once per day, so you have up to 15 chances to win!

The giveaway closes at 11:59 PM (Eastern Daylight time) on Thursday, May 31. The winner will be selected using a random number generator and announced on June 1. Good luck!

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on 150 Free Images for Your Blog [Giveaway].

One of the most popular ways to organize paper files for home or business, whether the project is best suited to an alphabetical, numeric, or topical system, is a set of hanging files, but I’ve never been a huge fan of hanging files, for various reasons.

Many hanging file tabs come with inserts that are pre-labeled from A to Z or January to December, which is handy IF that’s what your client needs, but often that’s not the case. Most of the time you end up affixing a label over top or folding them the other way so you can write on the back. These inserts can only be re-used so many times before they need to be replaced.

Even worse, many hanging file tabs are made from thin plastic which wears out over time, causing them to break and fall off. This is especially problematic if the tabs have been removed and updated or replaced, and it severely limits the efficiency of your filing system.

Fortunately, filing products have come a long way since my early days working in an office, when hanging files came in only olive drab! They’re now available in assorted shades, with hanging tabs to match, and it’s great to see that manufacturers are also coming up with innovative products that eliminate the issues we had to deal with in the past.

One such manufacturer is The Pencil Grip Inc., who have done away with those little cardboard slips altogether with their Filertek line of file indexing systems. You simply pop open the durable plastic cover, write on the file label using a dry-erase pen (included when you purchase a set of tabs, or available separately), and close it again. This clever system means the tabs can be used over and over again, so your client doesn’t go to update a label one day, only to discover they have no paper inserts in stock. Not only is this convenient, it makes sense from an environmental perspective and keeps expenses down as well.

The tabs are lovely and strong, so you don’t have to worry about them falling off. Although I wouldn’t recommend the practice, I actually pulled one of my files out of the drawer by the tab and it remained firmly in place. I’m so impressed that I’m probably going to use them in my office filing cabinet, which I’ve refused to do for many years.

Filertek Hanging File Tabs are available in packages of 5, 12, and 50, and come in assorted colors for the benefit of your visually-oriented clients, or in clear, for those who prefer a cleaner, more uniform look. If you can’t find them in your local office supply store, you can order them directly from The Pencil Grip or from Amazon.com.

If you’d like to try this product out with one of your organizing clients, or even in your own office, you’ll be thrilled to know that The Pencil Grip Inc. has generously offered to send a sample to one of my blog readers!

For a chance to win, simply leave a comment below. For additional entries you can:

• Join our mailing list and leave a comment to let me know you have
• Follow me on Twitter and leave a comment to let me know
• Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment to let me know (please include the URL to your blog post)
• Tweet about this giveaway and leave a comment to let me know (please include @JanetBarclay in your tweet)

You’re allowed to tweet about the giveaway once per day, so you can have up to 10 chances to win!

The giveaway closes at midnight (Eastern Daylight time) on Sunday, June 12, and the winner will be selected using a random number generator and announced on June 13. Good luck!

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on Product Review and Giveaway: Filertek Dry Erase Hanging File Tabs.

Since becoming involved with the industry, I’ve seen many people become successful organizing consultants, but sadly, I’ve seen many others who started an organizing business only to shut it down after a few years, or even a few months. Sometimes there’s an unforeseen change in health or family situation, but often it’s because they lacked the skills required to effectively manage a business.

It makes sense that most professional organizers choose this line of work because they have a passion for organizing, and if you are someone else’s employee, that may be enough. However, the moment you decide to start your own organizing business, you assume managerial responsibilities, and unless your education and previous employment have prepared you for this role, you’re going to be facing challenges you never contemplated.

You are not alone in this. In his best-selling book, The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber refers to it as the Fatal Assumption. Here’s what he said about it:

… you fell victim to the most disastrous assumption anyone can make about going into business.

It is an assumption made by all technicians who go into business for themselves, one that charts the course of a business–from Grand Opening to Liquidation–the moment it is made.

That Fatal Assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work.

And the reason it’s fatal is that it just isn’t true.

In fact, it’s the root cause of most small business failures!

The technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things!

But the technician who starts a business fails to see this.

According to BusinessSchoolEdge.com, there are 21 skills that are essential to succeed in business:

1. Written Communication
2. Social Networking (in the traditional sense, rather than using Twitter-Facebook-LinkedIn – though those are useful too!)
3. Public Speaking
4. Sales
5. Negotiation
6. Strategic Planning
7. Project Planning
8. Financial Planning
9. Risk Planning
10. Logistics Planning
11. Time Management
12. Meeting Management
13. Leadership
14. Systems Planning and Implementation
15. Personal Productivity
16. Imagination
17. Inventiveness
18. Problem Solving
19. Brainstorming
20. Connecting Ideas
21. The ability to switch off and relax

Since March is Improve Management Skills Month, take some time to study this list and identify any areas where your skills are not as strong as they should be. I’ll be sharing some ideas and resources to address some of these skills throughout the month, so feel free to share your challenges in the Comments section or ask a question privately.

If one of the areas you need to work on is Time Management (admit it, even professional organizers struggle with this!), be sure to visit my other blog, From the Desk of Janet Barclay, every day next week, when Rodger Constandse, the owner of GoalsToAction.com and principal developer of the Achieve Planner software system, will be visiting to share some of his best time management strategies and to give away some of his products.

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on Essential Skills for Business Success.

Welcome to the November issue of the Professional Organizers Blog Carnival! It’s exciting for me to watch the carnival grow, with new bloggers participating every month. Be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to connect with and learn from your organizing colleagues! There’s a lot to read here, so if you can’t get through all the links at one sitting, I hope you’ll bookmark this post and come back later.

We’ll kick things off with some posts about Working with Clients.

If you’ve been watching Hoarders, you might be wondering whether you have what it takes to work with clients with hoarding issues. Find out by reading Geralin Thomas‘ post, Cleaning a Hoarder’s Home: Not for the Faint of Heart.

Can you ever combine friendship and business? Lisa Montanaro says “yes” in Mixing Business With Pleasure: Professional Organizer + Disorganized Friend = Valuable Lessons.

Next, we have some Business Strategies in Deb Lee‘s post, The Entrepreneur’s Toolbox:  8 Things You Need to Get.

Effective Time Management is crucial to the success of your business, and this topic is covered by Christine Simiriglia in Thirty Minute Time Management Miracle and Margaret Lukens in The Jump-Start Meeting.

Alex Fayle says:

Many of us, even Professional Organizers, put off doing things because we think there will be plenty of time to do it later.

There won’t be. As author Mignon McLaughlin said: “Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.”

Read more in his post Someday Doesn’t Last Forever. Procrastination is also addressed by Claire Tompkins in Why I Procrastinate.

Several bloggers share some great Organizing Tips that you can use with your clients or in your own life.

In Decluttering Adventure – the Roadmap, Angela Esnouf explains that

The Roadmap is just the start of a Decluttering Adventure, with more steps in the journey to follow.

Hellen Buttigieg explores the psychological benefits of decluttering in her post, Letting Go.

Preventing clutter is also important, and this topic is covered by Ramona Creel in Ways To Bring Less Paper Into Your Life, and Jeri Dansky in How to Shop So You Don’t Wind Up with Clutter.

In Organizing myth: Organize once and never do it again, Lelah Baker-Rabe explains that

Organization requires maintenance; there is no one-time “organization vaccine.”

Julie Bestry, AKA the Paper Doll, uncovers some eye-opening information in Who Knows Your Secrets? Part 2: Checking Up on Your Checking History.

We’ll close off this month’s Professional Organizers Blog Carnival with an announcement from Janet Baker about a “Smooth Sailing Document Management” contest drawing for a FREE 7-day Caribbean sailing vacation!

Thanks very much to everyone who participated this month! Please show your support by visiting their blogs and leaving some comments – it’s a great way to get to know one another! If you’ve never taken part in the Professional Organizers Blog Carnival, perhaps we’ll see you next month!

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on Professional Organizers Blog Carnival – November 2009 Edition.

As you may recall, I recently sought the help of readers in tracking down my ideal paper planner. In response to that challenge, a representative of dotmine offered me a copy of one of their day planners, certain that it was the perfect match to what I was looking for. Although I’d already ordered the myAgenda from momAgenda, being a bit of a calendar junkie, I was happy to accept the offer.

I received a copy of the 8½ x 11″ family_time.mine® planner, as shown above on the right. The company also creates life_time.mine™, which is also 8½ x 11″, and the original time.mine®, which is 6 x 9″. Each version is available in a variety of designs to suit a multitude of personal tastes.

I was immediately impressed with the cover, which is colorful yet not garish and is made from a heavy plastic which will certainly withstand day-to-day wear and tear. The coil binding also appears to be quite durable, being much heavier than is used on regular notebooks.

The inside pages are printed on high quality paper, so pen users shouldn’t have to worry about ink showing through, and pencil users like myself won’t have to worry about tearing pages when erasing. I especially like the way the book lies flat when open.

There are many sections over and above the weekly and monthly calendar pages to facilitate planning, including Weekly Schedules and Master Schedule Planning Guides for each of the four seasons. In addition, each weekly page includes a perforated section for lists which you can easily tear off and take with you. In the back there are pages for recording important contacts and babysitter information.

As well as being a very functional planner, it is quite pleasing to use. In addition to the attractive cover, each weekly page includes a motivational quote, including this one that I particularly like:

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

Charles Reade

Also included is a page of stickers for events such as birthdays, doctor appointments, and the like, which I always find fun.

I might have been tempted to use the planner myself, except for two things. The first is that it is highly focused on managing a family, rather than a business. I could probably have adapted it to my own needs, but I was set on the grid-style page layout, with full columns for each day of the week, and family_time.mine® planner is laid out the same way as my current planner, which isn’t working well for me.

I would absolutely consider buying a life_time.mine™ or time.mine® planner in the future, if they were to offer it with a grid-style page layout. The quality is excellent, and the price extremely reasonable.

I won’t be using the family_time.mine® planner myself, but I would hate to see it go to waste, so I am going to give it away to one lucky winner. Wouldn’t it make a great gift for one of your clients? Or maybe you’d like to keep it for yourself!

To enter, please leave a comment answering the following question: What is the most important feature you look for in a planner?

You can earn extra entries in the drawing by tweeting about this contest. You must mention @JanetBarclay and include a link to this post in your tweet.

Contest closes on Friday, November 6th at 11:59pm EST.

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on Product Review and Giveaway: family_time.mine® Planner.

Last month, I described my ideal paper planner and asked my readers to help me find it. I received a number of interesting suggestions on Twitter and Facebook as well as here on the blog, and now it’s time to compare the recommended products against my requirements and to declare the winner of my e-book, Organizing Your Life, Your Way.

Before I begin, I’d like to explain that this was not an easy decision, and that nearly every time I received a new idea, I thought it just might be the best one so far. In fact, it’s that way of thinking that led me to solicit input from others – to save me from checking and re-checking every website and local retailer offering calendar products until I found the perfect one!

The recommendations I received fit into three main categories: traditional, downloadable/printable, and innovative, so I’m grouping my comments accordingly.

Traditional

Most people recommended what I would consider traditional paper planners.

Most of these are heavily focused on a schedule-based five-day work week and many of them do not include full columns for Saturday and Sunday, including the FranklinCovey system suggested by Marcie, the Action Planner proposed by AT-A-GLANCE, and the Blueline Timanager recommended by Kathy and April. It’s not that I work seven days a week, but since I like to plan all my activities in one place, I need ample space for my weekends as well as weekdays.

Several of the recommended planners were laid out in my preferred format: one full column for each day of the week, plus an extra one that I’d use for my weekly to do list. This included the Day-Timer system which Judi prefers, and the Harold Taylor Planner suggested by Hellen which was of special interest, since it’s Canadian like me. Eva introduced me to Blue Sky Planners, which I find very appealing with its blue cover, attractive pictures inside, and monthly tabs, and Emily proposed the colorful 8-Days-a-Week planner from the delightfully named Bob’s Your Uncle. However, all three of these products allot all or most of each day’s space to the schedule itself. Since very few of my activities are scheduled for set times, I prefer to simply write in the times for those that are, rather than have the page cluttered with pre-printed times that I don’t need.

I learned about the My-Tyme system from Sarolta, but it’s only offered as a daily planner, so it’s not what I’m looking for.

Deb suggested the DayMinder Professional Monthly Planner, but although it offers more space than most monthly planners, there’s not enough space for everything I want to write down.

Downloadable/Printable

As the creator of ListPlanIt, Jennifer thought that a membership to her site would be an ideal solution for me. I was pretty impressed with the low cost of membership and the wide variety of lists and planning pages available, which include dated monthly and yearly calendars. Unfortunately, the weekly planner is undated, and I didn’t want the bother of adding the dates myself. ListPlanIt is a fantastic concept, so you should definitely explore it for yourself by signing up for a free one-week trial membership. Of special note is the Professional Membership, which allows professional organizers and coaches to not only use the lists for themselves, but to share them with their clients and in workshops as well. In addition, Professional Members receive a listing on the ListPlanIt website.

Although I was open to a downloadable/printable product, when I really thought about it, I realized I’d rather not spend time and effort printing and hole punching planner pages or use a bulky three-ring binder, so OrganizeIT’s downloadable weekly planner template, suggested by Kathi, was eliminated from my list, as was Ruth’s suggestion that I design my own form in Word or Excel.

Innovative

Thanks to reader suggestions, I found out about several products I’d never seen before, including several of those mentioned above. This last group consists of planners that I consider truly unique.

One such product is the OrganizeME weekly planner, suggested by Jenni of LobotoME {goods to keep ME sane}. The layout is a very good match to what I’m looking for, with full columns for each of the seven days of the week, spaces for planning, shopping lists and much more, including sections for tracking exercise and healthy eating as well as water and daily vitamins. I love the layout and the funky design, but it’s an undated 9×12″ pad, designed so you can fill out a page each week and tear it off to carry with you or post on your wall, and I’m not sure that would work well for me, as I often look forward and back in my calendar. This is such a cool product that I thought about buying it and placing past weeks in a file for future reference, but the colors don’t really appeal to me, and I’m not sure I’d enjoy looking at it day after day.

I came very close to ordering a Planner Pad Organizer, which I learned about from Rivka. It’s laid out in a seven-day grid with an eighth column on the left for jotting additional notes, and is available in several sizes and formats, including a spiral-bound, smaller size (6¾ x 8½”) Personal version, which is the one I would choose. What makes it different than any of the other planners I looked at is the page layout. The top section provides space for categorizing your activities for the week, the middle section is where you assign your tasks to specific days, and the lower section is for scheduled events and appointments. The only thing holding me back from ordering one is that it didn’t excite me. To some people that may sound silly, but since my planner is beside me practically every moment of my waking life, I want something that’s visually appealing. Although I said, “function is much more important to me than esthetics, but I wouldn’t mind seeing some nice colors, artwork, and/or motivational quotes,” I was really hoping to find a product that offered both.

Another look through my list of suggestions, and I realized there is such a product. Nina, the founder of momAgenda, felt that one of her planners would meet my needs. Both the momAgenda (which was also recommended by Laurie and Eve) and the myAgenda feature my preferred eight-column layout, with separate spaces for recording various categories of activities, and no pre-printed time slots. They’re available in a variety of fashionable colors, have inspiring quotes throughout, and I can tell from the images on the website that these products will be a pleasure to touch as well. Because my Mom duties are pretty minor, now that the boys are grown up and living on their own, I’ve chosen the myAgenda. I’ll be writing a product review once I’ve had a chance to try it.

Congratulations to Nina, who wins a free copy of my e-book, Organizing Your Life, Your Way, and big thanks to all of you for sharing your recommendations. I hope that the information you’ve provided, along with my own comments, will be helpful to others as they choose their planners for 2010.

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on Paper Planners: The Showdown.

I see from the reminder in my datebook that it’s time to order my planner for 2010! As long as I can remember, I have loved calendars of all shapes and sizes, so this is a task I generally look forward to. However, as there seem to be more and more options every year, I could really use your help choosing one. In fact, I will give a free copy of my e-book, Organizing Your Life, Your Way, which sells for $24.95, to the person who suggests the planner that best meets my needs.

As background information, I’m currently using a Day Runner tabbed weekly calendar refill, inserted in a Day Timer black leather cover with my initials on the front. There are a lot of things I like about it:

• It’s compact so I can easily slip it in my purse when I’m going out.
• It holds a pad of notepaper, which I use to jot down my mileage when I use my car for business.
• There’s a loop to hold my pencil, so it’s always there when I need it.
• I love the leather cover! It looks elegant, feels nice, and I paid a lot of money for it shortly before I decided to switch to an electronic calendar, a phase that lasted about four years before I decided to take Marcia Francois‘ advice to “embrace my paper-ness” and bought my 2009 refill.

I chose the weekly format this year because I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be making a full transition from my Outlook calendar, so I wanted to keep it simple and inexpensive. Now that I’m convinced that paper works best for me, I’m prepared to spend more to get exactly what I need.

For the last few months, I’ve been using an Excel spreadsheet to plan my weekly activities, as shown below (click to view enlargement).

I have a master to-do list which I refer to when I’m filling out the time slots each week.

Although this works well for me, I could probably eliminate this step and streamline my planning process if my planner was laid out in a weekly grid format.

It would probably make sense for the master to-do list to be part of my planner as well, instead of on a separate sheet of paper.

Most of my activities are not scheduled for specific times, so the time slots aren’t really that important to me; I’d therefore prefer to have most of the daily section blank to write my daily tasks, with a smaller section for scheduled appointments.

I realize that to accommodate this format, I’ll probably have to move to a larger size, and I’m okay with that. As a virtual assistant, I rarely need my planner when I’m away from my office, so portability is not high on my priority list. I can still make use of my lovely leather cover by inserting a small notebook to use when I’m out and about.

I’d also like to have monthly views for reference purposes, as well as a place to jot down dates for the following year.

Coil bound is nice, but not essential.

In terms of function, that’s all I really need! My contacts are stored in my computer and cell phone, so I don’t need an address book or any other sections.

I’m pretty task-oriented, so function is much more important to me than esthetics, but I wouldn’t mind seeing some nice colors, artwork, and/or motivational quotes.

If you think you know just the product I’m looking for, please leave me a comment below. I’m open to a physical product or downloadable pages that I can print, or any other suggestion you may have. Feel free to include affiliate links or links to your own product – anything goes! And as I mentioned above, the person who suggests the planner that best meets my needs will receive a free copy of Organizing Your Life, Your Way!

Need more information to make a recommendation? Feel free to ask your question in the comment section or using the contact form.

Please visit Your Organizing Business to read and comment on Recommend a Planner and Win a Free E-Book!.