From the Desk of Janet Barclay

I started this blog nearly two years ago, after hearing Leesa Barnes speak about blogging at the Professional Organizers in Canada Conference. I chose Blogsome as my platform because it had all the features I wanted at the time, and it was easy to use. Since then, I’ve set up a number of sites using WordPress, both for Organized Assistant and for clients, and as I’ve become more aware of its capabilities and possibilities, I’m no longer satisfied with my current blog. As a result, this will be my final entry here, but I hope you’ll visit my new blog at http://www.janetbarclay.com.

If you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to update your feed. And if you prefer to receive information by email, you’ll be happy to know that I am now offering email subscriptions as well.

See you on the other side!

In the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, "vacation" is defined as "a period of several days or weeks spent away from work or school etc., used esp. for recreation and travel; a holiday."

With today’s technology, a growing number of executives and small business owners rarely, if ever, take a vacation in the traditional sense, where they go away somewhere (or stay at home) and just relax, or maybe do some projects around the house. Instead, they bring along their laptops and/or PDAs so they can stay on top of their email, even if it’s only for half an hour a day. I know one small business owner who took a vacation week earlier this summer. She didn’t go away; in fact, she didn’t even stop working. Instead, she made herself unavailable to clients, and used the time to focus on some writing projects for her own business.

Last year, I took my first vacation in many years, and for the most part, it was work-free. I love my work, but it was great to be able to just relax and enjoy my surroundings and the company of my family. I was able to do that by notifying my regular clients well in advance that I would not be available during that time, putting an "out of office" message on my email and voicemail, and letting everyone know they could contact my subcontractor if they needed anything while I was away. I also let my subcontractor know how I could be reached if there were any emergencies, so I didn’t have to worry about anything. And you know what? The world didn’t fall apart because I wasn’t there to manage things! And it’s not because business was slow – in fact the months before and after that week were some of the busiest I’ve ever had.

What are your vacation plans? Will you travel or stay at home? Will you check messages, work on your business, or go for complete R&R?

Are you worried about losing business to your competition if you don’t check your email every day? Are you afraid of coming home to hundreds of emails?

Organized Assistant can help you relax and truly enjoy your vacation, by monitoring your email while you are away. Depending on your requirements, we will:

• Delete obvious spam
• Respond to routine inquiries
• Set up appointments for when you return
• Delete newsletters, event invitations, etc.

 Please contact me if you’d like more information about this or any of our services.

Last year I received a copy of The Big Moo, a collection of business ideas edited by Seth Godin. I placed it on my desk, hoping that seeing it there would motivate me to make the time to read it. Sadly, it didn’t work, and I eventually moved it to my bookcase alongside several other books which I haven’t read yet.

I find it difficult to make time for business reading – it seems that I’m either working or relaxing – but one of my goals this year was to change that, and as a result, I have finally taken The Big Moo off the shelf. I was delighted with it right from the start – how can you resist a book with a preface titled "Remarkabilize It"?

I’ve been reading it during my lunch breaks, and I have to say, it is just perfect for busy people who don’t think they have time to read! It’s small enough to fit in your purse or briefcase, and since the chapters are only two to three pages long, you can easily pick it up and read a chapter or two while you’re waiting in line at the bank, or waiting for someone to show up for a meeting. Best of all, the chapters are just long enough to stimulate your imagination, without taxing your brain with a lot of information that is difficult to absorb.

Are you finding yourself with a little extra time on your hands this summer? Don’t let this time slip away!

My colleague, Erin Blaskie, is hosting the first annual Summer Speaker Series featuring an incredible line-up of speakers including James Roche, Christina Merkley, Sheri McConnell, Alexis Neely, Allana Pratt, Lou Bortone, Viki Viertel, Lynn Scheurell, Kathie Thomas, Debbie LaChusa, Wendy Weiss, Terri Z, Donna Gunter, Diana Ennen and many more.

Here’s the deal… She’s featuring TWO speakers per day for the entire month of August - not including weekends, because who wants to work weekends, especially in the summertime! There’s one track for virtual assistants, and another track for all business owners and entrepreneurs. You can purchase a seat in either one or both, with or without audio downloads, so what are you waiting for?  I’ve heard there is a cap of 200 people due to the bridge line and with the speakers involved, that won’t last long!

The first 100 people to register will also receive access to bonus sessions in September, so sign up today – you won’t be disappointed! It’s going to be one of the hottest events of the summer!

"One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time."

Anonymous

If your work slows down in the summer, it may be the ideal time to work on projects you couldn’t fit into your schedule earlier in the year, as suggested in my article Six Ways to Make the Most of Summer Downtime. One such project is checking your website for broken links. If your website visitors click on links only to find that the sites or pages no longer exist, they may feel that it’s not worth sticking around to check out the rest of your site. There are a number of tools that will automate the process of locating broken links, but sometimes that is not enough. For example, a link that leads to a "Page Not Found" will most likely register as a broken link, but if it leads to an Error Page, your link checker may not recognize that as a dead link.

Yesterday Scott was working on a client project that required him to collect some information from her website. When he clicked on one of links to an external website, he discovered that the target site had been hijacked, so instead of bringing up someone’s blog, it brought up a porn site. Even worse, if he clicked on the Back button, instead of returning to our client’s site, it went to yet another porn site. We immediately deleted the link from the site, but of course we have no way of knowing how long it was like that. Not only did this situation present a risk of seriously offending our client’s website visitors, it could have damaged her search engine positioning, as Google’s Webmaster Guidelines clearly state that your ranking may be adversely affected by links to "bad neighbourhoods."

If you thought that checking your links was a low priority task, think again! You need to make time for this project, especially if you have a lot of outgoing links. And if you can’t fit it into your schedule, or you just don’t enjoy that type of work, maybe you need an Organized Assistant!