From the Desk of Janet Barclay

Coping with the time change used to mean remembering to set the clocks ahead an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall, and waiting for our bodies to adjust to the shift in meal and sleep times, but this year we have a whole new dimension to deal with.

When I first heard about the government decision to start daylight savings time three weeks earlier, my only thought was "That will be different." I was therefore amazed to read the article in Saturday’s Hamilton Spectator entitled A time of upheaval  - ‘People will be outraged they weren’t warned.’ The article began comparing the current situation to Y2K when everyone was worried about what was going to happen to their computers. I smugly laughed and thought "What’s the big deal? Either your computer knows about the time changes and adjusts itself, or it doesn’t, and you change it manually." I could see how it would be more complicated for large organizations with schedules affecting thousands of people, such as airlines and hospitals, but didn’t see it as an issue for one-person operations like mine.

Then I booted up today and found that some of my appointments had changed times. Whether I fixed them on my desktop PC or my pocket PC, they ended up wrong on the other device. I realized it probably had to do with the time change, but figured I would just have to live with it for three weeks. Then I remembered that Saturday’s article provided helpful links, so I pulled it out of the recycling bag, went to the appropriate place on the Microsoft site, followed a few simple instructions, and now I’m not only back in action, I’ve updated to the latest version of Active Sync, which is something I probably should have done some time ago.

If you’re having any problems with your computer calendar today, here are the links from the Spectator article:

PC users: http://support.microsoft.com/dst2007

Macintosh users: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305056

Palm Pilot users: http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/dst.html

BlackBerry users: http://www.blackberry.com/select/dst2007

In response to my last entry, Cathy of Langley BC posted the comment, "I just wanted to find out from you if you were organized from the beginning? Do you believe that some people are just born organized?" Those are such great questions that I thought the answers merited their own entry.

In response to whether I have always been organized, I’ll start with the long answer, by sharing an excerpt from a speech my sister made at a recent party in honour of my 50th birthday. Kathy said:

After working as a secretary and a career counsellor, she became what our dad would say she was destined to become. A professional organizer. Why would he say this was her destiny?

Well, how many children do you know who carefully arrange their green beans in tidy rows - on their high-chair trays - before eating them, and who, years after they’ve grown to maturity, still line up french fries on their plates, in order from shortest to longest? Perhaps I exaggerate. But our dad did ask Janet recently, "Have you ever enjoyed a hot meal?"

I wasn’t aware of this tendency until I was in my 20’s, but this was still long before I considered organizing as a career. I do remember visiting a friend in her university dorm room, and she had all her shelves labelled as to what belonged on each shelf, and I thought that was pretty neat (no pun intended). In the 1980’s I bought Bonnie McCullough’s book, Totally Organized and found it very helpful for getting my house in order, and when I went to re-read it some time later, I was pleasantly surprised to realize I had already incorporated most of the ideas into my life. I continued to read and enjoy organizing books for several years after that.

While working as a career counsellor, I learned about personality type and discovered that I am a "Judging" type. In True Colors or Personality Dimensions, I’m considered a "Gold." What this basically means is that I was born organized, and I prefer things to be orderly and scheduled. (For a more detailed explanation, I suggest you read my article, What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®?)

My short answer would therefore be "yes" some people are born organized, and I am one of those people.

However, this does not mean that if you’re not born organized that you can’t acquire the skills. In fact, in POC we talk about "born organizers" and "born again organizers." A "born again organizer" is someone who has learned to become organized and now helps others to do the same.

I have had the pleasure of working with Linda Elliott, who lived with chronic disorganization as a result of multiple sclerosis, and she used her experience to assist others in similar situations. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to continue with her business as her MS symptoms worsened, but she was a shining example of how someone who wasn’t born organized can become a professional organizer.

When I was the Director of Membership for Professional Organizers in Canada (POC), I received inquiries every week from individuals wanting to know how they could get started in this field, and every once in a while, someone will still contact me with related questions.

The first thing I tell them is to visit the POC website and to consider signing up for the Should I Become an Organizer? teleclass.  This is a one-hour session where you can ask questions and get information from a veteran organizer. I also suggest they attend a Chapter meeting in their area, where they will have an opportunity to meet with members who have already established an organizing business, as well as others who are considering it, and get a good feel for what it is all about.

POC has recently launched an education program where you can earn education credits by attending teleclasses on specific organizing topics.  You can also earn education credits by attending the Annual Conference, which will be held in Vancouver this year. It may be cost-prohibitive for some individuals who aren’t yet earning an income from their organizing business, but I have met many people whose Conference attendance was their first experience with the industry, and they decided to join the association before they even got home.

If you’re not Canadian, you are still welcome to join POC and participate in its programs, but you might also want to look into NAPO, which is US-based and has been established since 1985. NAPO also offers education through teleclasses and an annual conference. They have recently developed a certification program, but you must have a minimum of 1500 paid hours of organizing work in the past three years to be eligible to write the exam, so it is definitely not for newbies.

Certification is also offered through the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD) for those with an interest in that specific topic. To participate in the training program, you must first join NSGCD, and before you can do that, you must be a member of POC or NAPO.

Training is also available through private businesses, such as Productivity Squared. I took their one-day course, Become a Professional Organizer, in 2002, and found that it gave me the confidence I needed to go ahead and launch my business. They now run a comprehensive three-day program in various locations in both Canada and the US. (If this interests you, contact me to find out how you can receive a $50 rebate on your registration fee!) I know most of the facilitators personally through my involvement with POC, and can vouch for their industry expertise and great personalities. They also offer webinars and self-study manuals.

If self-study is your cup of tea, you can’t go wrong with Maria Gracia’s Ultimate Guide for Professional Organizers. A comprehensive guide to starting, managing and growing your own profitable professional organizing business, it will help you get your business off the ground, promote it on a shoe-string budget, give you the best techniques for growing your sales, help you increase your business referrals, give you ideas on how to grow your business to enormous heights, and more.

Additional business start-up guides and downloadable training materials are available at OnlineOrganizing.com.

As this profession continues to grow, there are more and more training opportunities and materials available.

In my first entry, I wrote about my frustration about someone mentioning my name in their blog in a series of random phrases. That was so useless that it was almost amusing, and I refused to "reward" the blogger with a link to the entry in question.

This morning, I came across something far worse, and I am outraged. Someone has taken one of my articles and apparently run it through an article rewriter before posting it. I know that article rewriting software exists. I understand its purpose is to take your own articles and reword them so you can use them again, although I suspect that less ethical people use it to steal other people’s articles. In this case, however, my article has been completely butchered - only my name is recognizable. You have to see it to believe it.

Here’s my original article at OrganizedArticles.com, and here is how it appears at Your Job Zone.

Is this important enough to be concerned? What is the likelihood of anyone, other than myself, even coming across it? And if they did, would it even reflect on me, since along with the body of the article, they’ve altered my business name and website address? (I did post a comment stating what they have done, with a link to the original article.) Should I bring this to the attention of the other authors whose altered work also appears here?

Is there even a word for this? It’s not plagiarism - that would be if they posted MY article with THEIR name on it. If there isn’t, I’m sure there soon will be, as I’ve no doubt this type of occurrence is more common that we realize and will likely become more and more prevalent. As I said in my original post, however, I really don’t see what benefit they derive from it. There’s not so much as a Google ad on that blog, so I don’t see how they can make money from it, directly or indirectly.

Well, enough of my whining - it’s time to go and make a living!