From the Desk of Janet Barclay

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.

My friend Alex Fayle, who writes the Someday Syndrome blog, tagged me with the following challenge:

1. Write a six-word memoir.
2. Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag 5 more blogs with links.
5. Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Alex said that he tagged me because I’m "so efficient" that I could easily achieve the six-word limit, but I suspect that he knows I can’t resist this type of challenge!

So here goes…

Her mother’s daughter; her own woman.

I’m tagging:

• Kathy Stinson, because she’s a writer, so she can do this if anyone can
• Tony at PinkQuack, so he knows I haven’t forgotten about him
• Jacki Hollywood Brown of Adventures in Organizing, because she’s usually up for a challenge too – and she can do it in both official languages
• Erika Martlew at Northern Connections and Crystal Stango at The Filing Cabinet, just because

If anyone else would like to play along, please leave a comment so we can see what you’ve written.

You might even want to submit your six-word memoir to SMITH Magazine to be considered for publication in an upcoming book. (Their first volume, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs from Writers Famous and Obscure came out earlier this year.)

I was sad to hear about the recent passing of George Carlin. Of course, I didn’t know him personally, but I have thoroughly enjoyed his comedy for decades. I have even quoted him in some of my organizing seminars!

That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.

Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why?

No room for your stuff any more.

If you’re not familiar with that routine, take a few minutes to watch this video!

"Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused."

Author Unknown

I am starting to think there are days for everything – for example, did you know that today is Repetitive Strain Injuries Awareness Day? If you are on your computer for several hours a day, you are susceptible to RSI, but there are a few things you can do to prevent it.

For starters, make sure that your workstation is set up properly so that you’re not putting undue stress on any part of your body. Experts generally recommend that you use a desk with a tray that is slightly lower for your keyboard and mouse. I am no expert, but it’s my opinion that a lot of damage is caused because users have a tendency to keep their hand positioned on the mouse while reading on screen. I certainly found that my wrist pain was reduced when I made a conscious effort to take my hand off the mouse when I wasn’t clicking or scrolling on anything. When I switched from a desktop computer to a notebook, I was worried that working on a higher surface would lead to physical problems, but I’m pleased to say that so far it has not been a problem. This may be in part due to the fact that I am more likely to sit back with my hands on my lap or armrests while reading on screen, now that I don’t have a mouse to cling to.

Of course, another habit that is so important is getting up from your desk and stretching on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it can be hard to remember to do this if you’re involved in a big job, especially a creative project like website design. But just as there are days for everything, there is software for everything, and I recently learned that there’s a program called PRSI Break which is a fully animated stretch break program for computer users. It not only shows you what to do, you can set it to remind you when it’s time for a break. What will they think of next?

If you don’t feel like adding more software to your system, you can always set Outlook or even your cell phone to remind you to take an hourly stretch. Instead of letting your technology hurt you, turn things around and make it help you prevent repetitive strain injury!

Today being Weedless Wednesday, I have been thinking about the effects of smoking, not on the smoker’s health, but on his or her productivity. A quick Google search on smoking productivity only brought up issues of lost productivity due to absenteeism caused by smoking-related health issues, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

When workplace policies and then legislation changed so that workers could no longer smoke in the office (or other working environments), it was to protect non-smokers from the dangers of secondhand smoke, and that was good.

However, most workplaces allow two coffee breaks and one lunch break per shift. How many smokers do you know who can get through the day with only three or four cigarettes? As a result, a situation evolved where smokers would take a number of "smoke breaks" in addition to their allotted breaks.

This was somewhat annoying to those of us who continued working during this time, and once I even heard a manager threaten to take up smoking so she could get more breaks. So while the non-smokers were working something like 7 hours a day, the smokers were probably only working 6 hours, by the time you take off all the smoke breaks (which, in large office towers, mean waiting for elevators going up and down as well).

On the other hand, a certain camaraderie formed amongst the smokers that didn’t exist among the non-smokers, contributing to team building, which can increase productivity in some cases, but I doubt it would save the equivalent of an hour per person per day.

Photo courtesy of: Marcello eM