From the Desk of Janet Barclay

This is my final week as a member of Professional Organizers in Canada (POC). I joined POC shortly after establishing my business in the summer of 2002, on the advice of Margaret Miller, who was President at that time and one of the association’s founders. Since then, I’ve watched the organization go through many changes.

When I joined POC, there were fewer than 100 members across Canada. A few months later, Margaret asked me to take over for the Director of Membership, who had to resign her position for personal reasons. She told me that it was mainly an administrative role, preparing membership kits and sending them out to new members, but as the membership grew, so did my workload, to the point where I actually had to recruit a volunteer to look after the membership kits while I attended to other Board responsibilities. By the time I stepped down from the National Board in October of 2005, there were over 500 members, representing all 10 provinces.

One of POC’s major initiatives is National Organizing Week (NOWeek), which is held each year during the first week of May, in order to raise the profile of the association by volunteering organizing services to other non-profit organizations.  In 2003, I volunteered alone to organize a file storage room for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hamilton Burlington, which was a huge project that brought me back to their location several times before it was finished. In later years, I had the opportunity to work with other local organizers at Ronald McDonald House and Habitat for Humanity.

The most exciting project I participated in as a POC member was the redevelopment of the website. With the growth of the organization, we needed a more user-friendly navigation system and a membership database that tied directly into the registration process. Little did I realize when I volunteered to head up the project how much time and energy would be involved! It can be very challenging to work with a volunteer committee strictly by email, especially when each committee member is busy running his or her own business. A few committee members had to resign due to other demands, and others just stopped participating, but thanks to a few core members, Alex Fayle, Nada Thomson, and Lynn Fanset, we were finally able to see the new site launched – after more than a year of planning and working with Zoonini Web Services.

Of course, the Annual Conference has always been a highlight, and I’m hoping to attend again, possibly as an exhibitor in the Vendor Expo.

My reasons for leaving POC have nothing to do with the changes in the organization, and everything to do with changes in my own business. When I joined, I was marketing myself as a career consultant / professional organizer – a strange combination, but one which allowed me to use my knowledge of personality type to help others to choose a career or to develop organizing strategies best suited to their personality type. A year or so later, fellow POC member Hellen Buttigieg asked if I would be willing to look after her electronic newsletter, as this was something I did for my own business that she wasn’t interested in learning to do herself. It was then that I realized that I got more pleasure from working on my computer than from hands-on organizing, and I began to evolve from a professional organizer to a virtual assistant.

I look forward to staying in touch with the many friends I’ve made during my time with POC, who are too numerous to mention here. I will definitely stay in touch with what’s happening in the association, due to the many members who have chosen me as their virtual assistant and/or web designer, including Patricia John of Room 2 Room Organizing Services, Cindy Milligan of Get It Together! Residential Organizing Services, Lisa Rosen of ICanSeeTheFloor.com, Hellen Buttigieg of We Organize U, and last but by no means least, Wendy Hollick of NEAT SPACES Professional Organizing Service, who has also become a close friend.

 Special thanks to all those who have accompanied me on this journey!

Today I’m going to introduce you to one of my newest clients, Ariane Benefit, of Neat & Simple. Ariane started her own business in 1993 after a long and successful corporate career. No one was more surprised than she was when she was diagnosed last year with ADD. Like many of us, she had always assumed that people with ADD are unreliable, can’t sit still or focus on tasks, and never accomplish anything.

Ariane has learned that ADD is not that obvious. She says it’s kind of like having back pain - you can’t see it, but it sure makes it hard for you to walk, and you find a way to do it anyway.  She is amazed at the number of people who thought her achievements came to her so easily, but for her, it was a painful struggle that she worked very hard to conceal.  She has said that for almost every project she finishes, she probably has at least two that are unfinished, as well as countless new ideas, and as her virtual assistant, I can confirm that this is true! Sometimes it can be challenging to work with her, but because she has been open and honest with me about her ADD since day one, I’ve come to understand that a lot of what we’re doing is brainstorming, and that I shouldn’t try to get a clear picture of what my assignment is until the conversation is reaching a close and decisions have actually been made.

To learn more about Ariane’s experience and how she has learned to thrive despite the challenges of ADD, please read her blog post, How I Survived My Life with Undiagnosed Adult ADD and Learned to THRIVE!  If you know, work with or live with someone else who has successfully overcome ADD, I’m sure she would love to hear about it.

If you’re struggling with ADD or another challenge, whether it is physical, emotional, or mental, just remember that you too can overcome it and be successful, just like Ariane and many others have done.

Lately two of the women whose blogs I read have made remarkable achievements.

Suzanne McLoone has been selected as one of the 3 Most Influential Women in Arizona because of her blogs, podcasts, and newsletters. Suzanne writes for several blogs, including Let’s Talk Organizing, My Personal Organizing Tools Review, Setting and Achieving Your Goals, and Fear Your Computer No More, as well as offering her Let’s Talk Organizing Podcast, Organizational Empowerment newsletter and a number of organizing eBooks. As an organization consultant, public speaker and former radio talk show host, Suzanne has worked with individuals and corporations throughout America, Canada and Scotland.

Kathie Thomas has been nominated as Australian of the Year 2008. The founder of "A Clayton’s Secretary"® and pioneer of the Virtual Assistant industry in Australia, Kathie’s blogs include SOHO-Life, Virtual Assistant - THE Blog, Workplace Ministry, God-Incidence, Mary and Martha, and Proverbs 31 Woman. She has also written a book, Worth More Than Rubies: The Value of a Work At Home Mum.

Although I’ve never met these two outstanding women, I feel that I know them through reading their blogs, and I’m reminded once again of how the Internet has opened up the world to us, to learn about people all over the world that we would never have heard of otherwise.

Please join me in congratulating Suzanne and Kathie, and don’t forget to tell the world about your accomplishments in your own blog!

I wanted to begin 2008 with a special entry to help you start the year on the right foot, so I was delighted to learn today that Organizing Coach Ariane Benefit of Neat & Simple Living has put out a new e-book just in time to help you work on your New Year’s Resolution. You know the one, where you promise yourself that this is the year you’re going to organize your office?

If your budget doesn’t allow for professional organizing services, or you’re just not comfortable letting someone else deal with your clutter, Ariane’s Neat & Simple Guide to Organizing Your Office may be just what you need to help you handle the job yourself.

According to the website, this guide was "designed for busy people, creative professionals, people with ADD and anyone who needs to get their office under control, but doesn’t want to spend a lot of time doing it." At $12.95 for 129 pages filled with colour photos, you really can’t go wrong!

I’m very excited because OnlineOrganizing.com Blog Central was launched this week, and my first entry, Taking Back Your Life, was posted today. Because I’m now blogging in several different places, I will try to let you know here when I’ve posted somewhere else, so you don’t have to remember to check everywhere on a regular basis.

I also posted this week at the Introvert Retreat blog, about Self-Promotion for Introverts. 

Other noteworthy blogs this week:

In his Someday Syndrome blog, Alex Fayle posted a delightfully concise Writer’s Business Plan, and Savvy Entrepreneur Cristina Favreau has declared October to be Anti-Procrastination Month. If you struggle with procrastination - and who doesn’t? - go and read some of Cristina’s helpful tips! No, not tomorrow - do it NOW!!!