This week I tackled some business functions I’ve needed to do for a while:

1. Fixed up my article organiser spreadsheet to make updating it easier
2. Adapted two blog posts into articles
3. Emailed 5 articles to my virtual assistant to submit to article directories
4. Wrote a brochure for tonight’s function – nothing fancy – put some testimonials in place, added my logo and picture, put some of my winter specials and my services on the back and voila! all done.
5. Organised my blogging for the week document so it’s all neat and tidy again.

And now, I need to start working on this week’s weekly tips!

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This week I tackled something that has been nagging at me for a while.

And because my part of the organising challenge is done (and I am not allowed to touch the hubby clutter), I’ve been “working alongside him” but doing my own stuff. So I’ve been on a real decluttering binge and throwing away papers, seeing how I can have more effective systems, and so on.

For my tackle, I decided to make a business binder. (This was inspired by Kim – scroll down to 19 March). I had quite a few files and flipfiles and now I’ve compressed all of those into this one file folder. I can’t really post any before pics because I brought things from all over.

I’m not really a paper girl – almost everything that I would classify as reference is on computer/ flash drive. But I do like writing lists on paper with a lovely thick gel pen. There is something so satisfying about ticking things off, isn’t there?

After that are my individual categories, like computer work, projects, marketing, website and so on.

I like this idea because I’m quite ruthless with paper, and everything must fit in here or else a huge declutter is due. I will NOT move to a bigger file or a second one! I do the same with my household filing so when it starts filling up, I grab the file and weed through it in front of the TV.

Go visit 5 minutes for mom for more great tackles.

After – nice, neat wastepaper basket

Mini tackle 2
Bedside table with too many books, too many Bibles, too many bookmarks, notepads, etc.

Before

And after. I know it won’t stay this way for very long but it’s satisfying while it lasts.

Mini tackle 3

And then for the third project, I tackled some long-overdue blogging. This is a blog we made for our friends and then I also had to update the ministry blog at church.

Mini tackle 4

And last but not least, I got all up to date on my end-of-month business tasks like balancing the account, updating client lists, responding to emails, and so on. I won’t bore you with the less-than-cool aspects.

That’s it for this week. I’m leaving the handbags for next week.

I decided to join this meme to tackle those things I know I should do, but generally procrastinate on.

So without any further ado, this week I decided to finally start a business control journal. I learned about control journals from Flylady. If you don’t know Flylady, go on over and visit her site.

Anyway, I made a list of all the tasks I want to do in a week and those I need to do every month.

I then broke up the weekly tasks over the different days so that everything is spread out evenly and I don’t get overwhelmed.

When I’d done the monthly tasks, I was on a roll, so I also did a list of 3-monthly, 6-monthly and annual tasks.

Well, my control journal is only 6 pages long (that includes the cover and all the pictures – I have to make it pretty, you know. That’s the fun) but at least I have a working skeleton.

I now want to flesh out each section and add my policies (cancellation, travel, for-free speaking, etc) to it.

And that’s it for now. I felt really good once it was done.

Then I PDF’d it. Now in Adobe, you have a choice to print multiple pages on one sheet of paper. So I selected 6 and it all printed on 1 A4 sheet of paper.

Which I now keep under my to-do list every day so that it’s in my face and I can tick things off as I do them. Lovely!