Miss Messy Desk

Sending out monthly newsletters to let your clients know of special product discounts and sales or of your services is a great way to stay in touch with your clients. For the small business owner this can often be a daunting task.

Not only do you have to: create the email itself, make sure the html used is as efficient as possible so the newsletter can be viewed by all your list, make sure your email server has all the right certificates in place to make sure that your emails won't be considered spam by the receiving server, keep current in changes/legislation regarding email marketing campaigns and update as technologies change (which they do often on the web)  - and you may want to consider links to videos of your products or services in action so you'll need to make sure your emails make that effortless for your customers to access.....
 
....BUT ALSO you have to set up a system so your customers can OPT out or OPT in to receive the newsletters, set up a system to track and update your email list, archive your campaigns so you have a history for the organization, and so on.

Along comes Constant Contact, an online service that provides all that, plus wonderful easy drag and drop newsletter templates, all for a super reasonable monthly price, based on your email list.  I tried the 60 day free trial and was able to send out two newsletters for one of my clients.  We got great feedback from the recipients.  60 days was plenty of time to send out a newsletter, get feedback, make adjustments, and send out another newsletter.  This was so beneficial in making the decision if this was the right email newsletter provider.  So far so good!
 

Take time each day to rejuvenate your mind with Philosophers Notes.  Summaries of 25 great inspirational books .  I don't have a iPod or MP3 player, so I print out the short 6 page notes and read them before bed.  This helps me subconsciously reset my goals and directions for the day or week.  good short reads.

January is "Get Organized" Month!  Last year I bet you said  'this is the year I am going to organize all my files and papers and all the other stuff cluttering my desk and my office.  I am going to organize all my income tax stuff so it isn't a last minute panic job'  and you may have said you were going to clean-up or organize anything else that is cluttering your life.  Now I also bet you didn't do any of that.  This year though, is going to be different - right? 

Right! You bet it is.  I have found a great organizer named Maria Gracia and she has written a series of organizing e-books.  Each e-book is for a different area of your home.  I love her stuff and highly recommend it.  Below are her e-books that pertain more to the home office environment.  They are worth checking out and are reasonably priced.

NEW! Huge OFFICE Edition - Just Released!Finally Organized, Finally Free FOR THE OFFICE Get over 1,875 ideas, tips and techniques for organizing your office, your time, your projects and productivity, your files, your desk, your computer, your mail, email and much more!A comprehensive resource of simple solutions that can help you get organized at your home office or business office. 8 1/2 x 11 format. Easy to read type. 60 chapters - 395 pages.Click Here!

Easy OrganizerThe easiest way to organize every bit of information in your life!Tons of easy to use forms, checklists, logs and information sheets for important family information, goals, planning, personal growth, home maintenance, cleaning, inventory, gardening, home office, computer, vacation and more!Click Here!

Home Organization for Busy People is another great organizing e-book written by Greg Payette of Discover Organization. Below is an outline of what his e-book has to offer, plus he is throwing in 5 free bonuses for ordering now.

"The Definitive Guide to Home Organization for Busy People" is my step-by-step coaching program that takes you by the hand and leads you through proven, step-by-step strategies to remove the stress caused by chaos and clutter...and shows you exactly how to get organized so you get the most out of your time and space at home.The downloadable PDF Guide gives you 110 pages of home organization techniques instantly, and each section is broken into specific areas of your home. Plus, you'll have each step-by-step strategy right there on your computer for instant access, or can even print it from any printer (by each section as you organize your home, or as a complete Guide).And because you'll get instant access, you'll be able to get organized and start seeing a real improvement to your home (and your mind) even before you go to bed tonight.Right off the bat I cover exactly how to get started and how to create a plan that's simple to follow. Then, we dive into each room of your home, showing you how to decide what to get rid of, and how to create order throughout your home so you stay organized without clutter for good -- and you'll never look back on how it used to be.Click Here!

I have been loosing sleep because I did not have a proper backup of my pictures.  Really, I was quite worried.  I knew two people who had their hard drives crash, one was able to recover her stuff, the other, not so lucky.  Something had to be done. 

So for Christmas I bought myself an external hard drive.  A Western Digital "My Book" 750gb hard drive to be exact.  I got a great deal on it.  I was quickly able to copy all my picture files, music files, video files and all my other document files over in just minutes and barley made a dent in the hard drives capacity!  Finally I am able to sleep at night again!

At work there was always coffee in the coffee maker.  How did it get there?  Who made it?  Who knew?  You get to work and you get a coffee,  an hour or so later you go down and get more, maybe grab a cookie or two.  It was just there.  At home the coffee maker is empty, there isn't even coffee in the cupboard, and who ate all the cookies.

Sometimes working from home sucks.  You have to make coffee, but first you have to go out and buy the coffee.  You have to buy cookies too.  If you're lucky your kids might make cookies, but then you eat them all nice and warm from the oven, and you still don't have any cookies.

This raises an interesting point, while working at the office you have perks, like coffee and cookies, which the company pays for, and an endless stream of paper and supplies, computers that you don't have to worry about, lights and heat and even furniture.

So are you better off working for yourself at home?  While there seems to be more cons, like you have to buy and make your own coffee, buy your own paper and supplies, pay for the utilities and possibly even even buy furniture for yourself.  Working from home as benefits too that the office doesn't have (at least the office where I once worked)  such as setting my own hours, wearing what ever I want, when I'm not seeing clients,  going on field trips with my children's class,  being home when they are sick and believe it or not, doing the laundry.  Sure I work a lot at night at the dining room table, but the sense of freedom and being in control of what and when I do things far out weighs having coffee and cookies available all day long.

Working from home presents many challenges and opportunities.  One of the challenges I am going to open with is backup.  When you work at at office, someone else looks after backing up the office network.  it just happens and you don't have to think about it.

At home, this should be your number one priority.  Backup isn't for if your hard drive crashes it is for when your hard drive crashes.  Because it is going to happen at some point. 

In the last few days three people I know hard drives have crashed.  They were all able to retrieve their data, but it wasn't easy and they had to bring in professional help.

this subject is dear to my heart at the moment because I need to back up my computer.  its not that I haven't backed up at all, I back up my client files to 2 gb flash drives.  Its my pictures that worry me.  I have 16gb of pictures that aren't backed up.

I have been looking at online backup systems and desk top external hard drives.  Both have pros and cons.  Pros of an online back up are that you can set it and forget about it and all your files are backed up automatically all the time.  There is a monthly or yearly fee, with is neither a pro nor a con because no matter what you do it will cost you.  Cons of an online backup is that this type of service is still in its infancy and raises lots of questions about security. 

There are pros and cons with desktop or portable external hard drives as well.  Cons are that if someone breaks into your house and steels your computer chances are they are going to steel your external hard drive too, same if your house burns down.  Though I think the odds of someone breaking into your house are greater than your house burning down. Another con is that you have to remember to actually do the backup.  One of my dear friends keeps thier hard drive in a safe...hmmm, wonder how often they take it out and back up?  Pros of the desktop external hard drive - you have control of your own data, and the frequency of backups.

Right now I am swaying towards the external hard drive backup, the question now is how big do you go?