Archive for the ‘Making It Simpler and Easier’ Category

Dear Danielle: What Is the Best Approach to Physically Obtain Quality Clients?

By Danielle Keister | July 6th, 2016

Dear Danielle:

I am very new to the Administrative Consulting business although I have almost 20 years of experience supporting senior-level executives. I agree with you that we are so much more than “virtual assistants” and I would like to attract customers who understand that and value what we bring to the table, if you will. Therefore, my question to you is now that I’ve created a website and all other social media accounts, what is the best approach to physically obtain quality clients? Eventually, I may narrow my target but for now, my target is Small Business Owners. Thank you. —ND

Hi, ND. Welcome and thanks for reaching out. 🙂

Sounds like you’ve got the perfect background and a solid body of experience to offer clients. Wonderful!

Of course, there’s much more to business than simply knowing how to support clients and do the work, as you realize.

Learning how to run, manage and market a business and get actual clients (much less good ones) is a whole other skillset and area of education in and of itself.

This is why your question is more of a training one, rather than something that can be answered in a simple blog post.

It requires a more in-depth, systematic process of learning to understand the components, dynamics, and psychology involved.

To get that kind of knowledge and learning, I will refer you to my step-by-step self-paced training guide I created specifically for that purpose: How to Build a Website that WORKS!

This guide is centered around your website because your website IS the critical link in connecting your marketing and networking to actually getting clients, and not just any clients, but the kind of clients you want to reach: quality clients who understand your value.

This involves pre-educating your site visitors so they are in the right mindset, setting the right expectations, and prequalifying clients to help ensure you are productively spending your time in consultation with your most ideal and likely client candidates.

In the process of going through the steps and exercises, my guide also gives you a crash-course in inbound marketing because the two go hand-in-hand. You can’t set up an effective website and conversion system that gets results unless you understand all the components and mechanics involved.

Another thing I show you how to do in my guide is how to articulate your value and write your marketing message (and I have a clever system that helps you do that, no writing talent required; couldn’t be easier).

This is where having a target market is absolutely vital.

If there are any “secrets” in business and getting clients (and there aren’t), this is it.

And that’s because it’s not so much a “secret” as it is an area of misunderstanding and resistance for so many people.

You mention that right now your target is “small business owners.” But that isn’t a target at all, you see.

“Small business owners” is merely a demographic, and a very vague, general one at that which isn’t going to be helpful to you in any meaningful way whatsoever in creating a compelling marketing message and getting those ideal clients who value what you do.

It’s like saying “people” are your target market. That’s literally anyone and everyone in the world — which is the opposite of a target market (which by definition is a specific market).

A target market is simply an industry/field/profession that you cater your administrative support to. That’s it. However, it’s a vitally important component in getting those quality, ideal clients who understand your value that you wish for.

And this is where people struggle because they resist the idea that they actually expand their attractiveness and opportunities if they narrow their focus to one specific group.

Because here’s the thing: you can’t articulate your value in any truly meaningful, compelling way until you know who it is you are providing that value to. And that requires you to decide what industry/field/profession that will be.

Because it’s all relative.

Your value — what you provide, the solutions you offer, how you deliver those solutions and the results you create — all depends on who your audience (i.e., target market) is: who they are, what their commons interests, needs, challenges and goals are, what work they do in their profession, how their businesses are run, who their clients are, how they get those clients, and so much more.

You have to decide who it is you specifically intend to help in order to identify, understand and articulate your value in a way that speaks to these things as it relates to them. Otherwise, all you’ll ever accomplish (by trying to create a message for anyone and everyone) is being generic and forgettable.

To stand out, to create real meaning, to get focus and direction for your message and your marketing, you need specificity.

That specificity (i.e., deciding on a target market to cater your administrative support to) is what is not only going to get you more ideal clients who value what you do, it’s also going to make your business and marketing easier, you’ll have an easier time charging higher fees and making more money, and you’ll be able to get more clients more quickly and easily.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to download my free guide on How to Choose Your Target Market.

Start there, decide on a target market and then get my marketing/website guide, and you’ll be well on your way to getting those ideal, quality clients who absolutely understand how valuable you can be to them.

Is It Time to Start Earning More in Your Business?

By Danielle Keister | April 23rd, 2014

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Do you hate tracking and reporting time to clients? Would you be excited to know of an easier, more profitable way to charge that clients also love? If so, you’re not alone.

Tracking hours is a HUGE administrative burden that eats into your profitability and takes time away from life. And clients hate being nickeled and dimed on minutes and hours.

If you’ve been in business any amount of time, you have at least some idea of the problems with selling time instead of your solutions, results and expertise. What you may not realize is just how much billing by the hour is killing your business and keeping you from earning better.

It focuses clients on hours and reporting. When clients think they’re buying hours, that’s what they zero in on to the exclusion of just about everything else that’s more important.
It measures time instead of results. Is that really how you want clients judging the quality of your support, by how long things take instead of how you actually help them?
The faster you work, the LESS you make. When you charge by the hour, you’re penalized financially for being better and faster at what you do. How much sense does that make?
The better you are, the harder you must work to make the same amount of money. That’s because the more you can do in an hour, the more you have to fill up that hour.
And how do you track time for all those intangible, incidental things you do for clients, like thinking, reading and replying to emails and making calls? Are you really going to stop and punch the clock every second you lift a finger? How practical is that? And what happens when you forget?
It puts you and the client’s interests and motivations at odds with each other. When you charge by the hour, clients want things to take the least amount of time possible, and you only make more money the longer things take. Instead of being focused on the goals and objectives the work is in support of, you end up playing a tug-of-war with hours.
Most importantly, billing by the hour is keeping you BROKE! You automatically limit your earning potential when you tie it to how many hours you have to sell.

Your time is the least valuable thing you have to offer clients. It’s your skill, knowledge and expertise that make things happen and help them move forward in their businesses.

And be honest, aren’t you sick and tired of tracking and reporting time to clients like you were some little employee?

You’re in business to help clients, right? Well, how helpful is it to them when you have to stop work right in the middle of things because they’ve run out of hours?

Wouldn’t you rather offer your support in a way that allows you to get things done and serve clients better without discounting your fees or having your hands tied by a ticking clock?

The trick is to price the solution, NOT the hours. You want for both you and the client to be in alignment of interests and motivations. So the question becomes, how do you do that? How do you price the solution, how do you set parameters, when time is not the unit of measurement?

This is EXACTLY what I show you how to do in my value-based pricing guide, How to Price and Package Your Support Based on Value and Expertise—NOT Selling Hours.

Charging by the hour is keeping you from earning AND serving clients better. If you struggle to earn well even though you have clients; if you feel like there’s no room for you to grow based on how you’re charging and doing things now; if potential clients balk when you tell them your hourly rate, I can show you how to change ALL of that in your business!

This self-study course shows you how to create a simpler, easier business to run, where your earning potential is hugely expanded because it’s not tied to how many hours you have to sell.

Clients find it much easier to say YES to working with you, and, best of all, you’ll be able to toss those time sheets out forever!

I’ve been studying value-based pricing for over 10 years now and use this methodology that I’ve uniquely adapted especially for the administrative support business in my own practice.

In this guide, I show you the exact methods I use to earn more in a month with just one of my retained clients than most people in our industry are making with 5 to 10 (or more!) clients. I have far more freedom and flexibility to live life. And clients LOVE this way of working together because it’s easier to pay, easier to work together, and they see results more quickly and clearly because we’re focused on the goals and objectives the work is in support of, not the time it takes.

If you, too, would like more life, more money and more freedom in your business while serving clients BETTER, click here for more product details.

POLL: Would you like more free time in your business and life?

By Danielle Keister | July 24th, 2012

3 Comments

I have a new class coming up in August on the topic of biz management and productivity. I’ve set up my business in a way that not only allows me to provide fantastic client support, but I always have time for my life. With rare exception, I’m never working like a slave everyday, I’m not scrambling to get things done or keep up with my workload, and I have a tremendous amount of time for my life, vastly more than I see most other people in our industry having. I make more money than 90% of those in our industry AND I’m not working with clients like a substitute employee to earn it.

So, this class is a way to share with others how I have things set up so that they, too, can have this kind of biz and lifestyle… so they are working to live rather than living to work.

As a follower of my blog, you know that I give a ton of information and mentoring away for free. So I’d like to ask you for a favor in return. Whether or not you plan to attend this class, I’d like to know if this class piques your interest or not and whether it’s a topic you are interested in.

This is a completely anonymous survey so I don’t know who answers what. However, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with me where the trouble spots are when it comes to productivity and managing your biz and client expectations and the like, it would be very helpful to me as well and I would very much appreciate your assistance (I won’t post your comments so you can share freely). 🙂

Dear Danielle: How Do I Improve My Skills?

By Danielle Keister | February 6th, 2012

1 Comment

Dear Danielle:

What do you recommend we do to keep on track and improve our skills? Conferences (online or in-person), classes? Do you have personal recommendations of some? —Stephanie Bateman

Great question!

A lot of times people will take classes willy nilly. They aren’t sure what they need so they sign up for anything and everything that comes along in case they might need those skills some day.

Or they’ll fall prey to manipulative marketing that tells them such-and-such are the “hot skills” that ALL clients need and if you don’t know how to do this or that, you won’t be as valuable, or you won’t be able to charge as much, or you will otherwise be a failure or just a “generalist.” (Complete BS and I hope you are smart enough not fall for those kind of sleazy sales tactics and messages.)

I’m a HUGE proponent of lifelong learning and always being in curiosity mindset! But going about things that way can get expensive fast, you may end up not even needing to use the skills you learned this way, and it’s the worst way to determine how to support clients.

Here again is where having a target market can really keep you focused and save you a TON of time, energy and money, all of which you have finite stores of and need to be smart about where you invest them. 😉

When you have a target market, you know what kind of work you do for clients, how their businesses are run, what their common goals and objectives are, and you can get training to elevate, improve or modernize your skills accordingly. Let your target market needs and the work you do for them determine where you spend your skills training and continuous learning time and dollars.

For example, if you work with attorneys, learning all the various e-filing ropes is a wise investment of your time and attention because that’s knowledge that’s of great use in your support work. If you don’t work with bankruptcy attorneys, taking bankruptcy training would not be a good use of your time and attention. See what I mean?

Also, remember that just working with clients keeps you on your toes. All the time that you are working with them, you are learning new skills and improving upon existing ones as you learn new and better ways of doing things and new tips and tricks for the tools and software you use.

I think conferences can be fun, and they’re certainly good for networking, meeting new people and forging bonds and maybe learning some snippets. It’s really a personal preference, but I haven’t ever seen or attended any conferences that imparted any real learning. That’s not to say you shouldn’t attend them. You may get some valuable business learning. I just doubt that you’re going to get the kind of skills training we’re talking about here. That’s not really the function or purpose of a conference.

It’s better to take skills training when the need arises, when you see there is going to be a meaningful use or purpose in your business and for your target market in the immediate future. That is, sort of like I mentioned above, you can waste a lot of time and money just taking classes you only think you might use later on. So, it can be a way to manage and be more discerning about where you spend that time and money by letting your business and client needs dictate any skills training you decide to take. You’ll take to and retain what you learn much better this way, and it will certainly help take the pressure off you thinking you have to learn everything RIGHT NOW.

Looking at things from another angle, it can also be energizing to take certain skills training just because it interests you and you get joy out of it.

For example, I really enjoy learning the ropes of video editing. Maybe it’s due to my love of filmmaking, but I just love putting video together and learning how to use editing tools to create nicely polished and professional transitions and effects.

I have not used this skill for any clients as yet and it would be a side, project type offering anyway (this would never be something they would get included in their administrative support, but rather be charged separately since it is both project work and a completely separate service and skillset). But the energizing effect it has on my creativity carries over into my business. Those things that enrich our spirit enrich our businesses by proxy. And there’s everything good about that!

Personally, I tend to do a lot more self-taught learning, at least in the beginning. I enjoy figuring things out myself. But even then, there comes a point in my learning curve where I need the help of someone more knowledgeable to attain higher expert levels or when I need to learn something faster than I can figure it out on my own. That’s usually when I take a class.

So keep in mind that self-paced, self-study is an option as well. There are all kinds of online, free and paid training and tutorials options out there for just about everything you’d like to learn.

The main thing to remember is this isn’t something you need to be stressed about at all. I find that everything always falls into place just as it’s meant to. Take what you need, when you need it. Take what you enjoy. Ignore the rest.

Hope this helps!

Dear Danielle: Should I Get Payment Up Front?

By Danielle Keister | November 30th, 2011

4 Comments

Dear Danielle:

I have a billing question. Should I ask for payment up front or after the work is completed? –KH

You don’t mention whether this is for project work or retained services. Either way, I have some advice for ya. 😉

If you’re doing project work, it’s definitely a good idea to get some kind of up-front payment. Here’s how I do it in my business… if it’s under $500, I tend to require full payment upfront. If it’s anything over that, I require 50% upfront.

Remember, you aren’t a client’s bank and they need to have some skin in the game. They’ll take you and the work you are doing for them more seriously. Plus, getting at least some payment upfront will not only help mitigate your losses should you end up with a dead-beat client, but it will help avoid working with flakes in the first place.

When it comes to providing ongoing support work, clients are usually charged an upfront fee called a retainer. By it’s very nature, it is upfront because they are retaining your services in an ongoing relationship and guaranteeing your time and their place on your roster. There is no deposit or 50% when it comes to retainers. It’s in full, upfront.

Here are some older posts related to this topic that I think you’ll find useful as well:

Help! Client Not Paying!

How to Avoid Getting Stiffed on Payment

You want to also check out these categories on my blog here:

Billing
Getting Paid

Hope that helps!

How Billing by the Hour Is KILLING Your Business

By Danielle Keister | November 28th, 2011

6 Comments

When your income is tied to how many hours you can sell, you automatically limit your earning potential because there are only so many hours in the day. This is exactly what you’re doing by charging by the hour in your business.

What I bet you didn’t know is that the hourly billing model is a relatively new artifice. In fact, there was a time in the not too distant past when everyone charged for their services based on value, not by the time it took.

Administrative Consultants and virtual assistants are giving all this wonderful support and expertise to clients and helping them succeed, while they are just barely scraping by in their own businesses.

I know how little people are earning in this industry and how much they struggle to stay afloat because of it, and it’s evidenced every year since 2006 in our annual industry survey.

This is when we start to see them grasping onto straws or making a mass exodus into another business entirely. They think, “I just need to turn the work into a factory and hire all these subcontractors to do the work. Then I’ll make more money.”

But they soon find out that that is a much bigger, more complicated and involved business to run than the one they had, one they might not have bargained for or enjoy. It’s also not necessarily one that earns any better because the profit margins have decreased further while overhead, administrative time and expenses have doubled or tripled.

This new video explains all the many ways that billing by the hour is keeping you from earning well and serving clients better and what to do about it.

I am here to tell you that it is ABSOLUTELY possible to create a beautiful, well-earning (even into six figures) solo or boutique administrative support business that doesn’t have you killing yourself or feeling icky in any way.

If you’re ready to get out of the hourly billing trap so you can stop trading hours for dollars and start making the kind of money you can actually live on and sustain your business, be sure and check out my Value-Based Pricing & Packaging Toolkit. I can show you how to change all of it around in your business AND create a simpler, easier business to run on top of it!

Are You Making Things Difficult?

By Danielle Keister | February 8th, 2011

5 Comments

I often see folks in our industry who think if their business and work isn’t hard, they haven’t “earned it.”

Consequently, I’ll see them making things (both consciously and subconsciously) much more difficult and complicated than need be.

This is a terribly self-sabotaging/self-defeating mindset to have.

There are lots of people in our industry who are working with 10 or more clients and yet are earning so poorly (less than $10,000 annually!) that they could actually make more money in a job.

It’s not difficult to get clients when you charge very little. The problem is that administratively supporting that many clients is a daily hardship that keeps them imprisoned at their desk and not making any money to boot.

The Case for Success

If you feel guilty about charging or things being easy in your business, here’s what I want you to understand: You can not be of consistent, reliable, top-quality service to your clients if you are struggling to keep up with the work, making it difficult and complicated, and not earning well on top of it.

If you have to work with more and more clients because you aren’t charging enough to earn what you need, you are doing them a disservice. Because the more you spread yourself thin, the less personal care, support and top quality work they get.

Building your business so that it is easy, profitable and financially successful is a BENEFIT to your clients.

When you make things easier in your business for you, you actually improve your service to clients. That is of tremendous value!

When you can easily take care of clients, you make your business more profitable (which means you will be able to stick around for them for the long-haul) and you create dramatically more time and space to give superior service and support. All of which allows you to charge a premium for your service so that you can make more money while working with fewer clients AND have more time and money for your own life.

Cracking the Whip

By Danielle Keister | September 1st, 2009

1 Comment

When you go to the store, do you blow in like a hurricane and start barking out orders to every person who crosses your path?

Why not? You’re the customer aren’t you? They are in business to serve your needs, aren’t they?

You are the very reason for their existence. What does it matter that there are other customers there before you? Shouldn’t they be doing everything you want, exactly how you want it, when you want it?

The customer is ALWAYS right!

Right?

What would happen if your business worked that way?

What kind of resources would you need in order to deliver service like that?

I imagine you’d need an awful lot of staff, for one thing, in order to cater to those kind of expectations.

Which, of course, would cost a pretty penny.

And then you’d need people to manage that staff, which increases your overhead and administration even more.

You’d also have to stay open 24 hours a day. If a client has a whim at 2 in the morning, you’ve got to be prepared at a second’s notice to take care of them!

Next, you’ve got to have another group of people to oversee things so nothing falls through the cracks.

You’ll probably also need someone in HR to deal with staff turn-over and burn-out issues (it’s not an easy job catering to client needs and whims round the clock day after day).

You’ll also want someone who can be documenting all the attendant workflows and training materials because they’ll be changing from one minute to the next as you bend over backward to meet each and every customer’s unique demands and terms.

To coordinate and brainstorm and stay in sync with all these people and departments, you’ll have to have meetings, lots and lots of meetings.

And emails.

And memos.

And then you’ll want a dedicated customer service team to smooth over ruffled feathers and unhappy customers when you fall down and can’t deliver.

Because that’s exactly what will eventually happen when the customer is always right and you can’t and don’t say no to anyone or anything.

If you’re a solopreneur, you can’t run your business like that. You simply don’t have the means and resources.

What’s more — you can’t afford to run your business like that. Not only for the sake of your own health and sanity, but also for the sake of your clients.

What I want you to know is that you are not a conveyor belt or drive-thru window.

You do NOT have to take everything that is dished out (and particularly not from crappy clients) in order to be of service and value.

You’re not their servant, you’re their administrative partner.

Let’s be honest, most people in our industry are women, and women are natural born nurturers and helpers.

However, women in our society have been conditioned to put their needs last, to placate instead of assert, to bow down instead of stand up.

They too often think that helping and being of service means not having any standards, requirements or expectations of their own for clients.

I really, really want you to hear me on this:

If your practice isn’t capable of delivering on the expectations you allow clients to form, consistently and reliably 99.9% of the time, you’ve got to establish different expectations.

One of the ways you do that is by creating systems and setting policies in your business.

For example, you can’t work 24 hours a day, and I’m sure you don’t want clients calling any ol’ time they please at all hours of the night.

So what you do is formalize some office hours that you advertise to clients and develop a communications policy.

That doesn’t mean you can’t work when you want, regardless of the day or hour.

Rather, it helps you preserve your sanity and manage your business effectively by establishing healthy boundaries and client expectations so that you are able to provide fabulous, wonderful, capable support to your clients.

Here’s the truth of the matter:

You can’t be on your best game and truly help and support clients if you are constantly pulled in conflicting directions trying to please everybody at the same time and your life is a free-for-all with everyone else making up their own rules, doing things their own way, in YOUR business.

The BEST way to help your clients is to help yourself first by creating the optimal conditions that allow you to deliver that wonderful support you want to give.

Policies and procedures and systems are what allow you to HELP clients, all of them, equally and consistently and reliably.

Most people are reasonable and will understand this.

They can certainly relate to why you must have some structure and protocols in your business.

They understand that even more when you show them how that foundation ultimately helps you help them better.

On the Topic of “Variety”

By Danielle Keister | July 28th, 2009

0 Comments

When you ask people in our industry why they started their businesses, one of the top reasons they’ll give is to have a lifestyle that allows for more free/quality time for family or taking care of loved ones.

So it always surprises me that these same folks end up creating practices and operating conditions that allow them to do anything but that.

One of the problems is that they resist the idea of narrowing down their focus to a specific target market.

(Note: A target market is simply an industry/field/profession that you cater your administrative support to. For example, financial advisors or attorneys or coaches or speakers…

It’s so crazy because it’s the one thing that will make everything in their businesses easier and more profitable — in terms of money and time — in marketing and running a successful administrative support practice.

One of the rationalizations I always hear is some variation of the theme, “But I like lots of variety; I’ll get bored if I do the same thing all the time.”

This is when I know I’m dealing with a newbie and/or someone who has no clients.

Because when you have clients, particularly in a specific target market where you specialize in supporting their particular industry, the LAST thing you are is bored. That’s because the more you specialize in supporting a specific target market, the more interesting the work is, the more you can uncover more meaningful and valuable work to do for clients, and the more kinds of work/ways there are for you to support them.

These newbies/people with no clients mistakenly think that in order to have variety, they have to have all these different kinds of clients.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that per se.

But what happens in having all these widely varying kinds of clients is that they have to shift so many mental gears in doing the work, that it actually make the work more difficult, more time-consuming and keeps them from making more money.

So my question is always this:

What’s the point of “variety” if you’re working yourself to the bone trying to scrape together a living at this and that while never have any time to enjoy the fruits of your labor?

Because I have news for ya: spreading yourself all over the map in an effort to have “variety” is going to keep you from creating the kind of administrative support business that comes with more ease, more time and more freedom to spend with friends and family and live and enjoy your life.

None of us wants to be bored or unchallenged in our work. And if you choose the right target market, you won’t be.

You will have lots of interesting work and variety and experiences within a target market. Because one of the things that a target market should be is one where you have an affinity for and enjoyment of the kinds of people and work that is involved.

If you choose a target market on that basis, variety will never be an issue.

Another benefit to focusing on a target market is that you get really good at doing the kinds of work that that market really needs. In the process of that, it allows you to become the go-to expert.

Not only will that make your business easier to run, thus allowing you more freedom and time away from the work, but you can also command higher fees.

When you command higher fees, you don’t have to work with as many clients to make what need/want to make.

When you have a clearly defined target market, it gives you direction. You can better study your market, talk to its needs and frame your offering in ways that are the most resonate and attractive specifically to it.

Your efforts are more focused and more effective as a consequence. You’ll be able to build your practice more quickly and easily.

Some people worry that focusing on a target market will exclude other markets.

But here’s the thing: it’s not going to.

The irony is that the kind of clarity that grows out of extreme focus only makes you more attractive to all kinds of other markets besides the one you’ve chosen to “speak” to.

Your message becomes more differentiated and more attractive and compelling.

And even if it was true, what would it matter if other markets were turned away if you were already getting all the clients you needed and more within your target market?

Put It on Autopilot

By Danielle Keister | June 29th, 2009

0 Comments

So much to do, so little time to do it. That’s business, right?

We could work 24 hours a day if we let ourselves. There’s always something else to do.

What if you’re looking to see more of life beyond your desk and computer screen, though?

It’s time, then, to automate and streamline a few things…

Use your calendar. Schedule all that can be scheduled. Don’t take meetings on the fly. Follow a basic routine and honor the boundaries you’ve set for your time such as stepping away from the business and into family time at a certain point in the day. It’s much easier to prioritize your work (and your life) when you’ve got control over what’s on your plate.
Organize incoming emails. Utilize whatever tools are provided by your email client to the fullest. If you use Outlook, make use of flags and rules. You can set things up so that emails go straight into particular folders. It’s much easier (and less overwhelming) to sort through and prioritize messages when they’re already organized for you.
Automate your bills. If you have recurring bills each month, set them up on autopay. Whenever possible, pay annually—you may even save a chunk of change that way as well. For other bills, take advantage of the ease and convenience of online Bill Pay, which comes with most checking accounts these days. It will save you the steps and cost of writing checks, addressing envelopes and paying for stamps.
Use an RSS reader. Blog-reading is a great way to expand your business knowledge and keep up with your target market and industry info (not to mention a nice distraction when you need a mental break now and then). But it can also easily turn into a full-time job trying to keep up with all of them. Instead, use an RSS reader to organize all of your blog reading (my favorite is NewsBlur). You can create categories or sort blogs by importance. Tip: Schedule your blog reading into your routine so that you don’t miss a thing, but aren’t being wasteful with your time and energy reserves.
Set your listserv subscriptions to digest mode. Instead of a constant incoming stream of (often irrelevant) messages that you have to spend time deleting, elect digest mode instead. You’ll save time and the threads will come to you already organized. You can then click on just those conversations you’re interested and ignore the rest.
Use a tickler file. This is a system where you have 31 folders representing all the possible days in a month. This is a great way to organize to-do’s and clear paper clutter from your desk. This will free your mind from worrying about anything that isn’t in that particular day’s folder. Weren’t able to take care of something that day? No problem; simply move it forward to the next appropriate day’s folder. TIP: You can do this in your email client as well. Simply set up folders for each day of the week and move messages and to-dos around accordingly.

© Copyright 2009 by Danielle Keister for the Administrative Consultants Association. You are granted permission to republish this article only if used without alteration in its entirety with this copyright notice, title, article content, resource, and links intact.