Organizing Creative Professionals: Sorted

Changes to Sorted in 2010

Welcome to the new year, everyone! This looks to be one of the most... interesting years in my life, at least for the first few months. In the spring of this year, I'll be completing the remaining 18 credit hours of my MBA from the College of William and Mary in one semester. 

To accomplish that, I'm going to have to start practicing what I've been preaching. I'll have to pare down my other activities and not try to do everything at once.

So until June of this year, the following changes will apply to life at Sorted:

• I will be available for consultations and organizing work on Fridays only.
• I will be blogging once a week, at most.
• I will not be on Twitter. (Honestly, I haven't been on Twitter since mid-October, and I have to say, I don't really miss it.)
• While I appreciate all the new subscriptions to Sussed & Sorted, I discontinued that newsletter in the fall, and there will be no new issues.

There's still plenty of things to read on this site, and I will be adding new content, just not as rapidly as I have in the past. I'm looking forward to working with new clients this spring, just on Fridays.

What about you? Have any of you made any substantial changes to your work parameters to meet a major goal this year or last? Let me know in the comments!

Scrapping "Sussed & Sorted"

I've been thinking a lot about simplicity and streamlining lately. As a productivity coach, I counsel people to make sure that what they're doing is what will deliver the results that they want without diluting their mission or focus. I'm now applying that rule to myself, and as a result, I'm discontinuing the Sorted newsletter, "Sussed & Sorted."

I'm grateful to everyone who subscribed, but I believe that all the information in the newsletter can be found just as easily in the blog and in my Twitter feed. And without Sussed & Sorted, that's one less thing to open in your inbox, so I'm helping you clear out the clutter, too. :-)

Thanks for your support.

Listen to me talk about organizing!

...and hit my "R"s like they owe me money. (Memo to self: try less diction.) Bonnie Marcus, the founder of Women's Success Coaching, interviewed me last Friday, and the podcast is now up at her site!

Bonnie had a great idea earlier this year: to encourage more female business owners to talk up their accomplishments, she started a series of podcasts called "Bragcasts." There have been some great interviews with other women from a variety of fields. Bonnie is a great interviewer, and I'm truly honored to have been part of the series. Thanks, Bonnie!

What does it mean to get Sorted?

"So, business organizing..." my friend said. "What is that?"

"You know how when a professional organizer comes to someone's home, the homeowner can't find anything in the closet, the kitchen cabinets are overflowing and there are boxes in the attic that haven't been opened since they moved in?"

"Ahh," he said, grasping the concept immediately.

Many creative enterprises have the same issues as those homes: you can't find information you need when you need it, the piles on your desk are taking over and nobody's opened that file cabinet since you moved into that space. (Truth be told, that filing cabinet is starting to scare you.) And while the home situation is no picnic, there are very real, very tangible costs to having an un-Sorted creative business.

You know the costs already: The opportunities you've missed because you couldn't find contact or submission info before the deadline. That uneasy feeling that you're not doing your best work because of your physical environment. The times you were in your creative groove but had to stop and spend half an hour looking for something -- and when you finally found it, the groove had left the building.

What if you had a physical environment that didn't just inspire creativity but nurtured it as well? A Sorted environment provides the space and the systems to support your work and lets you keep the personal touches that spur your best ideas.

Better still, getting Sorted will transform your thinking about yourself and your own organizing abilities. Not only can creative people get organized (it's a filthy lie that we can't), organization leaves creative types free to do their best work without worrying about the state of their desk.

If your office or studio reminds you of a "before" room on an organization show, give Sorted a call. We'll create a space that brings out your best, and we'll do it using one of the Sorted mottos: "No shame, no blame... let's see if we can make it a game." Put the past behind you; it's time to get Sorted.