To Do List Overwhelming? Try this!

So I'm juggling a lot in my life right now...my business, my household, and also settling up my mom's estate. Maybe some of you can relate to the whole "running around like a crazy person" thing I have going on. I seem to be plugging away at stuff constantly, but nothing feels like it's getting accomplished. I haven't been doing a good job sticking to my regular schedule, so today I decided it was time for a change-up.

This will change your direct sales business

If you're like me, you sometimes fall behind on life. It happens. I'm there right now. Through a series of events that were some completely within my control and some that were not, I've completely fallen out of my routines and systems that I worked so hard to create.

This is not a tragedy.

All you can do, honestly, it start back up again. So I am. Step one is going to be my email inbox. I am typically very structured when it comes to cleaning out my inbox. I prefer to have less than 25 emails in my inbox at any given time. Everything else is either deleted or sorted into the appropriate folder/sub-folder to file away in case I need it. Currently there are over 600 emails in my inbox. This drives me insane so it's time to fix it!!!

I spent a lot of time developing this system, and it works wonders for me (when I work it). If you're in direct sales, this might be helpful to you.

First off, under your inbox, create a folder for your home office emails. So mine is 31 Corporate. Underneath that folder, create subfolders for anything you get a lot of emails on...for example, my subfolders are Shipping Notices, Leads, Leadership, Commissions and Incentives, and Meetings. Any email that comes in from my home office will generally fit into one of those sub-categories, and if not it goes into the main 31 Corporate folder.

Next, and these are the most exciting, I want you to create monthly folders...so my main folder is called 31 Monthly Folders. Underneath that I have the following:

• a. January 2015
• b. February 2015
• c. March 2015

And so on. Then, under each of those monthly folders is where the magic happens. For every party, event, open house, vendor fair, etc. that you are participating in, you will create that event folder underneath the appropriate month. If you have 7 parties and 2 vendor events in March, then March is going to have 9 sub-folders, each named with the name of the host or the event. EVERY SINGLE PIECE of correspondence regarding that party or event is going to go into that folder. Every email from the hostess, every RSVP from the guests, every order notification from online orders. Everything. This is a GAME CHANGER. You will never again have to search through hundreds of emails to find info on a specific party again. Trust me, try it.

The other big one is you HAVE to have a place to file all those great ideas that show up in  your inbox that you MIGHT some day want to try out for your business. You know, those great post from company groups on Facebook that you're in a million of and will never ever find the post again if you don't save it? I know I have a ton of those mysefl!!! I call this folder 31 Ideas and have sub-folders like Party Ideas, Hostess Gifts, Fundraisers, Vendor Events. etc. Now every great idea that you honestly might really implement or try out has a place to go that isn't just your inbox, and if you find yourself looking for new Vendor Event ideas you know right where to look!

Okay, so mind blown? The rest of the folders are fairly easy, such as 31 Team, where I put all my team correspondence (sub-folders for Newsletter, Assistant, Weekly News).

Because I use just one email address for both my personal email and my business email, I also have a folder called Personal, and that has sub-folders for the kids, their sports (one for each sport), their school, a spot for emails from friends, etc. The whole point of all of this is to have a place for everything that you need to save.

I'm not going to lie, setting up this system and sorting through potentially thousands of neglected emails in your inbox is not going to be fun or easy. But I promise you it's totally worth it. And once you have it done, maintaining it is as simple as 30 minutes a week (scheduled into your calendar, which I will address in a future post on time management).

Now, time for me to go clean up a few weeks worth of neglect in my inbox. Good luck, all!

Monday Motivation

I adore this quote. Brilliant and so very true. So many people have spoken on this topic, far more eloquently than I could, and so I am only going to go there just a little bit (I can't help myself).

People, you don't HAVE to think grand to make a difference. You don't need to be Gandhi. You don't need to be wealthy. You don't even need to have a whole lot of spare time. There are things you can do, right now, to make someone's day brighter.

Several times a year, I make up a monthly challenge calendar for my Thirty-One team, where there are different challenges daily that they are supposed to go do and then post to the group that they've done them. I change these up a ton every time I do it, but I always, ALWAYS have a pay-it-forward Friday on there, where they are challenged to pay for the car behind them in the drive-through for coffee or breakfast or whatever. It's simple, it's typically quite inexpensive, and how much brighter did it make YOUR day if someone has ever done that for you?! Best. Feeling. Ever. To be on the giving or receiving end of it. Simple things like that are exactly the kind of things you can do to make the world a better place, your own little corner of the world, anyway.

So pick something and do it. I dare you.

Monday Motivation

I'm not "hand-picking" these quotes...I just change them based on whatever comes out of the box. Consequently there are some I might love less than others. Some that might speak to me less than others. When that happens, I try to think about the quote for a few minutes, and figure out what I might learn from it. Call it a meditation, almost. This was one of those quotes for me. I think initially I couldn't figure out what difficulties I might have mastered, or how those might have, in fact, turned into opportunities. Maybe I was just not as smart as Winston Churchill and didn't totally understand it. Very possible.

In any case, I'm still pondering on this one. Maybe it'll speak to one of you in a more profound way than it did me. If not, well, we can't all be Churchill I guess.

Monday Motivation

I am ALL ABOUT motivational quotes. I buy them constantly. I hang them on my walls, put them out on my Facebook. I hoard them. I adore them. I found this great little cube thing at Target that had little quotes that kind of look like coasters, and you can change them out whenever to show a new quote in the window of the box. So I'll be posting those on a regular basis, when they strike me.

I particularly love this one today because things are very hectic...getting ready for travel this week, tons to get done, etc. and I am really attempting to approach the entire thing as something other than an obligation. I am BLESSED to be going on this trip. I am BLESSED to have a family I need to take care of in order to get everything set to go. I am BLESSED that I can financially afford to make all this happen. Looking at it that way is way more inspiring than looking at it as I have too much to do and I'm freakin stressed. Life isn't perfect. Life isn't even always great, but it's LIFE, it's mine, and I CHOOSE to see it how I want to see it.

Dear Blog,

You've been so neglected. I'm sorry. I'll be back super soon, pinky promise. xoxo

Our Latest Addition

Those that know me, or that have been following my blog for awhile now, know that I’m something of an animal fanatic. We have a few, or as my husband might tell you, a few too many. I can’t help it, I seem to have an irresistible urge to take in cute things. I might actually need professional help. But anyway, yesterday, as I was out back with the dogs, I noticed something in the pool. We’ve had frogs, lizards, birds, even snakes in there before (they all come in through the dog door – a delightful side effect of having the world’s largest dogs is that you need the world’s largest dog door) but this was different. This was a TURTLE!

I should note that I adore turtles. I think they are just the cutest things ever. We have two red eared sliders already, that we’ve had for about 10 years. They’re huge now, but when we got them, they were about the size of this little guy:

who was happily floating around on the hose of the pool vacuum. Isn’t he adorable? Anyway, I decided I *had* to leave him there, at least until the kids got home from school so they could see how cute he was. In the meantime, I googled him and found out he was a Florida Softshell Turtle. Native to Florida, not endangered, but that most little hatchlings like this don’t survive because they’re just so tiny and they have SO many predators that would love to have them for a tasty treat (aside from my dogs, who I am sure would have loved to snatch him up, too, if they weren’t too afraid of the pool to get in there and gobble him).

So, naturally, I decided we needed to keep him. At least for now. For his own safety. So off I went to the pet store to get him a tank and other assorted hatchling necessities. My daughter has claimed him, and he’ll live in her room. She also named him, Spot. I know, it’s odd, but the other turtles are Sock and Shoe (named by my son when he was like 18 months old) so she decided it was HER turn to name something. Better to let her name a turtle than a dog or cat next time we take one of them in, I guess.

So, an undisclosed amount of money later (undisclosed, of course, just in case my husband happens to read this later), we have yet another pet. If y’all see me on that Animal Hoarders show on Animal Planet some day, don’t be too surprised.