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| | The **The Business Consortium** Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Organization Tuesday: Top Ten Tips for Organizing Your Success | Views: 416 | | Jan 13, 2009 6:21 pm | | Organization Tuesday: Top Ten Tips for Organizing Your Success | # | 
Julie Bestry | | In my end
of the year post, I said:
So
often, we tend to dwell on the mistakes we made or the times we let
things fall through the cracks.
There are rarely medals or trophies for the small victories of life,
but these are sometimes the sweetest.
Each time you find one of these successes, write it down, and keep the
list handy. In fact, if you don't already
have a SUCCESS FOLDER, create one now and keep it with your business
files. It's always good, on those
rainy ego-bruising days to have someplace to go for a reality check and
appreciate our good days.
I
still stand by this advice, but perhaps I was too narrow in my focus
for how you might celebrate and preserve your successes. Of
course, the point isn't to rest on your laurels, but to be able to
revel in them, especially after an egregiously cranky day or
particularly disappointing ego deflation. Thus, I'd like to
present ten ways you can keep track of your successes in creative ways.
Paper Success Folder
This
is definitely the classic method of organizing your successes.
Every time someone sends you praise or a thank-you letter for
the
amazing, brilliant, record-breaking or helpful thing you accomplished,
save that priceless piece of paper. Pop it into a manila
folder
labeled SUCCESS or MY FABULOSITY or whatever will give you a smile
every time you see it. This is a great place to save a copy
of
newspaper and magazine article clippings and other print records of
your success. If they aren't too lumpy (and you haven't
decided
to display it with one of the other options), awards, ribbons,
certificates can also go here. You need not only save proof
of
success others have sent you--you can certainly make notes of telephone
conversations, verbal praise and your recollections of sweet success.
Email Success Folder
Second
verse, same as the first. Yes, you could print out every
thank-you email digital proof of praise, but that wouldn't be very
environmentally friendly. Create an email folder specifically
for
holding digital references to your success. (What?
You
don't have any folders in your email program other than "inbox",
"draft" and "trash"? Let's talk!)
Bookmark
Your Success
Email
isn't the only place you see proof of your accomplishments.
Create a bookmark folder in your browser to give you quick
access
to any of the following:
- Your most popular blog posts
- Guest posts you've written for others, especially those
with vivid and plentiful responses
- Web site interviews
- Online radio and podcast interviews
- Announcements of nominations and awards you've earned
- Testimonials for you that appear anywhere other than your
own web site
Take a Picture, It'll
Last Longer
Not
all of your successes are verbal; some are visual. Whether
the
photos are professional or otherwise, shots of you shaking hands with
community leader recognizing you and your company for
meaningful
contributions, photos of you and other industry leaders, snapshots of
you with your colleagues at a major industry event...all of these are
worth celebrating. Create SUCCESS ALBUMS on your own hard
drive
and/or back them up on popular online photo sites like Flickr, PhotoBucket or Picasa.
No Bull, But A Bulletin
Board
Whether you have a small, tasteful French
bulletin board
or a giant cork board reminiscent of 8th grade Social Studies, take the
opportunity to display visual representations of your
achievements--photos, letters, notes, newspaper clippings--anything
that gives you a warm fuzzy.
What's On Your Wall, eh?
Walls
are like gigantic bulletin boards, and most rooms come with at least
four! Invest in your biggest successes by framing the best
and
brightest certificates, diplomas, photos and print interviews and
hanging them on the walls of your office. Whether you have a
home
office behind the laundry room and nobody sees the Wall of Excellence
(except you) doesn't matter. Preserving your success is about
inspiring you. If it calls other people's attention to your
magnificence, that's just a bonus.
Play The Telephone Game
Speaking of other people,
be sure to spread news of your success. In elementary school,
it's called bragging. In business, tooting your own horn is
actually an essential marketing skill. Call
your friends to share your good news. (In fact, if you're
known
for being demur or having low self-esteem, ask your closest friends to
REMIND you of this success them next time you're a Gloomy Gus.) Email
the news to friends and colleagues. Email the newsletter
contact
for your alumni association, your industry associations, and your main
professional organizations--they are always eager for news that shines
the school, the industry or the group in a positive light.
Also, announce your awards, accomplishments and successes on your social networking pages
like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Heck, on Twitter, your
friends and colleagues will almost certainly retweet your good news.
In fact, you can use this as an opportunity...if you win a
blogging award, make sure your Twitter tweet links to the
winning
post, and you can be sure that your tweeps will retweet you.
Dear Diary
I'm
a big believer in keeping a business journal (no relation to the
general journal you may use for accounting). A simple
composition
notebook, Word document or private blog works just as well.
But
every day, try to note the general activities of the day, the
challenges, the opportunities and the successes. Then be sure
to
mark the big accomplishments so you can find them quickly. In a
notebook, you can use an adhesive red dot (like the kind used at garage
sales) or a tape
flag. In a digital file, just bold the best
material, or highlight
the text color
or the background.
Bio/Degradable
When
you're feeling down in the dumps and degraded because a hard-fought
battle was lost, you need to buck up, cheer up and look yourself up!
Start with the text of the "About Us" section of your web
site
and create a document that captures a list, in bullet-point form, of
your achievements. In fact, organize the bullets into groups
of
achievement types, and instead of keeping that bio where only you and
your computer elves can see it, upgrade your "About Us" page to share
your achievements with the world.
Remember the Milk,
Remember the Maine, Remember the
Motivation
Organizing your successes so that you can see them
doesn't mean you will
see them. We have national holidays and themed days and
made-up
holidays to ensure that we remember and acknowledge important events
and issues. Create
your own opportunity to remember and celebrate
your successes. Pick one date per quarter (or even per month)
and
put it on your schedule as a success day. During the
intervening
quarter (or month), each time you do something that rocks your world,
put a note on that date's page or in that slot in your tickler file to
ensure you remember to celebrate it. You might even want to
book
a date with your networking buddies for a Success Lunch or Success
Conference Call to share your successes.
These are just some ideas to get you started. Please add to
the list and tell us how you organize your successes!
--
Julie Bestry, Certified Professional Organizer®
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
Visit http://www.juliebestry.com to sign up for Best Results For Busy
People: Organizing Your Modern World, a newsletter
to help you save time and money, reduce stress and increase
your productivity
Private Reply to Julie Bestry | | Jan 13, 2009 6:41 pm | | re: Organization Tuesday: Top Ten Tips for Organizing Your Success | # | 
Susan McCool | | Julie....AWESOME...I love it. Never thought of having a Success Folder!
--
Susan McCool
Spotlight Marketing & Design - http://www.SpotlightMarketingAndDesign.com
Virtual Office Associates - http://www.VirtualOfficeAssociates.net
Ryze Network - The Business Consortium - http://tbc-network.ryze.comPrivate Reply to Susan McCool | | Jan 13, 2009 8:48 pm | | re: Organization Tuesday: Top Ten Tips for Organizing Your Success | # | 
The Eagle: Motivating Champions Around The World | |
Great Information Julie. Thanks for Sharing. You always know how To Come up with Great Information.
Richard "The Eagle" Motivator
Live and Act Like a Champion Today!!
http://www.eagleenterprisesusa.com/
http://abhp-network.ryze.com Private Reply to The Eagle: Motivating Champions Around The World | | Jan 15, 2009 12:39 am | | re: re: Organization Tuesday: Top Ten Tips for Organizing Your Success | # |
Julie Bestry | | Thanks, Richard and Susan. It's always great to know someone is out there, reading.
For all the rest of you (because I know there are more of us than Susan, Richard, Felicia, Paul and Diana), please post and share your organizing issues and concerns so I can continue to be of use. :-)
--
Julie Bestry, Certified Professional Organizer®
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
Visit http://www.juliebestry.com to sign up for Best Results For Busy
People: Organizing Your Modern World, a newsletter
to help you save time and money, reduce stress and increase
your productivity
Private Reply to Julie Bestry | | |
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