The Holidays have arrived!

I can tell you that the holidays have officially arrived. How do I know? In addition to the Christmas music playing non-stop on a couple of radio stations, the decorated stores and the barrage of toy commercials on the TV, I’ve spent several hours this week wrapping gifts for one client and sending them to her family overseas.

This is one of my favorite times of year. Despite the arrival of the cold weather, I enjoy all the festivities that happen between Thanksgiving and the New Year. At Fini, it’s our busiest season as we help clients with all aspects of the holidays from gift shopping and wrapping to decorating and planning parties, plus last minute holiday travel.

It’s also a time for reflection. The year has gone by so fast and there are less than six weeks left before 2009! I’m not so committed to the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, but every year I do set goals and think about where I’d like to be at the end of that year, both professionally and personally. With only a few weeks left, I better get working on some of them!

Before you get swept up in the festivities of the season, take some time to think about how you want to finish off 2008…and start towards a wonderful 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blending

I had the opportunity to attend the 4th Annual Pink Magazine Conference on October 14th. Panelists included Jody Adams, Rialto Restaurant and Bar, Irene Chang Britt, Campbell USA, Julie Gilbert, Best Buy and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Carlson Cos. The panel focused on what made each of these women so successful and the lessons learned along each of their journeys. I took away many interesting lessons from the discussion, more of which I will share in future posts. I think that their wisdom is applicable to men and women and to people in all stages of their careers.

The inevitable question that always seems to be asked when professionally successful women are being interviewed is the whole issue of work life balance and how they manage to do both.

Blend and not balance was the way that Irene Chang Britt described her solution to answering the demands of work and family. Instead of trying to keep them separate, which for many of us (me included, especially when your husband is also your business partner!) is impossible. She gave examples of how she made choices to integrate the two, looking at all of it as her LIFE, not squeezing each activity into the work or personal category. She talked about how on many an occasion she took her daughter to work with her, utilizing the opportunity to talk with her about business and her role. People could view this as putting her work before her time with her daughter. But as a result her daughter has grown up with an amazing entrepreneurial spirit which has manifested itself into organizing her young peers into fundraising efforts to help the people in Darfur.

The idea of blending is in conflict with how many of us have worked and lived. There’s guilt about always “being connected” or keeping the Blackberry on the bedside table. Yet in reality the two are usually not separate. We form relationships and partnerships that transcend both the work and personal aspects of our lives, we meet business contacts at social events and through lessons learned at work become better friends, partners and parents.

Blending is a more flexible way to view life and truly more realistic. Most of us can’t turn off our thoughts about work just because we’ve left the office nor can we avoid personal aspects of our lives needing attention during our work day. Viewing life as a blend lets each of us off the hook from always worrying about which side of the scale we’re on.

Cleaning out your closets

It happens a couple of times a year – the need to clean out your closets and purge all of that “stuff” you’ve been keeping for who knows why. The inspiration hit me this past Saturday and I spent the entire day going through old clothes, desk drawers and my food pantry. About half way through with the closets, my home in a complete state of disarray, I paused, mystified as to why I started this project in the first place. I came close to quitting, but could barely find enough floor space to walk to the door so kept at it.

At the end of the day, I felt a sense of accomplishment and our home definitely felt “lighter.” Seeing all of our unwanted stuff that we don’t use always makes me feel glad that I can pass it along to someone who could really use my clothes or home items more than me. After all, having it under my bed does no good. I happily dropped off six bags at Goodwill on Monday morning.

The helping hand of Fini Concierge is often the “inspiration” (if you can call it that!) that our clients need. Some of our clients ask us to go through closets or basements with them and others have us weed through, sort and organize their stuff so that they can then make the decision to keep or pass items along to someone else or the junk pile. One of the steps that is most helpful to people is our coordination of the “getting rid phase.” It could be picking up items for donation to local charities – home items, construction related leftovers, clothes, or arranging for a junk removal service or charity organization to come and pick up certain items.

Because we can all relate to having a couple of bags of donations sitting in our spare room for months -- never making it out the door.

Save that Number

One of my greatest frustrations comes when I know that I’ve been in too much of a rush to do something simple that will save me lots of time and aggravation later. A simple example of this is saving someone’s contact information in the right place – in my Outlook or on my cell phone.

You know what I’m talking about, right? You’re trying to call back someone that called you last Thursday in the afternoon so you scroll through your phone’s call log and accidently, dial at least one person who isn’t the right one. Now you have to make excuses, “Sorry, I dialed the wrong number, but yes, how are you…” How embarrassing.

Five minutes later, you’re running late and a call that should have taken you two minutes now is taken much longer. Yet, you still don’t know the number! Can you tell that this has happened to me at least once or twice?

I’ve made a new promise to myself. I’m always going to save contact information in the appropriate place starting now.

If you feel my pain, take the pledge!

Keepers of the Lists

I’m reading David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done.” His book outlines methods to increase your organization and therefore, productivity. I’m only on Chapter 2 so I’m sure I’ll have more to share as I delve deeper into his ideas.

So many of us walk around with endless lists in our heads of projects we need to get to and lists of tasks we need to check off. Allen describes this as one major barrier to being organized and getting things done. Our short term memories can only hold a limited amount of information. We clog it up when trying to keep these lists creating distraction, overwhelm and stress.

Allen also talks about the way in which we define our to-do lists. We often make a list of general projects – mom’s birthday or re-do kitchen – as opposed to defining the next step of a project as an action item:

“the real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what the associated next-action steps required are.”

He theorizes that establishing action items for outstanding projects and documenting those actions is a key to both getting them off of your mind so that you can focus on the task at hand and having a to-do list that is relevant.

In addition to reflecting on my own organizational skills it’s an important role that Fini Concierge plays in many of our client’s project/to-do list management. We have become a valuable tool in shaping our client’s to-do list into actionable items.
Working with Fini Concierge, clients can organize their life into actionable items by:

Regular Meetings – Schedule a consistent time to speak with Fini Concierge each week by phone or in person to download your to-do list. It also serves as a placeholder for clients to check in with themselves on the various aspects of their lives and talk things through.

The Fini List – Several of our clients have adopted a list that they keep with them, on their computer or in a notebook, that they review during their week. Clients jot down items that they want to pass along to us. It’s helpful as it gets the items out of their head and they don’t have to remember all of those tasks when they see us.

The Quick Email or Voicemail – As we all know, thoughts come to us at some of the strangest times. As Allen says, if we have a to-do in our head, our brain doesn’t know when to remind us of it or when to do something about it so it keeps popping up, and distracting us from other tasks. Shooting Fini Concierge a quick email, even if the whole project is not completely explained or leaving us a voicemail in the middle of the night is not uncommon from our clients because they know then that it is safely documented.

Fini Concierge serves as the “keepers of the list” for many of our clients. I can’t tell you how many clients have said with a sigh of relief – “Okay, that’s on your list now and I can forget about it, right?” And they can.

Life as a problem solver

We’re problem solvers.

The “come up with a creative solution to this specific problem” problem solvers, yes, we do that everyday. But what I’m referring to is the “staying on a problem until its fixed” type of problem solvers. Our client’s rely on us for our persistence and ability to see projects through until completion.

We pride ourselves on our resolve -- daily phone calls, insistent questions, detailed follow up -- the most professional forms of persistence.

Everyone has experienced the frustration of calling customer service call centers. Dealing with the endless wait times, talking to representatives who haven’t been schooled in customer service, and the frustration of a manager not being available to get a matter resolved. You’d imagine that no one would sign up willingly to tackle these types of tasks because they can be maddening. But we do! Our clients can’t wait to pass these seemingly small projects to us because these calls often produce so much stress and feel like such a complete waste of time. Yet they need to get done!

We still get miffed at companies or service professionals who just don’t seem to care about their work. The ones who don’t show up for an appointment and don’t bother to call, or do show up but don’t complete their work properly requiring a second visit. It’s important to our clients that we know how to handle these difficult situations and that we solve the problem for them.

Have you had a difficult experience with a company or service professional that you would like to share with us?

If anyone gets it, I do!

As you may be aware, I’ve been absent from my blog for a few months. I haven’t abandoned the Fini Concierge blog, but the truth is, I’ve been so busy that I haven’t found the time to write. Does that sound familiar to you?

Despite my lack of writing, I find solace in that I truly understand the need that Fini Concierge client’s have because most days I feel like I could use a personal concierge myself! I can honestly say that I understand and I think that makes me and the team at Fini Concierge better at what we do by helping other people and providing some relief.

People frequently ask me if my own life is well-organized. While I would like to say, “yes”, it couldn’t be farther from the truth. As they say, the cobbler’s children always have holes in their shoes. It’s true that it’s a lot more rewarding and fun for me to grocery shop for someone else or organize a client’s closet than my own. It also gives me great satisfaction at the end of the day to know that we completed a job well and as a result a client was able to spend some time with their child at the park or arrive to a well organized and unpacked new home. Or my favorite, that a client just sat on their couch and relaxed for a few minutes because of the help we provided.

The word “busy” means a lot more now since my husband and I started Fini Concierge. Notwithstanding the craziness that it adds to my own life, I truly still enjoy how we help people.

So, my goal is to get back to blogging starting with this post…stay tuned!