After graduating from high school, I made the crazy move to “Cowtown” in order to attend and play soccer for Texas A&M University, where, between my extracurricular activities and what I perceived as my lack of smarts, I struggled to make good grades. Heck, I even got kicked out of the dorms one summer because of low grades. (My soccer career ended after one season when I blew out my ankle.)
I told my parents during the first semester that I wasn’t moving back to L.A. because I loved the laid-back pace. I eventually settled in San Antonio — which to me was the most relaxed large city I’d ever visited — and became a teacher.
It was not until I started studying brain research in grad school that the light-bulb came on, and I figured out how to process new information in a way that I could remember it and make adjustments in my routines as necessary. An easier way to learn and modify behavior and manage time is what I taught to my high school students in the first half of my adult life and eventually to my clients in the current second half.
Looking back on my life thus far, I realize that I’ve always been a teacher: as a babysitter growing up, a resident adviser in college, a teacher for 11 years in a Title I school, and an educational consultant.
I’ve always had an interest in business: holding summer jobs managing all the stations at a fast-food restaurant, assisting the tailors of men’s suits in a national retail clothing chain, working behind the scenes in the insurance and banking industries, and studying during grad school how to run a school campus like a business.
I’ve also always been an entrepreneur. When I was a kid, I set up a highly profitable Kool-Aid stand and sold wood carvings to my neighbors. In high school, I unofficially ran a designated-driver service for my friends. For a while, I sold Mary Kay cosmetics so that my friends and I could get a discount on the products. After meeting many teachers who struggled during retirement, my husband and I (back in my teaching days) invested in rental houses, and we ran that “company” for several years. In 2001, I founded an online wedding accessory business after developing a bridal emergency kit.
Finally, these worlds of teaching, business, and entrepreneurialism merged in 2006, when I became a productivity consultant. At last, I’d figured out what my passions were and what I needed to do for a living to be happy. One focus. One goal. Success. Happiness.
I love helping people to become more efficient, which allows them to find peace and calm in their lives.
And time for travel, wine, and good food.
And learning how to ride a motorcycle.
It’s on my bucket list!
What’s on yours?
I share all this with you for multiple reasons:
First, it’s easier to learn from people and carry on a conversation with them when you know more about them and make even the smallest connection. Since I’m not sitting across from you at a café or a bar, this is the start of our connection and our conversation. It’s nice to meet you!
Second, have you ever been to a training presented by someone who hasn’t actually experienced what he or she is training you in? That’s annoying. That happened all the time back in my teacher days. Presenters would come in and tell us how to do things, even though they’d never been a teacher. In the business world, I’ve been to marketing sessions presented by people who’ve never had to market for themselves. What the—? In addition to all my training for and experience as a Certified Professional Organizer®, productivity trainer, and consultant, my knowledge of how entrepreneurs and business folks roll has come from being an entrepreneur and businessperson, just like you.
And third, this serves as an example for the stroll down memory lane that I’d like you to take.
Now it’s your turn!
I promise we won’t go too deep into self-assessments. (If you truly want to learn more about yourself and how you best operate, feel free to obtain a copy of my ROAD MAP to Get Organized book.) But it is important to acknowledge where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished, and what you’d like to focus on.
You can take a shortcut and just answer the following questions mentally. But if you’d like deeper learning to happen, I highly encourage you to record your thoughts here in this book, in the activity guide download, on a digital device in the notes section, or in a separate journal.
BACKGROUND CHECK: WHAT’S YOUR COVER STORY?
There are no right or wrong answers; it’s simply interesting to know these things about yourself. So dive on in!
• What were you like as a kid?
• What are you like now as an adult?
• What are your hobbies, passions, and/or interests?
• What do you do for a living?
• What led you to decide to start your own business or take the job you currently hold?
• Do you see anything from your past and/or anything from your interests and hobbies that ties in with what you do now?
Who arrrrrrrrrrre you?
— Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Again, there’s no right or wrong; it’s simply interesting to know these things about yourself and discover any patterns in your life. Sometimes we can discover that we’ve allowed the same types of challenges to repeatedly knock us off track. Knowing this helps us to become more aware and to avoid those downfalls in the future. And by answering the previous questions, we can discover what we love and what makes us tick, which — as we’ll learn in part 1 — will help us to make better decisions about how we’ll use our time.
• What hobbies, passions, or interests do you wish you had more time for?
• What are your accomplishments?
• Were the accomplishments you listed all personal, all business, or a combination?
If all the accomplishments you listed were personal, you might find that you tend to focus more on the personal part of your life, and you’ll have to kick up the amount of attention you pay to the business part of your life if you want to perform at a higher level there. If all the accomplishments you listed were business related, you might need to do the opposite and pay more attention to the personal part of your life.
This book will help you to decide how much time you want to devote to each. As I mentioned earlier (and will continue to do throughout this book), I’m a huge proponent of having a personal life. If you’re quite content being a workaholic and not having a personal life, no problema. But you probably wouldn’t have picked up this book if you were happy with that.
• What’s on your bucket list?
• What is your definition of a great life?
• Based on your definition, do you have a great life? If your answer is “Yes,” kick up your heels and give yourself a high five! If your answer is “Not yet,” how close are you to it?
Getting specific about the kind of life you want to have and the personal accomplishments you want to attain will help you to carefully guard your time. When you protect your time, you’ll be able to achieve the balance that you seek between work life and personal life.
That wasn’t so bad, right? It’s just a little exercise to get your brain juices flowing. While we shouldn’t dwell on the past, sometimes a little historical recon, combined with thoughts about the present path we’re on and future paths we might like to take, helps us to figure out what our next