#DiscoverDepot Spotlight: Moving Your Business Forward Through Organizing

August 13, 2021


By Jason Eisenberg
Community Program Manager for Office Depot

#DiscoverDepot Spotlight is a content series highlighting some of our brand ambassadors who are also business owners, sharing their tips and insights on how they start, run and grow their businesses. If you would like to become an ambassador and potentially get spotlighted, sign up here!

Starting and growing your business can get a little chaotic and unpredictable, even if you have everything planned out. Unfortunately, that’s just life… and business. 

In this #DiscoverDepot Spotlight, Shelby Cornett, founder of The Neat Freak Co. shares with us how she started her organization business and what advice she’s provided her clients to help move their businesses forward, even if that inevitable chaos ensues. For actionable organization tips to help your business grow starting today, scroll down to the section “Three Planner Tips from the Neat Freak”.


 

Avoid Getting Overwhelmed 

As pretty much any business owner will tell you, there are so many things an emerging entrepreneur must do to launch and grow their business. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. The list seems endless and Shelby finds that her clients (and herself) fight the impulse to try and do everything at once. Does that sound familiar to you?

“One of the most important skills to get a handle on is time management when you’re a business owner. You are the boss. You set the schedule. You create the list of tasks. You schedule your ‘me’ time. You are THE person. I could not do this and survive without my planner.”


Organizing to Move Forward

Sometimes even though you’re doing the work, it feels like you’re not moving forward. For business owners, that feeling can add up because the timeframes of your goals may vary. For Shelby, she began dedicating one large task that moves her business forward per month.

Shelby has her list of goals written down – the things she needs to do for the business like bookkeeping, creating marketing assets or creating a more efficient way to track inventory Then she dedicates a month to each major task (which has a list of to-dos within).

“So, at the end of the month I feel like I’ve actually achieved something to move my business forward rather than looking at this broad to-do list and feel like I don’t even know where to start.”

You can use this method for any kind of timeframe you set for your business whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly. Be sure to find the right kind of planner that helps keep you organized.  

Three Planner Tips from the Neat Freak

1. Color code your categories throughout all planners – Shelby excitedly shared this first tip mid-conversation, so we had to share it first. “This is a fun planner tip.” 

Dedicate a color to a category in your planner and use the same color coding on all of your other organization tools. For example tasks for your health are green, meetings are pink, work is blue, etc. So, when you’re looking at your calendar your brain recognizes and associates colors with where they exist in your planner.

2. Celebrate your milestones, no matter how small – As a business owner, you’re going to have to be able to motivate yourself and for Shelby, an easy way to do that is by celebrating milestone – even if it’s as simple as crossing off a to-do off your list.


"Scratching stuff off your to-do list is so exciting. Don’t forget to celebrate your milestones – you have to motivate and energize yourself.”

At the end of the day, if you’re ever feeling like you didn’t do enough, refer to all of those things you scratched off and feel accomplished.

3. Find the right tools for YOU – With the advice you’ve read above, it’s important not to jam all of your to-do lists, all of your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals into a generic planner. There are many different kinds of planners that cater to the types of goals you’re working on or the timeframes you’re working off of. For Shelby, she has been enjoying digitizing her notes but loves writing with pen and paper, so something like a Rocketbook could fit that need. What’s important to you?

For more information on The Neat Freak, visit her website here and for more ideas on how you can start and grow your business, Office Depot can help you find those solutions.

All content provided herein is for educational purposes only. It is provided “as is,” and neither the author nor Office Depot warrants the accuracy of the information provided, nor do they assume any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein.

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