· If you were to get and stay organized, what different results would be possible?

· What will getting organized enable you to do that you are not doing now?

· If you don’t get organized, how will that affect your future?

To read more about motivation, visit my April 2002 newsletter titled Getting Motivated to Get Organized at http://www.orgcoach.net/newsletter/april2002.html.

2. Visualize your success. Imagine that you are already organized. How do you feel? Imagine going through your day and your week being on time, feeling in control, getting home for dinner with your family, and finding what you need with ease…or whatever it is that you want to experience as a result of being organized.

Behave like someone who has already arrived where you want to be. Claim your desire to accomplish a goal by affirming your joy in having already achieved it. For example, repeat to yourself, “I love being organized!” several times a day. By focusing on how pleasurable it is to achieve a desired outcome, you'll begin to install new beliefs in your subconscious, which will increase your chance of staying motivated and inspired.

3. Identify your obstacles. What’s getting in way of you having what you want and being who you want to be? What behaviors or habits need to change? If you’d like assistance identifying your organizational obstacles, check out my organizational assessment tool at http://www.orgcoach.net/assessment.htm.

4. Identify new strategies and habits, and state them as your intentions. A powerful intention keeps you focused on where you want to go. To keep you on track, create an intention statement that you can put in writing and keep in view. Here are some examples:

· I intend to review my mail daily by choosing one of these three options for each item in my Inbox: file, act, toss.

· I intend to return phone calls within 4 hours.

· I intend to check email only twice daily for no more than 20 minutes each.

If paper is a challenge for you, I offer many free tips and free teleclasses that provide concrete ideas you can begin implementing right away. Visit www.orgcoach.net.

5. Create a plan to support your intentions. Start small, and be consistent. For example, if your inbox is overflowing and you have an intention to go through it daily, schedule dedicated time to do it daily. My De-clutter Your Life teleclass series posted at http://www.orgcoach.net eleclasses.html#de-clutter will provide concrete tools and a planning process to help you follow through with your intentions.

6. Maintain your success -- build in accountability & support. Sharing your intentions with someone else will increase likelihood of you following through. Ask a friend for support, or hire a coach.

7. Acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments. Reflect on positive changes you make…even little successes. They are stepping stones that will provide foundation for lasting change. Celebrate that you tossed that piece of unwanted mail immediately instead of allowing it to collect on your desk, or that you kept that appointment with yourself to go through your inbox. By acknowledging all your accomplishments – no matter how small -- you train yourself to appreciate steady progress rather than expecting overnight success.

In addition, to some reporters, reply "I fit bill. Here's how to reach me..." shows a self-centered lack of common sense and courtesy. You set up a hurdle for them to cross rather than making it easy for them to perform their job.

In recommending that you reply to a reporter's appeal with your complete story, I don't mean that you have to spend an hour typing detail after detail. Rather, provide basic facts that demonstrate that you are what they're looking for, along with fundamental who, what, when, where and why or how of your situation. For instance:

My name is Kathy Kaminar, and I own a cotton candy company in Missoula, Montana, with $1.5 million in annual sales. I launched company in 1993, when I was 17 years old, at Missoula State Fair, with an investment of $200 for supplies. I now have 27 employees, mostly part-time. Although all my sales are offline, I do have a Web site: http://www.kathys.biz. Here's how to reach me...

The Web link provided there is excellent, because it enables reporter to obtain further information about your organization and a general impression before interviewing you. Don't send any attached files, much less a gargantuan history of your firm, previous press clips, photos and so on unless and until reporter requests them.

You might still strike out following these suggestions, but you would have upped odds of success as high as possible.