What to consider before purchasing planning software By planning software I’m specifically talking about digital services that helps with planning -strategic, project, daily, all of… Read More »What Planning Software is Best For Me?
Step Three: Make The Plan Readable And Usable A fulsome strategic planning event takes time and effort. A lot goes into gathering all of the… Read More »Make The Plan Readable And Usable
Step Two: Reverse Engineering The Strategy. Our last newsletter discusses how to dig up previous work for the purpose of gathering information so you can… Read More »How To Break Down a Strategic Plan
Step One: Review the past year For many organizations a lot of effort is put into their annual strategic plan. The process begins by reflecting… Read More »Bring Your Strategic Plan to Life
Not always, but hopefully frequently enough, we learn something interesting, insightful, helpful, or all of the above. But then what? What do you do when you finish a book, good enough for notes in the margin?
Read More »How To Organize Notes
We’re on what seems to be day 756 of lock-down. Children have only had 34 days of in-person school this year. While I am languishing, I also feel like I’m running on the fasted treadmill of my life. Perhaps you are experiencing something similar?
Nonprofit professionals notoriously wear many hats. In times like this, it’s okay to just hop from one urgent task to another at first, but this is unsustainable for strong program management. What’s more, when you actually do have time to work, it’s hard to know where and how to start. Follow these four steps to get started:
Read More »How To Get Organized
One of the more surprising activities Services in Action has taken on is website development.
It’s surprising because it was never an area we actively pursued. However, in helping people organize a program, realize an idea, or communicate a mission, a website is an essential component. So evaluating and (re)designing websites became a natural part of our work.
Many times, our website work hasn’t even been for a nonprofit, but for someone on a tight budget. Here are a few examples of our recent work
If this email has you thinking about your own website, or lack thereof, here are six questions to ask your website:
Read More »Website Evaluation
Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at the management of files. We’ve looked at how to organize them and what to label them. Now let’s turn to storing them.
A record is a file, photo, video, -anything that captures information. Sometimes they matter and sometimes they don’t. Knowing what to keep is an important part of a well-organized filing system, which is essential for not duplicating work, improving organizational memory, organizational knowledge, and being able to tell the complete story of a project, event, program, or system.
Read More »Storing, Retaining, and Deleting Files
Last week’s blog outlined six steps to organizing a desktop. The steps begin by identifying the different themes of your work. Each theme is a category. When each category has been identified, two things must be true.
When something is ambiguous, we avoid it. Things that are hard to tackle seem overwhelming. This can be true in life with the big decisions and the small tasks. It can also be true of your desktop and inbox.
Read More »The Ambiguity Effect