I really like teaching seminars. I did two this week on office organization – mostly papers, filing and emails. Had great attendance at both and met some terrific people. Many of them were just looking for some pointers but there were some that were just buried and were looking for a way out. Hopefully I addressed enough to help both.
People like me are weirdos I guess – that’s what is so nice about belonging to NAPO and going conference and stuff like that because you’re around a bunch of other people who get excited talking about sharpies, center cut interior file folders in manila, and label makers.
I had a fellow organizer ask if I was getting paid for these, and while that would be nice, I guess, I just love being with the crowd and sharing what I know. It helps me, too. What I get out of it:
- figuring out what the real issues are for future clients
- honing my speaking skills
- fine tuning my message for future (hopefully) webinars and written articles
- the energy from knowing that the attendees actually took away something they can use
I had a great crowd both Tuesday and Thursday – lots of questions and participation. One thing that cracked me up was how one woman found out about me and the seminar. She was on a blog written by a woman in Texas (Small Notebook) that I happen to subscribe to. I had made a comment on one of the blog posts, and this woman read it. She liked what I had to say, went to my website and realized that I was from Tennessee. Not only from Tennessee, but from Franklin – and that I was teaching the seminar that very night. So she and a friend came to my seminar from reading a blog post from Texas. Go figure.
Teaching this class made me realize that, even though I did already know this, just how much of a struggle it is for most people to keep up with things like paper and emails. I like them to weeds – if you don’t stay on top of it – it’ll take over your garden (or life).
