Vicki Adrian offers a daily dose of Inspiration& Education for Remarkable Retailers and Savvy Entrepreneurs.In today's "Scope", Vicki continues this series on Theming YourWork Week.

If you missed the first part of this series, go to vimeo.com/VickiAdrian and watchor listen to Episodes 117 through 120 to catch up.

I love that our listeners are taking ACTION by theming theirdays…Yesterday my friend, Carol sent a screenshot of her computerwith one Sticky Note on her Dashboard for each day of the week,along with the THEME for each day.

Here’s what Carol said, “I thought the sticky notes would helpme stay focused. If I am working on financial projects on Mondaybut remember an idea for an email, I can just hit the "hot corner"on my laptop which takes me to my "sticky notes" and add it to myCreative Tuesday note. Then, I can get straight back to work andnot have to worry about forgetting something important. This won'ttake place of my calendar but it will hopefully take place of allthe pieces of paper on my desk! Have listened to your "Theming YourWork Days" Periscope series several times and keep getting goodideas. Keep up the GREAT WORK!”

Of course, I copied her right away and posted a photo of mydashboard on the Remarkable Retailer Facebook page yesterday so youcould see it…a picture’s worth a thousand words right???

Another simple tool that goes along with the Theming your Daysconcept is file folders. Yes, plain old file folders, or if you’relike my friend, Carol, super fancy, awesome file folders! I keep afile folder with a label for each day of the week, Monday -Saturday in my desk drawer and drop in pieces of paper orinformation that I would use on those particular themed days. Itgives you a place to corral all of those lose papers (although youwouldn't know it to look at my desk today!). That idea is fromDavid Allen's book "Getting Things Done" that I read a couple ofyears ago.

Today's focus is on Thursday’s theme: Weekend Prep &Marketing

In our business, our Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are slower,and business picks up Thursday, Friday & Saturday. This is whyin the “Theming Your Days” plan that I use, the first part of theweek is used for concentrated, detail work. Financials on Monday,Email & Social Media Marketing on Tuesday & Connection –Building professional relationships & education on Wednesday.Things change later in the week! The last half of the week we arebusier with customers in the store, getting ready for weekendevents, sometimes we have an outside retail show on the weekend,etc.

So here’s what our Themed Thursday looks like: Take a look atwhat will be going on for the weekend (we call the weekendThursday, Friday & Saturday) in our shop. Do I have signagemade for special offers? Do we have an event going on that requiresextra food or drinks to be prepared? Is the store looking clean andorganized for the weekend? Our teammate that does most of thedecorating works Monday through Wednesday, and products keeprolling in the back door, so we may work on displays, gettingmerchandise to the warehouse, etc.

Thursday is also the day that I am double-checking our socialmedia presence for the weekend. I try to have my iPhone handy andtake photos of groups that are coming to shop together…I email theguest a copy of the photo, then post it to our store’s Facebookpage as well. Our customers love to see real people out havingfun!

We pre-populate our Facebook page with 2-3 posts per day onTuesday, then pop in more “LIVE” type of posts as the week rollsalong, and Thursday is a great day to focus on gathering photos ofcustomers, new arrivals and materials to get that done.

Sandy, our gourmet guru will also take a look at our gourmetinventories and choose a dessert or soup or other item to sampleover the weekend. So the good news is, Thursday’s Theme is a little“looser” than the first days of the week, but it is important tostay focused on what moves your business forward…and that is TAKINGCARE of your CUSTOMERS! ☺

We’ve got a helpful FREE resource for you today! Would you takea minute after this Periscope ends and stop byRemarkableRetailer.com? On the right side of the page, you’ll seemy picture…click the button to sign up for our email list andyou’ll get a link to our Remarkable Retailer Resource book rightaway. I think you’ll find some great information there!

Vicki Adrian
[email protected]
RemarkableRetailer.com