June 24, 2018

Joshua Zerkel

Episode 12: Organizing for Results with Joshua Zerkel

Joshua Zerkel, CPO® is Head of Global Community, Asana, the easiest way for teams to track their work and get results. He is responsible for growing and engaging the Asana community around the world. For over a decade, he has focused his career on helping people and businesses get more organized and increase their productivity.

Before joining Asana, Josh was Evernote’s Director of Global Customer Education and Community. He is the author of the books Evernote @ Work and Integrate: Evernote. Joshua has been featured in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, National Public Radio, CBS News, ABC News, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, Online Organizing, among many others. He’s also an inaugural Certified Professional Organizer® and is a two-term past president of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals, San Francisco Bay Area chapter.

Although he doesn’t consider himself freakishly organized, Josh does admit to spending some of his free time alphabetizing his comic books.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Organizing for project management in corporate settings
  • If you are wondering if there is a market for your services as an organizer and productivity consultant – there is
  • How to capitalize on who you are, what you’ve done and where you’ve been to bring your unique skills to bear for your clients
  • The crucial importance of professional development in staying sharp in your field and areas in which you specialize
  • Using time blocking as a strategy to stay on top of the multiple aspects of running a business
  • How tech tools can help your own business as well as your clients
  • Enhancing your business and network by becoming a brand ambassador
  • Presenting companies with metrics, what you can bring to them, and what you expect as a brand ambassador
  • Seizing opportunities for work while keeping entrepreneurial ventures going at the same time
  • Tools for managing information and workflow

The Golden Nuggets:

“A byproduct of my work in tech was that I would often help colleagues with their project management. Sometimes creative types have challenges staying organized. That’s where I would step in.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “I just started asking in my network, ‘Would you be willing to pay someone to help with project management?’ Surprisingly, to me, people said, ‘Yes!’” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “I pretty quickly evolved away from helping people in residential settings to working more with entrepreneurs, small businesses, and larger groups/teams around time management, information management, managing their technology.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “I think whatever you do, you're a culmination of all the things that you've done before and all the things that you've learned.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “About 6 months into running my business, I attended my first NAPO meeting. Everyone was just super supportive. From there, I just got really involved, started attending regularly, and became a member of my chapter and national.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “If you really love a product and want to talk about it in an authentic way, be all over their social media. Show your love because companies take notice of that. Let them know you talk with clients about their product.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “I'm taking all of the good things and learning from all of the mistakes and missteps and hopefully doing something better, better for the people who are going to participate.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X “Don’t wait to start your business until you’ve finished your plan. Just get started. I think the tendency is to plan it all, and then when things go wrong or they change, it's really, really hard for us.” – Joshua Zerkel Share on X
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