Back to basics – spring cleaning

As I sit here working on this blog post, I have my office window open to enjoy the 70-degree What a treat! Where did winter go? I need to get outside for a walk – this time for sure! day. Hyacinths, daffodils – and dandelions – are in full bloom, Easter candy taunts me from its hiding place, and visions of spring cleaning dance in my head.

Now spring cleaning to me means a couple of things (besides my dreaded house-related projects!):

• Office projects—sorting the pile of papers that’s accumulated in my office (though, thanks to my iPad and my practice of organizing to read later docs and filing them in DropBox, it’s not nearly as high as it used to be!) along with organizing the I’ll put it away later Xerox box of full of stuff.
• Personal growth projects—assessing my current career path, thinking about the projects and proposals I’ve worked on over the past year and where I could have used some enhanced capabilities and knowledge, and contemplating skills and abilities I’d like to augment over the coming year. In other words, reassessing my own career goals, developing an action plan to achieve those goals, and working to the plan.

What work and personal development projects do you want to accomplish this year?

Look to our Lohfeld website, along with professional associations such as APMP International and its local chapters (live or virtual), to help you accomplish quite a few of them.

Our website Events page showcases a number of capture and proposal-related training, APMP Accreditation classes, webinars, and APMP events where our staff are presenting. APMP’s website lists chapter events worldwide, along with links to publications full of valuable capture and proposal-related articles.

Check out your local universities, community organizations, and non-profits for a plethora of educational content. Bookstores and the Internet burst with proposal, capture, and graphics development books and rows of software training manuals. Check our previous blog entries or stop me at one of APMP’s events, and I’ll be happy to share my personal favorites with you!

Bottom line, no matter how many years of experience we have in the proposal/business development field, there’s always something new we can learn or teach, some method or skill we can enhance into a best practice for ourselves and our teams, and someone new to our team that we can help along their own career path.

To “borrow” from Robert Frost, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

How are you proceeding down your road? Spring is a perfect time to assess your progress, fill a few potholes, tune yourself up, and continue ambling down the road. Just remember to stop occasionally and enjoy the dandelions!

By Beth Wingate