Today, April 22, is Earth Day. It is the one day designated each year, since 1970, to become more aware of our Mother Earth and how to be better inhabitants.

Myself, I believe I am doing good to my planet. From everyday recycling to the steps I outlined in my draft Dunkirk Systems, LLC environmental plan, I try to work environmental protection into my everyday decisions. Interestingly, these often relate to cost savings.

So what are you doing for Earth Day? If you haven’t come up with anything, allow me to make a suggestion, adding a 4th “r” to the list – reduce, reuse, recycle. By reevaluating decisions you make, this will make the other subsequent steps easier or even moot.

Here’s an example. By deciding not to accumulate grocery bags I decided to get a reusable, durable Reisenthel nylon shopping bag like the one pictured here (I bought mine in Germany, but they carry them at The Container Store too). By reevaluating, I am thus reducing and reusing.

Small steps, done by many, add up to a lot. Please share anything you are doing for Earth Day.

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Is there such a thing as a professional color? This is something I have talked about with several people over the last few weeks. When shopping for a briefcase, luggage, or even computer products, should you select a color, or go with something neutral (read: black or silver)?

One colleague was questioning if they should purchase brightly colored luggage, namely so it sticks out from the sea of black suitcases and Pullmans coming down the conveyor belt at baggage claim. However, as she usually goes right to a client site from her flight, she didn’t want to stand out for her color choice over her professional qualifications.

Another colleague pondered if he should get a brightly colored case for his computer, namely orange, as shown in the accompanying photo. There are other options, but one reason for getting a standout color was in the unfortunate event it gets stolen, he may see the computer being taken away with its bright color. But similar to my other colleague, he didn’t want to be known as the “orange computer guy.”

What say you – is it ok to liven mundane things up with color, or not, or does it just depend?

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Have you ever been faced with a business situation you couldn’t find an effective way of solving? If you are in business, I bet it has happened more often than not. It’s not the problems, though, it is how you solve them. In some cases, it takes a little bit of creativity to do so.

This sign was on the bathroom vanity of a Comfort Inn hotel I recently stayed at:

I thought this sign was brilliant, as it solves a business problem with the most positive spin to it.

What is the problem? People steal hotel towels. It probably happens more than anyone would want to admit. Rather than putting a sign in the hotel room stating all towels are accounted for and if you take them you will be charged, it solves the problem with a new opportunity – the towels are for sale. In doing so, it identifies the following:

• A service is being offered – towels are offered in the hotel room
• There are parameters of the service – the towels are to stay in the hotel room
• There is a value to this service – spelled out in the pricing of the towels

These rules came to me as I was staring at the sign while brushing my teeth – rules that could apply to a lot more situations that towel theft. Taking one measly towel may seem harmless, but it is a cost and loss of revenue to the business. The sign serves as a friendly reminder that you are not in business to give things away for free.

I have to be honest, these weren’t the best towels I have ever used, and I would never pay that much for them. Most likely the pricing is not for them to get into the towel business though and rather to thwart theft. But this was a Comfort Inn, not a Westin, and the room was priced accordingly. Needless to say, all towels were still int he room when I checked out.

The next time you are faced with a situation you’re trying to solve, think of what you need to put on a sign, and it may be all you need to get the point across and solve the problem.

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These days many businesses are doing belt-tightening, or in some cases their belt is more like a tourniquet. Depending on whatever it is you are analyzing, cutting it out of your plans and budget completely may be required. However, don’t forget the goals and reasons for those budget items, as there could be options to what you planned that can still lead to fulfilling those goals.

One example is wardrobe. Need a new suit or attire to wear to pitch to a new client? Perhaps shopping on The Magnificent Mile or Newbury Street are not in the cards any longer and even the outlet stores may be out of range, but the goal here is you need something to wear. Have you been to Goodwill lately? Many times people bring clothes to thrift stores like it and Salvation Army not because they are worn or tattered but because they don’t fit any longer. You can find bargains at a fraction of the price of new or the outlets, and after a trip to the dry cleaners it may be just the image you need to land the new client.

For my own Internet consulting business Dunkirk Systems, LLC, some clients and prospective clients have scaled back or altogether postponed Internet projects due to budgets. In these cases, I always talk to the client and discuss with them the original goals of the project. In some cases, postponement is a viable option. In other cases, revisiting them can help come up with options. Maybe a complete redesign of the Web site is out of the question, but additional content or enhancing a portion of the Web site will meet those goals. Looking at your entire operations may also be in order, as a postal mailing could be replaced by an email campaign for less cost.

In tough times a creative brain can costs just as well as a machete and still yield great returns.

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Let's be honest, you have bad days when you don't want to work. For entrepreneurs, you feel as though you are cheating yourself, yet you may not feel like doing anything substantive. There is a middle ground I have found - queue up some "mindless" tasks or things to do and be successful at, whether you are grumpy, sick, hungover, or some combination of all of those! Here are some I have on my list currently and others I have done in the past.

• Building your contacts in LinkedIn – You can go through your email address book for people who are not in your circle and invite them. Another way is to look at the connections for colleagues you have worked with in the past for people who are in their circle you are connected to – if you worked with them, you can request to be connected without knowing their email address.
• Scanning documents and business cards – Perhaps the paperless office in general is more myth than reality, but I am working to rid my own from as much paper as possible. With my Fujitsu ScanSnap I scan papers, documents and other items I would like to keep to PDFs.
• Clean out your email inbox – I am a true believer in managing your inbox to zero, where you read then file or delete all your email, only keeping in your inbox those messages to reply to at a later date. But sometimes our inboxes grow, and it takes a little time away from everything else to tend to it.
• Clean out your desk drawers – Being in a less than pleasant mood is perfect for cleaning out your desk, as it’s much harder to come up with a rational reason to keep half of the junk you have accumulated.
• Inventory your safe deposit box – Wondering where that contract or passport is? It may be in your safe deposit box. At least you made the first step to get a box, but it’s also handy to know what is in there.
• Write blog posts in advance – There’s nothing worse like your blog going dead for a few days or weeks, and by writing ahead of time non-date sensitive posts is a good way to clear your mind of things you’d like to share with others, and keep your blog publishing on a regular basis. What you are reading is one such example.

Hopefully these ideas will help. Are there things you do when you’re not feeling so great?

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