What I mean by this is how to get the stuff done that you need to get done without being overwhelmed by all the things you need to get done. I'm limiting this to day to day work stuff or house stuff -- not curing cancer or becoming a millionaire. (If I could do either, I wouldn't be here and nor would you.)
I've learned a few things and I keep a lot of balls in the air, professionally, and this is how I do it.
1. Get a blank notebook. The notebook is critical. It must be a sketchbook with no lines on the pages, and it must be hardbound -- no spiral. Nothing that will allow pages to be easily ripped out. And it needs to be big -- too big to haul around. It needs to live in one place and serve only one purpose: to handle your shizz. I like this one, size 11x14" -- about $14.
http://www.benfranklin.com/item.php?id=MP-DA471101114&c=a&s1=Paper+And+Boards&s2=Sketch+Books&s3=Classic+Hard-Bound+Sketch+Books&zmam=47182733&zmas=1&zmac=1&zmap=MP-DA471101114
I'm not kidding. No ripped out pages, too big and heavy to carry around.
The blank pages are also critical. Lines box you in, make you feel like you have to follow rules, that things need to be in order. That just heaps one more problem onto your plate. So no lines. This is going to be free form shizz handling, and it is gonig to be organized the way your brain processes information.
2. Get a good pen, one you like to use.
3. These 2 things will never leave your desk or wherever it is you work.
4. Keep a small notebook and another pen by your bedside. That's for writing down those things that wake you up in the middle of the night.
5. In the morning when you sit at your desk and open your email or go through your voice mail or whatever it is that kicks off your day, open yoour notebook to its 2nd pristine page (you want 2 facing pages open to one another. Make sense?) . With your excellent new pen, make a list as you scroll through your work -- a list of things you have to do, or buy, or figure out. If it makes life easier, make 3 loose columns (or however many) on your page -- 1 list of emails or calls to return, 1 list of questions you need to get answered, 1 list of projects you have to complete. Whatever works.
6. Now, start plowing through your list, top to bottom. Do them in the order you wrote them. When you've done something, cross it off. This is the best part. If it needs following up, write down what you need to do at the bottom of the list.
The genius of this is the following: you focus on one thing till it is done or has reached a logical stopping point, but all the other stuff -- the new calls that come in, the new emails, they get written in on the bottom of the list. If something urgent pops up, write it down. Do that project. Then go back to the list.
If your phone rings and you have to take notes, take them right on that facing page. Write down the phone number you need. If you need to buy groceries for dinner, make a little box somewhere on the page and write in what you need to remember to get. Anything from this day goes on those two pages.
7. Remember, there is brilliance in the phrase: do it now. Your boss wants you to write a letter? Generate a list of contacts? Do it now. Then go back to your list.
8. At the end of the workday, and/or where everything requring urgent action is done, turn the page. There will be things left undone on your previous day's list. There will be phone numbers scrawled, maybe some doodles. That's ok for now. Leave the page clean.
9. Tomorrow morning, when you sit at your desk, turn back to the list from the day before. The items that don't have lines through them? Decide if they really need doing. If they do, put them on today's list to start it out. Then continue to populate the list as you go through your day, making sure to cross out the items as you finish them -- that's the fun part.
10. Don't forget to consult your bedside list. Something woke you up? Make sure that gets taken care of the next day, first thing.
Remember: the book never leaves your desk. You'll need a phone number, or some note you jotted, at some point in the future. And it will be there. Any thoughts you have, bits of brilliance, all there.
If you HAVE to go over 2 pages, go over by 2 pages -- start every day with a fresh sheet. This works.
I've learned a few things and I keep a lot of balls in the air, professionally, and this is how I do it.
1. Get a blank notebook. The notebook is critical. It must be a sketchbook with no lines on the pages, and it must be hardbound -- no spiral. Nothing that will allow pages to be easily ripped out. And it needs to be big -- too big to haul around. It needs to live in one place and serve only one purpose: to handle your shizz. I like this one, size 11x14" -- about $14.
http://www.benfranklin.com/item.php?id=MP-DA471101114&c=a&s1=Paper+And+Boards&s2=Sketch+Books&s3=Classic+Hard-Bound+Sketch+Books&zmam=47182733&zmas=1&zmac=1&zmap=MP-DA471101114
I'm not kidding. No ripped out pages, too big and heavy to carry around.
The blank pages are also critical. Lines box you in, make you feel like you have to follow rules, that things need to be in order. That just heaps one more problem onto your plate. So no lines. This is going to be free form shizz handling, and it is gonig to be organized the way your brain processes information.
2. Get a good pen, one you like to use.
3. These 2 things will never leave your desk or wherever it is you work.
4. Keep a small notebook and another pen by your bedside. That's for writing down those things that wake you up in the middle of the night.
5. In the morning when you sit at your desk and open your email or go through your voice mail or whatever it is that kicks off your day, open yoour notebook to its 2nd pristine page (you want 2 facing pages open to one another. Make sense?) . With your excellent new pen, make a list as you scroll through your work -- a list of things you have to do, or buy, or figure out. If it makes life easier, make 3 loose columns (or however many) on your page -- 1 list of emails or calls to return, 1 list of questions you need to get answered, 1 list of projects you have to complete. Whatever works.
6. Now, start plowing through your list, top to bottom. Do them in the order you wrote them. When you've done something, cross it off. This is the best part. If it needs following up, write down what you need to do at the bottom of the list.
The genius of this is the following: you focus on one thing till it is done or has reached a logical stopping point, but all the other stuff -- the new calls that come in, the new emails, they get written in on the bottom of the list. If something urgent pops up, write it down. Do that project. Then go back to the list.
If your phone rings and you have to take notes, take them right on that facing page. Write down the phone number you need. If you need to buy groceries for dinner, make a little box somewhere on the page and write in what you need to remember to get. Anything from this day goes on those two pages.
7. Remember, there is brilliance in the phrase: do it now. Your boss wants you to write a letter? Generate a list of contacts? Do it now. Then go back to your list.
8. At the end of the workday, and/or where everything requring urgent action is done, turn the page. There will be things left undone on your previous day's list. There will be phone numbers scrawled, maybe some doodles. That's ok for now. Leave the page clean.
9. Tomorrow morning, when you sit at your desk, turn back to the list from the day before. The items that don't have lines through them? Decide if they really need doing. If they do, put them on today's list to start it out. Then continue to populate the list as you go through your day, making sure to cross out the items as you finish them -- that's the fun part.
10. Don't forget to consult your bedside list. Something woke you up? Make sure that gets taken care of the next day, first thing.
Remember: the book never leaves your desk. You'll need a phone number, or some note you jotted, at some point in the future. And it will be there. Any thoughts you have, bits of brilliance, all there.
If you HAVE to go over 2 pages, go over by 2 pages -- start every day with a fresh sheet. This works.
This is a recent one day in my notebook. It looks exactly like my brain.
I should add that I am a lefty and by nature a visual organizer. If something is in a file somewhere, I can't find it and I never remember that it even exists. It also means that my brain makes visual memories. I can remember that a scrap of information that I need or a quote i am looking for is on the left hand side of a page, or written in green ink, or whatever. Then it's just a question of going through the notebook and matching up my visual memory to what's in front of me to find what I need. I suspect other peoples' brains work differently. This free-form shizz handling style will evolve to reflect exactly the way you think, if you let it. I think that is why I resist things like Franklin Covey or those Day Runners or even Microsoft Outlooks attempts to organize my day (or suggestions to have one section of your noteb ook for house, one for work, one for phone numbers etc. I forget that it is there if it is not right in front of me.)
This system doesn't require any discipline at all, really -- because there are no lines to fill, no boxes to check, no categories to adhere to that do not make complete sense to you (and possibly you alone).
You're welcome.
*except laundry. I still won't do my laundry. My friend Truly recently read a book about will power, and the central thought she took away is that we have a set amount of will power to apply to our lives, so if you spread it to o thin you wont get anythign done. ie, if you are trying to lose weight, and do laundry, and get your life organizede, something is gonna fall by the wayside. Laundry is my wayside. If I won the megamillions (if you havent heard, I did not) I'd hire a laundress or launderer straight away. That's the only personal staff I'd need beside a house cleaner every couple of weeks. I'd be a very down to earth megamillionaire.
