Getting Organized
More than likely, you have more tasks to accomplish than you have hours in the day. Between work, personal life and family needs, it can feel like you’re never able to get ahead of the demands that are made of us.
The trick to managing a busy life is organize and prioritize. Keeping track of everything on your To Do list and learning to rank them in priority is so important to protecting your sanity and stopping your life from feeling like a runaway train. Here are a few tips that have helped me.
Create a system. There are a lot of tools and methodologies for tracking your To Dos. Of course, there’s pen and paper to keep yourself organized. Getting It Done (or GID) and Franklin Covey are popular systems that have paper-based products. If you want to go electronic, consider using Trello, an easy and intuitive software based on the Japanese Kanban organization system. It’s intuitive, very easy to use and very effective at managing a packed To Do list. Whatever system you choose, make sure it tracks the tasks you assign to others.
Capture your ideas. If you’re like me, information is coming at you all the time. Having an easy way to keep track of them takes away the angst of asking, “How am I going to remember all of this?” For me, the ultimate tool for this is Microsoft OneNote. It uses a notebook and binder metaphor, so you already have an idea how to organize your thoughts. There are other tools like Evernote that do the same thing, but I found OneNote to be the most seamless across all of my devices.
Prioritize. Now that you’re tracking all of your tasks, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the size of the list. The trick or deciding which ones you really need to work on. Is a task hair-on-fire urgent? Can it wait a few days? Try scanning your list each day and pick out what you want to work on, leaving room for the inevitable surprises that will show up as the day unfolds. The goal is to make progress some of your tasks so you feel like you’ve moved the pile forward.
Getting yourself organized is a huge stress reliever and a key to an efficient, calm day. If you have questions on organization techniques, feel free to contact me. I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.