Bob Shank Photography

Is your office clean or messy? How about your desk?

Are your flash cards empty and ready to be filled or do you have images on them and wonder if you uploaded them to your pc or not?

I have several projects in the wings. Life is busy, but good busy. I am slowly learning how to keep track of projects to see them through. This is helpful in my professional life but also my life here at home, too. Write it down! This is the strong suggestion of David Allen of “Getting Things Done.” He says that we should write things down to clear our mind to stop worrying about everything and be open to creativity.

Sometimes my mind is going 100 miles per hour, worrying about this project and that detail and this phone all I have to return. When we write things down we can allow our mind to stop trying to remember all these details and be open to more creative purposes.

Of course, the trick is to have a system where you regularly re-visit the places where you wrote things down. It does no good to write something down but then forget where you put that piece of paper.

I am learning how to use Outlook and spreadsheets to help store these important pieces of information. Admittedly, I am still learning how to make this work but I am committed to seeing it through so I can be more efficient and keep projects on track.

What about you? Are you seeing projects through to completion or is your mind filled all kinds of details, tasks, and dates not to forget? Stop it! Clear your mind by writing these details down somewhere. And then re-visit the places you parked that information so you can keep on track.

It’s time to get organized!

Years ago I learned the Franklin Planner system of accomplishing tasks. I watched the 8-hour video and learned a lot about how to accomplish tasks in a timely manner. This process actually transformed they way I did business on a daily basis. For the next  year I used the Franklin Planner notebook but then in the following year I switched to using an electronic version on an HP Palmtop. My boss was reluctant about me using this electronic version, but it proved to work exceedingly well.

Now, some 16 years later, a lot has changed. Email has become part of our daily routine, voice mail in-boxes are filling up quickly, and computers are standard issue in just about every business. The bottom line is that our workflow has changed quite a bit.

So, today I was listening to a podcast entitled “The Camera Dojo” and the topic was “Tools to Help Manage Tasks and Productivity.” It was enlightening to say the least.

The one tip that I took to heart was how to manage the flood of email messages many of us receive on a daily basis. My email in-box had over 6,800 messages this morning. The idea that was so helpful was to sort through each email and give it a home–move it to a specific folder, trash it, or put it in an @Action folder. This last option was the one that intrigued me the most. I used to keep email messages in my in-box that need a response or action from me. This idea of creating a new folder for emails that need action was just what I needed. The idea of putting the @ symbol in front of the folder’s name puts it on top of the folder hierarchy and constantly in front of me. I took this great idea to heart and while I still have some work to do, my in-box only has 29 messages in it!

What are you doing to get things done?