Archives for Time Management

Capturing meeting notes

Recently in the Unclutterer Forums, reader Knyghtmaire started the interesting thread “Capturing Meeting Notes” and asked:

I am curious how other [people] capture their meeting notes to reference later.

The answers that follow are wonderful and shed light on the different ways we all work. A few of the highlights:

HappyDogs: Frequently, we end up mapping out something on the white board, then, since none of us want to rewrite it, we take a photo of it.

AJ: How about a pen that records your writing and puts it into a PDF? A pen that also records (if you want) and co-ordinates the timing of your notes with the voice recording?

I haven’t looked into prices because it’s not available where I live, but the SmartPen looks like a really cool gadget.

http://www.livescribe.com/

rachel_413: What I do for important notes, is I scan them and put them in the computer folder for that particular project, usually in a subfolder called Basis. Although scanning your notes is an extra work step, it gets rid of paper files, and it’s important to have records for other people who work on the project, or may have to follow your trail long after you’ve moved on to other projects or companies.

I will type notes directly into a text file and then save the file in the corresponding client folder. If the notes will need to be referenced at a point when I’m not at my computer, I’ll upload the file to Evernote. If someone is interested in reading my notes, I’ll simply e-mail them. I like the idea of linking the notes somehow to the event that was scheduled on my digital calendar, but I’ve never actually done this. Anyone know how to do this with Google Calendar?

How do you capture meeting notes? Share your ideas in the comments to this post or join in the discussion on the Unclutterer Forums.

Posted by Erin on Mar 18, 2010 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

The productive procrastination bin

While many productivity experts religiously follow the “only touch it once” system for document management, I’m more of a “touch it as few times as necessary” system follower. There are simply times when touching a paper only once is unrealistic for me — the mail will arrive while I’m on a phone call or I need to really mull something over before responding.

To handle these touch-more-than-once documents, I have a (gasp!) procrastination bin on my desk. Actually, it’s a basket that hangs from a shelf, but “hanging procrastination basket” just doesn’t have the same catchy name factor as the straightforward “procrastination bin.”

I have certain rules for what can and can’t go into the procrastination bin. The bin isn’t a dumping ground for things I don’t want to do or a spot for papers that need to be filed. It’s a designated area for things that can’t or shouldn’t be dealt with right now.

Qualities that make it okay for a document to go in the procrastination bin:

  • It can fit. If the procrastination bin is full, nothing more can go inside of it and the document must be processed immediately. There is no squishing, fancy folding, or clever engineering to fit more inside the bin than what it was designed to contain.
  • There are no consequences for procrastinating. If putting off the task will cause me stress, cause someone else frustration, or has a nearly immediate deadline, the document cannot go into the bin.
  • Time is scheduled on the calendar for when to do it. When a paper goes into the bin, an entry must be made on the calendar for when to properly process the paper. Nothing can go into the bin and be forgotten.
  • Procrastinating might be better than taking care of it right now. There are times when not taking immediate action is actually the best thing to do. The procrastination bin is perfect for these types of documents.
  • The bin is small. I purposefully purchased the hanging basket that is made of wide mesh and isn’t very large. It can only be used for papers, and I’m not tempted to use it for items other than paperwork. It has a dedicated purpose and limited functionality.

In addition to the rules I have for the procrastination bin, I also have 30 minutes blocked off on my calendar each month to re-evaluate everything that is in the bin. Even with other dates on the calendar to process each paper, I’ve found that this 30 minutes will often take care of some of the items earlier than planned. I always schedule this 30 minute evaluation to occur right after lunch when my concentration levels are low. I realized that it’s better to use this time in a somewhat productive manner than waste it staring off into space, zoning out.

Posted by Erin on Mar 16, 2010 | 14 Comments | Tweet This

Embark on new adventures: Erin’s second set of 2010 resolutions

Back in early January, I marked the Ides of March as when I would officially check in on my first set of resolutions for 2010 and finalize my resolutions for the second quarter. In the post “Increasing energy: Erin’s first set of 2010 resolutions,” I outlined what I planned to do for January, February, and March.

For the most part, I’ve kept to the resolutions I created. Unfortunately, I had to take six weeks off from the gym and withdraw from the race I planned to run in April because I kicked a rocking chair and significantly injured my foot. I’m just now getting back into a modified gym routine and can wear regular shoes again.

One of the highlights of my first-quarter resolutions was discovering new recipes for my healthy meal plan. One of the things I did was add the Canyon Ranch Cooks cookbook to my collection. With it, I have successfully made and enjoyed dozens of new recipes. During the doldrums of winter, it was nice to keep mealtime interesting and nutritious. Additionally, simply having more energy has been a wonderful thing.

The theme for my second-quarter resolutions is “Embark on new adventures.” Now that I have the much needed energy I was craving, I’m excited about putting it to use. The following are the resolutions I’ve set for April, May, and June:

  • Plant and tend to an herb and vegetable garden.
  • Take a knife skills class.
  • Go rock climbing.
  • Accomplish all 67 tasks on the “Spring Cleaning for the Overachiever” list on pages 189 and 190 of Unclutter Your Life in One Week.
  • Go through my entire home and office and play the uncluttering game I’m moving overseas! (Just to be clear, I’m NOT moving overseas, I’m simply playing the game.) Essentially, take on a full-home minimizing project.

To help me achieve these resolutions, I’m going to reference the post “Creating a plan to achieve your 2010 resolutions.” I’m also going to keep up with all of my first-quarter resolutions to maintain the energy levels necessary to help me with these second-quarter goals.

What are your resolutions for April, May, and June? How are your resolutions progressing for 2010? Share your resolution stories in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Mar 15, 2010 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

Three universal truths for why projects are not completed on time

Finishing a project on time is a difficult achievement in the workplace and at home. In last week’s post “Uncluttered project planning,” I discussed ways to avoid missing deadlines when you’re in charge of the project. However, we’re not always the ones calling the shots.

In fact, even when we think we’re in charge of a project, we often are not. When we have to rely on others to supply information, supplies, or support, timelines (and budgets) can quickly be extended. After years of working across multiple professions and with clients, I have identified where projects typically go awry. From page 200 of Unclutter Your Life in One Week:

These are the universal truths for why projects are not completed on time:

  • Clients are never as prepared as they say they will be.
  • Clients always change their mind.
  • People always underestimate the amount of time it will take to do something.

(The word clients in this list can easily be substituted with bosses, co-workers and also you.)

Clients are never as prepared as they say they will be. For most people, working on a project is more fun than planning it. As a result, clients don’t think through the entire process and its results before contacting a vendor. Putting in the research, collecting data, identifying the goal of the project, and envisioning it through to its completion before contacting a vendor will help enormously to preserve a timeline.

Clients always change their mind. I think it’s important for a project to have flexibility, but changing the scope of a project will extend timelines and/or costs. You need to be prepared for these changes and ready for when they happen. You can reduce the impact and costs of these changes simply by having a single decision-making liaison between the client and vendor. If a client or vendor is being contacted by more than one person, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. One person should act as the filter on both ends of a relationship to make sure that only approved changes that relate to the final outcome of the project are communicated.

People always underestimate the amount of time it will take to do something. Even though I have timed myself enough to know how long it actually takes me to do something, I still think I work faster than I do. We all think this way. In our minds, we have speed of pumas. Avoid this project pitfall by using the following:

A good rule of thumb is to double everything up to a day. If you think something will take you two hours, plan for it to take four. If you think something will take you eight hours, plan for it to take sixteen. After eight hours, the double rule stops being as accurate. For projects that I estimate will take between one and five days, I just tag on an additional day. If someone says it will take him two weeks to complete a portion of the project, I add three additional days into the schedule.

Your project’s timeline can be preserved or closely achieved with proper planning, organizing, improved communication, and realistic expectations for work completion. Remember the three universal truths for why projects are not completed on time, and do your best to avoid them.

Posted by Erin on Mar 8, 2010 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

Uncluttered project planning

Whether you’re taking on a new assignment at work or clearing clutter from your basement, successful projects have basically the same structure:

  1. Open lines of communication
  2. Gather data
  3. Identify final outcome and deadline
  4. Envision achievement of final outcome
  5. Set small milestones on a realistic timeline
  6. Do the work
  7. Stay in communication with relevant parties
  8. Finish project
  9. Cleanup, review, and/or reflect

The first step in this process could be opening up lines of communication with your boss, client, or possibly a service provider like an electrician. With a project like a closet cleanup, the communication might simply be motivating yourself or letting your roommate know you’re going to be making a giant, but temporary, mess.

When you’re gathering data in the second step, you’re looking to learn as much as you can about the entire project. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Someone else might be giving you this data or you may need to seek it out yourself. How much clutter lurks in your attic? What is it? How should you handle it?

Steps three, four, five, and six are pretty straightforward — you want to know where you’re headed and how you’re going to get there, and then you need to take the steps to make that happen. Setting small milestones in addition to the overall large goal keeps you on track throughout the entire project.

The seventh step is often forgotten, but vitally important if you’re working with or coordinating others. When you provide status reports to everyone involved in the project you’re managing their expectations of your work and helping them to plan and complete their part of the work.

Step number eight is the best step, and may be worthy of a celebration.

The last step is important for getting you ready for the future. Cleaning up helps objects get returned to their storage space and ready for the next time you or someone else wants to use them. Reviewing the project after it’s completed helps you identify what worked and what didn’t, and reflecting on the entire project motivates you to take on more projects (or fewer) like it in the future. Completing this step, and even writing it down or logging it in some way, also gives you something to reflect on later for a performance review or even in your personal life.

Posted by Erin on Mar 4, 2010 | 4 Comments | Tweet This

Increase your productivity at work by letting go of negative mental clutter

My alma mater is currently ranked number one in all of the college men’s basketball rankings. They’ve been in the top spot for 11 of the 14 weeks of the polls, and were number one in the preseason. There are five games left in the regular season, and all of the teams Kansas has left to play would love to see the Jayhawks lose.

Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and Missouri fans aren’t the only ones who want to see Kansas mess up their record in the last five games. Fans of the other ranked teams would be happy to see Kansas take a tumble, and, after watching some of the games this year, I’m pretty certain there are a few referees that would be glad to see Kansas lose, too.

In competitive sports like basketball, a game has to end with a winner and a loser. If you’re on top, it’s because you beat other teams to get there. You make enemies quickly when success after success stacks up beneath you. Other people don’t like to see you succeed when it was at their expense. In fact, other teams and fans watch you in hopes of experiencing schadenfreude.

In our work lives, however, very few things are like competitive sports. If someone does well, it’s usually not at the expense of someone else. Many people can do well at a time. Everyone on a project can be successful. Just because someone receives a promotion today doesn’t mean you won’t ever be promoted. Even though this is the fact, it is easy to lose sight of it. We quickly clutter up our minds with jealousy, envy, and hope for some schadenfreude in our immediate lives.

If you want to be productive and manage your time well at work, you need to let go of the belief that your workplace is a zero-sum game. If a colleague is praised for his or her work — even if you feel it is unwarranted — be genuinely happy for that person and then immediately return to your tasks. Getting caught up in office politics, sabotaging your colleagues, and focusing on anything other than your work is a waste of your time. Engaging in such negative behaviors causes people to believe you can’t be trusted, you’re a bad team member, and you’re only out for yourself. Even if you aren’t outwardly expressing your frustrations, obsessive negative thoughts can decrease your productivity. Believing that someone else’s win is your loss is clutter, it keeps you from being productive, and only damages you professionally in the long-run.

Posted by Erin on Feb 17, 2010 | 24 Comments | Tweet This

Three time-wasting traps at work

We’ve all lost huge chunks of time during the workday to unproductive activities. The following are three of the biggest time-wasting traps:

  1. Gossip and office politics. You are paid to do a job, and that job doesn’t include spending hours of your day talking negatively about or plotting against your co-workers. When you withdraw from these activities, you’ll have more time for your work and people will likely follow your lead.
  2. Lack of training on equipment or software. The more you know about the tools you have to do your job, the faster you can do your work. Buy a book, thoroughly read the manual, have a colleague teach you, or take a class so you can navigate your equipment and software as efficiently as possible.
  3. Unproductive e-mail exchanges. The moment you suspect information wasn’t conveyed as intended or there is confusion in the communication, pick up the phone and call the recipient or walk to your co-worker’s office. What might take you hours to resolve by e-mail can take mere minutes to solve with verbal communication.

What time-wasting traps do you notice in your office? How do you resolve them? Will making the changes recommended above help you to be more productive in your work? Sound off in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Feb 4, 2010 | 51 Comments | Tweet This

How is disorganization and clutter affecting your job performance?

If you showed up late to a meeting or missed a deadline, it would be obvious to you that disorganization and clutter were affecting your job performance. There are less obvious ways, however, that being disorganized can impact the quality and efficiency of your work. Take this quick quiz to see if it might be worth your time to become more organized:

  1. Do you spend less than 60 percent of your day focused on the most valuable work for your job?
  2. Do client/supervisor requests often linger unanswered for more than 24 hours?
  3. Do you ever feel like you don’t know where to start working on a project?
  4. Do you have action items on your to-do list that have been there for more than a week? a month?
  5. Have you led a meeting without providing an agenda to its attendees?
  6. When you come into work in the morning, does it take you more than 15 minutes to start doing work-related tasks?
  7. If something happened to you, and a qualified replacement would need to step in to work for you for awhile, would she be constantly frustrated or have to pick up the phone to have you help her find things she needed?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, disorganization and clutter may be negatively affecting your job performance.

Start by opening your calendar and scheduling an hour every day this week to focus on organizing. These hours will not be wasted, as your improved efficiency will quickly make up for the time expenditure. Here are some tips that correlate to the questions above.

The first question: To ensure that you are spending 60 percent or more of your day on your most valuable work, you need to plan each day before you start work. You may not follow your plan exactly, but the act of creating your plan will help you to stay more focused on the important work.

The second question: Even if you’re just sending an e-mail or making a quick phone call saying that it will take another day to get back to someone, contact within 24 hours is essential for good client/supervisor relations. Schedule 15 minutes after lunch and at the end of your work day to process these requests.

The third question: If you work in an office that has a preferred project management software, take a class or online seminar and learn how to effectively use this system. If your office doesn’t have such software already in place, research online project management tools and find the one that works best for you. Then, learn how to use it and take advantage of its features.

The fourth question: When planning your day, schedule 30 minutes to focus on these lingering tasks. Keep scheduling time for these activities until you are able to cross all of them off of your to-do list. Then, make a commitment to never let an action item linger on your to-do list for more than a week (or two, based on your type of work). These lingering items create a great deal of anxiety, and that anxiety can slow you down.

The fifth question: A meeting without an agenda can be a waste of time for everyone involved. Learn how to organize a business meeting so that it’s valuable to you and its attendees.

The sixth question: Before you leave work for the day, make sure your desk and supplies are prepared for tomorrow. You need to be ready to “hit the ground running” immediately when you arrive to work.

The seventh question: If you’re out of the office for any reason (emergency, illness, vacation, sudden promotion), someone should be able to come in and take over your work without much difficulty. Unless you are self-employed (and even then, you may have legal responsibilities to your clients), you do not own your work or the materials used to complete that work. Keeping this simple fact in mind can often help to keep you more diligently organized.

Good luck, and I hope that in a matter of days your organizing efforts begin to show you great rewards.

Posted by Erin on Feb 1, 2010 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

Free yourself from distractions with Concentrate

If you’re a Mac user and often find yourself tempted to goof off when you should be working, I want to introduce you to Concentrate.

Here’s how Concentrate works:
Name an activity you complete at your computer that requires focus. This activity might be something like creating presentations, reading PDFs for class, or laying out a newsletter. Once you’ve identified the activity, you can edit the specifics of how you want your computer to function. Determine what applications you’ll use and which ones you definitely won’t, specific websites or documents you’ll need and ones you won’t, your online status, which spaces to use (if you use the multi-desktop program), customize your desktop image, and even launch scripts. You can also set a timer to help keep you focused for a specific period, with sounds and recorded messages that can cheer you on along the way. You can set your preferences to have an icon automatically appear at start up so turning on the activity environment only takes one-click.

You can get 60 hours for free to try the service, and $29 if you choose to purchase it. My favorite part of the program is its incredibly simple user interface. Setting up the preferences takes very little time and effort, and turning on the activity is even easier. A program that is a breeze to use increases the likelihood that I’ll actually use it. And, I’m using Concentrate as I write this.

Posted by Erin on Jan 27, 2010 | 25 Comments | Tweet This

E-mailing yourself reminders for future actions with Google Calendar

In the comments section of an old post, reader Diana recently left a tip about a creative way to use Google Calendar in conjunction with Gmail. Since the post might be off your radar screens, I wanted to highlight it on the main page because I found it to be a terrific tip.

Simply stated, she suggests that if there is a future action you wish to accomplish (call your mom each Sunday, pick up the dry cleaning, follow up about a job lead) that you add it as a single or recurring event in Google Calendar with an e-mail reminder. In Google Calendar, select “Create Event” in the left-hand column be sure to set the reminder to “E-mail.” It might look like this:

I really appreciate reminders that are pushed into my e-mail account because I have a tendency to forget to check my calendar, especially when I’m traveling. Google Calendar also has a nice feature where you can have your daily calendar e-mailed to you each morning.

Posted by Erin on Jan 4, 2010 | 35 Comments | Tweet This

Cure your e-mail addiction

I ran across an image yesterday on 43folders that I wanted to share with you:

If you check your e-mail every 5 minutes when you’re at work, then you are checking it 12 times an hour. Multiply 12 times an hour by 8 hours a work day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (assuming you aren’t checking your e-mail while you’re on your two weeks of vacation) and this is how Merlin determined the 24,000 total.

If you’re checking your e-mail 24,000 times a year, what are you sacrificing? What are you not working on during that time? Could you reduce your rate to every 15 minutes (a yearly total of 8,000) and be more productive with other aspects of your job? Could you reduce it to once an hour (2,000)? Three times a day (750)?

How often are you checking e-mail currently? If you don’t know, track your productivity to see how you’re really spending your time at work.

How can you break an e-mail addiction? Start by turning off your notification indicator and setting an alarm for every 15 minutes. Only check your e-mail when the alarm indicates you do so. Every client I’ve worked with has found that they will not face any trouble at work if they only check e-mail on a 15-minute or 30-minute schedule. Most come to find that once an hour is sufficient, but it takes awhile for them to build up confidence to make this change. I try to check my e-mail fewer than 5 times a day (some days I’m more successful than others).

What will you do with your newly discovered time? Simply taking the time to plan your perfect day will help you manage your time more wisely.

Posted by Erin on Dec 15, 2009 | 31 Comments | Tweet This

Do you do your most important work first?

Late Friday morning, our Internet connection bit the dust. A tree in the forest behind our house decided it no longer had the will to live and fell over, uprooting and destroying our FiOS line with it.

Conveniently, the tree fell minutes after I had finished my “must complete these tasks or lose my job” items on my to-do list. I had a lot of work left to do in the day, but all of it could wait until the connection was re-established or until I made it to the local coffee shop that has free WiFi.

While I was driving to the coffee shop, I thought about how getting the most important work out of the way first saved me a great deal of frustration. Had I put off the most important work, I would have been angry and stressed and worked into a frenzy about nature simply being nature. Instead, I was more entertained than anything else. A dead tree took out my connection — possibly the best reason ever for losing service.

I structure my day by doing the most important tasks first. This means I sit down at my computer and start writing before checking e-mail, Twitter, voice mail, or even comments on Unclutterer. If I’m at my desk at 6:00 a.m., I won’t get to the other tasks until usually 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. These other activities are a reward for getting through the high priority assignments.

When I leave work at the end of the day, I’ll often open up the most important task for the following day and place it at the center of my screen. (I learned this tip from Glen Stansberry, I would like to note.) Then, when I sit down to work in the morning, I can immediately start on what I need to do.

How do you structure your work day? Do you get your most important tasks completed first thing in the morning? Or, do you procrastinate and put off the hard work hoping that maybe it will just go away? Tell us how you structure your work and what works best for you in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Nov 2, 2009 | 45 Comments | Tweet This

Excerpt: Participating in Meetings

Below is another excerpt from my book Unclutter Your Life in One Week — this time on how to efficiently participate in a meeting.

This is from the Wednesday chapter, “Communication Processes” section:

“You might not realize it, but meeting attendees have some control over how quickly a meeting runs and they certainly impact the quality of the discussion.

  • Be prepared. Read the agenda at least a day in advance of the meeting. Come to the meeting with relevant materials. Have a pen and pad of paper with you. Turn your BlackBerry to vibrate. Know who else will be at the meeting. Know the goal of the meeting, its location, and its start time. Arrive at the meeting on time.
  • Respect others. How many times have you been in a meeting where a presenter has had to repeat information because Gary and Stephanie were focusing on their laptops instead of paying attention the first time something was said? Not only does this type of distraction waste Gary’s and Stephanie’s time, but it also wastes the time of everyone attending the meeting. Focus your attention on who is speaking. Make eye contact. Show that you’re listening. Avoid making snide comments to your neighbor. If you’re having trouble concentrating, write down in excruciating detail everything the speaker is saying. It will give you something to do, and you can review your detailed notes later if you spaced out on what was being said.
  • Think before you speak. Before you contribute to a conversation in a meeting, ask yourself: 1) Is this comment helpful and relevant to the topic being discussed right now? (If it’s not, save it for after the meeting.) 2) Will this comment be helpful to everyone in the room or just one individual? (If the comment is only helpful to one person, save everyone else’s time and talk to that specific person after the meeting.) 3) Can I craft my comment so that it takes less than thirty seconds to express? (If you can’t, keep crafting. If you’re not presenting, your comments should be brief.)”

What do you do during meetings to help speed them along? Add your ideas to the comments.

Posted by Erin on Oct 27, 2009 | 19 Comments | Tweet This

Excerpt: Eight strategies to stop procrastinating

The following is an excerpt from my book Unclutter Your Life in One Week, which comes out next week on November 3. If you have pre-ordered the book, THANK YOU! and also don’t forget to sign up to receive the special PDF bonus worksheets. And, to let you know, the electronic Kindle version is now available for pre-order (still no word on the other e-book formats).

Now, on with the excerpt from the Thursday chapter, “Working While at Work” section of the book:

“… try these strategies for improving your productivity when you don’t really want to work:

  • Similar to what you might do when exercising, play music with a fast rhythm.
  • If you drink caffeine, consume it in small, frequent amounts instead of just one large cup at the beginning of the day.
  • Set time-specific goals in two-, five-, or ten-minute increments. Identify what you want to accomplish in a very short amount of time, and then set a timer and go for it.
  • Isolate yourself. Remove the desire to procrastinate by not having any other options but to work.
  • Acknowledge that you’re procrastinating. Often, just realizing that you’re putting something off is enough to get you working.
  • Challenge a colleague to see who can get the most work done in a set time period.
  • Ask someone to help you stay accountable. There are professional motivators who will call you once a day to see how you’re doing, but a trusted and willing friend or coworker can do the same thing for free.
  • If the task doesn’t require much though, listen to an audiobook while you work. Agree to only listen to the book when you’re working on the project you don’t want to do. This way, you’ll be interested in hearing more of the story each time you take on the undesirable task.”

Posted by Erin on Oct 27, 2009 | 10 Comments | Tweet This

How stress can benefit your productivity

Earlier this month, the article “Stress and productivity: friends or enemies?” on the site HR Management caught my attention. In it, writer Matt Buttell defines productivity as the equation:

Productivity = outputs / inputs (within a time period, quality considered)

He then goes on to claim that stress — both rational and misplaced — impacts the inputs variable in the equation. Stress can help you to be motivated and creative (Only two more hours to get this done, let’s get working!), but it also can make you freak out about small, irrelevant factors in your work (Who keeps putting the hole punch away? Can’t you see I’m using it!).

Buttell goes on to quote a 1999 study by Robert Ostermann, professor of psychology at FDUU’s Teaneck-Hackensack Campus, on the link between stress and productivity:

No one reaches peak performance without being stressed, whether an athlete, an office worker or a manager.

Looking at your average day, how do you manage stress to let it work to your advantage? How do you use stress to influence your inputs variable?

Posted by Erin on Oct 20, 2009 | 23 Comments | Tweet This

Keep notes close with a pocket briefcase

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a huge fan of using 3×5 cards to capture and organize tasks and ideas, but they can be somewhat inconvenient to use. Various cases and Hipster PDAs attempt to make note cards easily accessible, but they rely on carrying around yet another item in your pocket.

Last year, I picked up a Pocket Briefcase, which has now become one of my favorite organizational tools. Instead of carrying around a wallet and a stack of note cards, I’m able to carry just a wallet, because the cards fit inside. This particular briefcase has a pocket for cash, slots for a few debit and ID cards, and two pockets to organize used cards. I recently went on a trip out of the US and discovered that my Pocket Briefcase will even fit my passport.

20091006-pocket-briefcase-2

This works for me because even when I don’t want to carry a notebook, I’m always carrying my wallet, so I’m never without a pen and paper. If you use note cards with your personal information on them, then you’re carrying business cards too!

Levenger’s pocket briefcase isn’t cheap, so if you want to see if this kind of tool will work for you without spending a lot of money, you can find similar items in many stores that carry office supplies.

Posted by Brian on Oct 12, 2009 | 22 Comments | Tweet This

Routine cards to help kids organize their schedule

Website LivingLocurto has a wonderful set of cards to help young children establish a morning routine. The Kid’s Morning Routine free printable cards are a simple way to help organized habits get started early:

There is also free for download on the site a beautiful After School Routine Poster. Check out more back-to-school printables from Living Locurto.

(Image from Living Locurto. And, a special thanks to LobotoME for the introducing me to these wonderful free prints.)

Posted by Erin on Sep 29, 2009 | 33 Comments | Tweet This

Free time-tracking applications

Keeping track of how you spend your time is a necessity when you’re billing segments of your workday to multiple clients, but it’s also valuable for determining your efficiency and productivity. Lifehacker recently reviewed and rated the Five Best Time-Tracking Applications and awarded Klok (free and usable on all platforms) as the top application:

Built with Adobe AIR, Klok is a lightweight and cross-platform tracking solution. You can create a hierarchy of projects and sub-projects in the task-management sidebar and then track the time spent on each by dragging and dropping them into the workflow for the day. While you can delve into the details of each block of time, simple adjustments like expanding the amount of time you’ve worked on a project is as easy as grabbing the edge of the block with your mouse and tugging it down.

Also on their list are Manic Time (Windows), SlimTimer (web-based), RescueTime (Windows and Mac), and Project Hamster (Linux). All five of the applications mentioned in the article are free to access or download.

If you haven’t tracked your time before, I recommend keeping records for at least two weeks to see how you spend your time. The data you will acquire will give you insight into your most productive hours of the day, your low-performance times, when people tend to interrupt you, and how much time you waste during an average day. Then, you can start to tweak your work habits to get the most out of your time in the office.

Posted by Erin on Sep 23, 2009 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

Recovering from an e-mail interruption

The October issue of Real Simple magazine quotes a Microsoft and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study that claims it takes 17 minutes “for a worker interrupted by e-mail to get back to what she was doing.”

If this statistic is true, and I know from experience that there is a refractory time after any distraction, it is strong evidence against leaving the notification alert active on your e-mail program. Instead, you should schedule time in your day to check your e-mail. Based on the type of office environment you work in, you might need to check your e-mail at the top of every hour. However, most people can get by only checking their e-mail two to four times during the work day.

I also recommend checking e-mail during the times when you are usually distracted during the day. Whether this is when others tend to interrupt you or when your mind typically wanders on its own, it’s best not to try to do high-functioning activities when you plan to work through your e-mail inbox. For me, this is right after lunch when I find it difficult to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. I check e-mail, return phone calls, and do a little bit of filing.

Try turning off the notification alert on your e-mail system and only checking e-mail on a schedule and see if it improves your productivity. If the interruption refractory period really is 17 minutes, you should immediately notice significant gains in your focus.

Posted by Erin on Sep 17, 2009 | 23 Comments | Tweet This

Flattening the Never Finishing Monster

We want to again welcome guest author Alex Fayle, the writer and professional organizer behind the helpful anti-procrastination website Someday Syndrome. This is his third post of three in a series on fighting procrastination.

We’ve vanquished the Getting Started Monster, conquered the No Momentum Monster and now all that’s left is to finish up. You’ve uncluttered your space and managed to keep at it until everything is nicely streamlined. You’ve even put things back where they belong.

Well, almost everything. You have a few things that don’t fit in your current storage spaces, so you’ve left them on top of your desk while you figure out what type of storage you need for them exactly.

And then months pass with them still on your desk. A few bits and bobs not done don’t really matter you tell yourself every time you see the pile of things waiting to be given a home.

But it does matter because from that pile of things not put away the clutter starts to grow again, creeping out from that spot to take over the office again.

When we don’t finish projects we leave the door open to chaos. We let the Never Finishing Monster into our lives and everything around the place needs just a few adjustments to finish, but nothing’s totally completed. The baseboard is missing on the living room trim. The bedroom needs curtains. The email inbox still has a few dozen messages from two months ago waiting to be looked at.

Why don’t we totally finish? Because often we leave the fiddly bits to the end, the stuff that we’re not quite sure what to do with, or the stuff that we hate doing.

Dedicating Time

Fortunately, unlike getting started and moving forward, there is a trick to kill the Never Finishing Monster — it’s called the Get It Done Sprint.

I use this all the time with my writing. I’ll start a project and move it forward slowly and steadily but as I get closer to the end of something I slow down to a crawl that wouldn’t win a race against 80 year old snails.

When I notice that I’ve reached this point, I schedule a block of time (for my writing projects a week is usually a good amount of time) where I dedicate several hours a day getting the project done. The Never Finishing Monster doesn’t stand a chance against such dedicated effort.

It’s like the end of a 10km race — you pace yourself throughout the race until the finish line comes into sight and you sprint to the end.

Apply this same thinking to your organizing projects. When you almost reach the end, change your approach to the project and commit to getting it done within a very specific (and very short) timeframe. Schedule a day to go buy the supplies you need and enlist (or hire) help to put in that extra bit of effort to wrap up the project.

And don’t delay. Schedule the sprint as soon as possible. The longer you leave the project unfinished, the less likely you’ll get around to it and the more likely all your hard work will undo itself.

So tell me, what’s left to get finished in your house and when will you schedule the Get It Done Sprint that will squash the Never Finishing Monster flat?

Posted by Alex on Sep 15, 2009 | 9 Comments | Tweet This