Archives for Time Management
And the winner of the FranklinCovey briefcase giveaway is …
Thank you to EVERYONE (all 1294 of you!) who participated in our FranklinCovey briefcase giveaway. We never expected so many entries! Wow!
At 10:00 a.m. ET this morning, I closed the comments and counted up the entries. Then, I headed over to the Random Integer Generator at random.org and entered in the data:
Out popped the following number:
#697 — Steven
I have contacted the winner and he will be receiving his prize from FranklinCovey early next week. Congratulations to our winner and thank you to FranklinCovey for their generosity!
As I mentioned yesterday, if you weren’t a winner, be sure to check out the FranklinCovey’s biggest sale of the year that is currently being held. Some items are as much as 70 percent off their regular price. If you need to get your schedule organized, now is a great time to take advantage of their biggest sale of the year.
Popularity: 10% [?]
FranklinCovey briefcase giveaway
The wonderful people at FranklinCovey recently contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in giving away a briefcase to one of our readers. Compared to most of the offers I get to give things away, this is definitely the most expensive offer we’ve ever had. So, I took them up on their generous offer to get a briefcase into one of our reader’s hands.
The briefcase is the Tyson Laptop Bag in black and it retails for $189 (see, I told you they were being generous). Check out the link for specific product details.
To enter for a chance to win one of the briefcases, simply leave ONE comment to this post indicating that you want to participate in the drawing. On Thursday, June 18, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. ET, I will enter the number of comments into the Random Integer Generator at random.org and select one random winner. Good luck!
Also, if you turn out not to be a winner (or even if you are), be sure to check out the FranklinCovey’s biggest sale of the year that is currently being held. Some items are as much as 70 percent off their regular price. If you need to get your schedule organized, now is a great time to get FranklinCovey products for a little less dough.
Warning: If you leave a comment to this post that isn’t an entry, I will DELETE it. Nothing personal, I just don’t want to select a winner who isn’t interested in participating in the giveaway.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Recovering from a productivity plunge
Since late November, I’ve been writing a book. I recently turned in the manuscript to my publisher, and I have gone from working hard 14-hour days 7 days a week back to working manageable 8-hour days 5 days a week. (The book comes out November 3, and I’ll give more information about it as the publishing date gets closer. I am really excited about it.)
Unfortunately, as my responsibilities have plummeted in the last two weeks, so has my productivity. It’s now taking me three to four times longer to do routine and simple tasks. My mind is wandering, I’m in no rush to get anything done, and yesterday, for the first time in over a year, a post went up on the site 30 minutes late.
In 1957, Professor C. Northcote Parkinson wrote of this phenomenon in his book Parkinson’s Law and Other Studies in Administration. The opening sentence of his book proclaims the culmination of his research, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” And, since I am carrying a significantly lighter load of work, it’s taking me unreasonable amounts of time to do it.
Part of this decrease in productivity is probably healthy. For six months, I was pushing myself unusually hard. However, it’s time for me to get my bum back into gear and return to a regular level of efficiency.
To do this, I’m taking the following steps:
- Planning my new perfect day.
- Using a timer and music to motivate me to do my work in a speedy manner.
- Using my project management software for the smallest of tasks.
- Giving myself permission to leave work whenever I finish at any point after 3:00 p.m.
Have you noticed that your productivity takes a dive after the completion of a large project? Is Parkinson’s Law true for you? What do you do to turn this around?
Popularity: 13% [?]
Desktop timers help with productivity
One of my favorite productivity strategies is to set a timer and see how much I can get done before a buzzer sounds. I used to keep a timer from my days as a high school debater on my desk. It had a magnet on the back, and I just stuck it to my bulletin board when it wasn’t in use.
Then, I dropped my timer and the digital face distorted to only read 88:88. The thing was close to 20 years old, so I couldn’t be too upset that the $4 piece of equipment had failed.
To replace my beloved timer, I decided to download a program called Alarm Clock 2 by Robbie Hanson for my Mac. (A comparable program for the PC is XNote Stopwatch and you can find a review of the program on Texas-based professional organizer Lorie Marrero’s blog.) I chose Alarm Clock 2 because it is free to download and it does everything I want it to do.
There is an alarm feature (which I use to remind me to break for lunch), a timer (to help me stay focused on a task), and a stopwatch (to help me keep track of how I’m spending my time). I like that I can set the alarms and buzzers to be songs from my iTunes folder, and that I can have them change volume based on how long they have been “ringing.”
If you haven’t used a timer before to help you with your productivity, I highly recommend using one. After lunch, when my energy level takes a nose dive, I like to set the timer for 10 minutes and see if I can finish all of my filing before the music starts playing. I also set a timer during phone calls to help me stay on topic and keep the business call to under 15 minutes. I also like to make sure that I’m spending the majority of my day (close to 80 percent) behind my desk completing important tasks that help me to advance my goals. I know that I’m procrastinating or avoiding the big-picture items when less-important tasks start filling more than 20 percent of my work day.
Do you use a computer-based timer to help you be more productive? What program do you use and why do you like it? Share your experiences in the comments.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Fake plants: Erin’s secret timesaver
When I decided to get clutter out of my life — physical, mental, time, and productivity clutter — I did it because I wanted to have more time and room in my life for the things that matter most to me. There are only 24 hours in the day, and I want to spend the majority of my waking hours doing what I value and find important.
Sure, there are chores (about 30 minutes a day) I don’t love, but doing them keeps stress and other negative effects out of my life. My overall life is better because I have routines in place to take care of the not-so-great parts.
One thing I don’t like doing is gardening or anything to do with the yard. I know that some people love gardening and are horrified that I don’t like it, but I enjoy things that I’m sure they have no interest in doing (cheese making, doing stand up comedy, reading mystery novels, playing the pedal steel guitar). We’re all different, which is what makes unclutterers so great.
Since I’m not fond of gardening, I have fake plants in all of the flower boxes on the front of my house. These are high-end fake plants. Even when you’re standing inches away from them, you have no idea that they’re not real. But, unlike real plants, I don’t have to do anything to maintain their beauty.
- No watering.
- No weeding.
- No dying plants.
- No plant diseases or pests.
- No maintenance.
If you’re interested in sprucing up a flower box with fake plants, follow these tips to make it so that no one on your block has any idea:
- Use high-end fake plants. If it looks bad in the store, it’s going to look bad in your flower box. The French make the world’s best fake plants, and if you can afford them, buy them. My favorite is Trousselier at 73 blvd Haussmann in Paris. If heading to France isn’t in your future (Trousselier doesn’t have an online shop), check out your local craft store and be very picky about what makes it into your cart.
- Buy plants, not flowers. You don’t have to worry about things blooming in the wrong season if nothing blooms. And, even when they are very well made, fake flowers can still look fake.
- Only display the plants during appropriate seasons. If a fern wouldn’t be growing outdoors in January, don’t have a fake fern outdoors in January. Store it into a garbage bag in your garage, and put it back out in the spring.
- Only buy fake plants that could grow in your region.
- Take the time to plan out and landscape your flower box before you go shopping for fake plants. You want the plants to look as natural as possible.
- Buy fake plants with realistic looking imperfections. Not every leaf on a plant is the exact same shade of green, and sometimes a leaf or two is brown. Nature isn’t perfect, and neither should your fake plants be.
- “Plant” your fake plants in gravel with fake moss or fake grass as ground cover. Weeds won’t grow in rocks, but they will grow in dirt. If you “plant” in dirt, you’re still going to have to pick out weeds.
Okay, now you know my time-saving secret. Where do you cut corners to free up time in your schedule to pursue the things that matter most to you?
(My apologies about the picture being small. It was hard to line up an image that didn’t flash my neighbors’ license plates to the internet.)
Popularity: 21% [?]
Not getting things done? Try WSD
I want to welcome guest author Tim Chase and his “family friendly” version of WSD. His system is just as simple, just as much fun, but with a less-adult vocabulary.
Thanks to my local public library, I’ve joined the ranks of folks who have read David Allen’s Getting Things Done. However I became bogged down in the implementation details. Then I stumbled across this article on smallist.com and in a lightbulb moment I recognized it as a similar technique I’ve watched my father use for years.
Failed by GTD
Overwhelmed by GTD’s buzzwords (contexts, ubiquitous capture, tickler files, 43-folders, buckets, etc), the simplicity of WSD is appealing:
- Find something to write on.
- Find something to write with.
- Finally, and most importantly, WRITE STUFF DOWN.
GTD also seems to promote beautiful yet expensive implements — PDA/smart-phones, Moleskine® notebooks, space-pens. WSD has no such pretensions. While you can use your PDA/smart-phone, your Moleskine or your space-pen, you can certainly employ a wide varity of writing surfaces and implements.
Writing Surfaces
Write on whatever is handy — 3×5 cards (Hipster PDA-ized or otherwise), Post-It® note pads, cheap spiral-bound pocket notepads, envelopes, margins of newspapers or magazines, or even paper-towels, napkins, tissues or toilet-paper in desperation. You can carry them with you at all times or just as needed. I prefer to only carry paper when I know I may not have something on which I can write. A box of old business cards and a small whiteboard in the kitchen for grocery lists; page-a-day calendar sheets in the study for to-do lists; a small tablet by the bedside and in the car; Post-It pads at work. For other places, I simply take a little pocket-sized notepad (a four-pack at the local dollar-store).
Things on which you should not write your important brain-droppings: receipts, bills you have to pay, cheques, paper currency, contracts, library books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the Magna Carta. Unless you copy them off ASAP to something less transient (and in the case of library books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, or important constitutional documents, I suggest removing your writing from them first).
Writing Implements
Writing implements also abound — while you can use your space-pen, that $180 gold-encrusted beast engraved with your name and business, or your favorite Hello Kitty® glittery gel pen with the glow-in-the-dark purple ink, I lean toward the cheap and abundant options. You’re not illuminating monastic manuscripts, you’re getting an idea out of your head and onto paper. Out and about, I usually carry a Papermate® medium-point point pen because they write well and come in 12-packs for under $2 (USD). Occasionally, I augment with a #2 automatic-pencil, also obtained in multi-packs under $2 (USD). I’ve found that the long narrow “tool pockets” in carpenter jeans/shorts hold my writing implements so they don’t jab my thighs like a regular front pocket can. And they make for a snazzy quick-draw holster effect when you whip out a pen on demand.
Depending on your location, you may find you don’t need to carry a writing implement. We keep stashes of implements around the house — in the nightstands, in the desk, in the catch-all drawer, in the bill drawer, in the cars, etc. If you’re the type who steals pens from coworkers and banks, cut that out. Or, at least give them back. At conferences, many companies hand out business-branded pens for free. In addition to the craft-boxes, parents likely find crayons under foot, in couch cushions, up noses, and on the floor under little Johnny’s wall-art. For those who do their best thinking in the shower, you can find shower/tub crayons to scrawl on the shower wall.
Conclusion
Get something to write on. Get something to write with. Write stuff down.
Popularity: 22% [?]
Freedom from distractions
When faced with a project at work that you don’t want to do, it’s easy to jump online and procrastinate. Games, YouTube videos, and Facebook can suck away hours of your life when you really should be working. I confess that I have been tempted out of doing something more productive on many occasions.
Since our employers pay us to work and not goof off, though, we have an obligation to stay focused (at least most of the time). If getting down to work is difficult for you and jumping online is your preferred method of procrastination, you should check out Freedom for the Mac.
A description from the Freedom website.
Freedom is an application that disables networking on an Apple computer for up to eight hours at a time. Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, allowing you time to code, write, or create. At the end of your selected offline period, Freedom re-enables your network, restoring everything as normal.
Freedom enforces freedom; a reboot is the only circumvention of the Freedom time limit you specify. The hassle of rebooting means you’re less likely to cheat, and you’ll enjoy enhanced productivity.
Have you tried Freedom? How do you keep from jumping online when you don’t feel like being productive? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Tuesday is the workplace stress day
I quote lines from the movie Office Space at least once a week. I saw the movie almost 10 years ago, and it’s still running through my head. It’s a good bet that at some point today, I’ll tell someone they have a “case of the Mondays” in a high-pitched, super grating tone.
Researchers in Britain have found, however, that it’s not Mondays we should dread, but Tuesday mornings at 11:45. This is the most stressful time of the work week. We zoom through Monday still on weekend mode and don’t really get down to business until Tuesday.
Graham Waters, whose firm polled 3,000 adults for the study, explains in The Telegraph:
“Traditionally people associate Monday as the worst day of the week, but this doesn’t seem to be the case – coasting through Monday means we’re worse off on Tuesday – both in terms of workloads and stress levels.
“We lead such fast-paced lives that stress naturally runs side by side with this – especially when it comes to work.
“Tuesday at 11:45am seems to be the time in the day when the real workload for the week hits employees and as a result stress levels rise.
“The study also revealed Tuesday as the day when workers are most likely to work through their lunch break due to the realisation they have a busy week ahead.”
The best way to avoid the 11:45 Tuesday stress pile up is to get down to business on Monday. Regular routines can help you be productive even when you’d rather be surfing Facebook.
Do you agree or disagree with the poll’s findings? Will knowing this information change your behavior? Do you have an established routine? Tell us what you think in the comments.
Image from the movie Office Space.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Chalk it up!
Etsy artist Mary Kate McDevitt has three inspiring goal chalkboards for sale that are functional and adorable:
If she sells out before you can nab one (they’re only $25) or you like the idea but they aren’t exactly your style, consider making your own. Get a chalkboard and then use acrylic paint markers to add your favorite text.
Or, you can get some chalkboard paint and paint a square directly on your wall or on the back of a door. We discussed a similar project in “Organize your life on your wall.”
I’m someone who is allergic to chalk dust, so when I was a teacher I always used chalk markers. Even if you aren’t allergic to chalk dust, these are great for keeping your hands and desk drawers clean.
(Mary Kate McDevitt’s shop found via Modish)
Popularity: 13% [?]
Plan projects with a Work Breakdown Structure
I enjoy leading a project. Setting the goal, defining scope, and then using my favorite piece of the planning process: creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
Before you get to who’s going to do what and the schedule, the WBS allows you to take a project and break it into smaller, more manageable pieces. You end up with an organized, visual display of the main pieces of your project.
How it works: Once you define your final date for the project, your next step is to define the scope or magnitude of that project. How big is it? What will the project include? If your goal is to have a wedding by June 30, 2009, your scope might include dinner, invitations, decorations, entertainment, and a ceremony.
To further define the scope, a WBS offers a system to map out the work in detail. A simple way to think about it is by asking: What are the key deliverables — tangible and intangible things — that will result from the project? What will it take to get the project done?
A WBS also includes a logical list of tasks, that when completed, roll up to the deliverable. For example, the entertainment deliverable for the wedding event above might look like this:
1.0 Entertainment
- 1.1 Research bands.
- 1.2 Select band.
- 1.3 Create preferred song list.
The beauty of the WBS is that it can be used for relatively small projects (like organizing your garage), as well as large projects (like developing a piece of software).
You can create a WBS in most of the project software tools out there, or you can create one of your own on paper or in a document program like Word. On the work front, a WBS can be part of your project planning for anything from an office move to building a bridge. The more complex the project is, the more useful the WBS is to ensure that the main pieces of the project puzzle are captured.
Do you use WBSs on your projects? Let us know your experience in the comments area.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Consistency = Success In Organizing, Golf and Life
Today we again welcome the phenomenal Monica Ricci as a guest author on Unclutterer. She’s the organizing adviser for Office Depot and Beazer Homes, and you may have seen her on HGTV’s Mission Organization. A professional organizer hailing from Atlanta, I’m happy to call her a friend and to have her share her uncluttering wisdom with our readers.
Some time in the late 80s, my first husband taught me to golf, and I discovered something countless people already knew: Golf is hard! In fact, it’s the most difficult sport I’ve ever learned, with the possible exception of hang gliding, but that’s a whole other (horrible scraped-and-bloody-legs) story that maybe I’ll tell sometime after I’ve had too much to drink. But I digress…
What Joe taught me about golf is that to be a successful golfer, you have to learn a bunch of new skills and combine them properly to get the results you want. Your stance, your grip, your head position, your back swing, your swing, and follow-through all have to be just right to get the ball to go where you want it to. If one of those skills isn’t right, the ball will hook, slice, or burn some worms. In short, you get a less than desirable result. To be a good golfer, it’s important to learn proper fundamentals and combine them well, so that when you practice, you’re practicing good habits rather than deeply ingraining BAD habits.
The same is true in life and organizing. Your success is deeply dependent on the habits you create over time. The way you manage your time is a habit, and all the daily routines you’ve developed to manage your life and your work are all just habits. If you look objectively at the state of any area of your life from the condition of your home, office, or car, to your relationships, your finances, or your health and fitness, what you see are the results of your habits. If you love what you see, then do more of whatever you’re doing!
On the other hand, if what you see isn’t so terrific, sorry to say, that’s also the result of your habits. If your habits haven’t created the life and results you want, it’s time to change them. Here’s how to make a change in three simple steps…
- Pay Attention In The Moment. If you mentally “check-in” with what you do on a daily basis in the midst of your routines, you’ll notice that you do things without even realizing it. Some of those ingrained habits are positive (putting the cap back on the toothpaste or putting the seat down without even thinking) while some others aren’t so great (throwing the mail on the kitchen counter and ignoring it for a few days, trying to throw together meals on the fly, writing phone messages on scraps of paper that you end up losing, trying to keep up with multiple calendars).
- Choose a Different Thought In The Moment. Once you notice what you’re doing, you’re halfway there! Your thoughts created those habitual behaviors, and therefore your thoughts can create new ones. For example, change your thinking from: “I’ll just put this here for now and handle it later” to “I’ll take a minute and handle this now.” Change “I’ll remember that appointment in my head” to “I’ll add that to my calendar now so I don’t have to remember it.”You’ll be AMAZED at how powerful this one specific change is! As long as you just pay attention to yourself, you’ll be able to hear those thoughts that precede the ineffective behavior.
- Choose A Different Behavior In The Moment. Habits are the behaviors generated by thoughts. If you change your thoughts, you can change your behaviors. This is where your power lives. You can change your thinking (which is GREAT!) but unless you ACT on that change, your results will stay the same.
The secret sequence to change a habit is:
- Pay attention.
- Choose a new thought.
- Act on that new thought.
- Repeat.
Once you apply that sequence to a few of your negative habits a handful of times, your new behavior will begin to be the new “default” — you’ll replace your old habits with powerful new ones, which will create a totally new result in your life.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Ruthless Simplicity: How to ward off doing more and burning out
Once again, I want to welcome the incredible Danielle LaPorte (author of the blog White Hot Truth) to Unclutterer. Read a more complete biography of her at the end of this article.
Last year was a biggie for me. I released a book, did speaking gigs in a dozen different cities, raised a bunch of money for my internet company, left that company for a new solo venture, and still made time to build forts and Popsicle stick boxes with my little boy. I knew that if I didn’t stand guard against the potential time, energy and stuff clutter that was coming my way, I was going to go berserk.
My initial inclination to planning for business growth was to do more. Work more hours. Put my kid into more programs. Just cram more into my life for a period of time. You know, weather the beautiful storm. But this time, I stopped myself. Maybe it’s maturity that brought me to my senses. Or maybe it’s all the sinus infections I’ve had from being over-worked. Or it’s the plethora of plastic toys and unanswered email that’s crept in while I’ve been juggling an ever-increasing more-ness to my life. But I finally had my eureka revelation and (I know, it may sound daft, you may have already mastered this incredibly obvious life lesson), but I finally realized that a girl can only do so much. Uh-huh.
When the going gets busy, the wise ones simplify … with a vengeance.
Managing chaos with beauty, quality, and ruthless simplicity:
- Commit to your creativity. This may sound like it should be the last priority on your packed to-do-list. When we’re busy, the creative things are usually the first to go, but creativity is like a super vitamin juice for the soul - a little bit goes a long way. Whether it’s just a love note that you write on a napkin, or some flowers you arrange for the dinner table – find little ways to keep your creative nature alive. Beauty-making helps you keep things in perspective.
- Get the best tools. Whether its more computer memory, a comfortable back pack, or a bus pass, invest in the best of what you use the most. Any carpenter will tell you that a house is easier to build with a sharp saw.
- Have it delivered. What last minutes trips and essential to-dos are consistently causing you stress? There’s probably a service to solve that dilemma:
- Arrange for direct deposits and automatic payments. I go into my bank only a few times a year (no more looking for a parking spot or waiting in line!) We auto-pay utility bills with an air mile-earning credit card, and write just one or two checks a month to the credit card.
- Get a food delivery service. Once a week, the food dude drops off organic veggies, milk and other yummers we’ve ordered. It costs about 5% more than our usual grocery bill, but race-to-the-grocery-store trips before work/daycare/appointments – no more.
- Send gifts through Amazon. It seemed like every girlfriend I have had a baby last year. I sent them all kids books directly through Amazon (you can fill out a gift card that is included with your order.) I give them the more personal, lovey prezzies when I see them in person (and know better what they really need).
- Get DVDs by mail. Now THIS changed my life. No more, “We have to watch this movie tonight,” pressure for the sake of the $5 rental fee. And no more late fees!
- Just say ‘no.’ Really. It’s a magic word.
- Insist on good service. I switched banks because I could never get a human on the phone and it took too long to get my business done. And as much as I liked her, I broke up with my hairdresser. She kept me waiting every single time.
- Give yourself a break. I adore books. I’d eat them if I could. But I actually committed to NOT read books for the first half of my very busy year. I also gave myself permission to be late with returning phone calls for six months. Sweet relief.
If you can see busy times coming, plan to do less, not accommodate more. Refuse to expand, insist on boundaries. Take your soul vitamins – be sure to do the little things that nourish your spirit. Reject anything that doesn’t foster your greatness, and put systems into place that support your freedom. Be ruthless. You’re worth it.
Danielle LaPorte founded www.whitehottruth.com because “self realization rocks.” Her blog is lauded as “kick-ass enlightening.” She is the lead author of the bestseller, Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design. A former think tank executive and communications strategist, Danielle helps entrepreneurs blaze their careers with her signature Fire Starter Sessions.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Make time for organizing work
“Organizing my office is a low priority, I have more important things to do with my time.”
“I don’t have time to organize my office.”
“I just have too much to do to stop and organize my office.”
I bet you’ve heard or said something similar to these statements at least once — maybe more. I know that there have been times in my life when these phrases came across my lips.
Reality may be, however, that the process of organizing your office can actually improve your productivity and also make you a more creative worker (not the results, which also can be beneficial, but simply the process). A few years ago, researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that alternating between mindful work (work that requires intense thought and focus) and mindless work (routine activities that require very little processing power) enhances your efficiency and creativity. Their findings were discussed in the article “Enhancing Creativity Through ‘Mindless’ Work” in the July-August 2006 issue of the journal Organization Science.
The text of the study specifically named organizing processes that count as mindless work:
… performing simple manufacturing line tasks (e.g., filling supply bins), making photocopies, simple cleaning chores (e.g., cleaning laboratory equipment), performing simple maintenance tasks, sorting or collating tasks, and simple service tasks (e.g., unpacking and stocking supplies).
The research concludes:
Such mindless tasks, introduced into otherwise chronically overenriched work, may provide critical opportunities for reflection and reinvigoration.
Changing your focus to simple organizing tasks gives your brain time to mull over more taxing ideas in a relaxed state and gives you energy to propel you to your next round of difficult work.
As you set up your workday tomorrow, try alternating mindful tasks and mindless tasks and see if it improves your overall productivity and creativity. When you get to the points in your schedule when you’re ready for mindless tasks, file or sort through papers, refill your office supplies, and dust off your monitor. Taking the time to organize will give your mind the opportunity to reflect and re-energize, so that you can be a better worker.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Could your productivity benefit from a professional nagger?
We’ve talked in the past about how nagging the people you live with is never a good idea. It’s disrespectful, it upsets you, and it usually angers the person you’re nagging.
But, what if the situation were different and you chose to have someone nag you to keep you from procrastinating? What if you didn’t have any kind of an emotional or physical connection to the person who was nagging you to keep moving?
Last week, I learned about just such a person — a professional nagger. Her name is Rachel Cornell and people pay her to nag them.
She offers a daily nag, a power nag, an on-going nag, a week-long nag, and a community nag. She even has troubleshooting services to help you get over your bump in procrastination. I must be honest, I was flabbergasted to learn that she offered so many nagging options.
One of the reasons I think a professional nagger is an effective idea is because there isn’t a prior relationship between you and the nagger. You don’t have to sit down to dinner with your nagger. You don’t have to worry about what your nagger thinks of you. You have a business relationship with this person, and nothing else.
After learning about Rachel, I did some research and learned that there are hundreds of professional naggers available to nag at people who want their services. If you’re in the market for a push to keep you from procrastinating, do a search for “professional nagger” on Google to find one who might work best for you.
What do you think of a professional nagger? Would you ever use such a service? I definitely think I could have used one in college.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Never again
It is a wise person who can learn as much from failure as success. I try my best to gain what I can from mistakes and botched attempts, but there are times when it takes me more than once to learn a lesson.
Until last week, it never crossed my mind that I could track these failures and learn from them in a more systematic approach. Then, I learned about these:
The actual paper folders are unnecessary, but the fundamental idea behind them are brilliant. After seeing them, I created a folder on my computer called “Never Again.” Then, inside that folder, I made a series of plain text documents: Restaurants, Books, Websites, Ideas, Hotels, Vacations, Wines, and Gifts. In these documents I recorded important notes to myself about mistakes I’ve made in the past.
An excerpt from my “Never Again: Gifts” file –
- Anything with nuts in it for Mary (allergic)
- Massage gift certificate for Katie
- Scented candles for anyone
- Lilies for Dana (allergic)
- Smoking items for David (quit 1/07)
The documents I put inside my “Never Again” file are on subjects that I instantly knew I had information to record. I’m sure that in a couple weeks I’ll have even more documents. Learning from mistakes helps improve productivity, saves time, and keeps us from spinning our wheels. Tracking our mistakes in an organized manner can help us to learn (probably best not to buy anyone a gift with nuts in it) and to free space in our mind to think of something else.
If you’re worried about someone gaining access to your “Never Again” file on your computer, make the file password protected. A simple password will keep your mistakes from becoming public information.
What “Never Again” documents would you create? Do you think this is a way that could help you learn from your mistakes and save you time in the future?
(Via Debbie, a professional organizing coach I follow on twitter. She can be found online at Virtually Organized.)
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