Being organized is a constant struggle in my life. It’s not that I’m particularly unorganized, but there are several obstacles that make it more difficult. The next few posts will be about obstacles and solutions—or how I manage to stay organized and productive. (People have been asking that question again: How do you do it?)
Obstacle 1: I have more to do than I can actually get done.
At first glance, this will seem like I take too much work upon myself. There are those who would argue that’s exactly what this means. It isn’t so simple. Work needs to be done. A lot of this work is simply mine—for example, nobody else can do my writing or my school work. That’s mine to do. A lot of the work needs to be done, and I’m just the one who is sure to get it done. This includes much of the housework and household administrative tasks. Again, it sounds like this is me taking on more work than I should, but the work I take on each day is only a fraction of the work I could take on each and every day and still leave plenty for the next day.
Being the “big picture” person that I am is a major complicating factor. I see work on three different levels. First, there is the work that requires years of daily or weekly effort to accomplish. Raising my children, continuing my education, writing my books, writing my novels, running my business—these activities involve years’ worth of work. And I see all this work laid out before me. I don’t see all the little details that go into these major tasks, but I do see many of the major steps along the way. This work never ends—at least, not while I am alive. So, no matter how much I do today, there’s always more. These are long-term goals that require a long-term commitment. At this level, organization is primarily used to keep me from being too overwhelmed.
The second level of work is those mid-term goals. This work includes teaching my children specific skills, completing my current class, planning my current book, writing my current novel, and managing and completing my current business-related projects, assignments, and tasks. This level of work includes projects and assignments that will provide me with sufficient daily tasks for months to come. Some projects or goals are longer in scope than others. All require a significant amount of organization to keep me on task.
The third level of work involves daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. Household management tasks generally fall into this category—though there certainly are those mid-term and long-term household-related projects that weigh on my mind as well. Many of these third-tier tasks, whether they are household-related or business-related, are on perpetual repeat. No matter how many dishes I wash today, there will always be more dishes to wash tomorrow. No matter how many blogs I visit today, there will always be new posts to read tomorrow. That sort of thing. Organization is primarily a prioritization task in this arena.
Solution 1a: Find balance by breaking goals down into tasks.
With three layers of tasks, there is a certain balance required. I could fill day after day after day with third-tier work. There are people who live their lives that way, and live them quite contentedly. I’m not one of those people. I like progress; I need accomplishments. I by no means wish to belittled people whose lives are contentedly lived on the third-tier. There is something admirable about that—and their households certainly run more smoothly than does my own. But I’m not particularly skilled at the domestic round, nor am I particularly contented with it. I need to write. And I need that writing to accumulate into big projects—books, novels, collections of short stories and articles and blog posts. And, of course, I could fill day after day after day with second-tier or first-tier work, at the exclusion of all else, but then my family life would be chaotic. I mean, more chaotic than it is.
So, we’re back to balance. In order to live my life well, I must balance first-tier, second-tier, and third-tier work. Generally speaking, I regard second-tier work as the highest priority and third-tier work as the most urgent. First-tier work is accomplished by breaking it down into second- and third-tier work. In order to write my books, I have to start by writing my first book. In order to write my first book, today I must work on the outline of my first chapter. Another example: In order to help my children achieve independence, I have to build a set of skills. In order to build that set of skills, I have to work on this with Willy, that with Alex, and the other thing with Ben. In short, in order to attain balance, I have to break down each tier until I have a lot of third-tier activities. The difference, of course, is that now many of these third-tier activities will accumulate into the accomplishment of second-tier and first-tier activities.
By breaking down first-tier and second-tier goals into third-tier activities, I find myself back to having more work to do than I can actually get done.
Solution 1b: Prioritizing tasks to equal accomplishments.
With so much third-tier work to do, I must prioritize the many tasks into categories of importance and urgency. The hardest thing is not to be so driven by urgency that you neglect important things. I could easily fill my days with urgent matters. The problem is that by spending my time solely on urgent matters my tasks would never accumulate to the achievement of my goals. I could easily fill my days with important matters. The problem is that eventually the neglected urgent matters would eventual compile into an unimaginable monster that consumes me—or I’d trip over that one toy out of the hundreds on the floor that I couldn’t dodge, fall down the stairs and break my neck. Either way it’s a “game over” for me.
I don’t want to be consumed by the urgency monster and I don’t want to have to dodge toys all the time. So, we’re back to balance. I balance important tasks, urgent tasks, and tasks that just need to be done whenever I have a spare moment (these tasks are often neglected until they become urgent).
To do this, I plan my week and create daily to-do lists. Daily, color-coded to do lists. This is where effectively managed OCD becomes a good thing. Really. This is also where I become especially grateful for tools like a Franklin Covey planner and Microsoft’s OneNote.
Then, of course, it’s just a matter of getting to work. Easy, right? Hm.
A very pertinent post for me.
That one-note looks fabulous, but I assume it’s only available through Office 2010, eh? A shame.
My OneNote came with Office Suite 2007. It’s also available in a 2003 format. I believe they can be purchased seperately as well. I would consider the interactive note-taking and list-making a worthwhile investment.
If you like freeware, you might be able to find some similar software, but I couldn’t advise you on what is reliable or functionable.
- July 13, 2010 at 1:06 AM
To Organize (Part 2): Putting Everything Away : Embracing Chaos[...] my previous post, I wrote about how prioritization and balance between important and urgent goals is necessary for [...]
I will use these posts as guides when I move to my dorm room. What I really want right now is a chance to start over, that is, move somewhere else with only the necessities. I have a ton of clutter and need to get rid of it. My mom told me that in college, you get to choose your preferred way of taking notes, which will be great for me. I am going to start out with only 3 classes my first quarter, then move up.
Having that chance to start over does help. I wish you luck finding the organizational strategies that work for you. If you would like my help/encouragement at any part of the process just ask!
BTW, that includes in finding the right system of note taking. It took me about two years to find one that was both effective and not too time-consuming. I tried many different ways in-between and might try some more now that I’m actually in a physical classroom.
“To do this, I plan my week and create daily to-do lists. Daily, color-coded to do lists. This is where effectively managed OCD becomes a good thing. Really. This is also where I become especially grateful for tools like a Franklin Covey planner and Microsoft’s OneNote.”
Stephanie, there is a paradox to this. There is where I run into problems. In order for me to make this to do list I would have to plan when I’m going make this to-do list and try to figure out everything I would have to do. I would need to dedicate time to do this and it could take me a long time. In effect, I would have to add make a to do list to the to do list. We would have an infinite progression this way. If I was to do this would there be another starting point or a way to resolve this paradox?
In addition, what happens when something comes up and you can’t complete everything on the to do list? Things can and do go wrong. This is murphy’s law. How do you handle unexpected events.
Cube Angel,
Yes–to do this you need to put “make to do list” on your to do list.
The recommended way is to start each week making a master to do list (probably on a white board). Then, the night before, select certain items from the master to do list, along with anything that’s already scheduled for that day (appointments, ect.), write a daily to do list for the next day. Anything you don’t get done that day can be put back into the master to do list and tackled another day. It does take time and it does take effort and you would have to make a bunch of little decisions about what you’re going to do each day–but you would also see the progress of getting things done and have a list to help keep you on track.
I do it a bit differently. I don’t make a master to do list. I just plan the next week at the end of the last week (my schedule is Monday-Sunday). Each day has two sheets (Franklin Covey Day Planner), on the left side I write things like “Journal” (to remind myself I’m supposed to make a journal entry every day), “Dishes” (to remind me to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen) and other chores, household tasks, homework assignments, and appointments. On the right, I write down work tasks under headings. “To Do” is in black and includes “Comments” (to remind me to check the places I’ve commented on others’ blogs), “Facebook” (to remind me to log in and connect with friends). “My Writing” is in purple, and includes “Book Work” (to remind me the next step in working on my book), “Novel Work” (ditto for the novel). I also have separate headings for separate smaller projects, like “Dabbling Mum” was on for days as I completed that assignment. Assignments or projects that are not urgent are in blue. Things to build my business are in green. Urgent assignments are in red.
Every Sunday have I have “Plan next week” on the left side and the right side. I plan them separately. As things come up, I pick a day and add them to the list. If I learn about something that isn’t current to this week, I write it down for the week it is in, usually on the monthly page not the actual page. At the beginning of each month, I write all those things down on their respective days, then plan my week.
I would estimate that I now spend about 3-5 hours a week managing my to do list. It took me two years to figure out how to organize it so priorities stand out properly (color coding). I’m still working on limiting myself to writing down only what I can realistically do in a day. It’s a matter of trial and error. It is a commitment. It takes work. But, since I’ve gotten my system down I have not forgotten any to-do task–unless I don’t write it down, which still happens, but only rarely.
If all that sounds overwhelming–and it’s completely reasonable for it to sound overwhelming–start with one project. Say you want to plant a garden. What do you have to do to plant a garden? You need tools, you need seeds and plants, you need to dig, you need to plan how you want your garden…there’s lots of things and each has to be done in a certain order. You can’t dig until you have the tools. You can’t plant until you dig. You shouldn’t dig until you plan how you want it to go, but you shouldn’t do that until you’ve gotten the seeds and plants you’re going to plant. By making a list of the tasks you need to do and the order you need to do them, you can create a master to do list. Then, break it down into a daily to do list. Then, once you get the hang of that, expand your list to include other tasks–recurring ones like dishes, other projects, those special cases like filling out paperwork to get your insurance.
The way I handle unexpected events is to forgive myself for not getting everything done, and then move what I didn’t get done further into the week or save somethings until next week. If you make a point of getting the most urgent things done first each day, then it works. I’ll talk more about this in my third post–but there’ll be another post in between. Distractions! Distractions!
- July 27, 2010 at 12:52 AM
To Organize (Part 3): Getting to Work : Embracing Chaos[...] First, I wrote about how prioritization and balance between important and urgent goals is necessary for my organizational process. Then, I wrote about how I need a system to put things and projects away. Now, I will write about how I go about accomplishing the things on my to-do lists each day. [...]