Everyone seems to think I am super organised, both at work and at home. I am that person who always arrives early, always has a spare pen and a colour-coded laminated holiday itinerary (which in my defence I think is a must for any Disney holiday)
I think I am possibly just anxious about forgetting to do things or not getting them done on time which creates the illusion of me being organised – or maybe forces me to be organised.
I love a list, I mean I seriously love a list. I have been known to have a list of the lists I need to create. And even though the world offers lots of high-tech options I don’t think you can beat a good old fashioned pen and paper list – one that you then get to tick off items when they are completed. And yes, like you, I will add things to the list which I have already completed purely to get the satisfaction of ticking them off. So “at home” the majority of my lists are still handwritten – but “at work” I use a project management tool for all my To Do’s (which is great as I then get to add things to other people’s list for them…..) We currently used Freedcamp but I have also used Asana and Basecamp and they all work well for managing tasks.
I don’t like a full inbox and treat it as an old fashioned In Box. If I don’t need to action an email, it is read and placed in another folder, if I don’t need to action it straight away, I will use Boomerang for Gmail to bring it back to my inbox when I do want to action it. The only emails I keep in my inbox are ones that I need to action or answer. The search facilities within email providers are excellent so it is easy to hunt down that email from months ago to check if the hoover has broken down one month before the end of the warranty period or two days afterwards.
Hootsuite is great for scheduling your social media and lets you post to multiple channels in one go and is much easier and quicker than logging in and out of all the various platforms.
Slack is great for communicating with colleagues, so much quicker and easier than emails – and there isn’t the expectation of nice intros and chit chat so you can just get straight to the point. It lets you share files, create reminders and now even links to your calendar!
A smartphone is both a blessing and a curse for work. It’s great that you can access work when you are away from your desk and means you can fill productively those ten mins you spend waiting in the car for your child’s dance or karate club to finish – but also means it can be harder to switch off so I don’t allow many work-based notifications on my phone.
I will also use some tried and testing time management strategies that work for me. If there is a task I don’t want to do – I make it my first take of the day, so I don’t spend the day with the thought of it hanging over me. I’ll pepper in some “easy to tick off” tasks between the larger tasks so I feel like I am making progress and completing things during my working day. These seem easy to apply in a work setting rather than in the home however where there are always some non-urgent, continually put off items, lurking on my To Do List.