Organization plagues many a soul. Why? Well there are several reasons but the one excuse I hear most often is “I don’t have any time”. During my early professional years I to was unorganized and always behind. I found myself working extra hours and days trying to stay ahead and of course that cut into my personal life. Once this pattern starts it usually leads to stress, job depreciation, and problems at home. As most of us don’t want any of these issues we still delay in trying to fix and control what we can and we end up staying on the hamster wheel never making any ground. What I’ve found is getting organized is a choice and you have to want it! If you read my previous post on change and all of the steps in it you might find some of this familiar. Do you really want to get organized? Ask yourself and answer honestly, are you in the contemplation step? Here are a few ways to assist you. Write things down Although this seems obvious if you monitor yourself closely you’ll see a few, if not many opportunities in this area. This is the first area of focus for me whenever I am developing someone, do they take notes, what kind of note taking, is there any system for prioritizing them? There have been countless times that I have seen people show up at a meeting with nothing to write on, or a piece of loose paper that would get lost afterward, typically these are the ones that cannot stay organized, accomplish goals, or you hear the excuse” I forgot”. Your note taking should have a summary at the end of each session, you must organize and prioritize all that you need to, as well as integrate these with your existing work schedule, goals and priorities. You should also have a pocket form of note taking so that you are always prepared to jot down an idea as it comes to you or to be ready for an impromptu conversation. You also want to integrate these at the end of the day into your main note taking book. Make Schedules/Deadlines You must set up time to write out a schedule to ensure you have ample time to complete tasks and achieve goals. When setting up your schedule make sure you have deadlines for each task so that you can get them completed in a timely fashion. The great Andrew Grove said schedule an hour a day of free time to be able to deal with unexpected scenarios, if there are none then use this time to get ahead. Ill reiterate that wanting to be organized takes work and a lot of it, but you will see that you have more free time and you will feel more accomplished as you will get more done. Start the discipline of writing out daily tasks and stick to it, remember it takes 28 days to create a habit. You are not alone in this, I work with many professionals that struggle in this area and they make improvements daily. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to hire a Life or Business coach to assist you in this Cheers!
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