Organizing stuff

[Neil1993]

Hullo,

right now, I'm starting to get a little (very) overworked. I currently have a full-time job (40 hrs per week) and I'm doing work for a University society which involves design work, team management, speaking at conferences and other events and communicating with outside companies (another 40-50 hrs a week). The job organizes itself since everything is automatically put on Outlook, but not the other stuff.

My current method of organizing myself is writing stuff down in a little agenda. This hasn't been working very well, however. I find that there isn't any room for simultaneously allocating time, listing tasks with required hours and putting down meetings quickly.

As well, there is also the problem of being motivated enough to use it all the time. If its in my bag downstairs and I'm on my computer upstairs, I'll be too lazy to go get it.

Does anyone have anything that has worked really well for them?

[Cydonian Monk]

My high school (in 1993) gave every student a pocket agenda/calendar. We were trained to use them. Forced to use them. You kind of needed to since we had a weird "Mod" modular scheduling system where classes could be of arbitrary lengths and start at arbitrary times. Imagine every kid in your high school carrying around an identical little black book (though in our case it was burgandy). It became a discipline supported by peer pressure. A ritual. A religion. Your calendar was never far from your reach. You probably even slept with the thing.

This was a smart move, as it developed our discipline for scheduling and tracking at an early young-adult age. These days I just use the calendar on my phone and have stopped carrying the agenda, which somehow diminishes it. But still that discipline is there.

In your spot I'd do two things: Go out and buy another little pocket calendar. One small enough to carry with you. A blank slate. Then buy a really nice ink pen, one that is also small, but won't leak and can stand up to the rigors of a busy life. Like a space pen or a bullet pen. The pen needs to be something cool to use. A reward. An incentive to write down things in your calendar. A psychological trick.

Or, you could just use the calendar app on a smartphone, but I'm not sure how to incentivize something like that.

The key is to make it a habit. A good habit that has tangible rewards. Not a chore. It's a hard thing to start doing from scratch, and it'll take time to become a habit, but when you're crazy-busy it's a great way to stay sane.

[Neil1993]

Thanks for the suggestion! I have already kinds done that. I have a nice silver pen that had been given to me for my graduation from high school and one of those Moleskine agendas.

If I were to elaborate on the problem a little, the Moleskine agenda has seven slots for each day of the week on one page, and a lined page for notes adjacent. I've found that this doesn't provide the detail I require. Furthermore, The university society insists on doing everything through google calendars, which is great for meetings and events, but dismally bad for task management (unless there's an app out there that patches that).

I'm also dislike using my phone for scheduling, since it is also a google device with the google calendar. As well, it just doesn't feel as good as having a physical agenda. I know that a phone can back up my schedule in the cloud in case it's lost, but this is more of a personal preference kind of thing.

[Cydonian Monk]

I've never really been a fan of the current Google calendar offerings, but that's another discussion.

You sound like you're on the right track, just need a few refinements. You might try one of the other agenda formats, such as one which drops the blank notes page and gives you more room for each day. (Lined pages are important.) If that's not a high enough level of detail you might look into the DayTimer month-by-month calendars that give each day its own page with an overview for the week. We lived by those at work in the pre-Outlook days, though they're a bit on the large size and make planning a bit more cumbersome for future months.

We had a checkbox/priority system that I've long forgotten the exact details of, but before each line we'd either have a square or a circle. One had a higher priority than the other, and there may have been triangles involved too. When the task was complete we'd cross out or fill in the box/circle. That's something I still use on notes - Circles for tasks, Boxes for questions that need answers. Dashes for comments or reminders. Alternatively you could use different shapes to identify different entities related to the entry.

[Neil1993]

Something like that sounds like it would be more my style. I already set aside about an hour each week for trying to schedule everything (set aside, but not always used, unfortunately). If I can get into the habit of constantly using the agenda, maybe something like this would work well for me:

http://www.amazon.ca/Blueline-NotePro-Undated-Planner-9-25x7-25-Inch/dp/B001B0EZ7W/ref=sr_1_4?s=office&ie=UTF8&qid=1427227814&sr=1-4&keywords=agenda

[RainDreamer]

Use the critical path method.

Plan out things that you must ABSOLUTELY do, put them all together using something like a Gantt chart - can be done on something like excel. This will let you know how much tasks you have, how much time you much spend for each, which tasks are dependant on other tasks to continue, which can be done simultaneously with others. Schedule your time on a calendar using that chart. Then try to fit in things that you can put behind into the remaining time slots.

[Neil1993]

Use the critical path method.

Plan out things that you must ABSOLUTELY do, put them all together using something like a Gantt chart - can be done on something like excel. This will let you know how much tasks you have, how much time you much spend for each, which tasks are dependant on other tasks to continue, which can be done simultaneously with others. Schedule your time on a calendar using that chart. Then try to fit in things that you can put behind into the remaining time slots.

I've already trying to do something similar at home. One of the main problems with this is that it isn't so good for the very small things like returning phone class and emails, practising speeches, or going down to the supermarket. I can use that to schedule the big tasks but it kinda leaves out the little things which might also be needed. I'm really trying to develop a method which can combine all of the madness.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Neil1993

[RainDreamer]

Well, once you finish planning out the big things, you at least has a rough idea of how to go through your monthly, or weekly schedules. Then you can break those monthly/weekly schedules down to daily. Find out how many hours you need to fit in these big tasks until you finish it, then allocate them into days. How many hours on how many day can you spend on working a task? What is required to complete it daily?

Remember that these kinds of planning are never 100% concrete. You might have to move tasks around a lot, but it will provide a sense of control. Still, better get yourself stick to the plan.

[Neil1993]

After taking what I've seen here into consideration, here's what I'm thinking for a fully tweaked personal organization system:

- A planner, with one page as a daily planner (by the hour) and the adjacent page being simply ruled. events and work time can be scheduled on the planner page and tasks can be put on the ruled page

- Should tasks or appointments arrive during the week, they'll be recorded on the ruled page. If they're for the same week, they can be scheduled immediately

- At the end of each week, 1 or 2 hours should be allocated to:

---- review the work accomplished

---- log how the time was used and how much was wasted

---- take tasks and appointments that were accumulated during the week and schedule them in the future

---- review other projects and schedule work and appointments from said projects

That's just a rough idea. If anyone has any ideas for improvements, feel free to voice your criticism

[LordFerret]

My associates and I have tried all manner of PIMs, to the point we came down to joking about it - 'the PIM of the week', because there are/were so many of them and none of them ever seemed to provide what we needed. Yay for multi-colored Post-It notes and dry-erase boards. Sometimes a small voice recorder can come in very handy.