Archive for Organization
19) Organize Your Life-Simplify
Posted by: | CommentsThis is something a little different. It’s basically me talking (and rocking unfortunately) while I discuss four ways I simplify my life. The surprise ending has one thing I don’t do which simplifies my life. For those who read this blog but don’t know me, this will give you a little glimpse on the goofy side of me. You can also learn more here.
The question is why simplify life? For me it means more time to focus on the meaningful things. It means more time to pursue creativity and passions. For me it means more time with family, more volunteering and more time with my Lord, Jesus Christ. It means more time to change the world of politics, or health or business. It means more time to build the BOC and KOG. It doesn’t mean more time to sit around and focus on me or to watch TV or to play video games. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”-hat tip Seinfeld.
Simplify Your Life from Bryce Raley on Vimeo.
15) Organize GTD with Backpack
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After reading a post from Russell Quinn at Spoiled Milk I was inspired to rethink the way I use GTD in combination with Backpack. I have borrowed some from Russell’s system, kept some of my own system and incorporated some other ideas as well. This has all become possible with the great news that you can reorder your sidebar in Backpack.
If you read Russell Quinn’s explanation you will quickly see that I have borrowed the Dropbox/Inbox home page tip. Which I think was the most powerful for me. Before my homepage was a hodgepodge of next action lists, ideas, my @task lists, and even some projects made there way onto the homepage. Next I borrowed the ^ Tasks, ^ Projects, ^ Waiting For, ^ Tickler, ^ To Buy, ^ Someday/Maybe although I was already using a few of these in a similar manner.
The next series of pages are prefixed with *. These pages are strictly reference pages which I might need certain days of the week, times of the month and during meetings.
The next series of pages are prefixed with @. All these pages are projects with more than five actions. Those I keep at the top of the page in the ^ Projects Page. Some of these projects are recurring like my Squidoo lenses, my weekly ezine and some annual events I organize.
Another prefix I use is $ and this marks all the pages for my blogs. These are blogs I run and ones I contribute to with others. It’s easy for me to take ideas in my inbox/dropbox daily and move them into the appropriate @ blog page.
Last is a list with no prefix. These are pages I share with small business and non profit customers. We collaborate on work for their wordpress blogs or social media campaigns. I also use these pages to share video tutorials and screencasts for training and digital coaching purposes.
Backpack is so great and there are so many uses. I recommend it to everyone. Whether you are a small business, a solo professional or a freelancer, sign up for a free account or trial.
14) Organize Your Annual Calendar
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This isn’t a perfect solution and I’m sure that you could find something just a little better at the end of the Internet- if you can make it all the way through. I know a few who’ve done it and lived to speak. For now, this simple little formula might help the 12 readers who frequent this site. The outlet that fills my passion for organization, simple living and GTD.
Take out last years calendar. It’s not too late, it’s still January. Besides you probably just dug out from under the Christmas and New Years work that accumulated while you were out.
If you use Google Calendar, a paper calendar, a day planner, a PDA or whatever else; simply go month by month and jot down the important events you attended each month in 2008. Make a tickler list- I use Backpack and create a folder like this ^Tickler- which lets me know it’s purely a reference folder. If you prefer paper make 12 folders with 12 months and have at it. I’ve done it this way, but I’m getting to where I can’t stand paper invites and clippings. Sorry old schoolers! I do still like to read the occasional physical newspaper like Business First.
Now I’m betting you have at least 4 -5 entries for each month of the year. Next think hard about all the things you do each year (we are creatures of habit). What things do you love to follow like sports, shows or conventions? Does your business or industry have specific meetings or conferences every year? Does your family consistently take vacations each year? Do you play in golf tournaments or scrambles each year? Jot them all down on your list or put them in a monthly folder. Now take a couple hours and go get the dates and times for the events. Use your list to check off the events that go onto the calendar and keep the ones that don’t have a date yet as a tickler/reminder that you still need to schedule it. Most organizations will finalize calendars by late January or early February from my experience.
Do this for a couple years like I have and you’ll know yourself much better and you won’t catch yourself planning a family reunion the weekend of the Masters or scheduling a vacation the same week as your industry conference. Oh yeah keep the list or folder system going each year. Don’t quit things that work, unless you find a better way.
Hope this helps. Give the ship that is your calendar a rudder to guide it. Things will pop up, but instead of being a headache they can become a cool diversion.
9) Organize Children’s Toys
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This should be a fun topic right after your children have opened a bunch of Christmas presents. Try taking them away now.
We have established some simple rules on the front end to cut down on the number of toys our children get.
1st) We ask everyone to only buy one gift per child. We have a big family so this still doesn’t cut it, but it helps.
2nd) We get rid of (give away or sell) one item for each new item that enters our home. This applies to toys just like everything else. It helps us curb the madness of materialism and consumerism that has run wild in this country. I’m not preaching as I have been guilty of this attitude in the past. No more though. We’ve decided for the simple life.
After applying these two rules, we can at least have a fighting chance to tame the clutter that is toys.
Will you occasionally sit down to a Dora doll in the middle of your back on the couch? Sure.
Will you step on a firetruck in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom? Sure.
Will you reach for a newspaper or magazine and get clippings from a coloring book? Sure.
However, it will be much less often if you follow this checklist.
- Use the kindergarten model for setting up your home. This means each area of your home has a purpose and activity associated with it. I actually think this is easier with one floor than with two or three and I’ll explain why shortly. For example, our three children do crafts and play with play dough in the basement in my wife’s craft area.
- Rough housing toys like balls and big cars and the small trampoline are in the basement. Our children spend time here in the winter mornings when they can’t go outside and play with similar toys.
- Toys like puzzles, books, games and movies are upstairs in their bedroom/playroom. Our goal here is to get the kiddos bathed, let them unwind and then allow them to do something calm before bed.
- On the first floor in our home, they have toys like doll houses and castles and a jungle man play set for our son. While my wife prepares meals or feeds our 9 month old, these types of toys really engage the kids and don’t require someones assistance. Often they use their little imaginations and play for an hour before they even notice they don’t have mommy or daddies full attention.
Now this is just the way we arrange toys. The key is the Kindergarten model. When we leave one area, for example the craft area, we must clean up all the crafts and put them back in their home. When we leave the basement play area, we must pick up all the balls and cars and blocks. This way the children associate specific activities with each area and they learn the habit of putting things back which will serve them later.
To clarify, why could it be easier to do this on one floor? Well most classrooms are one room and may have 25 children. They manage. Less is more in this case. The more room you have the more you will fill. The less you have, the more creative you can be and the less clutter you can accumulate. Imagine one room where each corner had a specific task. No steps to climb with three children. No taking toys to different floors. Simple is much better. I have been on mission trips to the Dominican Republic several times and they have very little room and little to play with, but they are some of the most joyful children I’ve ever encountered.
Here is the rub. Your children would rather play with cardboard boxes, cooking utensils, bins, balloons and just about everything but the toys they have anyway.
6) Organize your notes
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This is a two part answer and the answer is never the same for two totally different people. I spent many years thinking of perfect solutions, when there are no perfect solutions. Even though I believe in principles which can work for everyone, the means or method may not. Want to watch a cool video that explains this in unique way.
I used to be a big time list maker, note taker, write on a calendar and planner kind of guy. About a year ago, I completely went digital with all my lists and to do’s and everything else. Before that I read David Allen’s GTD book, and I decided to try it with paper and folders. The system worked, but so many of my projects didn’t work that way. I was using Basecamp to work on my biggest current project, and I had found Backpack to be so useful in managing just about everything else. Well I love 37 signals aforementioned products and use them more than any other applications except Google. I don’t plan on stopping my use of them, but actually probably increasing it. What I did realize a few months back was notebooks and small pocket notepads are still the best way for me to capture a quick list, idea or thought. It is still the best way for me to draw out a mindmap or brainstorm a project to determine next actions. I was inspired yet again by a very digital guy, who still says the pen and pad trump typing in a web based application. If it takes me 5 minutes to locate my laptop, open it, wait a second to refresh my wireless connection, open up backpack, find the appropriate page and then type out my thought, it will always lose to grabbing my moleskin notepad out of my back pocket or my notebook and getting the thought out of my head. Earl Nightingale was famous for saying that ideas are like wet slippery fish. I have found that to be true. The only substitute for the Moleskin back pocket notepad for me, has been using the digital recorder on my cell phone. The only problem I encountered was that when I did a weekly review, which was about as often as I would check my little digital notes to self, I would have to replay the message and type it out into backpack. I didn’t like the extra step. It wasn’t my typing skills either. I type over 45 WPM, which isn’t ground breaking but it’s not slow either.
I have decided to use Backpack more for reference, personal projects, sharing pages with customers (works great to develop a word press site- although I’m experimenting with Basecamp for that right now) and someday maybe categories. I use my large moleskin notebook to record video ideas, blog architecture, mindmaps of my marketing plan and many other things. I use my small notepad to list my next actions for the day and to make quick notes throughout the day. I take both of these and review them as collection buckets during my weekly review session (for GTD’ers). I am trying to use Tim Ferris note taking system linked above, but I haven’t mastered the techniques or organization just yet. I use a new page for each day in my small notebook.
GTD suggests that you limit your amount of collection buckets. This is hard to do in a digital world but right now I’m trying to work within these parameters.
- Gmail- Incoming messages, outgoing messages, waiting for, read/reviews, and next actions
- Google Reader- I read my feeds with this tool and use share and star as my filtering mechanism
- Delicious- it helps to have some broad tags like toreview, toread, toblog more on this in a future post
- Backpack- helps me stay on top of personal projects, customer projects and someday maybes
- Physical inbox- I still get mail, papers, business cards and other non-digital items that must be reviewed
- Large Moleskin- project notes, ideas, creative development, mind maps
- Small Moleskin- daily notes, reference, passwords to be indexed, phone numbers to be indexed
- Whiteboard- I have one behind my desk to record ideas when I’m working at my computer
A case could be made for Stumble Upon, if you really want the community to work as it should. I’m not there yet.
Also I like to review my reference folders using a File Map. If any name on the list prompts me with an open loop, I’ll take it through the GTD process.
Hope this helps. Maybe it’s not for you, but maybe it is for you.
