Organization is futile without developing the proper habits and mindset. Call it a new philosophy about stuff, or a call it whatever you like. The fact remains- if you organize your home, your email, your systems, your finances, your garage, your files, your office, your iphone, your computer, your calendar or your life; they will probably become disorganized very quickly if you don’t work hard to develop new habits and a new mindset.

Here are the most important tips I can summarize to get you moving with small daily improvements in your organization quotient.

1. Eliminate- the more you eliminate off your calendar, next actions list, projects list- the more you eliminate from your office, home, finances, and life in general the simpler you will make it to keep organized.
2. Seek simplicity- if there is a complicated way to o something and a simple way, choose the simple way. Go for the big picture. Sometimes simple may cost a little more on the surface but after you look at the hidden costs ( opportunity cost, cost of time, cost of gas, cost of diffusion, cost of distraction) you’ll come out ahead by choosing a simpler more focused option.
3. Organize your stuff. After step 1 and 2 you shouldn’t have that much stuff left to organize. The proper process to organize just about anything (hat tip to all professional organizers like myself, NAPO and where I first learned this system- Julie Morgenstern) is as follows. Sort by putting like items together by association, then Purge by tossing, selling, giving away or recycling, then Assign the remaining items a home, then Containerize the items in their home, then continually Assess your system.
4. Put your stuff back in it’s home right now. Form the habit of picking up your stuff and putting it back after you use it. We teach our kids this right? Put you toys up before we go to bed. Put your books in your locker before you leave school. Put the dishes in the sink. Put those toys up before you get more out. So, my theory is that if we teach it to our kids you better do it yourself or you’re a hypocrite and kids are the best hypocrite detectors. Not to mention the fact that your life will be less stressful when you know where things are.
5. Implement David Allen’s GTD system to handle the rest of your productivity concerns. This system will help you organize your thoughts and close the open loops in your mind. It will teach you to collect your information with various tools, to process this information and then how to act on it. You’ll create next actions lists, tickler file systems, project plans and lots of other helpful systems for increased personal productivity.

To start with:

37 Signals products- Highrise-Basecamp-Backpack- Now we can share pages and update them with task lists, notes, pictures and files. We can organize the info and act on it seamlessly.

Copilot- now I can sit at my computer and fix yours by actually taking over your mouse and looking at your screen. This happens with a simple link I send you and takes 30 seconds to download.

Apeer- Now we could share and edit documents, videos and photos in a live environment. This is not sharing- it’s better.

Gotomeeting- we can conduct live webinars or meetings from the comfort of our own offices. I can train you or your staff to work better, and use their stuff better.

These are just a few. Their are so many new ones each day I have trouble keeping up. Somebody has to sift the tools and show you how they make your business work better.

Digital Coaching is on the rise. I have been paying my own digital coach to teach me ways to be more effective with technology. Aaron Marshall with Techsmo has taught me so much about cutting edge web tools and cool tricks to increase my productivity on my PC (soon to be MAC). He’s done this over a few hour long sessions.

I would consider myself a 7 on the scale of 1-10 tech savvy. I can usually figure out most things by trial and error, or by using the free support most sites provide.

I’m now offering as digital coaching as a service to small businesses, home based business owners and working professionals. Because most of these tools deal with efficiency and effectiveness on your PC or MAC, they fit right in with my overall focus on organization, time management and efficiency.

These two articles explain the need for more professionals in this niche.

Seth Godin blog

Harvey Mackay weekly column

More to come on this in the future: