I got a chance to write an article about my organizing system and I thought I would post it here for everyone too! Enjoy!
You’re probably not like me.
I’m a 43 pots on a 4 burner stove kind of person. You know, constantly juggling them around and somehow managing to get dinner done. No, everyone is so much more organized and better prepared to meet each day with a delightful smile, a good night’s rest and six-course breakfast on the table for their family!
If you’re not one of those people and would like some advice on a system that has finally worked for me, then read on gentle reader. If you’re one of those perfect people, I think there is a bake sale that needs 43 dozen cupcakes in two hours calling you.
Ever since I was a young woman I was plagued with “too-many-ideas-and-projects-and-commitments”. As I struggled to please everyone in my life, I would make lists. First it was just those cut little notepads you got from the insurance guy or maybe something with unicorns and bunnies romping around the borders. Pretty soon, those were not enough. So out came the spiral notebook. And then the fancy leather Day timer with lots of pages and dividers and sections. When that was too complicated past the first week or two, I even made the leap to a Palm Pilot and then tried computer software.
Eventually, each one would let me down. Too complicated, too expensive, too bulky, too limited…. each time I would return back to the trusty spiral notebook. Yet, that wasn’t really the best either. Just about everyday I would rewrite the list, reorder it, consider it, ponder it and then, half the time, I wouldn’t accomplish very much on the list that day! My day would be interrupted by life. The things that I FORGOT to write down!
As I moved from young woman to a mom and then a homeschooling mom, things got predictably worse. Now juggling the tasks of my family, as well as insuring that all our assignments and plans for education were accomplished, I would actually have lists that were so many pages long it would take me 30 minutes to reorder and write them out several times a week as I accomplished tasks. And I found myself constantly laying in bed at evening’s fall, trying to keep all the “extra” tasks straight in my head.
When I started my online publishing business, went through a divorce, moved twice and then finally bought an old mobile home to rehab, my to do lists were becoming a health burden as well as a choking hold on my life. I had so many things on my plate, I would occasionally shut down and almost be unable to act on the simplest task. It was then that I began to search for new methods of managing all my pots on my life stove. I would accomplish tasks, but when I got to the end of the day, only two or three items would be scratched off and I would stand there and puzzle…. what was I doing all day long?
I knew what was happening. I was carrying over tasks from day to day, procrastinating and worrying over them, rewriting them and then not doing until they were fires at my feet. I was getting lost down rabbit holes and wandering trails that were not productive. I was forgetting things that I was trying to keep in my head and so each day had a share of “firefighting” as I struggled to keep up with all the various situations in my crazy life. I thought I was being so productive because I was constantly busy from morning till late in the night. I worked like a dog, but in reality, things only seemed to get finished at the last minute in a haze of stress and anxiety. It was dreadful.
It was a little over a year ago that I accidentally stumbled onto the work of David Allen. He has a very popular book and lecture series called Getting Things Done. Followers of his system gleefully refer to it as GTD and there is a whole industry of blogs, helpful site and mentors of his very popular system. After watching a very enlightening video of Mr. Allen addressing his corporate fellow disorganized souls, I was moved to immediately get his book and I consumed it in one afternoon. I let it settle in my brain over night and then I read it AGAIN.
Allen’s philosophy is bent around the fact that there are simply things that need to get done. Simply put, Getting Things Done was precisely as he stated… getting things done. And not just shuffling around from list to list and hoping that maybe the organizational fairies would take care of things overnight or that somehow you can carry around in your head umpteen hundred tasks and get them all accomplished in perfect priority schedules. He uses manilla file folders for all tasks. Each project, area of life, priority and task receives a file and you work through these folders, and accomplish what you need to do. Since he was dealing mostly with high powered working professionals and executives, the folders seemed to work fine for the bits and pieces of each task.
Being a work at home, single, homeschooling mother, I had tasks galore, but they really didn’t usually involve lots of paper and discs and that sort of material overflow. So I thought about simplifying the system and working it into a easy to handle system for me. I had a lot of index cards and that seemed to be easy for me to have around.
Allen talks about writing down EVERYTHING in your head, every task, every project, anything that you have to do, should do, need to do, and want to do. A massive brain dumping. So i got out a big pack of cards and wrote it all down. It took me almost a whole weekend. I was careful not to make the tasks too large or vague. Like Finish Bathroom Remodel or Get healthy. No, each large task was broken into smaller tasks. Manageable things. When I got done, I cried. My pack was over 190 cards. Never had my “to-do” list been so staggering.
At first, of course, I wanted to overcomplicate the issue. After all, avoidance of what needed to be accomplished with diversions into “systems” was what had delivered me at the steps of this monster mess. I wanted to separate the cards into categories, like “life” and “family” and “business” and so on. But then I remembered some of the teachings and wisdom of David Allen and said, no, there is only one of me and I can only focus on one task at a time, there is no difference between “make dentist appointment” and “buy birthday gift for friend”, each was a task that needed to get done. Simply put, each task was a task and this constant reshuffling and reorganization was wasting time and teaching me to procrastinate to the finest art of a specialist.
So, with my big thick rubber band around my stack, I got started.
I had an idea that some cards needed to get done immediately and others could be set aside. So I quick shuffle through the deck would find the first logical card. I would take it from the deck and slip it into my desk card holder and that was my task. I was not allowed to do anything else until that card was done. Once done, another card would come out. If for whatever reason a card pulled could not be finished, then back into the pack it went.
Simple. Amazingly simple.
And a very surprising thing began to happen. I began to get things done.
It was a simple act of forward momentum. Each card that was finished and tossed away, was another thing off my brain. It was gone. Done. Felt good. One step forward onto a pathway of a wonderful journey of organization. I actually began to challenge myself to get cards done. At first I was just happy to get two or three cards done. Then four, five, six. And of course, as life is oft to do, more cards get added. But having that thick pack of nearly 200 tasks at hand made me stop taking on more things for my heavy load. It was much easier to say no to projects… I could see my pack and know that I would not be able to give that new project proper time with all these other cards patiently waiting. After about a month, I noticed that the daily fires were gone. No longer was I apologizing to friends, family and clients for missing deadlines. Each morning I would peek through my list and figure out the top priority cards and get started. One at a time.
I also noticed that a calm and serenity was coming over me. I slept great at night. I knew that if I had forgotten ANYTHING, I could grab a blank card from my night side table, write it down and go back to sleep. I wasn’t carrying that heavy burden on my mind any longer.
I keep a few cards in my purse as well. If I’m out and driving, or at a clients, and something comes up, it gets a card. Even the simplest things such as grocery items or something from the hardware store gets a card. No longer was I forgetting for days to grab vacuum cleaner bags or stop and return library books. It was there. Staring at me and waiting patiently.
After about 6 months, I was actually down in the 100’s…. when I got to 80 cards I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. I was truly getting things done. And gone was the anxiety of everyday writing lists and staring at this mountain of tasks. I found a good number for each day. Five cards seemed to be perfect. I would always pick a short task or two for every morning. They would provide the go-juice to get more cards done. There seems to be no end to tedious little task in our lives, doesn’t there? Call the plumber, return this paperwork, go to the post office, get cat food. But by having it all there, I became so much more efficient. And no longer was I procrastinating and dwelling on 5 minute tasks! And if I found myself between cards and without time to take on a new large task, I could go to the deck and whip out a quick card and get one more card done! It was brilliant.
Another thing I found was that it was very easy to delegate tasks with this system. If I had three cards that I knew my two daughters could accomplish I could simply hand them the cards and say, hey, get this done today. And they would nod and debate over who did what and by gosh, it would get done. I would simply ask them to return the card to me when they were done. It was easy. And things got done.
In the beginning my friends would ask, “how many cards are left” and I would respond, 85 or 72 or 93 (those times when I took backwards steps were the times that I would really begin to learn to say no to new projects if I was not prepared for them.) At first, they would joke and tease me about being a card in my deck when we went to eat or got together, but then they began to realize that I was on top of things and finding more and more free time. Then they began to ask how I was getting everything done and more information on the system, expecting it to be complicated. They were surprised how easy it was and several have begun to use the card system as well! My eldest daughter is into her second year of college and she just asked me for a pack of index cards and is getting ready to start the system for herself!
As I approached my one year anniversary of implementation of this system, I am happily down to 19 cards left. I am stress free, contented and have accomplished so much over the last year it’s unbelievable. I maintain over 60 websites, run a successful online business, create homeschool and musical instruction projects, operate a national musical monthly concert series, play music in an active bluegrass band, write songs, homeschool my youngest daughter, am rehabbing a 30 year old mobile home and maintain a 600 square foot urban homestead garden. I actually write content for 8 different blogs.
And I still have time to spend the day reading or just doing whatever I want because my to-do list is finally my tame work beast instead of a rampaging beast of disorganization and stress. If you have a beast to tame, you might want to give this simple system a chance. It works. Feel free to write with any questions or if you need more clarification.
Sherri@westvon.com
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