Last month I took yet another shot at becoming more organized and consistent.
I made myself a colourful poster/calendar to hang in front of my desk.
For months, every time I looked up at the blank wall in front of my computer, I would think: Gee. It would be really nice to have some visual reminder about what I’m supposed to be doing. Or something motivational. Or something…something.
I use Outlook for specific appointments with other people.
But despite trying a zillion times, I’ve never been able to warm up to Outlook for structuring and scheduling my own work. All it does is clutter my calendar and annoy me with reminders.
I wanted something a bit looser and more visual for planning out the things I wanted to do on a weekly basis.
Why make it simple…when we can make it complicated?
I have a tendency towards complication and scope creep. What starts out as a simple calendar or chart suddenly needs to include my mission and vision, a 5 year plan, marketing and business plans, financial goals…oh…and what about my life outside of business – I’ll need to track that too.
I decided to keep it really simple.
- A list of my most important projects for the month
- A calendar to remind me of the ongoing tasks I’d like to do on specific days of the week
- A reminder to “show up” at my online networking haunts
- A couple quotes to keep me motivated
- A monthly theme to make it fun
Voila! Patty’s Picture of Productivity (perfect for Pajama People!)
(Why, yes. Those are little drawings of hearts. So much for that grade two teacher who said I wasn’t artistic! 
)
As I tacked it on my wall, I thought: All of my organizational challenges have been solved with one sheet of flip chart paper.
I expected that whenever I felt lost or confused, I’d simply glance up, see what I’m supposed to be doing and get on with it. Productivity through the roof! New Facebook status daily!
Sadly, no.
Here’s what actually happened
Socializing
The lower left hand corner is there to remind me to engage with people on social media. I thought if I had the reminder in front of me, I would socialize when I had a few extra minutes or needed a quick break.
Results: I probably spent *less* time socializing online this month than I ever have before. Most telling: the last time I was on Twitter (the place I show up *most* regularly) was Feb. 10th. I think my Facebook status still says Merry Christmas.
Projects
Big thank you to Monette at The Artful Business for sharing the “Post It Note System” with me. Each of those blue squares represents one of my monthly projects. All of them had a due date of March 1.
I stuck with Post Its instead of writing them on the chart in marker, because I fully expected to have to *replace them* when I finished them.
Results:
- I completed one. (Yay me!)
- I changed one.
- I dropped the other two completely.
Theme
My theme for February was month of love. I chose this theme to remind me to participate in the Customer Love Challenge.
Results: It would be generous to describe my participation as “sporadic.” I completed my (short) guest post and handed it in just under the wire. Other than that, I was pretty much a no-show.
(Unless you count the free Idea Bouncing sessions I offered this month, which were both in keeping with and prompted by the Customer Love challenge.)
Calendar
- I planned to blog twice a week. 8 times total for the month. I posted exactly 3 times in February.
- I designated Friday as my “organize, review and catch up” day. I think I actually did this once.
- I blocked out a time – Wednesday afternoon – for a free weekly call I planned to start. No. You didn’t miss it. It never happened.
A colossal failure?
There was a time in my life when I would have looked at these results and declared this little project a complete failure.
I’m not doing that this time.
Instead, I’m calling it as a success.
Because I can!
Why?
I’m choosing to focus on what worked.
1. I’ve known about (and believed in) the power of writing things down for a long, long time. Last month I actually tried it. It’s taken me years to confirm that “not writing things down” doesn’t work. I think it’s only fair to give “writing things down” a couple months.
2. I look at it several times a day and it calms me down. (For some reason, it feels better to know exactly what it is I’m not doing, rather than having that vague feeling of “uh oh. I’m forgetting something.”)
3. The projects section reminds me that I’ve already selected priorities. While I made changes and adjustments, I did so mindfully. When something new comes up (and it does!) I look at my notes and ask: “Is this really more important/better than what I’ve chosen already?”
4. Creating it required me to think about what I wanted to accomplish and make some plans for the month. And seeing it this morning and saying to myself “it’s not February anymore” prompted me to review my month and make a plan for next month.
And…I have an excuse!
I got an overwhelming response to my offer of free Idea Bouncing sessions.
Over 40 people signed up.
As much as I enjoyed the calls, they took over my schedule and drained this introvert’s energy quickly.
End result: despite intentions to blog and to socialize and to work on my other projects…I didn’t get much accomplished. (I also dropped every ball I had in the air and I have a pile of emails to catch up with.)
I have a LOT more to say about the calls. I’ll share more about my experience in a later post.
Right now I’m going to draw a new poster for March.
(Does two months in a row count as consistency?)
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, Patty – we have sooo much in common. I have to say it is really nice to find someone who thinks like me, even though I often wish *I* didn’t think like me. I’ve avoided writing things down (until recent events – the customer love challenge PLUS the ecourse – forced me into it) because I tend to rebel against authority. And getting orders from my past self really pisses me off.
But I do love notebooks and pens, so I bought myself a few of each and started writing down ideas, taking notes on phone calls (our Idea Bouncing session fills a whole page) and also listing to-do’s. It doesn’t feel like Orders any more, just reminders, and I’ve actually been getting most things done.
OMG, I think it’s becoming a habit!
Ha! I never thought about it in terms of getting “orders” from ones past self. As a fellow rebeller against authority, that makes sense to me.
So glad to hear that your systems are developing into habits. I’m wondering how much that has to do with the fact that you’re now doing what you are meant to be doing. Sometimes I think our “flakiness” kicks in when we’re trying to make ourselves do things we were never meant to do.
I definitely can relate to this post. I set up daily google reminders that pop up in my email for various things I should be working on. Honestly, all they are is a nuisance – I don’t think I’ve followed the schedule once. They just make me feel guilty because I see what I ‘should’ be doing. Right now, I keep a running to-do list in word and so far this seems to be the only thing that remotely works. I keep it open on my computer all day and add to it as I think of things. I’d say I’m able to cross off about a fourth of the things on my list each week, which is fine for now. Like you said, it’s better that not writing it down and having all those to-do’s floating around in your head. I’m with you on the scope creep, too. I have such a strong urge to expand my schedule into my life’s story
Hey Laura…so glad to know I’m not alone!
I hear you on the feeling guilty and the shoulds. I often found that the strict reminders just didn’t fit into my natural rhythms, I would be busy working on something – being incredibly productive – and some electronic device was telling me that I *should* be working on something else. Not helpful.
I do the running to do list thing too. At least when I remember. I use my journal (computer program) for this. Which links “maintaining to do list” to journaling, which is already a habit.
Patty,
Great topic here and something I’ve been thinking about. I’m with Laura on the auto-reminders. When I told myself I would get back to working on my memoir—for one hour every day—I set up an iCalendar thingie. Now, every day at 4pm that annoying little red alarm clock with the bouncing bell pops up on my screen.
“MEMOIR!,” it screams at me.
And of course, I’m always knee deep in something else. Don’t need that kind of the guilt!
I am actually very low-tec. I have my whiteboard for projects. And I just ordered The New Yorker bound calendar book ($20 off because we are in March now!) to satisfy my craving for writing with a pen that spills out onto the page in big gooey splats. PLUS, there is a witty cartoon on every page! I’m hopeless.
I’ve decided that’s who I am and I’m not going to fight it anymore. : )
Judy – I’m *totally* in favour of “that’s who I am and I’m not going to fight it anymore”!
I’m also big on low tech – *except* when it comes to appointments with other people. For those, I am grateful for my technical help to pull me out of whatever I’m doing. And yay for cartoons!
Well, I didn’t notice your absence on Twitter this time because I haven’t been there either. Or Facebook. Or visiting blogs. Or writing blog posts. What on earth have I been doing? Earning money! HA.
I agree with LaVonne about taking orders from my past self. Any schedule like this that I set up makes me want to rebel against it. My mentor, Jill Badonsky, suggests writing in things like, “Organize the closet,” or “Spend an hour on Facebook” on the theory that you’ll then rebel against doing those things and instead do your creative work. I haven’t tried it, but I like the concept.
What I’ve noticed about plans is that usually I do get around to most of it, just not in the compact timeframe I had in mind. So what I’ve started doing is just keeping track of what I’d like to get done and then staying free flowing about the when. That’s unless there’s a real deadline, of course, in which case, the deadline is motivation enough.
Glad to hear you got such a great response to your Idea Bouncing sessions and look forward to hearing more about that.
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Sue! You’re back. And you were off making money…what a great distraction!
Interesting reverse psychology idea about scheduling avoidances so you’ll work on what really matters. I suspect in my case it would have the same results as “creating artificial deadlines” or “moving the clocks ahead 10 minutes” does: because my mind *knows* I’m playing tricks on it, it doesn’t fall for it.
Yup, that’s why I haven’t tried it. But I still get a kick out of the idea.
Sue Mitchell´s latest ..How Your Thinking Can Put Your Business at Risk Part 2
Hey, this happens to me too! And I’m an organizer!!! I’m one of those organizers who got into it because I think it’s really interesting and I need it myself, so I learn about it and get good at it. But I still need it.
I think your #3 point is very good; you need a picture of what you’ve planned so when things change, you can make effective decisions about what to dump.
I use a customized mishmash of organizing tools. The main ones are a handwritten to do list and email reminders. One little list, I can get a handle on (and I’m often combining several lists to boil it down to one). I also noticed that email is a constant for me. I go there many times per day, and that’s where I want to see reminders about projects, when street cleaning day is, who I should email about something, etc. It works most of the time, except when it doesn’t, and then I just get back to it. I think that’s inevitable and not to be worried about (and remember, I’m an expert!)
Claire – So good to know that even organizers struggle with this stuff!
I think customized mish mash is what I’m aiming for. I need to be more organized, yet what works for others doesn’t seem to work for me. At least not exactly as prescribed. I’m going to try some things and keep what works, tossing the rest.
And isn’t this true of *so many things* – “It works most of the time, except when it doesn’t.”
This is how my goal list/life looks like a lot of the time too. Have you ever tried a daily chart, like the one Gretchen Rubin talks about on her Happiness site? It works for me, sometimes… Like having the daily in a list that you cross or cirkle when you’ve done them each night; been on twitter, FB, blogged, etc. Then you’re also reminded each day what you didn’t focus on. Good luck and congrats on the biz!
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Hanna! So nice to see you here. Yeah…I’ve tried the daily list thing. In fact, I just found an old one (unmarked) on the floor under my desk.
Patty – I love this post. I find it’s really a very tender subject for any of us who think (or used to think) that we *should* do our work a certain way. All those pats on the head and gold stars in grade school didn’t really help me learn how to listen to my own way of working.
I love hearing about what you’ve done. If you were to view it as practice or exercise, you could say that you are growing your muscle around tracking and planning your time.
I’m with Judy on the paper calendar. Love mine. I agree that calendar alarms are, well, alarming, and don’t respect the flow of my day. And I have to admit that I am a note taker. I buy pads and pads of paper and take notes when I go to meetings, when I am on the phone, when I am thinking something through or drafting a blog post.
I keep seeing how knowing and respecting the truths of how we work is the sibling of bringing our gifts to our clients in authentic ways.
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Barbara – yes. It is a practice. I’m bringing mindfulness to the entire process – observing what works and what doesn’t – and in fact, what I like the most about the chart on the wall is that it reminds me to practice several times a day.
You’re a “pad of paper” junkie? Me too! Yellow legal pads. I have them all over the place – they’re like an extension of my brain for thinking. During my (many, many, many) Idea Bouncing sessions – I found that taking notes really helped keep me present. Weirdly enough, I rarely take notes during meetings.
I have a weekly planner. Every week I write down the things I most want to accomplish that WEEK along with appointments and things that HAVE to be done on or by a certain time. I’m with the “free flowing” person. The strictly organized Plan A NEVER happens. But as I approach the end of the week and see things that have not been crossed off and I know they still need to happen and that I’m going to have to write them down AGAIN for next week…I find myself getting the easy ones done so I don’t have to write them down again. The human brain. Amazing little contraption. I’ve also noticed that I don’t do things that I’m not really sure I’ve finished thinking through…this is especially related to creative projects. Often there is some problem I’m working through OR I’m being very prolific with something else. Or my brain is in time-out and things are on the back burner. I have learned that I’m not really wasting time…the things that really need to happen just amazingly happen when the time is “right”.
I can relate to so much of your process! I get lots of stuff done while I’m making my list – especially things that don’t take a lot of time. And yes, isn’t it amazing how things happen when the time is right!