Aspire to Be Organized

Do you think of becoming and staying organized as sheer and utter drudgery? If so, you’re not alone! You don’t see people shooting movies, writing Broadway plays, or producing hard rock albums on the topic (though I might be on to something here…). Yet it’s an unheralded key to being productive. From pack rat to Jack Sprat to Jack Black, when you’re in control of your surroundings, you have a better chance of staying focused, efficient and effective.

Everything you’ve ever filed presumably has future value if only enabling you to cover your ample derriere. People often avoid filing because they don’t see the connection between filing and its future impact on their careers and lives. Simply organizing materials, hard copy or on disk, putting them into smaller file folders, stapling them, or rearranging the order of things often represents a good, pre-emptive move in the battle against procrastination.

File, smile and work in style. For each item that crosses your desk or hard drive, ask these fundamental questions:

 What’s the issue behind the document?
 What does it represent?
 Why did I receive it? (This one is biggie)
 Why keep this? (Is it important? If it will be replaced soon, I don’t need it.)
 Should I have received this?
 How else can this be handled?
 Can I delegate it?
 Can I file it under “Review in six month?”
 Can I shred it with glee?
 What will happen if I don’t handle this?

Next, create a folder on your computer “desktop” and establish a physical drawer
(make it a big drawer) where you can temporarily house what you want out of sight. Many people have inbox folder, which they label with months and weeks. It’s a place to park things when you can’t figure out what else to do with them.

You may ask, “Aren’t I postponing my ability to deal with an over accumulation of information? Aren’t I throwing this in with the files I’m going to have to deal with in another three weeks?” No way, Jose and here’s why: When those three weeks roll around and you find the information you filed, the answer may take care of itself. You know it can be sent to the recycle bin or that it is more important than you first thought. Often, you get a definitive answer in a short period of time. You’re reviewing it at a better time. Out of sight, but not out of mind.

Eliminate clutter without shudder. Then when you’re in control of your information and files, you’re able to retrieve items easily and use them, as opposed to having them buried and inaccessible for all eternity. In the meantime, you are not visually bogged down by such things, and you are also more prone to initiate action on the task at hand. Let’s face it, we all know people with dozens – no, make that hundreds – of electronic file folders, housing thousands of e-mail messages. Likewise, we all know people with desks and file cabinets that are packed to the gills with over-stuffed file folders. Is this any way to manage your career? I think not!

One of the familiar laments among those who put off getting organized is, “I have never been food at organizing.” All is forgiven. Start now, and you can do as good of a job as the next person. The only difference between people who are “good at organizing” and people who think they are “not good at organizing” is that people who are organized recognize that it takes some effort to maintain the organization. The people who are “not good at organizing” think they missed out at birth (or is that at conception?) on the “organizing gene”.

Those who are “not good at organizing” further believe that somehow things mysteriously get out of order or become lost. Many people even think that there are forces in the universe operating in opposition to them and conspiring to keep them disorganized. Get it off – you can maintain control of what crosses your desk and how it is handled. And I have news for you – your dog did not eat your homework, and that important document did not just sprout legs and walk away.



Regards,


Timben

Stake Your Claim on a Task or Goal

There’s a common misperception that a goal you undertake has to be your own, devised by you, set by you, and pursued by you. Oust that thought. Studies have shown that it’s entirely possible for one person to set goals for another and to have the entire process work. In fact, this happens every darn day in sales organizations, where sales managers develop quotas for the sales staff, and it happens as often elsewhere.

The key element here is to have the person for whom the goal is set adopt the goals as his or her own. It’s okay; it’s not stealing. This is welcome news for parents, managers, or anyone else who has responsibility for the performance of others.

On a daily basis, when you claim ownership of the goal to complete a task or project, you organize yourself in ways that support that goal. When a goal is yours, you don’t need as many external motivators, such as deadlines. Besides, for many of the long-term and continuing goals that you set for yourself, waiting until a minute before the deadline would be foolhardy. You can’t accumulate vast sums of cash, lose huge amounts of weight, or finish writing all your reports at the last minute. (Well, not yet, at least…)


Stand Up to the Challenge

If it’s easy for you to slough off the blame, disassociate yourself, and pretend you didn’t have any input – all easily perfected skills – chances are you were never committed to a project in the first place. When you’re willing to take responsibility for the outcome, whether good or bad, the project is yours. If others come along and ask who’s responsible and you tell them that you are, then, for sure, the project is yours.

A wonderful gauge for determining whether or not you are steadfastly committed to your project is to think about a situation in which the goal is taken from you. Suppose you could no longer proceed down your chosen path. Suppose all activity in pursuit of a goal had to cease. Would you be outraged? Would you object? Would you fight for your right? Would you call in the SWAT team? If so, it’s your goal.

Alternatively, if you could take it or leave it, if you wouldn’t be that upset, if it all would be forgotten by the next day, if it won’t keep you awake at night, chances are it’s not your goal. If you haven’t claimed ownership, procrastination is predictable.

If a goal or a simple task or assignment was not originally your creation, perhaps you have some leeway in shaping it. There are plenty of things you can do to make it your own goal. You may choose to begin with some easy entrance point. Perhaps you can tackle the job one section at a time. You might devise other methods for proceeding that enable you to retain some amount of control and sanity.



Regards,


Timben

Rethink Your Priorities and Supporting Goals

Priorities are the handful of things in your life or career that are important to you. Priorities are broad elements of life, and they often become misplaced somewhere within your daily high-wire, somersault-through-flaming-hoops balancing act. In this society and in this era, it is wise to have only a few priorities. If you have too many, you’re not likely to respect each of them. At some point, too many priorities become paradoxical – only a few concerns can be of priority. Goals support priorities.

A single priority may have one or more goals associated with it. For example, if becoming supervisor is a priority in your life, you might set goals to get to work early, contribute as much as possible around the office, and speak to your superiors about any additional tasks that need to be done, and maybe compliment the right people here and there.

The choices confronting most individuals are often similar: career advancement versus a happy home life; income goals versus income needs; and social-, or employment-induced priorities versus individual wants or needs.

A goal is a statement that is specific to what you intend to accomplish, and when. All the goal setting and attainment if your goals don’t support your carefully chosen priorities.

Your goals can change as old ones are accomplished and, of course, if some of your life priorities change. Here are some well-constructed goal statements:

“To work out for thirty-five minutes, three times a week, starting today.”

Underlying priority: Staying fit. And as a side note, notice I said starting today,
Instead of putting it off until tomorrow.

“To recruit four new qualified salespeople by the end of the next quarter.”

Underlying priority: having the optimal size staff on board.

You can use the same procedure as you did for choosing priorities when choosing goals. The major difference is that each goal has to support a priority, and each priority is supported by at least one goal. Here are some poorly set goals. Tell me why (silently).

“To sell as much as I can in the next six month.”
“To complete the study for my client.”
“To be the best employee in the division.”
“To be a more loyal Britney Spears fan.”

Give up? They lack specifies and target dates. Impression in goal setting leads to missed goals. If you frequently find yourself procrastinating, often it’s because your goals are not well defined. Study the most successful people in your industry or profession. You’ll find that the majority are take-charge, confident, action-oriented individuals with clear priorities and supporting goals. In essence, they are self-starters. They know they can’t remain productive if they are not making the effort to determine what represents their next best move. Hmmm, sounds a bit like chess…


Regards,


Timben

Watch What You Say to Yourself

In What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, author Shad Helmstetter says that 80 percent or more of your internal dialogue focuses on your shortcomings; that is, much of what people say to themselves is negative. That means that most of us, all day long, are internally saying things such as, “I didn’t do that right,” or, “My collar is off,” “I should have never sent that e-mail,” or, “I’m fat,” or, “I didn’t do this job well,” or, “They’re going to think I’m stupid.” If anybody ever heard this stuff they’d think we had gone off the deep end.

What about giving yourself some positive message? I mean, you can’t possibly be that bad, can you?

These messages work particularly well when it comes to self-starting:

“I choose to easily complete this transaction.”
“I choose to feel at ease in finishing this project.”
“I choose to masterfully complete this task.”
“I choose to be effective in all aspects of my job.”

Suppose that you have to learn how to operate new equipment at work. It’s taking you longer than you wanted or expected, and you’re now totally stressed out. You’d rather put off the task than continue. You’re probably giving yourself one of these messages internally:

“I can’t stand this.”
“I’d rather be anyplace else.”
“I can’t do this.”
“Get me outta here.”

You could be saying to yourself:

“I easily accept this challenge.”
“I’ve mastered situations that were more difficult than this.”
“I am going to be more productive because I know how to use this to its best
advantage.”
“By tomorrow this will be a piece of cake.”

To make self-talk work for you, particularly for becoming a self-starter, be more conscious of what you say to yourself. If you have a hard time thinking of positive things to say to yourself, take time to generate a list of statements you can use, and either write them down or record them. Such a list will help you replace the negative statements that you more routinely offer yourself. By letting positive, self-boosting statements into your internal dialogue, you enhance the learning process, experience less stress, and feel fat better about yourself.

When in doubt about what type of positive self-talk to employ, self-starters think to themselves: “I choose to feel good about what I’m about to do” or “I choose to easily take appropriate action.” The great news is that you only have to make these silent choices (people might stare if you say them loud) when you’re having trouble getting started and not taking action.


Regards,


Timben

Engage in Creative Procrastination

Everyone procrastinates now and then, including the person in your seat at this moment, whether or not you care to admit it. It is part of the human condition. To make the best of a lingering case of procrastination, fill your time with efficient activity prior to getting started on the task you’ve been avoiding. Although you are not tackling the item that merits your current attention, you use this period of “creative procrastination” to take care of all those other things which you would eventually handle anyway.

Rather than simply frittering away the time when I procrastinate, I try to accomplish as many of the other small task as I can while putting off the big one that I know I need to be tackling. Too often, many people who procrastinate not only ignore the main task at hand but also fail to accomplish all the other little tasks that will eventually need attention. They dawdle. They surf. They hurl.

If you complete secondary tasks, eventually – when you’re able to begin the major task and finish it – the major task and all the secondary tasks are done. Given that someone is not awaiting your completion of the major task, you’re in the same place you’d be if the major task had been tackled first and the secondary ones last! So, just when you thought you were the master procrastinator, you were being productive after all! It’s a form of time-shifting. The key is to continue to do things that are of some importance during your procrastination, rather than dilly-dallying.

Once you begin to tackle the larger project or assignment, you can approach it with the mindset that “I completed all these other things and now the slate is clear to do a good job on this.” Hereafter, if you simply can’t get started on a project, undertake other secondary tasks that you’ll need to do anyway. In that way, you’re at least taking care of other useful business. Once you finally initiate and finish the big, important task you’ve been shirking, all of these smaller but necessary tasks will already have been done.

On occasion it is understandable and even desirable to do something else other than the task you had originally set out to accomplish, such as when short-term, high-priority tasks or opportunities arise. Don’t beat yourself up over such incidences – they happen to everyone. When that “something else” is finished, you can return to the task at hand. It’ll be waiting for you, “cause it’s not going anywhere by itself no matter how much you want it to.



Regards,


Timben