Open Loops

Post-It Possibilities

I’m presently preparing a presentation for a conference that will be held in May.  I’ve placed a large piece of chart paper on my wall and have begun attaching Post-It Notes, on which I’ve written points that I intend to make during my presentation.  Later, I’ll move and re-group these small points into larger groups that represent larger concepts.  As I wrote and re-grouped, I became more aware of how easy the Post-It Notes made this process.  I also began to think how indispensable these little colored pieces of paper have become to my productivity.  Here is a few ways that I’ve been using them:

• Planning points and sub-points in presentations
• Bookmarks
• Posting goals on my bathroom mirror so I’ll see them everyday
• Creating seating charts on clipboards
• Scheduling teachers and classes
• Masking off completed areas of paper forms before copying to create a new “master”
• Labeling desk areas for sorting stacks of paper (File, Action, Refer, Trash, etc.)
• Writing Hall Passes that stick to clothing
• Leaving notes on doors of parents whom I’ve missed during home visits
• Writing next actions on the paperwork that constitutes my current project so I don’t have to start all over or try to remember where I was.

These ubiquitous small yellow, blue, and pink papers have become essential in my daily professional life.  What “tool” has become essential in your professional life?

Ian's Messy Desk : A few, common-sense ideas that can help you get better organized.

Ian, over at Ian’s Messy Desk, has been exploring the web and came upon Get Organized Now, a web site on organizing.  He has collected and organized a list of simple Do’s that will streamline one’s life.  I love this kind of simple, concrete advice.  Each is short, to the point, and effective.

Links:

• Ian's Messy Desk : A few, common-sense ideas that can help you get better organized.
• Get Organized Now!

Chunking Your Inbox

The act of processing one's inbox can be very tedious at times.  My inbox can get so full, at times, that it can literally take hours to get through it all.  It's not that it's that hard to do, it's that the actions required to do it are sometimes so different that time is actually lost switching gears.  At one time I'm writing a next action in my @context lists and storing the support material in my action files.  The next slip of paper has me heading for my reference files.  The next slip has me getting up to deliver it to another person.  The next paper has me, again, heading for my reference files.  Each of these were done because each took only two minutes.  However, in doing each two-minute task, several more minutes were wasted in transition time, going from files, to desk, to another person's office, and back to my desk.

Taking a cue from the @context lists, and remembering a technique from Stephanie Winston in her book, The Organized Executive, I began chunking my inbox.  Just like one gathers items for the @context lists by location (e.g., @home, @office, @computer), chunking one's inbox by needed action made my inbox processing time go much faster.

Next Action Support Files

Action Files
Originally uploaded by hwebbjr.

People have contacted me and wanted to see more about my Next Action support file set-up. Here it is.

Each piece of paper that becomes a next action is assigned a letter of the alphabet (hopefully, with a logical connection -- e.g., budget would be assigned B). I write that letter in the upper right-hand corner of the paper (so I can remember where to return it if it needs to remain in the file as I work on it) and file it in the appropriate lettered hanging file. When I write my Next Action, I add a small reminder to the end so I can remember where the item is. Here's an example:

Review budget (AF-B)

The Next Action is "Review Budget". The "AF" stands for Action File. The "B" indicates which hanging file it's in.

Again, a la David Allen, one more thing off my mind -- an open loop closed!

One In One Out

I have a bad collecting habit.  I love watches and collect them.  I’m afraid I’m a bit of a pen freak, so I have a growing collection of pens, which cost from ninety-seven cents to $250 each.  I love ties, so my tie collection has grown from five, which I originally used for each workday, to over 150.  I have over 8 tie racks in my closet!  When I first started with GTD and read about how important a labeler was, one just wouldn’t do.  I have three desk labelers and two hand-held labelers.  I took an interest in traditional Irish music and now boast a CD collection worth over $1000 in just Irish music.  I began to learn the Irish whistle as an instrument and quickly amassed $1000 in whistles.  I had over 300 movies in VHS format, but am now rebuilding that collection in DVD.  I think my books are the worst.  I have two tall bookcases but they are now too small to handle my growing collection of over 500 books. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that any size house will soon be outgrown by an accumulation of possessions.  No matter how much I claim that these possessions will gain in value, my wife still calls them clutter.

What's in Your Wallet...Er...On Your Desk?

Michael Doan: A Clean Desk

I’ve been an advocate of having a clean desk.  There’s something about walking into your office in the morning and seeing your desk looking like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier:  clean, clear, and ready for action.  So the last thing I do at the end of the day is to file all my loose papers and get my desk ready for the next day.  I also believe that I’m best organized when I have only one project on the desktop at a time.  I realize that during the heat of battle, a desk can look like a battlefield with multiple projects here and there (not by choice, but when the boss walks in and has several things he/she wants done now), have supplies and materials scattered about, and have reference material hanging on to the edges. Periodically, however, I stop everything to get my desk back to zero.  This goes back to David Allen, in his book, Ready for Anything, where, at times of indecision, he advocates cleaning something up, something obvious and in front of you.  Nothing is more in front of us than our desks.