Inside Nspire

Today is the day… today you begin your quest on tackling that organizational nightmare that has been on your desk for the past 2 years… Today you start to win. If you are just joining us on this series "time to get organized" you should read yesterday’s post first and then come back here.

Yesterday, I gave you a list of supplies you should have in order to overcome your organizational dilemma. Most of these tips on organization come from David Allen’s book "Getting Things Done". I am not going to follow David’s tips in the precise order that he gives them and I will not be covering in this post all the tips he has to offer. My attempt here will be to give you some pointers that I have gained from his book and also some other things I found that work very well. So, lets get going!

At this point you should have:

1. File Folders
2. Green Hanging File Folders
3. A Filing Cabinet
4. A Hand Held Labeling Machine
5. 2 to 3 days of freed up time
6. You will also need 1 pack of Printer Paper… you should have this lying around somewhere.
6. And Band-aids…. just in-case there are any gruesome paper cut injuries during this process

So… Where do I start?

I’m going to break this down into phases to try to help you accomplish each step of the organizational process. Some of you are probably reading this post through piles of papers surrounding your monitor… well, this is one of the first things that has to change. Before you can get organized you need to categorize (do you like the rhyming there) what is in your way.

Phase 1 - Clear the Playing Field (aka. Demolition of the opposition)

Your desk is cluttered…. it’s time to fix that. This will take some time. What you need to do first is create a temporary system here in order to cut down on some of the needless stuff you have, (you might want to make sure your trash can is empty before starting on this one). This part is where the pack of Printer Paper will come in. Get a good stack of your blank printer paper and cut it in half (hamburger style). Now, take a minute to think of anything and everything you have on your plate to do or that requires your attention. Write one task per piece of paper. Ex. I have to call a child’s parent about an upcoming event. I would write "Call ,the child’s name, parents about the upcoming event" on one piece of paper. Don’t put any other task with this sheet of paper… I know it seems a little overkill but this is essential. After I have written my task on my half sheet of paper, put that task in a separate pile and continue to stack all the other "task papers" on top of it. Try to think of anything and everything that you need to do. This is not just limited to work… think about personal life… hobbies… outside work…. children… eating ice cream… everything that you need to do needs to be written on a half sheet of paper (remember… one task per piece of paper). This will probably take some time to do but you do not need to go any farther until you have completed this.

After you have exhausted everything you can think of mentally, its time to start looking at your computer calendar (outlook), desktop calendar, the blue-million post-it notes on your desk, random notes on the side of McDonald’s napkins, and everything in-between. We are in the gathering stage here. Look through all these things for tasks or requirements that you must do and transfer them to individual half sheets of paper as well; staying with the idea of one task per piece of paper. EX. You find a Phone Call note on your desk, ask yourself "Have I completed this" if not, transfer the note or tape it to a piece of paper, then add the paper to the stack you have been building. After you have transferred the note, trash the original, so if you took a note of the McDonald’s napkin, there is not need for the napkin any longer… feed it to the trash can. Continue to do this with all your tasks and jobs that you have to complete until you have a real big stack of half cut sheets of paper with you future life written on them. After you have completed this, gather everything else that is left on your desk into another pile for processing.

* Note: Left over food, wrappers, cans, and that green puff of what used to be a sandwich should be immediately forwarded to the feeding the trash can part

Phase 2 - The 2 minute mile

Now you should have two big piles of stuff on your desk… This is your life… your stuff.. and now we are going to sort it. The key here is the number 2. Start with your pile of half sheets of paper. You need to sort this pile into a few other piles. Start by grabbing the top sheet, now ask yourself a few questions:

1. What is this?

2. Is this Actionable? (An actionable item is something that requires action from me, like mowing the grass; a non-actionable item would be something like a real cool magazine that you like the graphics on and want to keep… but you shouldn’t have any of those in you half sheet pile at this time)

3. If it is actionable, What is the action?

4. Will it take less than 2 minutes? If it will take less than two minutes to do then stop what you are doing and finish that task right now.

5. If it will take more than 2 minutes to do, you should either Delegate it or Defer it. If you delegate it, then that piece of paper goes into the person’s box and it becomes theirs and you will be waiting for them to finish it. If you Defer it, you need to schedule it on your calendar to be completed or put it in your inbox to be done as soon as you can. (Be careful here not to get to happy on deferring tasks to your inbox to be done as soon as you can… That’s probably how you got into this place to begin with. I prefer to schedule tasks on my calendar so I can spread out the load and I also start to teach myself how to work by my calendar and not just in the chaos. For now, If you are going to schedule something to be completed, I want you to create a pile of to schedule items. I will be showing you tomorrow methods to schedule your tasks.

Continue to do this to your stack of paper. Depending how big a stack you have, this could take a few hours or even the rest of the day. After you have finished going through your stack of paper, move over to the rest of the papers and stuff on your desk and ask the very same questions above, the only difference will be if you find that the item is not actionable. If it is not actionable, then you should do one of three things:

1. Trash it > I know this is the hardest thing to do but really think about this. Are you really going to read that 2001 edition magazine. Ask yourself "Do I really need this?"

2. Add it to the Someday Maybe Pile > This pile is reserved for things like advertising offers you have received that you have not looked through but would like to.

3. Or add it to the Reference pile > This pile is different from the Someday Maybe Pile in that it is for items that you know you have to keep and will need at a future date. Things like permission slips, business papers, and contact files. In my case I used this pile for all my graphic magazines or postcards that I had received through the years. I was not going to use any of the services they offered but I really liked their design and would like to have it for reference at a later point. For this stuff, I bought some of those clear plastic file pouches at Office Max to store these random pieces in. The purpose of the Reference pile is for just that, anything that you NEED to have for reference. Do not just place junk in this pile to get it off your desk, if it does not need to be referenced or reviewed in the Someday Maybe Pile… It needs to go into the trash.

This Part of the organizational Process is going to take you most of the day to complete. Trust me, it is not something that happens quickly and it may not be the most fun but this is the most vital step in the organizational process. For the sake of not making this post any longer than what it already is, I will cover what you need to do with your organized piles tomorrow. I will show you how to create your filing system in a few different ways, I will show you what way I decided to go with and hopefully help you get to a place where you can see the top of your desk again.

So, work on this part for the rest of the day. Have fun in doing it by knowing you are one day closer to getting your life organized. Check back here tomorrow and we will go over the next few steps. If you have questions, be sure to leave me a comment and I will get back to you ASAP. See you tomorrow!