Sunday 19 June 2016

Day 9 #blogjune - Organise me

Sharon's post today is about running (yes she called it "Dark" but it is about running!) so I thought I would take inspiration from Rachel's post on "Organisation".

I see this topic coming up quite regularly during #blogjune and #blog12daysxmas.  It's a topic I love, all about organisation and stationery and colours and...you get it....

I always have paper next to me on my desk and write down anything I need to do as it comes to mind.  From this list, I choose 3 things that I want to complete that day, write them on post it notes and stick them to my monitor. I love lists and have blogged about keeping lists but keeping lists electronically just doesn't work for me.  I find that I don't tend to go back to the lists or the notes once I have jotted them down.  Having said that, I have found taking my laptop to meetings and annotating the agenda with action items helps me action these things, but if I was to just start a Word document with notes and/or action items, then I wouldn't think to refer back to them.  I am not sure why the first works but the second doesn't. I do use the "Keep" app on my phone (the only app I use for lists!) as I can access it from anywhere.  It looks like a lot of post it notes, I can colour code them and have tick boxes (stationery, right?).  I guess it works like Evernote, but I just don't like Evernote (ducks for cover).

Another thing that I have found works really well is buying a 12 month diary (with a lovely cover of course, stationery, remember?), day to a page.  I take this with me to less formal meetings and jot down things I want to discuss with the person or things I need to do.  I refer to this daily and if there is something outstanding, I put a post it flag there to mark the page (stationery, remember?). I use the flags as they are very sturdy and reusable.  I keep several of them stuck to the inside front cover so that I have ready access to them.  They don't take up any room at all this way and are always to hand.

I do have a large planner on the kitchen bench. It is a calendar one and everyone needs to write down what they are doing here - extra work hours, events they are going to, special occurrences etc.  This has been working really well from a family perspective.

What do you all do to organise yourselves?

2 comments:

Rachel said...

Thanks for sharing for ways of keeping organised Tania. Glad I am not the only one who doesn't like online to do lists. I forget to go back to them as well.

Tania said...

Glad to help in some way. You should read my Day 12 post though, where I talk about paper independence :)