“Be Organized” is the fourth of my Six Simple Rules for a Better Life. Some of my favorite “Be Organized” strategies didn’t exist when my book was published just over four years ago.
I use the built-in Notes app on my iPhone to write down all kinds of things. I love speaking into the phone and having it write down what I say. It isn’t perfect, but dictating and then editing is much faster for me than typing the whole thing.
The basics for me on being organized are as follows:
- Writing everything down. In particular, my to-do list. I do it now on a simple app from Microsoft.
- Striving for in-box zero. An in-box full of messages, whether read or unread, creates great stress for me. To counter that, if I can’t reply to an e-mail right away, I make a note on my to-list and I save the e-mail in a properly labeled folder. That’s the same system I used back in the day with paper, which I would put into files while noting the related tasks on my to-do list. I called that “files, not piles,” and that name fits nicely with my goal of in-box zero; of not having a “pile” of e-mails in my in-box. Just as an uncluttered desk is more productive, so, too is a uncluttered digital desktop.
- Prioritizing my to-do list and then making time for the most important items, as Stephen Covey frequently wrote and spoke about.
- Avoiding procrastination.
Last year, I read an interesting post by one of my favorite bloggers, Joshua Becker. Excerpted from his piece:
When we finish a task, whether it’s big or small, it quickly leaves our thoughts. But when we leave something unfinished—like a phone call laundry, dirty dishes, or even a puzzle on the kitchen table—it continues to occupy space in our minds, even as we move on to other activities.
There is a name for this. It is called The Zeigarnik Effect…named after the Russian psychologist who first noticed it, Bluma Zeigarnik…Zeigarnik discovered this phenomenon while observing waiters in a busy restaurant. She noticed that they had a remarkable ability to remember unpaid orders, but once the orders were settled, the details quickly faded from their memory.
It’s similar to when you were a student in school and could remember names and dates and facts in preparation for a test. But once the test was over, you’d immediately forget the information. That’s the phenomenon—we tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones.
I recommend reading Becker’s piece. It’s filled with excellent suggestions.
All my best,
David