| Greetings!
I'm pretty pumped up today. Earlier today, I had a great session at the Missouri Society of Association Executives/Society of Governmental Meeting Planners Joint Speaker Showcase -- a great time meeting new people. Then, I had the opportunity to take a 2-hour hike in the heat here near St. Louis at the Busch Memorial Wildlife Area, communing with nature and getting in a great workout! What a great summer day!
I have been thinking about how to take advantage of a fairly slow week client-wise next week (thanks to our upcoming holiday -- Happy Birthday USA!), and thought I would share with you what I do about twice a year to get my office's desk space back to 100% productivity. It seemed like a great topic for a Timely Tips, but a bit too big to pull off in one issue, so I thought this would be a great time to do a special 2-parter, with Part 1 right before the holiday, and Part 2 immediately following the holiday next week. This is how I "de-paper-fy" my office, and I think it may help lead you to additional productivity and sanity in your workspace too!
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Independence Day from the Stacks & Piles of paper burying your desk (Part 1)
| This is ALWAYS the place to look for your Timely Tip!
Last month, I shared a great tip from Timely Tips reader Lyn Hewitt on how to convert hard-copy "to review" materials into PDFs that you can then load on your Kindle or IPad. Let's take that paper reduction process even further, by going after the stacks and piles on your desk. I like this topic right now, as many offices slow down a bit around the holiday, and many people start taking summer vacations. If you are still in the office (or will be again soon), take advantage of this brief lull in the insanity, and get ready for the next wave of craziness by getting your desk in order. Specifically, I want you to attack your "paper clutter, stacks, & piles." I learned the basics of these paper management strategies more than 20 years ago from David Allen, Mr. Getting Things Done, and they still work great today (with some help from modern technology!)
We'll cover this in two-parts, with part two coming right after the holiday.
To Prepare: First, get some much needed supplies at your desk: empty manila folders, empty hanging folders, folder tabs, markers, and labels, as well as a single pad of sticky notes. Also, find some space near your desk for additional filing, if you don't have space available already. If you can, having access to a scanner and PDF printer will help too.
Put Away Your Folders. Now, take any and all folders on your desk, and if any of them have an active task you need to get done, identify the task and either add it to your software's task manager, or simply add it to a paper task list. Then, PUT YOUR FOLDERS AWAY! (I know, I'm talking crazy here, but just try this.)
Make a BIG Pile of Paper. Second, grab every single loose piece of paper (including those in large stacks, articles, magazines, sticky notes, etc.), and put them in the GRAND MASTER OF ALL PILES. Yes, that's right. I want you to put them all in a single, massive, completely disorganized pile. If it touches your ceiling, that is fine. Just grab all of the loose paper and get it together NOW!
Step 3 (First Pass Through Your Pile): Now, start at the top of your pile, and take every piece of paper that you can file, shred, recycle, or toss, and JUST DO IT!! Yes, I want you to get rid of the worthless paper cluttering your desk that you no longer need, as well as file the papers you need to keep. This is where the preparatory materials I mentioned above can be helpful. If you come across a piece of paper, and all you need to do with it is file it for later reference, DO JUST THAT! And if you haven't actually made a file folder for it, MAKE A FILE FOLDER FOR IT, INSERT THE PAPER, and PUT THE FILE AWAY! (I know, I'm talking crazy again, but just humor me.) If you want to be "fancy", you could even scan the piece of paper, convert to PDF, and file electronically (an even better option. Then, discard the original once you have the PDF created and filed.)
Step 4 (Second Pass Through Your Pile): Now you should be left with a significantly smaller stack of stuff that you likely still need to either take actions on, review, or make decisions about. Here's what I want you to do with it:
Get four sticky notes, and spread them across your desk, each one with a different title: 1. Active Items, 2. Deferred Items, 3. To Delegate, 4. To Review.
Now, take each item in your pile (individual piece of paper, article, etc.) one at a time and put them in one of these four stacks. Each item you run across should fit in one of these stacks, unless you run across more items that really just need to be filed, deleted, shredded, or recycled. Make your items fit into one of these four stacks, or put them away/throw them away!
Now, you should have four clean and simple stacks, with your most important stack likely being your "Active Items" stack. Let's do one more thing before calling it "good", and taking off for the holiday weekend:
Last step for Part 1: Go through your "Active Items" stack, and any active items that will only take 2-3 minutes or less, DO THOSE NOW! I want you to GET DONE all of the quick little things (and their related pieces of paper), and then either file them or get rid of them. Make the call. Fill out the little form. Send the reply note. Do what you need to do, and if you spend the rest of your day just knocking out these quick little things, AWESOME!
You've made great progress -- good enough to take off for the holiday. Next week, after you come back, we'll pick up where we left off, and finish your clean up process. (And if you are wondering why we didn't touch the "To Delegate" stack ... HEY, WE'RE HEADING INTO A HOLIDAY! Don't delegate a bunch of stuff right before the holiday! What kind of boss are you???)
We'll obviously cover that next week. Feeling better? I hope so! (By the way, this same process can also help you with your desk at home as well as wherever you keep your bills and mail -- go after it!)
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Have a Wonderful Holiday!
Have a fun holiday. Maybe this Timely Tips will help you enjoy it more, as you'll see your stress and overwhelm reduced, replaced with a plan. (And if you decided just to read this but not do this just yet, I hope you still feel a little relief in your stress knowing you can knock out those stacks and piles.) Wishing you fun with friends, family, fireworks, sun, and sand (or however you choose to spend it.) Look for Part 2 next week. Until then, Stay Timely!
Sincerely,
Randy Dean
Randall Dean Consulting & Training, LLC
or http://www.emailsanityexpert.com
PPS: Always feel free to use the "Forward E-mail" option below to share this info with your family, friends, & co-workers. |
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NEXT
PUBLIC
PROGRAM:
July 13-15 -- Iowa Association of Lifelong Learning
Marshalltown, IA (I'm presenting on July 15!)
| I'll be leading two of my most popular sessions: Time Management in "The Cloud" Using Google Apps, and Finding an Extra Hour Every Day (Including Strategies for Taming E-mail). I'll be the final day general session luncheon speaker with Finding an Extra Hour, but it looks like there is an outstanding set of other sessions and speakers at this conference. Take advantage!
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Access to My "Timely Tips" Archive
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As many of you know, I've been saving each of my issues of Timely Tips as a web page each and every month, to allow for easy sharing in social media and by e-mail. I just updated my archive, and have all of the issues since September 2008 in a single location, so you can easily pull up each of those issues as you desire. Enjoy!
Here's the link to my Timely Tips Archive on ConstantContact.com.
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