To order this book, click here.

Christy Geiger, Executive Business Coach & Trainer,  Minneapolis, MN

Here are 5 strategies to EMPOWER your productivity through Organization. This is organization of the mind.

1. Brain dump. What is on your mind? What needs to be done and how much time will it take? What can be delegated and what do you have to do?

2. Mind map. Push yourself to think beyond your brain dump, what else is there? You can write several columns with these headings or make circles with these in the middle and then list or make “lines” off your circles with what else might need to be considered: Look at work (marketing, business development, clients, staff, administration, finance, etc.), family, home/car, volunteer activities, meetings/events, friends/fun, money, health, and any others that have significant action items.

3. Park it. Use the concept of a “parking lot” to put things that are concepts or ideas, not urgent or important, and can be done later. Keep this as a post-it, task list or sheet of paper, as new things pop into your mind, you can jot them down to manage later. (These are non-task items)

4. Plan & Schedule. Mark the items that are very important or urgent and then plot out the next day or two of when you will do what and leave the rest of the list. Specify when you will do what so you can work through your list in a disciplined fashion. Plan blocks of time to manage phone calls, interruptions and other things that might get you off your schedule.

5. Book mark. Use a future to do list or a planning tool like Outlook to assign the other tasks that will be handled in a few days, next week, or in the future. This way you can get them out of your brain and know that you will not forget them. Our minds are like computers. The more windows and things open, the slower it runs. Likewise, the more things you try and hold in your mind, the slower you run.

Get everything out. Put it in the proper place (parking lot idea list, on a day schedule or bookmarked in a task list) and get going on the task at hand. Stay focused and do not divert. You will be amazed at how you make progress and how good you feel!

• look at fear
• understand how it holds us back 
• teach us how to overcome it so that we can do what we need to do to be effective and valuable  

Maybe…

• …you are an effective and thriving professional but you fear outgrowing your position if you do what it takes to be at your full potential. 
• …you are considering a change and you fear losing the security of your current position. 
• …you desire simplicity, but fear letting go and not having as much stuff or that you will need it if you get rid of it.  
• …you know you need to advance your education but fear letting go of some current expenses and commitments to have enough time and money to go back to school.
• … you are feeling the fire to stand up for yourself but you fear being criticized or looking stupid if you open your mouth.  

2) Use ONE calendar. Sometimes people will have several calendars. One for family and one for work; one electronic and one paper. Keep ONE calendar for everything. Use different colors or type styles to differentiate categories.

3) Make a to-do list at the end of each day. Your mind naturally begins to work on the list as you sleep. When you awake, you are ready to work, are very productive and organized. Estimate how much time each thing will take you and only put on your next day’s to do list what is reasonable to get done.

4) “Eat That Frog” first. This is a Brian Tracy concept to do the hardest thing you have to do all day, first, before you do anything else. Doing this will provide you with the feeling of success in having a ‘burden’ off your back and give you momentum to accomplish the remaining tasks.

5) Have a clear goal and read it daily. When you have a goal you know what to focus on and work toward. If you do not have this at the front of your mind, it is easy to get caught up with the urgent things of the day or trapped in reacting to e-mail, phone calls, interruptions and other people’s emergencies.

6) Have a “power hour”. Designate one hour each day to close the door, shut down e-mail, turn off the ringer on the phone and guard yourself from interruptions. Have a pre-picked project that you will work on during this time only. Make sure to go to the bathroom, get a drink, and do whatever else you need to in order to ensure you do not leave once this hour starts. Give yourself 30 minutes after this hour to return calls, e-mails and care for people with whom you need to follow-up that you missed during the POWER HOUR.

7) Touch it once.  Sort through, e-mail, mail, papers, etc. and make a decision. File it, toss it or put it in a place for action. Sorting bins are helpful for this. Label your bins, folders, e-mails, etc. with things like: read, file, do this week, urgent, bills, etc. Paper, soft copy (computer), and e-mail folders should all have matching labels.

Have daily habits. After you develop a routine of things that are simple but important, your body will naturally do them. This is important because we can get distracted by our regular routines and use them as vices to interrupt, procrastinate and prolong important things that really need to get done. If you start your day right, you will be ready to do those urgent and important tasks, increasing your everyday productivity.

9) Prep. Have you ever been amazed on cooking shows how they make a complicated dish in 10 minutes? OK, part is edited TV time, but they also have everything preped for quick assembly. Why not do the same? Prepare your information packets and new client folders, turn common documents into templates, set up e-mail distribution lists for teams, etc.

10) Maximize car systems. Listen to a book on CD/tape to maximize your windshield time and learn. Have a bin to put important things in rather than having them all over the car. Have a trash bag to catch the liter. Always have a bottle of water in the car with you; dehydration causes fatigue, memory loss and low concentration. Make sure your contacts are portable (palm, planner, business card file book, etc.) so you keep people and numbers at your fingertips (call if running late or caught in traffic, if you remember something while out and a quick call can take care of it). Enjoy relaxing, breathing and taking in the day while driving (rather than cleaning, talking on the phone, etc.)

Be the master of your domain. When you implement a few simple productivity strategies and develop them as time saving habits, you will quickly enjoy the benefit of more time and energy and overall increased productivity.

1) Assess how you are spending your time. Here are a few common time eaters to watch out for:

• You have a long list of things to do and focus on all the little thing so you can mark off more things in an hour.
• You are straightening, cleaning or micro-working.
• You are spending hours on e-mail.
• You can’t find things and spend a lot of time looking and discovering things you have not seen in a long time.
• You spend social/idle time on the phone.
• TV, newspaper, errands & shopping (things that don’t contribute to bottom line)
• Maintenance items that absorb time
• Internet, computer games, chat rooms, etc

2) Identify your weakness. Look at what is holding you back from doing the really important things on your list. Some common reasons our “BIG” projects are not accomplished are:

• Lack of planning
• Lack of time
• Overwhelmed with the project
• Lack motivation
• Distractions/Interruptions
• Other priorities
• Emergencies
• Tired & frustrated
• Lack of resources
• Lack of clarity of vision
• Excuses (life)

3) Create a routines and strategies for how you operate.

• Simple and effective Daily Habits.
• 10 min. daily pick-up time.
• Keep a clean desk.
• Check e-mail 3x a day; limit time to 30 min. for each checking.
• Touch it once and put it in its place (file it, toss it, etc.)
• Pick one big project you need to do each day and complete it before doing anything else
• Keep a weekly plan of activities with the top 5 things you will do each day
• Keep regular tools as your fingertips (healthy snacks, water, books, Palm, etc.)
• Develop management systems – templates for things you do often.
• Block one hour a day for quiet time to focus exclusively
• Pick one news source & read as reward for task completed.
• Have a system to organize contacts, calendar and tasks (Outlook is a great tool)

Bottom-line.When you have systems in place and are neat and organized you can get more done. When you do what is important first, it will free your energy to have the big project done and also give plenty of time for all the little things. When you assess, identify and strategize you will easily maximize your productivity!

If you take your list, budget how much time important tasks will take, you can then plan them into your day better. If you have a 10 minute task, you can plan that for a 15 minute downtime period. If you don’t do this, people usually take 10 minutes just to figure out what they are going to do and then they only have 5 minutes left to do something, which is not enough time, so then nothing gets done (or they start a project and are stressed and then late for the next appointment.)

It also helps you to plan your day to see that you need 2 hours of blocked time to eat your frog (the #1 most important to do). This way you can plan your day to get that big thing off your plate. I guarantee when you get the weight of a large project off your back first thing in the morning, you will be super charged and excited for the rest of your day. Then knowing what you will do, how long it will take you and “budgeting” when you will do it, creates a clear focus and drive for you to accomplish many more things in your day.

Action:
* Take your prioritized list of to dos and write behind each how much time each will take (pad more time then less time)
* Look at your schedule for the day and plan when you will do which tasks. If you have a large tasks, see how you can break it down into parts that fit into your day.
* Write specifically what you will do on the calendar. (i.e. budget 1 hour to write newsletter. Have a 15 minute opening in the AM; plan to write the intro to the newsletter.)

In Stephen Coveys book, First Things First, begins to explain what is happening. He says, in the book, “consider whether you look at life through a basic paradigm of ‘urgency’ or ‘importance’?” He explores the effects of urgency addiction” and promotes a new perspective, “more than ‘time management’, it’s a generation of personal leadership. More than doing things right, it’s focused on doing the right things.”

What does this mean and how do you do it? There are many things to say about this but to me one of may favorite and first steps to tackle a life that has been consumed by the race of the urgent is to simply stop and get focused. This is a daily habit or practice that is good to do each day, ideally in an AM or PM routine. Here is how you do it:

1) brain dump everything that is on your mind onto a sheet of paper (please do not think that keeping lists in your head is effective, just like a computer will freeze up when to many windows and programs are running, so will your brain)

2) review your personal values (these are your passions, motivators and what makes you uniquely you)

3) review your big picture focus or goal (what are you aspiring to achieve in their period of your life)

4) select the 3 most important things you need to accomplish in order to move forward and remove the heaviest weight that is burdening you (often what weights on us is not what we do – that is what we procrastinate about – what we do is usually quick, insignificant to-do’s). Write these 3 things on a sticky note and post it where you can see it all day.

5) commit to 30 minutes a day to work on one of the items. Ideally an hour first thing in the AM, but protecting some time to really work on the top 3 each day is a great start.

This is the first step in thinking about your life strategically vs. reactionary. There is much more to balancing all parts of your life, living in line with your values, prioritizing, etc. but at times when we get so overloaded it is good to have a simple approach to remove yourself from the beginning of a crisis cycle and get back to putting first things first.

Be strategic!
Christy