Are you struggling to get all of your work done? Are things falling through the cracks? Feel overwhelmed? Like you have so much to do that you can’t possibly finish? Well, there is hope. You can organize your life, and though it does take a little time and effort, it’s not all that hard to do.
1) Set goals and prioritize. This is the first step and it’s where most people fall down. They don’t know what the hell they’re trying to do in the first place.
Want to be the CEO at your company or is it “just a job” paying the bills while you move on another career? Are you looking to sleep with as many women as possible or get married? Is your top priority a new car or six months’ emergency expenses in savings?
Take a moment to think. Ask important questions. Where do you want to be in five years? If you had an infinite amount of money, what would you be doing with your life? How can you do some of those things now without limitless cash? How is your life shaping up in its important dimensions? How’s your health, love life, career, spirituality, revenue flow, and your friends/family? If you rated yourself on all those dimensions 1 – 10, what would your rating be? Now, how can you improve your life on those dimensions? What values do you put the highest and least priority on? Health, love, security, freedom, passion, success, comfort, etc. Once you put these values in order, your decision-making process changes forever.
With a clear sense of your goals, dreams, values, and priorities, the organizing process becomes an order of magnitude easier.
Categories: PJ Lifestyle Columns
Tags: Get Organized, Goals, Organization, Planning, self-improvement
From personal experience, I’d add a sixth step. Here it is: Tell people. Tell everybody around you about your goals. You may get valuable advice from them. You may get cautions from them. You will get encouragement from them. You will also be deterred from failing…Nobody wants to look like a failure to their acquaintances. That last one sounds a little harsh, but there is some truth to it.
There actually IS a 6th step in step-down planning: “evaluation”
After a period of time (could be 2-6-12 weeks/months) one has to ask the question:
6)Did I get to my goal?
If not; Why?
This is the crucial step that most administrators, for instance, don’t even wanna hear: accountability. Obama is a classic example … no accountability whatsoever. So Herr Wilson is on the right track because when you do share/tell your goals etc with/to friends; then there is a certain accountability because it is inevitable that someone is gonna ask, “How’s it going?”
I would add Step 0: Get some sleep.
I reckon most people (particularly new parents) are overtired (to the point where some studies are starting to notice a pattern of increased workplace accidents among new parents). Everything is harder when you’re permanently tired. Tasks seem more difficult, focusing is harder, ideas come less frequently. Get more sleep. Make it a priority. Sleep until your brain feels fresh. Then you’ve got a chance at getting organized. You can fake it a bit, but you’ll never get ahead.
Good point about sleep and new parents. When my kids were small I was the only parent I knew of who napped with the kids. Everyone else ran around trying to get stuff done…big mistake.
Darnit, I read this article in hopes of unionizing my workplace. (shakes fist).
“This blog kills Procrastinators”
Lists are easy. Motivation is not so easy. Actually the word “motivation” should be dropped and replaced with “want”. If you have failed to accomplish your list then it may well be because you didn’t really want to in the first place. Be honest about what you want. If you didn’t do the task the truth is that you didn’t want to. You didn’t do the task because there was something else that seemed more important, interesting, fun, or easier. Getting nowhere in life or leaving something undone is the result of actual choices. Victims are self created by their choices and for reasons of secondary gain – also their choices. Perhaps HONESTY should top the list. Now for another cup of coffee rather than cleaning the closet. Oh but it’s not my fault for I am just the victim of my lack of motivation and for my need for another cup of coffee. Or perhaps I will revise my list again. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I can vouch for that. I’m the worst procrastinator in the world and it’s because I always have something I’d rather do than what I’m supposed to be doing. Sometimes, I just plain get bored doing what I should be doing and find something else to do, even if I didn’t have something I’d rather do in the first place. Of course, being honest enough to admit it means that I end up getting it done…just not right away.
And this blog can be better organized by not making their viewers click thru 7 pages to see a simple list. Wonder if overall readership would improve if he didn’t play these silly games of click, click, click. I know when I see one of his articles on Linkiest that I will have to waste time clicking around his site. Therefore, rather than clicking on his link 90% of the days, I only hit his link about 10% of the time (and it usually takes a good teaser).
Just one persons opinion on why certain people might not put the effort in finding out what John has to say on a subject. Shame, cause he usually has good stuff. Cheers, Roger
Don’t tell anybody, Roger, but there’s a magical button at the bottom of the right hand side that reads ->
VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE.
Heh – where’s the LIKE button on this reply?
Here is a little trick I learned from a coworker. When faced with an unpleasant task, set an alarm clock to go off in one hour. Knowing that you can stop after one hour, run around like crazy getting that loathsome task done.
You will be surprised how much gets done in one hour or less. You will probably want to finish the task if it goes over the hour. Isn’t there a saying that starting a task is having it half done?
1. Write a “to do” list. (Check)
2. Check off first item on “to do” list. (Check)
3. Feel good about getting halfway through the “to do” list. (Check)
4. Take a nap. (In progress)
I would add have self discipline. I can start executing all I want but I didn’t have the self discipline to finish.
The Get Things Done philosophy is totally in disagreement with this. According to GTD, the first step is to get a handle on all of your low-level stuff like to-dos and tasks FIRST. Then the higher stuff like goals and priorities will become readily apparent.
I am a GTD believer because it turned my life around a few years ago. I had gone through countless iterations of pretty much the process you mention above, with a variety of tools, and it NEVER worked. Then I read GTD, and within two weeks was seeing results, and by two months the results were dramatic enough to have a significant positive impact on both my personal and professional life. That was three years ago.
My advice: Get the book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen. Follow it religiously (Yes, you need the good quality file cabinet. Yes, you need the label maker. Yes, you need to throw every to-do item in a huge bin, then spend several days/nights going through the bin, one item at a time).
I do not have any financial interest in the GTD method. I am not a organization consultant, nor do I own significant stock in office supply companies.
Step 7
ask yourself why the article is divided into several pages with a handy “see as one page” option. Would most people rather wait for their browser to reload many times as they read what is essentially a piece of fluff?- people who achieve their goals don’t have time for this sh@t
The first step is to have goals and dreams? Well, that’s useless, then. I haven’t had goals or dreams for at least ten years. I have projects instead.