Posted in Living on Jun 22nd, 2008 1 Comment »
Disclaimer: this is an obvious suggestion. Feel free to stop reading now. Of course, if you’re not organised, you may want to keep reading …
The best way to get more organised is to spend time organising.
It doesn’t have to be lots of time - just more than you do now. And it’s most effective [...]
Posted in Learning, Living on Mar 13th, 2008 No Comments »
I warn you - this is going to sound silly. But so many people have very reluctantly admitted how well this works that I’m pretty sure I’m on the right track. Here goes:
If you’re procrastinating over something, start the very first, small thing. And only the first thing.
If it’s a report, write the first sentance [...]
Posted in Learning, Living on Mar 4th, 2008 No Comments »
I have a looming deadline for a conference paper. When you’re working to a deadline, there are 3 options: start early, start as late as possible, or panic. Two of those are approved Project Management practices. Here’s a simple technique from Project Management for planning out your work to avoid panic.
1. Break the work into [...]
Posted in Learning, Living on Feb 12th, 2008 No Comments »
Forgetting appointments and due dates? Have reminder notes everywhere? Spend your time firefighting? Need to get things sorted, quick? This post will show you how to use a diary to get stuff done on time. There’s more complex methods, but this is an excellent base for all of them - so get started now, and [...]
Posted in Living on Feb 8th, 2008 1 Comment »
In part one I talked about doing what’s important, not what’s urgent. We’re now going to use the Urgency/Importance matrix to do that, starting with the easiest quadrant.
Here’s the Urgency/Importance matrix again:
Let’s start with Quadrant 4 - Not Urgent and Not Important
Quadrant 4 tasks are timewasters. They are not important to us, and there’s no [...]
