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 if you do it regularly.

What I do: Every day when I get home I do Flylady’s “5 minute room rescue“: 5 minutes tidying one room. Unbelievably, such a small thing keeps the house pretty much tidy.

To do this:
1. Choose a regular time – e.g. when you get home or before you go to bed.
2. Set your timer for 5 minutes.
3. Tidy til it beeps. Don’t do anything else, don’t get distracted – just do it.

You’ll be amazed how well it works.

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 (”This report descibes my industry placement at PCs R Us.”).
• If it’s a presentation, prepare the first few words (”Hi, my name is Kim.”).
• If it’s a programme, write the first part of the header ( /* foo.php written by Kim 12/3/2008 */ ).

That’s all. Honest.

Why this works:

1. Once you’ve written the first bit, chances are you’ll start thinking about the next bit, then the next bit, and before you know you’ve done a whole lot of it.

2.It’s much easier to start a very small task (one sentance), than a large and undefined task (writing a whole report).

3. Psychologically, you’re giving yourself an easy “win”. If you write just one sentance, you’ve done what you promised. You can then shut down the document and go play World of Warcraft, feeling good about yourself. This makes it easier to start again next time.

Of course, this technique only helps you overcome procrastination, not finish the whole task on time. Next time you’ll have to do the second small task

So - what are you waiting for?

1. Break the work into tasks. In my case this is: do literature review; write first draft; write second draft; write conclusion, introduction and abstract; and polish.

2. Estimate how long each task will take you. Be generous here – it’s better to have spare time than run late. My estimates were 2 days for the literature review (I already had a lot of information), one day for the first draft, one day for the 2nd draft, and one day to polish.

3. Work out when you could start and finish if you started each task on the earliest possible date from today. I started on February 18th, and can do research every Friday, so my dates went like this:

4. Adjust to meet the due date. Unfortunately, that’s March 14th. If I get up early Saturday morning, I can do a full day’s work by lunchtime, so that gives me an extra day a week. Now my plan looks like this:

This also gives me some slack time in case things don’t go as planned – although not a lot.

5. Monitor your progress and adjust the plan as needed. The literature review took an extra day, so I had to find time during the week to work on it. I’m half way through the 2nd draft, and it’s looking good – but it’s March 2nd, so I need to finish that today (not a planned working day) to stay on track. Why did this happen? Because that’s life. I didn’t know about the deadline until recently (correction – I didn’t think to find out about the deadline til recently), I had hoped to work on it during the week, but in the first few weeks of the semester that’s impossible… other things get in the way. Sound familiar?

To get an even better plan:

6. Work out the latest start dates as well: From the deadline, work backwards -

7. Put reminder notes in your diary in big red letters – 8th Feb – Must start literature review today!!!! 15 Feb – must finish literature review today!!! That way you won’t let things slip pas those dates, because you know in advance that you have to start on those dates to finish on time.

Try it for yourself – it only takes a few minutes, and saves a lot of panic at the end.

1. Get a diary. Look for something:

• cheap – as you use it more your requirements will change, so you’ll want to upgrade. Don’t go for an expensive solution until you’re sure it’s perfect.
• easy to carry – small is good
• enough space to write what you want – so not too small
• easy to write in and check at a glance (paper great, pda ok, laptop bad, PC awful).
• the ability to add in more pages (see step 4)
• at least 2 views: annual calendar and daily. A monthly calendr is ok, but annual is better.
• have enough room in the daily page to write down all the things you need to do and remember in that day. I dunno about you, but I need at least one full page for that.
• preferably customisable, so that you can write absolutely in your diary – addresses, notes, lists, etc etc, and add in more pages when and where you need to. . They don’t need to cost the earth – I’ve seen them for about $5 at Whitcoulls. Also check out KMart and the 2 dollar stores. Or try a hipsterPDA.

Online solutions and time management software are great, until you’re in the car, on the underground, or at the beach. They’re not portable so you’ll need at least 2 systems (one to carry around): one is easier.  The same goes for home and work: one combined system is easier.

2. Collect everything you have to do, ready to set up your diary.

3. Schedule in all your appointments in THREE places (yup – three places). This also applies to anything with a due date.

One: In the daily page for the day of the appointment.

Two: In the calendar page, on the day of the appointment.

Three: A few days/weeks before the appointment, as a reminder (in the daily page). How far in advance depends on whether you need to prepare for it. If it’s important, put in a couple of reminders.

Put in a reminder even if you think you’ll check what’s coming up in advance. One day you won’t, and you’ll be scuppered.

4. Create a master To Do list.

This is a part of your diary to write down everything – everything – that you need to do. This list will get added to – lots – and crossed off – lots, hopefully – so will look like a real mess over time. This is where a customisable diary is great – you can add more pages and replace the old ones. I put mine right at the front of the diary.

5. Prioritise your master To Do list.

The aim of the game is to mark which stuff is to be done first, in whatever way makes sense to you. Think about what’s important to you (rather than just urgent). Some ideas:

• Highlight the Quadrant 2’s so they’re easier to spot
• Eliminate as many Quadrant 3 & 4’s as possible
• Add dates next to anything with a due date (repeat step 3 if you haven’t already scheduled them).
• Don’t number all tasks from 1 – n, unless you have a very small list
• You could create a “priority” code – 1 for “do now”, 2 for “do soon”, 3 for “someday/maybe” (hello, GTDers).

6. Plan your first day: choose no more than seven (7) things to schedule into your day.

Remember – big rocks first (that’s those Quadrant 2’s).

Stick to 7. 7 is doable. More than 7, you set yourself up for failure, because of all the little things that crop up. If you finish early, you can always start tomorrow’s list.

7. Choose ONE MIT (Most Important Thing) from your list. Hightlight it. You’re going to do that one first.

8. Do it. When it’s done, cross the task off the daily list. As new stuff comes up, add it to the master To Do list. Schedule new appointments straight away (see step 3).

9. Review it. At the end of the day, update the master To Do list. Then plan tomorrow (steps 6 & 7). Check what appointments you have coming up in the next few days.

10. Done.

Acknowledgements and further reading:

My first time management system was based on a Daytimers  planner, a great, and beautiful – but expensive – system, and I learnt steps 3 & 4 from them.
I learnt about MITs from Leo at Zen Habits (thanks Leo).
The Quadrants come from Stephen Covey, of course. Check out the previous posts in this series for more about them.
The “someday/maybe” category is from David Allen’s excellent Getting Things Done (GTD) system – there’s lots on information about it on the internet.
My current system is a hipsterPDA, which I read about from Merlin Mann, another GTDer.

All libraries have books in time management, and there is lots and lots of good information on the web. However don’t get into “analysis paralysis” – start now, get a system going, then customise it as you learn what you want.

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 urgency. My top timewaster is Freecell. I mean, why? Why would anyone want to waste time playing Freecell? Why?

I’m not decrying all computer games as timewasters. If they’re a valuable recreation activity to you, great: they’re Quadrant 2. They’re not to me, so I need to manage them.

To manage Quadrant 4’s: Eliminate

As much as you can, eliminate timewasters from your day and spend the time doing something important instead. Unistall Freecell, and meditate while web sites load instead. Stop watching Shortland Street and read a book for half an hour. If you eliminate tasks that aren’t important to you, you have more time to do the things that are. Once you’ve done that you’re ready to move on to Quadrant 3.

Quadrant 3 – Urgent but not Important

Quadrant 3 tasks are sneaky. They look very much like a Quadrant 1, because they’re urgent, which makes them seem important too. But they’re not. Examples include that double-glazing salesman, entering a prize draw with a looming due date, doing urgent tasks that you’ve agreed to do, but are not that important to you, or doing things you feel you should do, but don’t really care about. Look through your to-do list: is there anything there that you don’t care about?

To Manage Quadrant 3’s: Minimise

Start to notice the urgent and not important things that crop up and make a list of them. Then work out how you can minimise each one. Can you turn off the phone – at least for an hour? Can you agree with family members that they will not interrupt you for an hour after dinner? Can you delegate tasks to someone else, or give them up altogether? It’s really important to spend some time minimising Quadrant 3’s, because they eat into the time that you could otherwise be spending on the important stuff.

If you’ve done that, you should already have more time in which to do what really matters to you. But surprisingly, there’s one more to deal with:

Quadrant 1 – Urgent and Important

These are things that are both urgent and important to you. Looming deadlines for things you want to do, sudden illness or catastrophe, the taxes that are due tomorrow. Quadrant 1 is about fighting fires – you really need to do these tasks. So the strategy is different from Quadrants 3 & 4:

To Manage Quadrant 1’s: Anticipate

If your house bursts into flames, you have to put it out. But if you’d fixed the faulty wiring when you first noticed it, the house would not be on fire now. The trick with Quadrant 1 is to do the important tasks while they are still in Quadrant 2 – important, but not yet urgent – and you will never have to work in Quadrant 1. Granted, you won’t always achieve this, but doing it as much as you can means you have more time to spend in quadrant 2, where the good stuff happens.

Quadrant 2: Important but not Urgent.

This is the most important quadrant of all, because these are things that we really want to get around to (they’re important), but they usually get crowded out by the urgent stuff in Quadrants 1 and 3. Things like assignments that aren’t due for a couple of months, planning that vacation to get quality time with your family, and starting exercising – these are important, but unless a crisis happens to make them urgent, we may not get around to them, because other things are more urgent.

To manage Quadrant 2: Put the big rocks in first.

I’ll explain this saying in a later post, but translated it means: schedule Quadrant 2 tasks into your day, week and month, before anything else fills them up. Then make sure you do them.

That way, you’ll never end up fighting fires, wasting your time, or getting sidetracked by interruptions. It’s that simple.

Simple, but not necessarily easy. Which brings us back to the story.

In part one, I talked about my first year working, and trying to finish my degree at night. My boss started giving me urgent tasks at 4:30, and I missed my lectures to do them. Until I learned about the Urgency/Importance matrix.

That evening, I drew up my own Urgency/Importance matrix. I decided that finishing my degree was Quadrant 2 – it was important to me, but not (yet) urgent. I decided that my work was also important to me, and the jobs my boss was giving me late in the afternoon were urgent, but I didn’t know if they were important or not.

The next day I arranged a meeting with him to discuss the problem I was having getting to my lectures. I asked if we could find a way to manage the tasks that he was giving me. I asked him to give me urgent tasks earlier in the day, if he knew about them (Quadrant 1 to Quadrant 2). I asked him to help me prioritise tasks that he gave me, so that I could assess if they had to be done that day or not (Quadrant 1 or 2 to Quadrant 2 or 4). I promised to come back after class if he needed things done before the next day.

To my surprise, it worked like magic. Tasks stopped coming to me at 4:30 – they either came in the morning, or my boss would tell me they could wait til the morning. On the few occasions an urgent job came in, I made good on my promise to come back after class, and worked until they were done. I passed my classes, with reasonable grades – and really enjoyed them, once I was attending regularly.

It wasn’t quite a miracle. My boss must have resented having to manage his delegation, because I got a pretty snarky reference when I left a year later. But looking back, I’m glad I didn’t let my inexperience and poor time management – and his – get in the way of what was important to me.

And in the end, that’s what you have to do. Other people may not like it. I’m not saying do it anyway, but – if it’s important to you – at least consider whether there’s a way around the problem. At the very least, I’m sure there’s some Quadrant 3 and 4’s you can remove without ruffling any feathers. Good luck.

So the only answer is to make room by eliminating something that you already do. And naturally, it should be something that is less important than your new goal.

I humbly suggest that you look for things in your life that are not important to you, and eliminate those. Make sure that what you do is important to you (whether anyone else thinks it is important or not doesn’t matter, as long as you’re being honest with yourself). But please make your choices wisely – make sure that what you choose is going to benefit you over the long term, as well as the short term.

Enough said.

But there’s a sneaky category of tasks which masquerade as important, and in fact aren’t – and I’d like to talk about those a bit more.

I’m talking about things that are urgent, but not important.

Let me give you some examples. A salesman ringing about double-glazing is urgent (the phone is ringing insistently) but not important (unless you want double-glazing). However your sister ringing for help with a family crisis is both urgent and important. Playing Freecell is neither urgent nor important – in fact, to me computer games in total are neither urgent nor important, but many people treasure them as a recreational and social activity, so to them they are important, but probably not urgent. Spending time with your family and looking after your health are important, but not urgent – until a crisis looms. My neighbour WILL NOT put up a sign for her consulting business – when I answer my door to her customers it’s urgent (because they’re at my door, knocking) but not at all important to me.

However, it can be really hard to tell the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important. Let me tell you a story.

When I first started work I was finishing my degree part-time at night. My first boss would say “Kim, it’s 4:30 – go to your lecture”. But when she left, my new boss would say “Kim, it’s 4:30 – you need to do this, this and this before you go.” In fairness, I’m not sure he said I had to do them that day – but that was what I heard. And work was interesting and new, so I wanted to do that rather than go to a fusty old lecture. Pretty soon I was missing all my lectures, and working late instead. 

Then my boss organised a time management course for everyone. On the first day the trainer talked about the Urgency/Importance Matrix from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It changed my life.

The left side is tasks that are urgent. Some of these are important, and some are not – for example, a report that’s due tomorrow is both urgent and important. However, the neighbour’s client at my door is not important, it’s just urgent (because the guy is on my doorstep, and I have to deal with it now).

The right hand side is not urgent. However, some of these things are important, like the final exam in two months time.

After I learnt about this, I sat down and drew up my own Urgency/Importance matrix. I decided that my degree was quadrant 2 – it was important to me, but not (yet) urgent. I decided that my work was also important to me, and the jobs my boss was giving me late in the afternoon were urgent, but I didn’t know if they were important or not.

In my next post I’ll talk about what to do once you’ve figured out what’s important and what’s urgent in your life. Until then, you might find it useful to draw up your own matrix – the results may surprise you.