Palais Professional Organizer

Posts Tagged ‘productivity’

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other night who is a successful business owner.

She and her husband do the lions-share of the work in their 2 stores and what came up were all the million and one ways in which to keep track, log, list, remind and otherwise drive oneself nuts trying to stay organized and on top of the workload of a small-mid size business.

This is not the first time I have heard this. Many of my clients are faced with not the lack of tools with which to stay organized but quite the opposite…there are so many!! Which is the BEST?

I wish I could tell you. But I can’t. What I can tell you is that I try to use them all for a while so that I can speak to as many of the productivity tools out there with some aplomb.

Having said that I think the simplest is always best. And on top of that I think that you just have to make a decision to use one or two – for better or for worse and stick to them. Even if something shiner and newer comes out. Just stay where you are and get really good with the tools you have otherwise you’ll go nuts and spend all of your time messing around with productivity tools and no time being productive. I see that a lot.

My short list:

Evernote – it is your external memory. You can use tags and notebooks and don’t really have to be too terribly organized. Just throw stuff in there that you want for later. It is great for information that you want but don’t know where to put. Information that you don’t necessarily need immediately.

Book lists, pic of your friend’s purse that you want to find online, clip web pages of notes for your website etc Syncs to your phone.

Manymoon - great for project management and sharing in groups. You can link to Google calandar and upload docs to it so there is a bit of a dropbox functionality here. There are tasks for each project that you can assign to team members, reminders can be set up, Also syncs to your phone. I’m using it for a work team and will try it with a client too. Stay tuned!

What are your favorite to-do list apps? Project management tools?

When we have a lot of clutter and feel really disorganized we usually have been doing things the same way for a long time. This kind of intertia is a killer!

But…it can be scary to break out of our patterns. Sometimes a direct attack on the issue at hand isn’t the best way to go. A direct attack would be to plan out a whole new way to get rid of the clutter including tools, timing and tasks.

Another option is to try doing something completely different. Take an art class, go to a different genre of movie (Toy Story 3?!) and see it on a Monday afternoon, do your workout outside one day if you always go to the gym, dress up like Ginger from Gilligan’s Island (just an example)…

Any kind of change-up can influence you to make other changes. Before you know it you may get inspired to rearrange your office or try that new project management tool. Maybe you’ll go through your inbox with a new set of eyes or hire that virtual assistant.

Sometimes it is better to let yourself be influenced and inspired in this indirect way rather than forcing solutions.

Paintball anyone?

Feel guilty doing nothing?

Sometimes you just need a license to be lazy. With all the productivity and lists and organizing…uh…

Can I get a lazy license?

What is that you might ask? It is a license to do nothing! Stay in bed and read magazines all day whilst eating cheese puffs (or soy cheese puffs as the case may be).  Or watch 4 or 5 episodes of whatever is on Tivo. Stay out all night, all day…whatever makes you feel completely new.

You may find you are more productive if you let yourself be you most lazy self every now and then. Some experts (I don’t know who – just some!) say that even 30 minutes of laziness a day can improve productivity…how about that?

I give you license.

The Yahoo! Search Team (Photo by Yahoo Anecdotal)

How do you organize a team? Or stay organized yourself within a team? Everyone has such different styles and modes of communication. Keeping on track and productive can be an organizational tangle. There are a lot of tools today that are supposed to help…email, file-sharing, prayer circles…but do they actually work or add to workload by virtue of the amount of information to keep track of?

I think it depends on the leadership. When the leadership is clear on goals and shares information with the team,  everyone understands the key pieces of the puzzle/initiative at hand. Then people can act with authority within their own sphere…using the tools at their disposal creatively and productively.  Inspired, directed leaders =  focused, organized team.