Organize to Thrive
Productivity Consulting and Leadership Coaching for business and nonprofits - get your most important work done. Collaborating with leaders and their teams to become more strategic, focused and productive. Leadership and Board Coaching, Strategic Planning Facilitation, Productivity Coaching and Consulting, Professional Speaker.
Productivity Coach, Productivity Consultant, Leadership Coach, Executive Coach, Business Consulting, personal productivity, time management, nonprofit, board coach, collaboration, strategic planning, facilitation, change management, leading productive teams, project planning, board development, volunteer engagement, association management, workplace productivity, executive director.
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Organize to Thrive

20 Dec

Posted at 08:45h in Organize to Thrive, Productivity, Productivity for Leaders, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

 

healthy productivity

It’s a hard time of year to be productive.  There are so many distractions!  Instead of trying to do it all, how about doing what you have to do well, and setting yourself up to have a truly healthy and happy holiday season.

Be realistic about how much you can get done between Thanksgiving and New Year’s and create a plan to get it done:

  • Use your to do list to support you in identifying the work that has to get done
    • While I’m a HUGE fan or organizing your list in order of priority I know some of you chose other approaches.
    • Simple solution – use your Sharpies for colored stars – red for “must be done before Christmas” and green for “would love to do before Christmas.”
  • Set deadlines on your important work – those red star projects. Then assess
    • Can I get this all done and still do everything else I want to do (parties, shopping, decorating)?
    • If not, reassess and be realistic about what you can really accomplish
  • Choose non-essential work carefully – don’t have unrealistic expectations
    • Ask yourself “what’s the worst thing that would happen if I don’t do this before New Year’s?”

Protect your off-time. When not at work or working:

  • Know that your office won’t fall apart if you don’t check your email
  • If you check your email and there is something you want to do, do it and get it done, but don’t feel like you have to do more than that.
  • Stay present – remove the temptation of distraction
    • When out or doing something fun, use the Do Not Disturb on your phone
    • Keep your phone in your purse or pocket… or gasp (leave it in another room, in the car or somewhere out of reach!)

Prep for an easier reentry:

  • Going out of town or taking a few days off? Prep for leaving.  Coming back to a clean slate, both physically and digitally, will help you get back into action much more quickly. Before you leave, take an extra hour or two to:
    • Clear your desk
      • Throw your trash/recycling away
      • File papers you want to keep for future reference
      • Put your current projects into their own folders and set them in a project file holder
    • Clear your email inbox
      • Delete the trash (yes – get the JUNK out of your inbox!)
      • File emails you want to keep for future reference (Make a 2019 folder and put it all there…)
      • The only thing left in your inbox will be things you need to address when you get back. Now you have a fighting chance!
    • Work harder to finish your “must do before Christmas” so you can take time off and really relax and enjoy yourself.

Wishing you a healthy and productive holiday season.

25 Nov

Posted at 11:36h in Organize to Thrive, Productivity, Productivity for Leaders, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

  1. Google Calendar
    • Because it syncs flawlessly with my iPhone.
    • Because of the new REMINDER feature that reminds me of tasks I need to do on a specific day.
    • Because I can paste a phone # or Zoom link into the location field.
  2. Apple Watch
    • Because I can keep my phone on silent and my wrist vibrates when I have a call or text.
    • Because I can quickly find my iPhone at any time by pressing one button (iPhone pings!)
    • Because I now don’t need to have my phone with me all the time.
      • I really value that I can get help or be reached in the case of an emergency.
      • And I love that I don’t have to carry a pocketbook and can pay for things with Apple Pay.
  3.  Evernote
    • Because it’s easy to manage my tasks and change my categories as needed.
    • Because it’s easy to manage a project in a note.
    • Because it’s easy to find the notes I take!

Productivity Tools I WANT for Hanukkah/Christmas – The ability to mark my texts as UNREAD….The ability to mark my texts as UNREAD…The ability to mark my texts as UNREAD…The ability to mark my texts as UNREAD….

11 Feb

Posted at 23:58h in Focus and Prioritize, Organize to Thrive, Productivity, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

Most people rely on their internal compass to get their important tasks done. But what happens when that internal compass doesn’t motivate you ENOUGH for you to get started?

Sometimes deadlines or bosses exert enough external pressure to complete the task, but other times even that isn’t enough. Add to this, that the more time passes, the worse the incomplete tasks make you feel, and the task becomes even more daunting.

How can you get those daunting tasks done? (more…)

03 Dec

Posted at 00:04h in Organize to Thrive, Planning Tools, Productivity, Time Management

use post-its to simplify planning your next project
Do you have a project to do, but don’t know where to start?  Most of us don’t have access to complex project management software, nor do we want to make the time investment to learn to use it.  I’ve developed a simple project planning process that yields many of the same results without the learning curve.

1.  Get a stack of Post-its

2.  Write down each task associated with the project. Don’t worry about writing them in any order, just write as fast as the ideas come to you.  Be sure to use a new post it for each individual task.

3.  Put the post-its in order. Consider – what has to come before another step, what would be the most logical way to do the work, if there is any significant wait time, and what would be best for you?  During this process you may think of extra steps.  Create a post-it for those steps and insert them into the process.

4.  Assign a length of time it will take to complete that step to each post-it – it could be 15 minutes, an hour or a week.

(more…)

08 Oct

Posted at 09:10h in Envision Success, Focus and Prioritize, Organize to Thrive, Planning Tools, Productivity, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living
TON

Ton of Shoulds

What I’m about to say is sacrilege.  It goes against every bit of advice today’s productivity experts lend.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot and am just going to put it out there…  Don’t write down every possible to-do or task you have to do.  I know, “if you don’t write it down then it is taking space in your head.”

The way I see it is that if you write everything down your endless lists become useless.  You have so much to do and so many possibilities.  To improve your quality of life I suggest you write down the to-dos that are important and just let the other stuff go.  Each time you think of something that could be done I want you to run it through the “Is this important” filter.

Deciding what’s important isn’t as easy as it sounds, but it’s not that hard either.  It just takes a bit of thought.

(more…)

24 Sep

Posted at 11:18h in Organize to Thrive, Tips for Easier Living

mystery box

A friend shared a blog posted with some quick easy organizing tips this morning and that got me thinking about productivity and organizing.  I try to keep a productivity voice to my blog – it’s what I do and who I am.  But, sometimes good old fashion SPACE CLEARING is the one thing you need to do to be most productive.  Everything I talk about is a cross between getting organized and being more productive – they are not separate, getting organized is what you do to make yourself more productive.  So in honor of Jodi’s post, here are a few tips to help you clear some space.

A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING: The greatest benefit of having a place for everything is NOT that you know where to find something when you need it (though that is lovely), it’s so you have a place to put things so they are not sitting around cluttering up your physical or emotional space.  I always think more clearly when my space is clear and it only takes a moment to put things in their place.  Having THE place is the secret.  Here’s an example:

  • Unattached or Unidentified Cords and Wires – everyone has them.  My solution is to create a MYSTERY CORDS and WIRES BOX.  When I’m looking for a cord or wire I know exactly where to go look.  But the best part is that cords don’t clutter my surfaces, if I have one I toss it in the box.

(more…)