How to Be Organized and Productive-The Key to Success

How to be organized and Productive

Being organized and productive is perhaps one of the most important things in life. In my opinion it is as important as earning money or eating. If we are organized, life begins to look better and we don’t experience undue stress due to the anxieties that come from lack of organization.

If you are not organized we experience a lot of stress. As an example, let us assume that a credit card payment was not made on time, that is, even minimum payment is not made and you get a call from the bill collector it can irritate you. They have special way of irritating you and they are absolutely insensitive to who they are talking. They may call Warren buffet or Bill Gates and ask when the last payment was made, how much and also the check numbers. That is bound to hurt any one who is regular in payment. This is an example of how your lack of organization can spoil a day for you and create a stress.

The payment was missed not because you don’t have money in the account but you simply forgot about it.

Being organized means you are not disoriented and confused. You know what you need to do when you need to do and you can do it because everything you require to do it is in place for you to do it. This saves a lot of time and anxiety; you can get some time to relax.

In relationships it always helps if at least one of the partners is organized. If neither is organized a totally disorganized life will be lead and even the children become disorganized and create problems for you and for themselves. These could be simple things like misplacing home work to major things that can upset lives. When both partners are organized it is better to divide the responsibilities or rotate responsibilities between themselves

On a larger scale being organized means knowing what we would like to do and when we want to do these in our life. For example, getting a job, what job, when and where, when to get married, when to have kids and when to buy a house and so on.

I can see the skeptics already turning away. The reason is that it is not possible and there are too many external factors that matter. But even if you cannot do it at the planned time you will be able to do as soon as possible if you are organized where as if you are not you may simply be lost in confusion.

This seems to be a difficult task. Remembering where we put what is not easy because we accumulate so many things and life is fully or so unpredictable.

Yes life is very unpredictable. Many things that happen to us are out of our control. For example, assuming that we are organized and still our health failed or an accident occurred, still an organized person can handle it better than an unorganized person. If we are organized we can very quickly delegate the task to some one else. Unorganized persons have to do it themselves because they cannot tell what is where and give proper instructions. When they delegate they waste some other person’s time also

What do Organized Persons do?

1 Visualization: Organized persons see the future. They can see the future in their life and see things happening at different times of their life. They don’t worry about unpredictable things happening but they can also develop a larger picture to see some interferences that can come and how to handle them.

2. Mapping. Put the thoughts into a map. Draw up neat chart of events and their relations to each other. As an example to build a house you need to accumulate enough money for down payment. So buying is dependent on saving. Assign times to these events.

3. Verification; Having drawn the maps we need to constantly verify and see if things are going the way they are expected to go. What are the interferences? How to remove them? If some interference was not foreseen an analysis of why it was not foreseen and how to avoid over looking next time

4. Implementation: put plans into action and initiate all activities needed. For example to buy a house how much money is needed, how much can be borrowed, what are the interest rates, how to shop around, which information sources are better? `All such activities need to be initiated

Implementation is good if the map is good. Map must contain micro activities as well. So sub maps can be made for each map

5. Revision: Map revision is unavoidable for the simple reason that interrupting external events may influence it. This can change the main and submaps.

Aids for Getting Organized

1.Maintain Diaries .

In my opinion a diary is very important. Personal diary and fact diary should not be mixed . The diary of your thoughts and reflections is personal and cannot be shared. But there can be others where all aspects that can be shared are recorded.

Even this should be kept carefully with you

The fact diary can contain what happened when. Like payments made check no and date.

Items bought price paid, warranty numbers etc. The best is to customize it to suit your personal need. A journal where all monthly events are recorded and then subheads for each like house, education will give a good picture. Health records and vaccinations as well can be a page

2 Use filing system.

Use a proper filing system to place the documents, bills etc in respective files. Place the papers as soon as see them in the files. Since many documents are not electronic it is necessary to maintain physical files too.

One way is to open one temporary file to contain all current documents, bills and receipts into one folder. These could be receipt for tax or others that cannot be filed in regular file. They are required frequently.

Make sure that the files are numbered and a master list is made

3. Use reminding system.

Many mobile phones now have organizers. These can be used very well to remind us of things that need to be done like bill payment and credit payment even tele -check in by just noting them like appointments. As soon as a bill is received the due dates can be entered.

4. Keep photocopies

Make sure photocopies of all important documents are taken and kept. Even if you do scanning, it is best to keep photocopies. Actually scanning and storing in computer can be risky.

5 Use a fire proof Cabinet

Store all important documents in fire proof cabinets with lockers.

6. Keep track of the budget

Be sure to have an annual budget where estimated expenses and estimated income is recorded. Make sure all details are in it. Don’t forget small things that can add up to big amounts. Have some contingency. All expenses are not recurring every month. Some like taxes are paid once a year. These two need to be separated. At the end of each month check total monthly expense. Make also cumulative expenditure at the end of each month and calculate your average per month. This can help you check if your average monthly is moving too far from the anticipated average monthly expenditure. Maintain sub accounts like education, travel and medical etc and enter the actual for each month there so you can get a good idea of the actual for each item. This can help you sharpen your estimates next time

7. Make also a time budget

Make sure that the max time that you allow yourself for things like Tele talk, TV watching and internet is also under control. This can save time and money. Time is as

valuable as money.

8. Preserve Important Documents properly

It is best to put all important documents into plastic transparent file leaves and store in a ring folder.

9. Make use of key tags and a key cabinet

Keys are often misplaced. It is best to identify them with tags and place them in a key board. Keep the key board locked and manage with this single key. Alternately use a single drawer for keys and ID, credit cards etc, preferably inside another locked one.

10. Put papers and keys in assigned places as soon as you are done with them

If you don’t put things back in the assigned places you will soon be making it a habit and

you will be searching for it.

11. Start the day with a list of things to do that day

Try to make a list of all activities that need to be done each day before starting a day on paper or better yet in separate diary. Assign priorities as far as possible and make sure that you travel in one direction without going back to the same place again. Strike off what is done and transfer left task into the next day.

12. Review the situation at the end of the day

At the end of the day ask yourself the question if you have done things right. If something was not done right ask yourself why it happened? See what needs to be changed if any to correct the situation.

Judge whether you have earned your worth on the planet earth.

Remember the same rules can be used in the offices too. Computers can be used but don't surrender your life to a computer.. Don't make life complicated by using too many electronic goods You wil spend all your time chargng them, replacing batteries, saving, erasing and downloading. Get the pleasure of writing yourself.

Smile and feel happy when tasks are completed. Don't get worried about viruses and hackers and the people that sell products to save yourself from them .

Have a nice, organized, productive life and have sometime left for the kids and the family.