Whether it’s personal or for business, getting organized always seems to bring out the worst in us and is often brings us some serious resistance. But eventually there comes a point when you finally get sick to death of hearing yourself say “I’d love to _____ (fill in the blank), but I just don’t have enough time”. If you’re honest with yourself, what you’re really saying is “No, I don’t want to do it badly enough that I’ll take the time to organize myself and fit it into my day”.

I get lots of comments about how productive I am, and I have to agree, I do get a whole lot done during my day. But this wasn’t always the case and it’s taken a lot of trial and error to get to a place where I actually get through the day and feel like I’ve achieved my goals. I’ve also had to make an attitude adjustment about the way I do things and about the way I view my time in general and this isn’t always an easy thing to do.

Simplicity
My goal in everything I do is to keep it as simple as possible.

Managing Time
I’ve become very protective of my time and very disciplined about how I use it. I’ve learned to say a simple “no” to things I don’t want to do. It takes less time and less effort to say “no” than it does to tapdance around the old “I don’t have enough time because ……” routine. So now instead of wasting my time doing things I don’t want to do, I’ve just freed up some time to do the things I do want to do.

I also found a lot of really useful information and good advice in this free ebook – Time Management for Creative People. But remember, change happens only when you actually take some action; you have to do something in order for things to change. Wishing and hoping and praying – isn’t that a line from a song? – won’t get you anywhere without taking action to make things happen.

Managing Small Tasks
The simplest way I’ve found to manage my “to-do” list and day-to-day tasks is to use a one-year day planner and write them down. I’ve tried using software programs but it takes me more time to open the program and type out the task then schedule it, than it does to pick up a pencil, flip a page and write it down.

I keep my day planner on on my computer desk so every morning when I check my email, I also check my day planner for the things that need to be done that day.

I give every task a start and finish time and most days I only have two or three things scheduled. If I can see that a task is going to take longer than the time I scheduled for it, I reschedule it to another day, or if it needs to be finished that day, I reschedule my other tasks. My goal is at the end of the day that I have a feeling of completion when the tasks are done. This is really important. If there is no feeling of completion, there is usually a feeling of “spinning your wheels” and this can be really frustrating.

I also schedule my free time. Yes I do. I call it “creative free time”. Since implementing my day planner I find that if I don’t schedule in some free time, I just never get around to it. And it’s really important to take some down time, to rest and let your mind wander and daydream a little. This is when your best ideas will happen.

Managing Large Projects
Managing large projects has always been a challenge for me. Large projects generally need to be broken down into goals and steps and sub-steps and tasks and often comprise of lists of things that need to be time scheduled such as ordering supplies, writing lesson plans, etc.

Previously I’ve tried writing them into a notebook and I’ve also tried using an excel spreadsheet, but somehow things always ended in confusion. Confusion and overwhelm will kill a project and give you a headache quicker than anything I know.

Recently however, I began using a mind mapping program called FreeMind which is free open source software. For visually oriented people, this is a super way to gather and organize your thoughts, ideas and notes, and at a glance you can quickly see how everything fits together.

Once things are broken down into small tasks, they get scheduled in my day planner. I’ve found this to be not only an easy way to manage large projects, but one that actually works!

Doing It Your Way
Everyone is different of course, and what works for me may not work for you, so here are some additional resources.

If you’re looking for simplicity, you’ll find a great series of articles to get you started here on ZenHabits.

And you’ll also find a long list of productivity blogs here.

And Finally

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