Improving my Purpose: Organization for Productivity

by Caz Makepeace on December 6, 2011

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I am an airy fairy Libran, which means I am utterly crap at staying organized.

At least that is my excuse for it.

Teaching in America really helped me to improve my organization skills. Americans just seem to be really good at keeping things in order. They have everything filed in the right place, with spreadsheets and proformas, and lists and schedules to match everything.

I would walk into their classrooms, feeling half in awe at how neatly presented it was, and half shame at the mess my room was in across the corridor. No matter what I did I just couldn’t get my shit together.

I observed and learned a few tricks, and I have improved somewhat since, with emphasis on the somewhat.

Lately though, I have been annoyed at the clutter building up around me and the stuff and tasks that are scattered everywhere. I am desperate for the Fairy Organizing Queen to come do her magic dusting around me.

One of my goals for Operation Get my Life in Order is to work on improving my life’s purpsoe. Part of that involves improving my productivity.

And getting organized is a big part of that.

Working with Lina is also helping to kick my butt into organizing shape. With a business and lawyer mind, she is also super organized, proving that it does help you to think and work smarter.

I have started with my bookwork, which I haven’t touched for three months, always citing “no time” as an excuse. Last week, I scheduled a two hour block of time and got it done.

Next is my advertising data base, which I scantily clothed. Most contacts were sitting in my inbox, or gasp horror, in the trash can!! So I’ve learned this was not a smart move as we can always call upon them in the future.

I scheduled in some time to retrieve them and put them in a spreadsheet. I’m almost done.

Next is organizing my email. I have set up a bunch of folders for different emails that come through, like “interviews” “guest posts” “pr”  “reader emails” etc. and I move them in there once they come through.

This has made a huge difference and has stopped me from wasting time searching through the influx to find those important emails again- or losing them.

And I am working on deleting all those irrelevant emails that I let sit in the inbox and unsubscribe to all the crap clutter that I don’t even read. I now use RSS for all the stuff I want to read, and I have that neatly organised into categories as well.

It feels great to get organized. Much better Feng Shui

Now I have to work on my house!

Ugh that is a different story. The boxes are coming out and the bags for Vinnies. I am going to cull cull cull. I actually can’t wait to do it, I’ve just got to schedule the time in to get it done.