In the last Quick and Dirty Organising post we looked at how to get some fast relief from your email-induced stress. This time around, we’re tackling piles of paper.

As I said before, if getting organised is one of your resolutions, you need to be smart in your approach. If you bite off more than you can chew and/or dig in without a rational plan, you may well end up feeling worse than when you started.

So, to review – here’s the process we’re going to apply to our high-stress, low-on-time organising projects this year:

The Quick and Dirty Organising Process:

1. Get real
2. Get some breathing space
3. Get past the guilt
4. Get new systems
5. Get a new mindset
6. Get support

Quick and Dirty Paper Organising

More often than you might think, I come across an office that has paper piled up on every flat surface, including the floor. After reassuring the client that it’s not the end of the world, we do a few really tough things in that first session.

I have to say, “Trust me…” a lot. But then…the sense of relief and optimism we both feel at the end is pure magic. Ready to give it a whirl yourself?

Step 1: Get Real

I know you’d really like to go through every piece of that paper and get all those tasks done, apply all those great ideas, take advantage of all those discount offers, visit every travel destination, read each article, write every thank-you note…and on and on and on and on…

But the thing is, that would take for-e-ver, especially if you don’t know how to process that stuff properly.

Plus, a lot of it is old news or stuff you wish you had done. What good is spending time on that? Looking at it all now is more likely to make you kick yourself than propel you forward.

Look around you. There is probably one pile that represents your ‘hot’ papers, in other words, the ones that matter most – and soon. Those are the only ones to pay attention to right now. Put those on your chair.

Step 2: Get some breathing space

As for the rest of those piles? Get them out of your way. Grab some shopping bags or file boxes, and load them up with all those piles, starting with what’s on top of your desk and continuing out from there.

Label the bags or boxes as best you can (if at all), and move them as far from your workspace as you can. Another room is ideal. Then turn your back on it all and return to your desk. This is the dirty part, but trust me…

Get past the guilt

I KNOW there may be things in there you need. Fine. You can go after them later, when your office is functioning again. You’ll be much faster and better at getting through that backlog effectively once you have learned to work systematically.

If you tell yourself you have to start getting organised by sorting through the backlog, you will never get there. Focus on managing today’s papers – and tomorrow’s.

Get new systems

1. Create a single collection point for all incoming paper. Most people use a letter tray, but just an area of your desktop will do. Move your hot papers from the chair to this collection point.

2. Set up some lists and learn to pitch/recycle the paper, keeping only the idea, or task, website address, restaurant name, travel destination, or other bit of valuable information that is represented by each item. Write these things down on your lists, and look through them when you do your planning.

You can set up your lists in a small ring binder with tabs or use an electronic system like Evernote or Mind Manager. You can also use the Notes function of your handheld device and/or the Notes function of your electronic organising program (Outlook, Lotus Notes, Entourage, etc.)

3. Create some action folders that stand upright on or near your desk. These folders will help you clear your In-Tray quickly each time you sort through it. Common examples:

• Discuss (with boss/team/spouse at regular meetings)
• Bills to Pay or Receipts/Expense Claims
• Database/Address Book Updates (Put business cards in here)
• Reading (Great for regular newsletters, etc.)
• Watching/Waiting (For things you’ve delegated or pending events)
• Idea Capture (A personal favourite – for great ideas you want to process into your idea/project lists later, say once a month)
• Review on Weekend (This is for stuff you don’t need to think about until you’re planning for next week.)
• Current Projects (one file for each of your main projects)

4. Now sort through your in-tray items one by one, and process them onto your lists and into your action or project files. Do this at least once a week.

5. If you come across items you need to keep for longer term reference, you’ll need a hanging file box/drawer or some ring binders…but that’s a project (and article) for another day! For now, put them in a letter tray marked ‘filing.’

5. Establish a regular time each day or week to deal with what’s in your action folders. Tie this to a reliable routine you already have, or set a reminder on your desktop calendar or phone until this becomes a habit.

6. Make a personal commitment to clearing your work surface each day before you walk away from it. At worst, put what you’re working on in your in-tray. At best, put it where it belongs.

Get a new mindset

Dealing with piles of paper does set off a lot of emotional triggers for people, but remember this: If you believe it’s impossible to get organised, you’re right. If you believe you can get – and stay – sorted, you’re also right.

And do you know what? If you work at that backlog over the next few weeks, bag by bag in little bursts, you’ll get through it faster than you think – once you have the right systems in place. In the meantime, it won’t be in your way.

Get support

It’s no fun to do big paper organising project alone, so I’d recommend doing whatever you can to recruit some help:

• Do you have an assistant, partner, helper, colleague or child who could help with your sorting – or filing?
• Is there someone who can help you get through some of the administrative work in your paper action files on a regular basis?
• Could your friends, family members or coach help you stay positive and keep moving forward?
• Can someone cover for you at work or at home for a few hours here and there so you can get this project done?

Good luck – and send me your before/after pictures so I can celebrate with you!!

Filed under: Info-Overload, Paper | 1 Comment »

“How does information overload impact you?” That’s the question Jonathan Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm, asked senior executives at companies including IBM, NBC, Research in Motion, and Siemens, among others. The answers may surprise you.

Filed under: Focus, Info-Overload | No Comments »

The South China Morning Post recently ran a series of my articles in the Job Coach section.

Thanks muchly to the editor for inviting me to contribute to the column!

These articles focus on some popular Team Productivity issues.

Enjoy!

• Mapping Stimulates Creative Processes
• Efficiency is Now Top Priority for Firms
• Don’t Allow Email to Take Over Your Life

Filed under: Address Booking, Business Organising, Email, Focus, HR Buzz, Info-Overload, Mind Mapping, Team Productivity | No Comments »

Here’s a funky remix of the old ‘Shift Happens’ clip – with updated stats on tech and info. Enjoy!

Filed under: Coffee Break (Just For Fun), HR Buzz, Info-Overload | No Comments »

Let’s say there’s been a massive traffic accident on a highway near you. Within minutes, the emergency room reception area of the nearest major hospital is packed with over 100 victims, all in varying states of need, all expecting to receive near-immediate attention. The emergency room nurses spring into action.

Question: What’s the first thing they do?

Answer: They apply a process called triage.

Definition: Triage is the sorting of, and allocation of, treatment to patients, especially battle and disaster victims, according to a proven system of priorities designed to maximise the number of survivors.

Application: What’s this got to do with email? It’s a near-perfect metaphor, actually. Read on to see how a triage approach to managing your inbox will add hours to your week and minimise email stress.

The word triage comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate, sort, sift or select. The triage process used by emergency room staffers is designed to simplify decision making. A colour-coded tag is used to identify the next actions to be taken as follows:

Black:  Deceased/Expectant

Patients are so severely injured that they will die of their injuries, possibly in hours or days; they should be taken to a holding area and given painkillers as required to reduce suffering.

Red:  Immediate/Life Threatening

Patients require immediate surgery or other life-saving intervention, and have first priority for surgical teams or transport to advanced facilities; they “cannot wait” but are likely to survive with immediate treatment.

Yellow:  Delayed/ Observation

Patients’ condition is stable for the moment but requires watching by trained persons and frequent re-triage, will need hospital care (and would receive immediate priority care under “normal” circumstances).

Green:  Minor/Wait

Patients will require a doctor’s care in several hours or days but not immediately, may wait for a number of hours or be told to go home and come back the next day.

White:  Dismiss/Walking Wounded

Patients have minor injuries; first aid and home care are sufficient, a doctor’s care is not required.

————————————-

Now, once our triage team has finished with the sorting, what do they do next? They turn their attention toward treating the highest priority cases.  They can do this with greater peace of mind and focus because they know every case has been reviewed and prioritised. To avoid random and reactive treatment – and potentially losing sight of true priorities – they’ve first concentrated on completing an efficient and focused sorting process before getting down to work.

EMAIL TRIAGE

So, to make this work for your email a couple of things are needed:

1. An understanding of the difference between sorting email and working on the stuff that’s in the email. Anything in between is highly inefficient, even if you like to call it ‘multi-tasking.’
2. A commitment to sort (a.k.a. ‘process’) your entire inbox down to empty on a regular basis. The goal of this exercise is to make a decision about every email and ‘tag it’ – literally if that’s your thing, or or file it for follow-up, or make a task out of it, or grab what’s useful from it, or get rid of it. This is a different activity from actually doing all the work required by some of the emails. You’ll do that next – or later – or never…per your decision.

(Skeptics, take note – this ‘extra step’ of processing will actually save you time, contrary to your fears. See here and here and here for more on this.)

To triage your email well, your brain may also need to get better at:

• being selective about deserves your time and attention
• being decisive about how and when you will follow through on things (or not)

Imagine, then, a triage system for your emails:

• Black: Dead or Done - Junk or stuff I’m finished with (delete or file as Done)
• Red: Do Immediately - Do or Die – as soon as I’m finished with the triage
• Yellow: Do Soon - Take care of this Today or This Week (file for follow-up or schedule a task accordingly)
• Green:  Can Wait - Throw into Next Week or Later (file for review on Friday/Monday or monthly)
• White: Info Only - Grab what I need from this (idea, information, link, phone number, etc.) – and then the email will be Black

Cautionary note to organising junkies:

Am I suggesting you create an elaborate colour-coding scheme for your emails? Please…no! It’s a metaphor.

Ready to move beyond the figurative?

Read this for how to set up some follow-up email files that work for lots of folks. Or take our course to learn how to do all this really well in Outlook, using your Calendar and Tasks better. Non-Outlook users, try Remember the Milk. When you’re ready to get good and truly sorted, check out this course to learn how to triage everything – not just email – using our FAST Formula.

One more thing – pop over to our Productivity Poll and tell us how many emails are in your inbox right now. The fun bit? You can see what everybody else said. It will either make you feel great or give you a good giggle. Both are nice.

Filed under: Email, Focus, Info-Overload | 3 Comments »

We’re often asked for a solution for organising passwords, logins, bank PINs, membership numbers, identification numbers, etc. etc.

We’ve all got loads of these to manage, and we’re way past being able to keep track of it all in our heads. Some people keep a written list or store the information in a computer file, but this is risky as others could easily access your private information.

You need a system that is secure and accessible anytime, anywhere.

The folks around here have used two applications quite happily:

Splash ID
1Password

Which to pick? Depends on your operating system and which handheld device you want to sync with, so have a read through the sites and go for the one that suits you better.

Both operate the same way: You just have to remember a master password, which unlocks the password vault on your desktop as well as on your handheld.

Like all important passwords, we recommend you don’t use anything easy for others to guess, and that you do change it frequently.

Both also integrate with your web browser to securely auto-fill login data to save you time.

Is it safe? They say it is, and I believe them. It’s your call. I’ve got a couple of critical passwords that are still stored only in my head – and my husband’s,  just in case.

System Set-up

These password managers are super easy to use, so we’d suggest you set aside just 1-2 hours to:

1. Make your selection
2. Download and install the software
3. Enter all your passwords, web logins, etc.
4. Sync with your handheld
5. Back up your data and test the backup
6. Get rid of all the other places where you were storing passwords (exception: keep your head)
7. Create a shortcut to the password manager on your Start Menu or Quick Launch Toolbar (PC) or in your Dock (Mac)
8. Pat yourself on the back for organising something really important

Maintenance

Establish a regular backup routine for the password manager so your updates remain safe, and set this recurring date in your reminder system. Monthly is probably a good cycle.

From now on, pop new passwords straight into your password manager the moment you set them up. No more ‘forgotten password’ requests!

Filed under: Info-Overload, Productive Routines, Protecting Your Stuff | 1 Comment »

We all know we’re expected to manage loads more information and communication that our parents and grandparents had to in their careers, but what we don’t seem to be grasping fully is the fact that we simply cannot do it all – even if we’re great with technology.

We keep trying to do ‘Everything ASAP’…and it’s just not working. The consequences of treating all incoming information and communication as equally important and urgent are dire; we’re more stressed and working longer hours than any generation before us.

The root causes are threefold:

1. We are so busy trying to keep up/keep moving that we lose sight of our big-picture goals.
2. We don’t establish parameters around what is truly deserving of our limited time and attention.
3. Many of us naturally tend toward a random and reactive workstyle, so we are woefully inefficient – even if we are indeed very busy!

Is this true for you? Let’s look at a few behavioural indicators of people who suffer from the ‘Everything ASAP’ problem.

Working at the Pace of Panic

Do you spend a good deal of time rushing to complete a meeting agenda, project or product just before the deadline? Do you feel a sense of pressure to follow-up immediately on most phone calls and emails?

Ask yourself:

• Do I allow for enough hours each week to work on longer-range projects slowly and steadily? …or is most of my time spent on day-to-day tasks?
• Have I managed the expectations of my clients, colleagues and bosses, or have I created a rod for my own back by being hyper-responsive?

“Worked all day, got nothing done…”

Do you feel that your days can become a black hole of endless activity, but very little productivity?

Ask yourself:

• Do I work systematically, allocating some time for attending to incoming communication and other time for high-value tasks and projects?
• Do I start each day with a few clearly-defined, reasonable goals?

“Hey – Have you got a sec?”

Are you an open-door type person who can’t get any of your own work done until everyone else has gone home for the day?

Ask yourself:

• Could I make myself fully available at certain times during the day and request private time to focus at others? When would those times be, ideally?
• How could I communicate about this sensitively and effectively with my team?
• What signal could I use to let others know that I am needing time to concentrate without interruption?
• Could we try my idea for a week or two and see what works and what will need to be tweaked a bit?

Overwhelmed and Paralysed

Do you ever look at your email Inbox or paper In-tray and just freeze up?

Ask yourself:

• Could I spend a few minutes on sorting rather than working, to get some peace of mind and a clear picture of what’s in there?
• Could I close my email program and/or work someplace else today in order to complete my important work without becoming distracted or depressed by the sight of all that email or those piles?

Perpetual Projects

Are you frustrated by projects that are never finished?

Ask yourself:

• Can I work on one project at a time rather than try to chip away at several simultaneously?
• Do I have a clear (and simple) project plan written down someplace?
• Is my plan broken down into small steps?
• Have I established a (realistic) target timeframe for completing each step?
• Can I dedicate a weekly block of time to this project?

Did you spot any trends in the problems and solutions here? That’s right – to solve the ‘Everything ASAP’ Problem you’ve got to change your workstyle to one that is more proactive and focused. You’ll also need to give people around you a heads-up that things will be changing for the better, even if they don’t understand it at first.

Pick your poison and try some of the suggestions above. Stick with it – bearing in mind that your reward is less stress and more free time!

Filed under: Focus, Info-Overload, Productive Routines, Time Management, Work/Life Balance | 1 Comment »

If we all worked alone, it would be a cinch to focus, get our work done and get on with living. The tricky bit is that most of us work in teams, coordinate projects and activities for groups or depend on others for information and support. This means there’s a lot of communication happening all day, every day.

With each email, SMS, chat, voice message or note left on our desk there is an expectation that we will respond ASAP. The volume – coupled with the presumption that we will follow through immediately – is the primary source of stress for info-overloaded employees today.

In a landmark study published in 2007 by Intel, the authors state, “The problem isn’t the abundance of accessible information. It’s the queued streams of pushed information; that is, the accumulation of messages governed by the expectation that the worker process them all.”

We need to get smarter about how we handle this. Let’s look at some strategies for resetting our rhythms and managing the expectations that other people have of us.

Turnaround Time Conditioning

If you think it makes you look professional and responsive to reply to every communication immediately, think again. Your colleagues – and your boss – could take this as a sign that you are erratic and reactive or that you don’t have enough to do! Your ability to remain focused on high-value activities and deliver timely results is where you should concentrate your personal PR campaign.

For those people who really do need to hear from you frequently, work together to determine a reasonable turnaround threshold for your communications – email in particular.  Is it 20 minutes? 40 minutes? 90 minutes? The benefits for both of you in having longer stretches of time to concentrate on important work are significant.

If you’ve slipped into a negative habit of interrupting each other frequently, have a conversation about the challenges and take control together.

For true crises, use the phone or your feet to walk to each other’s offices.

Selective Response

This is just a fancy way to say: Ignore anything you can. You’ve got more important things to do.

Worst Case Questioning

If you thought that last one was a bit tough to swallow, try asking yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I don’t engage in this conversation?” Could you live with that scenario?

Remember – you’ve got more important things to do. What’s the worst thing that could happen if those tasks don’t get your attention?!

Stand-up Meetings

For conversations that are best had face-to-face, have a stand-up meeting. If nobody sits down, the meeting will be short and focused! This works for quick team meetings as well as 1:1 discussions.

Stop the Drop-By Meetings

Even if a discussion only requires 5 minutes, everybody deserves a heads-up on a conversation.When people drop by each other’s desks whenever it suits them to have a chat, the discussion is generally unfocused and takes longer than necessary.

The ‘dropper’ may get what he/she needs, but the ‘dropee’ has been interrupted and compelled to comment on an issue without a chance to switch gears mentally.

When someone drops in on you and asks if you’ve “got a second,” look at your watch and give one of these answers:

• “Now isn’t a great time, but I should be able to think about that in about 30 minutes. Can we schedule a chat at 10:00?”

• “Sure, but I’m pushing to finish something. How much time do we need?” Stand up when saying this so your visitor isn’t tempted to sit down and linger! If the conversation drags, suggest you schedule a longer session at a mutually convenient time. Open up your calendar and/or walk toward the door while doing this.

Get Better at Saying NO or Later

If much of your day is spent spinning your wheels, and your evenings are spent working late when the office is finally quiet, you may need to work on establishing some better personal and professional boundaries. See 7 Ways to Say NO for some tips.

Put an End to Pouncing

One of the greatest complaints we hear from senior managers is that their people ‘pounce’ on them all the time. The second they return to the office, are seen online, or set the phone back in the cradle, a line forms at their door of people needing to talk.

What do the associates and support staff complain about? The bosses never give them any time. Thus, they grab it whenever they can.

The answer to this problem lies in establishing a sacred rhythm of daily briefing and/or weekly meetings (ideally on Monday or Friday – looking forward) to review progress, clarify priorities and schedule time to discuss critical issues.

The key is that these meetings must never be cancelled. If absolutely necessary, they can be rescheduled within the same week, they can be held via phone and remote desktop sharing, or they can be shortened…but they must take place.

When people come to trust that there will be a regular opportunity to touch base, they will begin to collect issues for review at the regular meetings rather than playing ‘catch as catch can’ all week long.

Reduce the Volume and Get Back to Work

There is a lot you can do to regain control of your work environment by
cutting the amount of input you have to deal with. You also need
to understand the difference between processing and working. These
topics have been explored in depth elsewhere on this blog:

• Create a ‘Front Office’

• Put Your Inbox on a Diet

• Establishing Com-Free Zones

Filed under: Flow, Info-Overload, Productive Routines, Time Management, Work/Life Balance | No Comments »

Do you know that moment when you’re just about to look at your email for the first time in the morning? While your computer fires up or your PDA pulls up the messages, what goes through your head? If you’re like most people, you are preparing to scan everything new and give your attention to the most important messages. That’s a good place to start.

But what about those other messages? After you’ve attended to the critical stuff, do you have a routine for deleting the junk, then filing (or ignoring) lower priority messages? It’s good to get all this riff-raff out of your Inbox, but wouldn’t it be nice if most of it never hit your Inbox in the first place?

If you added up all the seconds you’re spending reading subject lines – only to discover the message isn’t important right now – you’d discover a nice chunk of time you could be using each day for higher value activities. Here are a few tricks to help you trade up your subject-line-scanning time:

Folder Rules and Smart Mailboxes

Use Folder Rules in the Outlook Options menu, Smart Mailboxes for Mac or gmail tags to automatically divert lower priority messages or those you want to batch for consolidated review later.

Examples:

• Friend requests for social networking sites
• Useful newsletters you’d like to read sometime
• Catalogue order confirmations
• Monthly billing notifications

RSS
Feeds

Check whether some of your favourite online content sites like blogs and newsletters offer an RSS Feed option. Set up a feed reader such as Feed Demon, subscribe to the Feeds you like, and unsubscribe from the email lists.

Create Separate Personal and Work Addresses

Set yourself up to receive and send multiple email addresses in/out of the same application (e.g. your gmail addresses are run through Outlook or Entourage), then create Rules that collect all mail sent to your personal address in one folder, work emails to another, etc. This is like creating separate Inboxes, which allows you to concentrate on different roles at different times of the day.

Use a Good Spam Filter

Talk with your tech department to get a spam filter up and running. If you have one but are still receiving a good deal of junk, fiddle with the sensitivity levels until you are happy with the filtering. If you don’t have a tech department, contact us for recommendations and help with this.

Discover the Junk
Mail Rule

When you wind up on somebody’s mailing list but don’t want to receive their news, you can block further communication by marking it as Junk Mail. This is especially useful when dealing with possible phishing messages which use the ‘click here to unsubscribe’ link as a sneaky way to confirm that your email address is a real one.

Wait and See…

The less email you send, the less you will receive. For more on this, see The Hamster Revolution. Allow some ‘urgent’ emails, Reply-to-All conversations and messages representing incomplete thinking some time to simmer before contributing. Per Cicero: “Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.”

Team Communications
Charter

In corporate settings a good 60% of the email someone receives come from the same 8 senders. If this is true for your workgroup, it’s worth taking some time to get everybody on the same page as to how, when and why email is to be used. For a proven training solution, read about the Info-Excellence Seminar.

Need help with some of the tech set-up? Please get in touch with us.

Filed under: Email, Focus, Info-Overload | 2 Comments »