I can’t believe I am writing about this topic!

I was the little helter-skelter girl who never had anything organized, who morphed into the woman who thought about getting organized but rarely actually did, to the older woman who has learned the value of actually focusing on the thing(s) I could do even better in the next year, a time when so many of us do reflect on what was and what could be.

Since I don’t have all the answers for this topic, I checked online to see what others mentioned that I could use. And I fully realize that many of us can’t / don’t have much control over how we spend our time on work, due to the many other demands that may be made. But to the degree that we can organize ourselves, here’s a short list of some ideas that resonate with me.

Turn off notifications.
Whether these come up on our phone, tablet, or computer, they can break our concentration on our work. I check every 30 or 60 minutes, depending on the
current needs.

Schedule fun time:
Including fun time allows your life to sparkle as it should. By scheduling non-work-related activities, you give them the importance they deserve, and you’re more likely to actually do what you planned! I routinely walk 4 miles each day with my pups, and I write “walk” on every day’s schedule, at least once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Since I work from home and am a solopreneur, I can do that … but if I didn’t schedule it, I might ignore doing it (not that my pups would allow it, though).

Keep a list of important but noncritical projects:
At this time of year, many of us send out holiday cards to friends, family, and clients.

We don’t want to interrupt our “real” work to create them online or sign them on paper, but we do want to them to go to those folks in our life, right?

I save that kind of thing for when I’m eating my lunch, or after dinner when I’m a little tired but not enough to flub writing a nice note. It gets done, but doesn’t stand in the way of my other work or family obligations. And seeing the list just reminds me to do them – like creating this article for Pam Snell. I saw her request earlier this morning, and it’s now lunchtime. Eat. Write. Rewrite. Send to Pam. Cross off list!

Create templates for repetitive tasks:
I post several different types of articles each week on LinkedIn, and I have a template for each one. That allows me to fill in the current day’s fun or interesting stuff without having to think of a new design. And it works for my followers, who often tell me they know the kind of info each one will give them and they love knowing that!

Keep your schedule in more than one place. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it works for me. I put all big items (projects, Zoom calls, appointments) on my desktop computer and phone calendars, and on my magnetic refrigerator calendar that I see every morning while making coffee. Of the three, that’s the most important one for me given that my tiny house is all open and I can see the fridge from almost every space I’m in. But keeping the info in all those places ensures I’ll always be able to see what my next actions need to be.

There are thousands of articles on the web that we can access for more info, but hopefully one or more of these on my short list will help you in the coming year (or maybe even next week).

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