Life is so easy. You plan your work and list out what you are going to do on your 'Job's List' and then you just get on with it. No one interrupts you, you don't get any telephone calls, your boss doesn't make unreasonable demands...and there are fairies at the bottom of your garden!
OK, so life's not like that. You do get interruptions, you do get telephone calls and your boss does make unreasonable demands. So what are you going to do about it? Not bother to plan because there's no point? Just get on with whatever comes to mind? We suggest not. Get organised. Let your conscious brain rule your working life, not your subconscious. Don't let your subconscious cloud what you are doing with those negative emotions.
We suggest that you operate a three-tier system of self-organisation,
A day book A job's list A diary
Let's look at each of these in turn.
Day book
Most, if not all of you, will already be using job's lists. But are you using them efficiently? How many jobs have you ticked off at the end of the day? How many new jobs have been added? If your boss rings and asks you to do one or two extra things for him, do you just add them to the list?
Why not keep a daybook? A simple bound book will do. Then, whatever happens during the day, well, note it in your daybook; don't interfere with your job's list. It's a place to record all of those reactive things that just happen.
Then, at the end of the day (or first thing in the morning if you prefer) go through your daybook and transfer the relevant items to you job's list.
Job's list
Use your job's list to control your day to day work. As part of your daily review of your work, go through your list and prioritise your work. Use any classification that you like. Why not just keeps it simple? 1 for the most important jobs, 2 for the not so important and 3 for the rest. It doesn't matter how you do it; devise something that suits you.
If something needs to be done today, then clearly it's category 1. What about those jobs that, well, they don't have to be done today but it would be a real bonus if they were. Maybe these are category 1 as well. Look at each job and look at the return on investment. Which ones are going to give you the biggest payback in respect of your personal and business goals? The bigger the payback, the higher the category.
There are two exceptions to this rule. Firstly, jobs that can cause you stress. Get these out of the way as quickly as you can. You won't really be able to concentrate properly on anything else while these are hanging over you. Your subconscious brain will keep reminding you of them and you'll feel bad. Secondly, jobs that require contact with people. Whether that's within your organisation or outside, deal with these jobs as category 1.
Don't have too many jobs on your job's list. It will just make you feel bad if you look at the list at the end of the day and you've only ticked off a couple of things. Maybe have more lists for ongoing projects; maybe have sub lists for those small tasks that aren't important that we could do in those rare moments when we get some free time.
Diary
Now you can plan your day. Look down your job's list and put down in your diary what jobs you would like to do today and when you would like to do them. Put times down if you want. Maybe just put 'morning' or 'afternoon'. Be realistic. Don't write down more than you can realistically do.
Now we've got ourselves organised with a daybook, a job's list and a diary, what are the things that are going to stop us working with these in the best possible way?
Procrastination
We are all guilty of procrastination at some time. There are those jobs we don't like doing. Those jobs we find boring. Those phone calls we don't really want to make. That person we need to see with the news we'd rather not tell them. We're human; we're all guilty!
We subconsciously think that maybe those unpleasant jobs will go away. But they never do. We have to do them in the end. Sometimes this means that we don't do as good a job as we should have done due to lack of time. Sometimes the task turns out to be not as difficult as we thought; that confrontation not as upsetting and we wish we had just done it straight away and avoided all of that stress.
So do the tasks you normally procrastinate over first. Get them out of the way. Get rid of that stress. Do it. You'll be proud of yourself! And then give yourself a reward.
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