Day 1 Of the 30 Day Challenge –

Get Organised

Today I’m beginning the 30 Day Challenge – the mantra of which is “Don’t Take No For An Answer”. 

My Coach has challenged me to step up and positively use the next 30 days to effect big change.  Refusing to take no for an answer does’t necessarily mean asking for more from others, it’s challenging myself to do more and to push myself to stretch the boundaries and step up. 

But you have to start somewhere, so today I’m dealing with the basics – paperwork.  This is the foundation of all that follows – because you can’t do great things when your disorganised.

How organised are you?  Is it a constant battle to stay on top of all that paperwork?  Are you getting frustrated and then feeling bad about yourself because nothing’s getting done? 

Today (and yesterday in fact) – I had a blitz of my office.  Brain fog and confusion are usually accompanied by piles of paperwork, lost files and a general feeling that I’ve lost control of my desk. 

There’s nothing worse than being surrounded by mess. 

It may be annoying having to stop and sort things out but in the end it’s the only way.  This might seem a tad unorthodox – but I literally gather everything together, dump it on the floor and sift through it all meticulously and either file it, shred it, throw it away, put into new plastic folders of different colours.  I then ensure they have a ‘home’ – i.e. a concertina folder so I can get to them easily.  AND every time I do this I usually find the one thing that I REALLY need.  Funny eh?

For instance, I am currently planning a training course and I found a very important piece of research material that I knew was somewhere, but couldn’t quite lay my hand on it.  And sure enough it turned up yesterday (phew!). 

The whole point of getting organised is that when you do, it provides a beneficial environment for you to operate at your optimum.  Wading through piles of paper every day to find things is not a good way to be. 

NOW if you’re the kind of person who HATES tidying up, because you find it boring, stressful or it just makes you want to have a lie down in a dark room – draft in some help.  You can hire a VA or a temp for 2 hours a week to do all this for you.  Pay your kids to help out.  What about turning off your computer, drag yourself away from Facebook and Twitter for half a day and instead, put on the radio and just do it! 

How about this…book the time in your Outlook to get organised.  Get up extra early and do this before the day starts.  I’ve organised my office in my pyjamas before now, then got ready for my day and returned to my desk with a real feeling of calm. 

If you’ve not read my book, on page 29 are 23 ways to work more efficiently which I’ve recreated here:-

23 Ways To Work More Efficiently

• Sort and open your post daily: five minutes a day may be easier to find than one hour a week. Separate between action pile’ and ‘naff pile’.
• Deal with any urgent bills or issues straight away, and then file.
• Make a space for all ‘pending’ items – a place on the bureau or a file in the kitchen – and make sure it is checked every day.
• Group meetings or visits to customers/clients together so that you aren’t wasting travelling time.
• Use your Satellite Navigation system. Enter the destination  and log the travelling time required so that you can calculate precisely when you need to leave.
• Organise your business cards – buy a big A4 diary and every time you meet someone new, staple the business card in the diary, with a little note next to it. This might seem a bit old fashioned but my friend Brett swears by this one!
• Clearly label files and folders for all your projects, and colour code them if that helps.
• Clear your desk at the end of each day.
• Colour code your meetings in your Outlook Calendar or use a day planner.
• Always prepare bags, documents and directions for the following day, the night before.
• Use a task list. I use an A5 workbook and write down my tasks for the week every Sunday evening. Each day I use a different coloured highlighter pen for those tasks. I cross through each task as it’s completed and usually most things get done. It’s a great feeling! Anything that isn’t completed is carried over to the next list. Curiously there’s never more than 20 items on the list each week, although any more than that I would go into overload. Sometimes the simple strategies work best!
• Divide larger tasks into smaller ones, organise all the paperwork and prioritise – I call this planning to plan.
• If you find it hard to stop when you get going on a project (even to eat), use a timer to bleep when time’s up. Remember if you’re hungry and thirsty, you won’t think straight.
• Organise your domestic arrangements if you work from home, to maximise the most of your time. Don’t be a slave to the ironing, or try to be a domestic goddess by insisting that you do things the same way you always have. Ask yourself, what’s more important for you to be doing right now? Get a cleaner or hire someone to clean your oven for instance, instead of doing it all yourself.
• Think – is this the best use of my time and will it help me reach my objectives? If not, delegate it to someone else if you can afford to.
• Use a ‘save up’ or ‘wish list’ for projects that you can’t start straight away by placing a concertina folder close at hand for your projects and documents so you can find them.
• Schedule your shredding! Organise a shredding basket, and allocate a designated time to shred, or shred daily rather than leaving it all to pile up.
• Tear off the address panel from letters and instead of shredding the whole letter, just shred the address!
• Designate a ‘recycling facility’ in your garage to sort the paper, tin, bottles, cardboard, paper, newspaper and recycle little and often.
• Use only one diary, better still use an electronic diary system on your phone that synchronises with your computer on a daily basis – e.g. a Blackberry.
• If you’re having trouble sleeping, rather than lay there feeling anxious, switch the light on or get out of bed and do some planning, write an article, write some lists, brainstorm. Once you’ve downloaded your thoughts onto paper, you’ll soon fall back to sleep!
• At the beginning of each year, sit down with your spouse and plan your time together, e.g. holidays, family events, and important anniversaries
• Turn your spouse into a VIP – book a date with them on a regular basis and ensure that absolutely nothing else is booked in its place – it could save your relationship

 So…I’m getting organised.  Are you? 

More soon from my progress on The 30 Day Challenge soon