Does your work and home life sometimes seem out of control? Too much input, too many expectations, decisions, meetings, post-it notes, too much stuff? Not enough time? Too much stress? Do you ever feel like you are constantly putting out fires, dealing with the urgent but not necessarily the most important?
You are not alone. All of us have felt the pressure of today's rapid pace and information overload.
I have been on a relentless quest to find the habits and tools for reducing stress, getting more done, and having time for quality horizon oriented thinking. I am still on the quest but I have recently made significant strides.
I have a clean desk, a current and managed email inbox, an uncluttered office, and a clean computer desktop. I share this not as self promotion, but as encouragement. It is possible to get a lot done, to be organized, and to have significantly reduced levels of stress.
I have always been somewhat organized but I have often found it difficult to stay on top of hundreds of pieces of information, emails, projects, papers, books, articles, phone calls, etc. However, four things converged recently to significantly improve my productivity: Attending a Getting Things Done (GTD) conference, release of Office/Outlook 2007, discovering Jott, and the purchase of Mindmanager. GTD is the key to staying organized, getting things done and reducing stress but is too involved (albeit easy to understand and implement) to explain here. The GTD video promo will introduce you to the basic thinking behind GTD. I encourage you to visit the GTD web site to learn more. I also highly recommend David Allen's book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.
Here are some tools and tips that you can use to maximize your time and your talents.
Tips For Using Outlook
Outlook, for me, is the best tool for managing emails, projects, tasks, delegated assignments, phone calls, and appointments.
Create Context Categories
Following the GTD model, I have created categories (GTD "contexts") and lists for all to-do items and projects. For example, I have projects, agendas for each direct report, waiting for items (tasks delegated to others that I am waiting for (more on using Outlook to assign/delegate later), calls to make, tasks that are done on the computer, in the office, etc.
I have setup an Outlook Project for major projects (a project is defined in GTD as anything requiring two or more actions to complete). Each project is tagged with a Red category (easy to spot and emphasizes importance). I have created a corresponding Red file for each project for holding paper. I use notebooks for large projects.
One of the very useful things about using Outlook's Tasks feature for projects is that you can embed copies of emails and documents in the notes field of each project so that everything related to a project is in one place.
Convert Emails to Tasks
Additionally, an email can be made into a task (for yourself or to delegate to others) simply by dragging it to the Tasks Icon. Click here for for a demonstration (note: this is a large file so it may take a few minutes to load). Delegating a task is easy to do and easy to track. Once the task has been created, select Assign Task, select the name of the person you are delegating a task to, write any pertinent message, insert document if desired, select Category (e.g., @Agenda Administrative Assistant, or @Agenda HS Principal and/or @Waiting For). Click Send. The recipient receives the delegated task and can provide updates, including "completed." When completed is selected, Outlook automatically marks it complete in your Outlook task list.
View Tasks on Their Due Dates in Calendar View
Another great feature of Outlook 2007 is that tasks that have due dates show up at the bottom of your Calendar view on the day they are due! This is a very effective and simple way to keep up with important due dates for your tasks or those you have delegated to others. What's more, if you select Outlook's Weekly View, you can scan the week for what is due from others and send them a friendly reminder.
Schedule Travel, Meeting Prep and Follow-up Time
I have captured quality time by scheduling meeting preparation time and meeting wrap-up time on my calendar. This time is scheduled for every meeting. Meetings are not scheduled back-to-back in order to allow time for preparation and wrap-up. The exception is out of office meetings, which may be scheduled back-to-back without intervening wrap-up time. However, wrap-up time is scheduled at the end of a series of such meetings.
I use wrap-up time to go over my meeting notes and create tasks for myself or to delegate to others, consolidate notes, create projects in Outlook and create corresponding folders. The result is that at the end of each meeting or series of meetings I am able to capture and consolidate all of the Next Actions and put them in my "system."
Project Time
I also pre-schedule short project times several times per week on my calendar. One of the most important project times is Friday morning. I use this extended time (3 hours) to focus on major complex projects and initiatives, e.g., compensation revisions, staff reorganization, staff development plans, curriculum revisions, etc. This time is not interrupted unless there is an emergency. I also use this time to conduct my GTD weekly review. The weekly review is particularly important. David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, writes:
If you’re like me and most people, no matter how good your intentions may be, you’re going to have the world come at you faster than you can keep up. Many of us seem to have it in our natures consistently to entangle ourselves in more than we have the ability to handle. We book ourselves in back to back meetings all day, go to after-hours events and generate ideas and commitments we need to deal with, and get embroiled in engagements and projects that have the potential to spin our creative intelligence into cosmic orbits.
The whirlwind of of activity is precisely what makes the Weekly Review so valuable. It builds in some capturing, reevaluation, and reprocessing time to keep you in balance. There is simply no way to do this necessary regrouping while you’re trying to get everyday work done (pp. 184–185)
Using Notes in Outlook for Phone Calls
I have my administrative assistant type all of my messages into Outlook's Notes feature. This has several advantages: 1) All of my messages are in the same place and in the same format, 2) They are archived by date, 3) They can be searched, 4 ) I can note my response to each message, and 5) I can print them so I can make calls from the car. Click on image for larger view.
Using Jott to Increase Productivity
Jott is cool and amazingly efficient! It is also free! Basically, you call Jott and leave yourself or others messages that show up in the appropriate email inbox and/or as a text message. This video will give you a good idea of how Jott works. Try it for two weeks. I am convinced that you will wonder how you got along without it!
Effective Note Taking
I am not a good note taker. However, after reading Getting Things Done and attending a GTD workshop, I learned to be more deliberate about noting Next Actions (the next physical thing that must be done to move a project forward) when taking notes. I have developed a practice of writing "@call Mr. Jones; @Write summary memo to principals; @Send email to...." During my meeting wrap-up time I go through these Next Actions and enter them as Tasks into Outlook. The result is that I seldom have things fall through the cracks.
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