I belong to a yahoogroup of coaches and right now
topic is how to get organized. One coach writes that he’s using Outlook Express for his email and email address list, Time & Order for his address book, calendar, datebook and to-do list (synchronizing, he says, between PS and daytimer), and MindMappit for brainstorming/lists.” Someone replies that they’re an infj and to remember to focus on people and relationships. A third one replies they wouldn’t want to be a ‘type’ and there’s probably a name for that type, and she uses …etc.”My son swears by his Palm Pilot, except he left it here on his last visit. I use a combination of this and that, and still missed a dental appointment other day.
The point is, we all have too much to do, and we all feel we need to get better organized.
What will get us organized once and for all? Such perfection is not possible. If it were, that would be your life – making lists, making checkmarks, and transferring data and information around. There on your daytimer at 8:04 p.m. would be “Kiss my son goodnight.” Intuitively we all know we don’t want to end up there!
So what can you do that’s helpful and reasonable? There are so many systems out there, you’d have to get organized to get organized to shop for one. Instead try these things my clients have found successful:
1.Mary observed carefully someone she considered like herself in personality, only well-organized. She watched how they kept track of things, asked them about their systems and tools, and then did same thing with good results.
2.Tom told me he was disorganized and praised his officemate, Richard. When I quizzed him, he couldn’t zero in on anything but fact that he was not as organized as Richard. I assigned him to observe Richard and ask him some questions. Turned out Richard thought he was disorganized, missed things from time to time, but didn’t worry about it because he was doing best he could. Tom then quit comparing himself to other people, took a long look at what things were actually impeding his progress, and devised a system to get himself organized enough to be satisfied.
3. Keely told me about all her tools – Palm Pilot, Outlook Express, Best Day Ever, Don’t Die at 50 calendar, etc. I asked her what she was organizing and she said “my life,” but she couldn’t break it down. You can have tools but if you don’t have a map of territory, you’re just digging a hole instead of digging for gold. We made a list of categories and her values regarding them -- Home, Work, Relationships, EQ, Travel, Debt Reduction, Yard, Car. The details weren’t hard to fill in, and she had tools. The meaning and purpose of big picture helped her make use of tools.
