Read Online What To Do When There's Too Much To Do by Laura Stack - Free Book Online Page A

schedules, family schedules, kid activities, personal appointments, vacation plans, professional and private contacts—the works. In particular, all your calendars should be included (such as syncing your Google calendar to your work calendar on your phone); otherwise, conflicts areinevitable. For example: If you can’t check to see if your son has soccer practice on Thursday afternoon, because you’ve left your family calendar at home or on the refrigerator, then you might inadvertently plan a business meeting at the same time—and end up with a conflict. It’s better and easier to keep your entire life in one place, in a format you can easily reference at all times.
    G—Garbage-free. If you use a planner, binder, or notebook, what would happen if you picked it up and shook it? Would you witness a blizzard of falling papers? Any loose papers you’re working with should go in a file folder or your briefcase. Remember to reduce, reduce, and reduce again! Trim your system down to the categories you intend to use. Just because you have apps on your phone or an extra tab in your planner doesn’t mean you actually have to use them. Move, remove, or convert them to some other use. Even handheld users who don’t use them consistently end up with scraps of paper everywhere.
The System of Your Dreams
    Does your time management system meet the HUG criteria? No? Keep tweaking it until you discover your best fit! If it does cover these three bases and it works for you, then you have the right personal time management system in place. If it frustrates you in some way, continue to make adjustments. Don’t feel pressured to move to a particular system if it’s a poor fit to your personality, or isn’t suited to your work and life situation. I’ve known people who were entirely paperless who went back to paper to a limited extent, because they discovered they were more organized with paper than without it.
    Test your personal time management system for HUGability. It needs to be Handy, Usable, and Garbage-free.
BASIC INFORMATION HANDLING
    In just about any office job, you encounter a constant flood of new information. You have no choice but to take it all in and process it one way or another—lest you drown in it. Some of this information will come to you automatically; some you’ll have to dig up yourself. However we acquire it, we all must filter, process, think about, focus on, reference, and internalize the information, incorporating it into our organizational systems, processes, and daily routine as appropriate.
    As you do so, keep these six simple rules in mind:
    1.
The Superglue Rule.
The very first time you touch an item, pretend it’s stuck to your hand (as in paper) or your eyes (as in e-mail) or your ear (as in voicemail). You can’t put it down until you’ve made a decision (next step).
    2.
The Decisiveness Rule.
Decide right away what to do with the item. Any decision is better than no decision. Indecision actually causes clutter! Luckily, there are only six potential decisions, which I’ll outline in the upcoming 6-D System.
    3.
The Start-to-Finish Rule.
Don’t just decide what to do with an item—do it! This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll complete the item, because doing it later is actually a decision. Every decision has an “end” point, so make sure you don’t stop it halfway through the process. Incompletions are very stressful (ever had a “half-organized” closet?).
    4.
The Three-Minute Rule.
If you can easily process a piece of information in three minutes or less, get it done right then and off your plate before moving to the next item.
    5.
The Empty Inbox Rule.
Don’t use your inbox as a to-do list or filing system. Once you get past a screen shot or so, you have to start scrolling and re-reading. You must pull the action out of each item, or you’ll have random due dates mixed together and