Organize IT

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The to-do list is perhaps one of the oldest staples for anybody trying to get organized and productive. Whether it’s on paper or as part of an app, it’s such a simple concept – write down a list of things you need to do and tick them off as you complete them. Unfortunately, as our workload has got more complicated and large over the years, so too as the traditional to-do list. It can take a little bit more thought and organization to make it work and that can cause problems. So, I thought I’d create a list of the most common problems I’ve come across and how you can fix them.

In the process of writing Monday’s post on why I prefer the almighty pen and paper combination above all else, I ironically started to feel a slight twinge of curiosity about all those GTD apps out there. Most of the GTD related tweets on Twitter revolve around people’s experiments with different apps and I pretty much always skipped over them… until now.

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Last week I was asked on Twitter what my favorite GTD tools were for getting organized. Did I prefer the hifi or lofi approach? What was my favorite app? My answer was unequivocally that I prefered good ol’ pen and paper. I’ve always prefered the low tech approach and have never really experimented with apps. But it got me thinking, why do I prefer paper? Well, below are my six main reasons…

This month I finally achieved something I’ve always wanted to achieve as a blogger – do a guest post for a really big blog. If you’re interested in how I productively manage and maintain Organize IT without spending hours on it, check out my post at Problogger. As for the rest of the month, below are my top choices from August. As ever, if you’ve missed any of them, this is a great opportunity to play catchup!

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Welcome to the second part of my series looking at techniques to help achieve an efficient mind sweep (part one can be found here). As the name suggest, a mind sweep involves you capturing down any loose thoughts – whether it be a creative idea, something to do, things to remember, problems that require your attention – onto something external to your brain like a notebook, PDA, iPhone, etc.