Organize IT

It’s almost the end of the year, and seeing it’s a given that every new year should have a little introspection, I want to once again do a short post to give my readers the chance to shape how Organize IT will hopefully evolve in 2009. The blog has seen a lot of growth over the last twelve months and it’s nice to know that those little thoughts I occasionally have that develop into full blog posts are actually read (and enjoyed I hope) by so many people. Thankyou!

100% you say? That’s crazy! That’s like double how good your life is now, right? Don’t worry, there is logic behind the madness. Consider that there are essentially ten areas of your life you can focus on. You can’t put 100% effort into all of them obviously. However, regular readers will no doubt know how I’m a big fan of breaking work down so by having a small goal for each of those ten areas in your life, the results all (theoretically) add up. That’s 10% energy on a goal that improves your health, 10% on one that boosts your relationship, and so on. Below I’ve detailed the ten areas of your life you can focus on, with some ideas on small goals you can do. Further suggestions welcome!

One recent post that seemed to get a reaction was the discussion of my filing system problems. I asked you all to share your own filing setup and I got many responses (if you are having a filing dilemma of your own be sure to check out all the comments on that post, it should give you a few ideas). I’ve shied away from doing my filing on my computer because the prospect of scanning and tagging something every time I got mail went against what I was trying to achieve. However Marina Martin’s approach was very persuasive.

On Monday I mentioned I’d finished the first draft of my book. This was significant for me because it took a year of regular (almost daily) work, something I’d never done before. It took me several years of trying to write anything consistently until I came across a way of working (with a little help from GTD) that allowed me to focus on this long term goal and stick with it. Having gained this experience and knowledge, I thought I’d share it here and see what you thought. Have you tried any of the following tips? Let me know what you think!.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, especially me because thanks to being a productive so-and-so I was on top of everything. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, the blog was updated, the paperwork was all filed at work and the glass of port was on the table for Santa (with strict instructions that I wasn’t to touch it). Why do I write about personal productivity and being organized? Why do I care about making the most of my time and working as efficiently as possible? Why do I come up with cheesy productivity themed parodies of classic Christmas carols?