Organization is the key

If you haven't noticed, it's been a while since I posted a blog. A few weeks ago, I missed a few days of work due to illness, and I thought I'd never catch up.

I watched an online webinare about using tools to stay organized. I spent almost 3 whole days organizing everything. Two and a half days later, I finally caught up and am able to share the experience with you. Here is a general "How To:"

I had old stuff that needed to be done that I kept putting off because newer, more important things kept coming in. First, I used Outlook and created a task for each thing needing to be done. You may feel like you don't have time to put anything off, but trust me, it will pay off.

Second, I started putting my tasks in 1/2 hour time blocks. Reserve an hour first thing each morning and a half our each evening; I'll explain in a minute. Put your most important items first, and your least important items at the end of the day. When you fill up your day, then start putting them in next day. Don't forget to make time for things like lunch, meetings, appointments, etc.

If you are like me, I have a bunch of emails that have come in overnight. I spend the first hour each morning reorganizing what needs to be done for the day, mixing in my new tasks. At the end of the day, I spend half an hour organizing the next day if I have tasks left over that I didn't get to.

Now that everything has a time block, start going down your list. If you finish a task within the half hour time bock, great! Move on to the next one. If a task takes longer than half an hour, that's okay. There will probably be a task that doesn't take as long and will put you back on schedule. If you are working on a task, especially one of the older ones, and it is taking longer than your half hour time block, find a stopping point and schedule to continue the task the next day. What's another day going to hurt, right?

I had tasks that were two weeks old or more and with new ones coming in all the time, I just couldn't get caught up. I started organizing my days to get caught up and it worked! At first, I thought to myself that I don't have the time to spend organizing my calendar, but I forced myself to do it. Now, not only have I caught up, but I'm finding that I have time to spare. What a relief!

One more thing to mention, part of staying organized is knowing when to delegate chores to other people. Do you have time to work on your network and keep it maintained? Maybe you should delegate that responsibility to someone. Give Networthy Systems a call and we'll be more than happy to do it for you.

Thanks for reading.

Thomas Johnsen - CCNA, MCSE+Security, MCDST, A+, Net+, Security+
Lead Engineer
Networthy Systems
7060 Phelan Ste. #104
Beaumont, Texas 77706
(409) 861-4450
http://www.networthysystems.com