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Six tips for getting organized
Saturday, 8 April 2006
Organization is one of the big secrets of success. Organized nations are usually more successful than chaotic ones; as are organized businesses and people. We all know that it's something we should try to be, but often people fail to do so even when they put in a lot of effort. Here are my six tips to help you get more order in your life.
Do it in the first place
Some people are proud to be disorganized. They think throwing themselves into chaos helps motivate them. They also think organization is a lot of effort that could be spent doing better things. This is garbage.
People who are well prepared to deal with the world do a much better job of it. They often have more time, are more relaxed and have greater success. This is an obvious point and one that you'll suffer from if you ignore it. Getting organized is worth the bother.
Be organized about being organized
Some people throw themselves into ordering everything as an end in itself. They've figured out the point above, but haven't really thought about why organization often leads to success.
A good example is a woman I once knew who liked to tidy her possessions into boxes. She did this obsessively and ended up with hundreds of boxes. The end result was she could never remember which box she'd put anything into. To make things worse, she was constantly reorganizing her boxes, even more confusing any map in her head of what went where.
She'd missed the point of being organized, which is this - it's done to save time and resources.
Organizing your tasks and information obviously uses time and resources, so it's only worth doing if there's a bigger payoff at the end of it. The benefit you get from creating order must be greater than the time and resources you spend. Otherwise, there's no point.
Ordering your bookshelf by author is probably a waste of time unless you spend ages searching for books.
This can be a difficult rule to follow for those who like to obsessively systemize things. Here's how to break this obsession - calculate the likely benefit from the organization process and make sure it's significantly higher than the cost of the time and resources spent. Be very strict with yourself on this point.
Keep the goal in mind
Many people drift away from the principle of organizing work by trying to achieve a growing number of goals at the same time. This is known as "scope-creep" which means allowing additional goals to be added without really thinking about their cost. Organize around one specific goal and be ruthless about not letting anything else distract you from it. Keep this goal as straightforward as possible.
Spend most of your effort on the most important task
I've spent a lot of time building computer systems, which means working with a lot of engineers. Such people are usually extraordinarily good at technical thought, but it's amazing how bad many of them are at prioritizing.
The most important thing when building a computer system is that it does what it's supposed to - that it works. This seems obvious, yet many engineers will immediately start thinking about how to make the system fast, or look nice, or use the latest hot design methods. These are all nice things to have, but they are secondary to the most important task - to make the system work. A fast system that doesn't work is useless, a slow system that does work may not be perfect, but is still useful.
Always concentrate ruthlessly on achieving the most important task. Put most of your time and resources towards it and not other distractions. Prioritize, in other words. Remember that trying to do everything often leads to achieving nothing.
Keep secondary tasks in mind, but devote less time and resources to achieving them. You can always come back to them later.
Keep it simple
Good organization is rarely complex. Plan what you want to do in the easiest and least complicated way possible. If you find yourself getting confused, or confusing others, then it's probably time to start slashing away some of your processes and ideas.
Keep it simple to make it successful.
Get started early
Most students like to leave working on their assignments until the last minute. They feel doing so motivates them - and they're right. Knowing a deadline is looming is a great way of lighting a fire under yourself.
Unfortunately, such motivational "tricks" often leave people stressed, tired, and vulnerable to making mistakes. Working steadily towards your goal is a much better strategy than a last minute dash towards the finish line. Whether it's a task at work, going to the airport to catch a plane, or planning an event - get started early. Surprise people with how on top of it you are.
If you feel this will remove one of the "tools" from your motivational toolbox, try thinking of it this way - be motivated to start early so you can avoid the misery of the last minute rush. Imagine how stressed, scared and tired you'll be. Picture the poor quality of work done at the last minute. Make it seem like this would be such a terrible situation that you couldn't bear it. Then get started early to make sure it doesn't happen.
So there they are, my six tips for getting organized. I hope you find them useful.
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