Tools For Organizing

Tools For Organizing

By |

As is often the case, I found myself around a table of peers discussing our various responsibilities and schedules. When it came my turn to speak, I outlined my 4 jobs, 4 classes and personal improvement goals. One friend remarked to another, “Sometimes I think Evan Fazio days are just longer days,” and they asked me how I found time to do all the things I enjoyed doing or had to do.

Flattered, I explained that it all just comes down to time management and organization. I think the two best inventions for squeezing more time out of the day are (in my opinion, pretty obviously,) checklists and calendars.

I use an app on my iPhone called Outliner Plus. I like it because I can make multi-tiered lists and move things from my “tomorrow” list into my “today” list without having to retype anything. I think the best way to explain how I use it is to actually share the outlines. I have four main checklists. I gave them all “game” names to encourage me to use the checklist, since the biggest problem I find people have with organizing systems is actually using them. My checklists are:

  1. Winning Life Today
  2. Aim High for Tomorrow
  3. Weekly Slayings
  4. Victories

1. In “Winning Life Today” I keep track of all the things I need to do today. It has 3 sub-checklists- these are a list of things I try to do every day:

  1. Daily Feat of Discipline
  2. Macro: everything for 10
  3. Quest to Happy

Daily Feat of Discipline is a list of actions I perform every Morning:

  1. Review Calendar
  2. Email
  3. Review Checklist
  4. Make Lunch

and every Evening:

  1. Emails
  2. Go over class notes and reading markups
  3. Check Calendar
  4. Edit Checklists
  5. Journal

It seems like a lot, but these things all go really quickly and help me keep the entire day organized. Then in “Macro: Everything for 10 minutes” I try to spend a minimum of 10 minutes on every one of my responsibilities. This includes all my classes (even if nothing is due, I work ahead) and all my jobs (I make sure all my projects are on track.)

Then during the course of the day I add things to “Aim High for Tomorrow” that need to be done tomorrow. “Weekly Slayings” are my weekly housecleaning chores and responsibilities that occur less frequently such as paying bills, going grocery shopping, and the like. My “Quest to Happy” is a list of things I do every day to keep myself in a good mood, which are:

  1. Dance
  2. Give a compliment
  3. Express gratitude
  4. Do something that scares you
  5. Smile to yourself
  6. Smile to someone else

And finally, to make myself feel good about my accomplishments, I move everything that I check off into “Victories” at the end of the day.

Comments are closed.