August is National Back to School month. Even if you no longer engage in formal education, this month always just seems a bustle with people getting organized and prepared for the upcoming year.
It almost feels like a second New Year; a chance to start over, stock up on new supplies and a chance to get your business organized.
If you’re picking up freelance gigs or starting your fifth year as a business, many of us need to reassess and clear out some clutter from time to time. Even if some of these areas are a bit of a disaster in your life, changing one or two habits at a time aids long-term success. One area in your business may need more attention than you’re giving it.
Here are a few things to consider getting organized.
YOUR DAILY LIFE
How often are you overbooked and canceling appointments so to satisfy other plans? How often do you forget to complete a task that could have saved money or earned money? How often are you feeling burnt out? Are you having difficulty maintaining a fair number of working relationships?
The key is schedule maintenance!
The first question you should always be sure you can answer with a “Yes” is, “Am I making time to schedule my time?” If you answered with “NO”, then step one is get a calendar.
The first thing you put on it is a planning day. With demands of family, work, continuing education, and self-care, it’s necessary.
I keep a little spiral notebook that catches all my fleeting to-do thoughts. The main idea is that you find a system that keeps those pesky to-do bees buzzing around in your bonnet. You have more important things to think about than tasks.
I’ll list out the different things I need to do for multiple clients or myself and I make time to sit and schedule out my upcoming week, month, or year. I refer to my to-do notebook and know that I have made the first step to getting those things done.
Some categories of tasks that I group together are below. I’ll capture large project ideas down to simple social media posts all in one spot. Large projects get broken down into pieces in the calendar as I am scheduling them.
- Design
- Social media
- Family and social time
- Personal time
- Calls/contacts/referrals to make
- Articles/books to read
- Paperwork
- Developing tools for more efficient operations
- Things/businesses to look up
- Meetings
- Projects to manage/schedule
- Business and personal goals
If your life and to-do list are what is causing your burnout, then the key is scaling down. What systems can you automate? What tasks are being duplicated and could be streamlined? Do an audit of your timewasters, distractions and high priorities to see where you need to focus your energy.
YOUR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
Our office and digital spaces can often be overtaken by massive amounts of information. These can create not only disorganization, but aesthetically displeasing environments.
Along with all the things we do our daily lives, we must manage the inevitable paperwork that results from living them. Yay bureaucracy!
If you’re just getting started with information management systems, you understand the sometimes soul-crushing amount of time that must be spent creating, learning, and using them. Again, these can either be physical or digital information management systems that maintain your files, magazines, contacts, mail, etc.
Find ways that systematically and effectively move these items along the Records and Information Management Life Cycle; creation, use/distribution, maintenance/protection, and destruction/archiving.
When creating your Standard Operating Procedures for these systems, it might help to break down what you need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.
Mail comes daily, create a system for it. Every week you follow up with clients, create systems that help you access their information and share project notes with them easily and quickly. If you balance your financial statements monthly, create systems and procedures that help you tackle that task efficiently.
You get the idea.
Over time creating one or two new procedures a month and changing your habits will create a more organized and aesthetically energizing environment.
YOUR MENTAL SPACE
Some might think it seems odd that I include this category in the realm of organization. But I think there is something to be said about being able to process the information you take in every day, and using it for maximum influence. Information is valuable, and just like money it can be spent unwisely. A well-organized mind is key to growth.
The main elements in my experience that help in organizing the mind is understanding a couple of concepts. Each of these activities deserve space on your schedule.
- Research (is different from thinking.)
- Brainstorming (is different from research.)
- Thinking (and the positive kind clears the clutter created by self-doubt.)
RESEARCH
One of the pages in my chubby little to-do notebook is RESEARCH. As an entrepreneur, information is constantly getting fed to you, not all of it you fully understand. When you are operating a small business, the abundance of information available makes compiling it necessary.
If fitting researching and compiling information into your schedule seems downright unpleasant, then consider outsourcing. There are plenty of assistants available as resources. If you belong to a networking group, perhaps you know one like Jabbermax. There are options available in a variety of prices and level of services.
BRAINSTORMING
The act of conjuring up ideas. We’re all full of them, especially those who experience large volumes of information intake. This requires dumping, molding, honing, hacking. You get the idea.
I think this can be accomplished solo but can be wonderfully effective in groups. Even if you are unable to find someone who is unmatched in your specialty, another person’s background and experiences can shed new light on old problems.
Many successful people capture thoughts and ideas on-the-go through a recording device. I use my same chubby notebook for catching my thoughts.
Whatever your method, take time to schedule brainstorming if there’s an issue you can’t shake, or you just want to change things around in your field.
THINKING
Your brain processes things all day every day.
Along with the information we constantly feed our brains, sometimes, our daily lives throw curveballs, we have difficult relationships to contend with, we over-occupy ourselves to the point neglecting self-care, even self-doubt can clutter up the mind.
Make time in your schedule to see if there are actions that you have not taken that need to be taken. Once or twice a week I take an hour or so and sit down with my calendars, notebooks, and phone.
I let my mind go where it takes me. Soon it starts chewing on the issues that I’ve been simmering on the back burner. Then I go through a series of problem solving, note gathering, and action-taking. Before I know it, I’ve had a productive hour behind me.
Make sure you are also keeping your negative self-talk in check if this is an issue for you. You might be surprised how often you’re beating yourself up over mistakes here and there. Take time to be kind to yourself.
Organization is about more than just keeping the files in the right place and color-coding the calendar. Assess the areas of your life where clutter seems to be king over your time and energy.
How do you stay organized? What’s easy for you to keep up and what is the hardest thing to maintain?
