WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #28
All my life people have extolled my organizational virtues and all my life I have shunned them. The phrase, “You’re so organized!” makes me wince because I equate it with the opposite of creativity. But there comes a time when you realize you’re going to get farther and do what you need to do on this earth by working with and not against your talents.
To that end, I have compiled a list for you (so organized!) of things I do that help me keep it all together. I hope you’ll find something useful in it.
• Start with what’s finished. When you make a “To Do” list, make the first couple items things you have already done, then you can check them off with a flourish, gain an immediate sense of accomplishment and prime the pump for the work ahead. This is not cheating, but in fact is an accurate assessment of where you stand.
• Put it all on one page. Whether it’s the regular list of bills to pay or a faxed resume, one page is easier to deal with in our current environment of byte-sized info chunks. Of course sometimes you have to be longer, but the respect you gain by being succinct will reward you. This takes a lot of tweaking, editing and tossing information you think is valuable, but every extra word someone has to read is one less truly vital word they’re going to miss. If there is no way to fit the job on one page, then it is two separate jobs!
• Organize visually. I started a practice of writing reminders on sticky notes and lining them up on my desktop. Green are for one client, yellow another, orange for business, pink for family, etc. When I get one done, it either gets thrown away (organized people love to trash things) or goes into my zipper office on today’s page under “done.”
• Zipper Office: I learned a lot about organizing from my film production jobs. One trick was carrying an entire office around in a leather, zippered bag. You can buy them at Office Despot or the like. There’s a place for files, full pages of daily logs, a 3-ring binder, calculator, pen holder, etc. It all zips up so nothing falls out and has a handle that makes it a one-finger hold when necessary.
• If you’re going to buy one, buy three. This works for lamps, plants, pens, everything. The reasoning is both to please the visual eye, but also to save money and time. Three (or five) reinforces the eye’s love of repetition and generates intention. I have too often bought one of something only to wish that I had had the money to get three. By the time I get back to the store—sometimes months later—they don’t have any more in stock. This also saves money in a strange way: if they don’t have three available, I reconsider the purchase.
• Do your taxes at the last minute. Having something as painful as year-end taxes to do makes every other job that needs to be done much more attractive. And you can always file for a six-month extension.
