Mastering Organization: Principles for Effective Change

You have an overflowing inbox, you’re behind on projects and your calendar for the next ten days is full of meetings and other commitments. What can you do to get things under control and meeting your commitments? That’s what we’re looking at this week.

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Script | 334

Hello, and welcome to episode 334 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.

I know it can be easy for productive people to say all you need to do is this or that, and you, too, will be productive. The reality is it’s not that simple. 

It’s not just about getting organised, reestablishing control of your calendar, and learning to use a to-do list properly; there’s also a mindset shift involved. 

Many people I work with individually have been told and come to believe that they are disorganised and sloppy with their time management. If you’re told this too often and your actions support it, you begin to believe it. Being poor at time management and productivity becomes an identity. 

Once you believe you are bad at these things, it becomes a self-fulfilling habit. Every attempt to become better organised and more productive will fail because you will sabotage your successes. 

Your brain has an incredible capacity to reorganise and adapt. Just look at how people adapted to the lockdowns in 2020. There was resistance at first, then the adoption of new ways of doing things. Those who enjoyed exercise found ways to adapt their exercise programmes and work from home—something many people believed was impossible for them- but they soon discovered it was possible.

Your brain can adapt and remodel itself using “neuroplasticity”. All you need is a stimulus—such as a determination to get organised and be better at managing your time—like muscles in response to exercise. 

Sadly, most people don’t try. They accept these negative patterns as just who they are. Yet it’s not true. Your mindset and habits are not set at birth. You learn them. And that means you can unlearn them and develop better beliefs and habits. 

So, with all that said, it’s time to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Wim. Wim asks, hi Carl, for years, I have tried to get myself organised and failed every time. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve read all the books, watched thousands of YouTube videos, and learned all the tricks. But for some reason, I can never do anything I learn. How would you help someone like me?

Hi Wim, Thank you for your question.

Part of the problem for people who struggle to get themselves organised is trying to do too much at once. 

While we are good at changing things, we are not very good at changing everything. This is why it’s often said that moving house is one of the most stressful things a person can do. Moving house is exciting, yet it also involves a lot of change. 

That makes it uncomfortable. There’s a new home, a new way to get to the supermarket, a different drive to work and new people to get to know in the neighbourhood. 

Yet, after a few weeks, our new home becomes normal. We feel comfortable and safe, and the stress of the move disappears. 

All change requires an initial period of discomfort. We make mistakes and forget to do something we should have done, and going through the actions feels like a huge effort for a small gain. 

But we discovered during the pandemic that we can do it. We can adapt to change and do it quite quickly. 

So, where do you begin? 

As always, the best place to begin is with the basics. To get organised means learning and implementing the principles of COD—Collect, Organise and do. 

When it comes to collecting, how will you gather together all the stuff you either have to do, would like to do or have a passing interest in? 

For some, that may mean setting up their phones as their universal collection tool (UCT) or perhaps a pocket notebook. 

If you choose to use your phone—possibly the best UCT as we carry these things with us everywhere we go (including the bathroom!) what application will you use? 

The application you use for collecting is important because it needs to fulfil two requirements. First, it must be quick and easy to use. Too many buttons to press, and you won’t collect everything. Second, you need to trust that what you collect will be saved and not lost. 

A lack of either of those functions and it will fail. 

Once you have your collection tool set up, the next area to work on is the habit of processing and organising what you collect. Done frequently, and this won’t take a lot of time. Done infrequently, and it will take too long, which then means you won’t do it. 

I generally advise people to clear their inboxes every twenty-four to forty-eight hours. This depends on how much you are collecting. I find people just starting out with a system collect a lot more than seasoned people do. 

That’s actually a good thing because for the first few weeks, it’s about building the habit. The old habit of trying to remember things in your head doesn’t work, but it’s an ingrained habit—“oh, I won’t forget that”. 

You will. Write it down. 

If you are collecting a lot of stuff, clear your inbox daily. If you’re collecting less than ten things a day, you can clear your inbox less frequently. (Although I do advise you to scan your inbox daily to ensure you haven’t missed anything important).

Now, when it comes to organising what you collected is a little more difficult. This requires some thought. 

The goal is to find what you need as quickly as possible when you need it. 

One thing that will hinder you here is if you have stuff all over the place. I have a policy of using tools for the purpose they were designed. This means I use one task manager, Todoist, for all my tasks. 

This stops me from having to find stuff in multiple different places. When I start the day, I know all my tasks will be in one place. 

This also helps with trust. I can trust that what needs to be done today will be on my Todoist Today list.

Yet, this didn’t happen overnight. It took many months of learning Todoist and building trust. 

When I see people announcing on YouTube or social media that they have switched to another app, my eyes roll. I’ve seen it time and time again. If you constantly switch apps, you never build trust in your system. You’re always learning a new tool, and things slip through the cracks. 

Let me say this: you will never become better at managing time or more productive if you cannot settle on a set of tools and stick with them. 

You are not missing out if a new app appears and promises to fix your productivity woes. That’s just marketing. Stop falling for it. 

The question is, how will you organise your stuff?

I use the Time Sector System to organise my tasks, and my notes are organised using a methodology called GAPRA (Goals, Areas, Projects, Resources and Archive). 

I have a lot of resources on these organisation methods on my website, so if you want to learn more about them, head over to Carl Pullein.com. 

The final part is to do the work. 

This involves getting control of your calendar. 

Now, here’s the thing. If you do not control your calendar or are ignoring it, you will always have difficulty managing your time. While your calendar is the simplest tool in your productivity toolbox, it’s also the most powerful. 

We all begin each day with the same amount of time. Yet we have different priorities and things we want time for. However, time is fixed. And that’s a good thing. It means you have one constant you can work with. 

The number of tasks coming at you is not something you can control. You have no idea what will happen today. You don’t know how many emails and messages you will get; you don’t know what your customers or boss will ask you to do. That side of the equation is not within your control. 

Yet, I see so many people trying to control the uncontrollable. That’s often where problems begin. 

Instead, take some time and look at the different categories of things you need time for. Communications and admin will be two things. It’s also likely you will need time for chores and planning. On top of that will be the work you are employed to do. 

A lawyer will need time to read and write contracts, prepare cases for court and talk to clients. All this requires time. The question becomes how much time do you want to allocate to these activities each day? 

For example, I know that if I dedicate two hours a day to content creation, an hour to communications, and thirty minutes to admin, I will never have any backlogs or be very far behind on my commitments. That’s just three and a half hours a day to get important work done. 

That means I have just over twenty hours for everything else each day. Take Louis, my dog, for his walk, eat, do chores, sleep and exercise, and, of course, spend time with my family and friends. 

We are all different, and we will all have different priorities. Yet, if you control your calendar and are strict with how you allocate your time, you will find you do have time to get everything done. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but you will have time over the next few weeks. 

Doing what I call the backend work matters. That’s deciding your priorities and using those to guide your days. If spending time with your family is important, you need to protect time to spend with your family. Hoping you will find time in the future is not a good strategy. 

If you’re sick and tired of seeing hundreds if not thousands of unread emails in your inbox, they won’t disappear because you hope they will. You have to deliberately set aside time to deal with them and then protect time each day to ensure the backlogs don’t reappear. 

Similarly, if you have projects that are behind schedule, they will not miraculously get back on schedule if all you are applying is hope. You have to set aside time to do the work intentionally. 

It’s worth pointing out that no new, brilliant AI-inspired calendar or productivity tool will ever do the work for you either. You do the work. It’s your time, and only you know what is critical and what is not. 

This all comes back to the basic principles. Know what is important to you—develop your areas of focus. You can download my free Areas of Focus workbook from my website. 

Make sure you collect and organise your stuff, set aside time to do the work, and then do the work. 

It will take time to develop these habits. But it’s not impossible if you really want to do it. Allow yourself that time, and within a few weeks you will begin to see notable improvements in your time management and productivity. 

Thank you, Win, for your question, and thank you to you too for listening. 

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.