Office organisation guru.

I won an award for organisation at the office Christmas party last year. It was a joke award, somewhat unfairly, due to the number of organisational transformations I have attempted. To-do lists methods alone number around a hundred. In fact I now have a VERY helpful list method which I invented myself: I draw a coloured pencil framework each monday, with 6 columns at the top (one for each day of the week and one general 'master/other' list) and blank at the bottom half, for random notes, drawings, and personal stuff. It sits in front of me and I write things down and tick things off. I showed it to Em who is famously efficient, but for some reason she was horrified. Each to their own, I suppose.

I listened to a podcast from Tony Delroy with an organisational expert. I am implementing 2 things:

Handle it once. If you touch an email, do something with it. Either reply and delete, or write it down on a list and if necessary, save it somewhere relevant. The inbox is not a to do list or reminder system, it's an inbox.

Don't multi-task. This is a bit hard, with my attention span, but in the past I've found that using the Pomodoro timer to do one thing for a set time makes me feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of a block of time or a task, whereas jumping randomly from one thing to another I don't get that "Done!" moment. In particular, I'm closing down windows I don't need. Shutting email and web, shutting folders I've opened for other jobs, and minimising distractions.

Small, reasonable goals. Not an overnight transformation, but hopefully some small improvements.