Real Deal REInvestor Network

Over the last 2 weeks my office has notes and piles of paper scattered everywhere... appointments, project ideas, meeting minutes, speaking prompts, phone messages…and on and on…have you ever looked around your office and there’s stuff everywhere, you’re not sure what you’re supposed to be doing and nothing is in its place easy to find?

This happens to me pretty regularly. I call it “controlled chaos” and I expect it, as the consequence of being a guy with a lot on his plate, and someone who has a ton of creative outlets both professional and personal (hey where DID I put those romantic haiku poems?).

But the fact is…no matter how ‘out of whack’ my office gets every couple of weeks, I always get back organized at least once a month corralling all the clutter into file drawers, recycling junk, and clearing space.

Once that’s done, I’m left with only what I need to have easy fingertips access to-- namely first and foremost my printed calendar schedule day planner that goes everywhere I go, and a secondly a simple stack of hand-written index cards that enables me to have my to-do tasks lists, to-delegate task lists, to-call lists, and project idea notes all together where I can grab them at any time.

These two simple tools that cost less than a hundred bucks a year form the basis of my personal organizational plan.

A day planner and index cards for notes are a couple of old habits that have served me well in my years in business. In fact, the emphasis I put on these organizational systems for myself personally – trust me, it’s an everyday effort and NOT something that comes “naturally” to such a fun-loving all-over-the-place personality like me—is one of the things that has most contributed to the growth of my career as an entrepreneur, investor and internet marketer.

At least, it’s managed to keep me sane when I have multiple business projects going simultaneously, dozens of client relationships, deals happening, people working for me, and partners all over the country in different ventures.

My personal systems for organization may not enable me to do everything more quickly necessarily, but they do enable me to keep from dropping balls, forgetting about things, or continually missing deadlines I set for myself and others.

A day planner may not be for everyone. I use a Zig Ziglar Performance planner leather bound paper calendar and have been using those for 7 years. In it I keep my daily schedule in three parts. First is stuff that is timed to be done at a specific time like an appointment, conference call, or meeting. And second are “anytime” tasks that I want to complete that day, typically all scheduled in advance in time-blocks to fill up the day. So if I decide on Monday that something needs to be done and will take about 2 hours, but isn’t urgent needing to be done right this minute, then I’ll look at my calendar and see I have little scheduled for Thursday and so I’ll write in a 2 hour time-block to get that task done on Thursday.

The third way I use the planner is to strategically place or “batch” certain activities throughout the year—so that I get reminded on certain intervals to do it and don’t have to think about or worry about it. Here I’m talking about stuff as simple as getting a haircut every 3 weeks, sending flowers to my girlfriend, checking mail and reading it once a month, paying bills every quarter, writing in my book each week, listening to marketing audio trainings a couple times per month, saying my affirmations, all the way to doing a financial statement twice a year.

I also personally organize ideas and tasks using index cards. That’s because having little notes and stickies and different sized pieces of paper lying around everywhere is inefficient and just asking for a feeling of overwhelm.

If you’re drowning in different types of paper, consider buying a few packages of index cards for a few bucks and using those consistently instead for different tasks, project notes, and ideas.

It’s the consistency that matters, so you can match the size up and easily stack them. Index cards all of the same size can be organized easily. They can be stacked in piles that are related and those piles can be rubber-banded or clipped together without any issues. They can be shuffled through quickly to find something you need. They can be slipped into a back pocket, and if you have blank cards in your car, office, briefcase and/or purse/wallet you'll never be without one. 

I have stacks I carry everywhere with me (just ask people who've met me). Some for people, with items I want to discuss with that person the next time we talk. Some for big projects I'm working on with multiple parts I need to keep track of. Some for things I have delegated and need to follow up on, others for tasks that I've had ideas for but have yet to do or to delegate. And so on. It's simple, but it works for me.

I hope when you apply one or both of these two simple ideas of organizational principles and how I apply them will assist you in being more time effective, productive and ultimately more successful. Drop me a line at one my websites and let me know if they helped.