Poor organisation usually means less productivity and missed opportunities which can lead to increased procrastination and stress.

There are a few simple things that you can do that will help you to ensure that you get organised and stay that way. What is even better is that these skills can be used at home or at work.

Be clear about what you need to do

If you are one of those people who struggles to remember just what you have agreed to do or what you wanted to do (if you had enough time), then keep a list.

If one list is not enough, then keep several. Some people find that they work best with one single list, but others have a long-term ‘To Do’ list, supplemented by a daily ‘Tasks’ list. Others have a list of jobs for the week. It is a matter of preference whether you use paper or electronic lists.

There are many applications available today to use to keep your lists organised. Some of them are free while others have a small monthly fee. Microsoft has a great application called Todoist (www.todoist.com), which syncs to other devices as well to keep you in control.  You can create up to 25 different projects (categories) on the free version.  What is nice about the application is that if you are going through your emails and there is something you would like to add to your list, you can email it to the application, and it adds it to your list.  No more forgetting little things!

There are many other productivity apps that you can use e.g. Asana, Trello.

Decide when you are going to do it

Research shows that our brains are hard-wired to worry about things that we have not done.

This is why you wake up in the night panicking about that piece of work you forgot. Interestingly, putting a job on a ‘To Do’ list and deciding when you are going to do it seems to be enough to switch off the bit of your brain that worries, at least until you have missed the slot you had identified.

Give yourself time and space

Getting organised does not happen by chance. You need to give yourself time to do it.

Take a bit of time each day to think about what you have got to do that day, and plan when you are going to do it. It is best to do this either at the beginning of the day, or at the end of the day for the next one. If you travel by train, bus or taxi, you might find your journey is the ideal time to do this.  If not, take 10 minutes when you first get into work, preferably away from your desk to avoid distractions.

If you struggle to find that time, schedule it into your diary. If your electronic calendar is public, make sure you describe it in a way that your colleagues won’t immediately identify it as ‘time that can be used to come and talk to you’. For example, use initials, so that it looks like you have got a meeting, such as ‘DSW’, or ‘Do some work’, and ‘PMD’ or ‘Plan my day’. You know what it means, but nobody else will. And LEAVE YOUR DESK. Go and sit in the canteen, or a quiet corner of a meeting room, to avoid anyone talking to you, or the temptation to ‘just check your emails’.

Decide what is important and what is urgent

It is a delicate distinction, but everything can be separated into either urgent or not, and important or not.  We will cover more of this aspect in the Time Management module.

Break down and delegate tasks

Break tasks down into their component parts and consider whether you can delegate any of them.

Do you really need to do the whole task straight away? Do you really need to do parts of them? It can sometimes take as much time to delegate as to do the task, especially if it is relatively quick to do, but could take a while to explain.  If it is relatively straightforward to explain, and simple but long-winded to do, it is an ideal task for delegation.

Don’t get frustrated by extra tasks

We all know how it feels…

You have just spent 10 minutes organising yourself, and you get back to your desk to find an email from your boss telling you to drop everything and just finish a report that has suddenly become the most important and urgent issue in the world.

Don’t get cross or frustrated. At least you now know whether you have anything else on your list which can not wait and can negotiate extended deadlines for other work from an informed point of view!

Stay on top of things

Especially when you are very busy, it is easy to let your daily organising session slip.

You just want to go home, or you really need to get on with something else. But it is important to keep on top of your scheduling and organising, as otherwise everything gets in a real mess, and then it takes hours to untangle.

When you think about general tidying, the principle of ‘staying on top of things’ really makes sense. For example, if you insist that your children put away each set of toys before getting out the next one: railway away before Lego comes out, dolls’ tea set away before a jigsaw can be opened and so on, then the tidying up at the end of the day takes much less time.

If you leave all the tidying until the end of the day, it could take a long time, and in the meantime, there may be toys or bits of toys that have been stood on and broken, kicked under furniture, lost, or swept up in another game.

The same rules apply to general organisation: keep on top of it, and it is a simple matter to adjust. Let it get on top of you, and it will take a long time to sort out. When you are finished with a document, file it straight away. When you have actioned an email – do the four D’s (Do it, Delete it, Defer it, Delegate it).