Organization System Step 1 - Benefits

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is part 1, the powerful benefits to a personal organization system. Read Step 2 - Setting Up Your Filing System and Step 3 - Collect Your Life Into One Pile also.

A great organization and time management system keeps you present and aware of “now”.  There are a number of best-selling spirituality and feel-good books about the wonderful things that occur when you are present and participating in “now”.  Those same books don’t often give concrete examples on how to get to “now” from wherever you are.  Getting organized, and more importantly, being able to stay organized, is critical to experiencing your present moments consistently and repeatedly.  Once you find yourself fully present and out of your head, you will enjoy the feeling immensely and want to stay plugged in to your surroundings.

I’ve experimented with numerous productivity systems in my attempt to get organized.  I’ve tried multiple filing cabinet systems, intricate day planners, hourly planners, monthly desk calendar blotters, integrated outlook systems, and heavy-duty phone calendar management systems.  They all failed for various reasons…many times because they just weren’t any fun to maintain.  I’m not saying this organization system is a nonstop laugh riot.  But Getting Things Done is the time management system that solves all the problems I’ve had with organization and the feeling is amazing.  The organization system described in brings more focused results, frees up mental energy, and allows you to be more present in your life – the most important thing you can get from a time management system.

The flood of information creates numerous decisions large and small that create repercussions in your life.  How you handle the results of your decisions can add or remove stress.  Did you open up that wedding invitation, spend 5 minutes wondering if you could go, then realized you had to check with your wife on travel plans that weekend, wonder about dog sitting expenses, check on flights and see they are expensive, and now you are worrying about how to make your decision and realize you have a number of additional things to do in order to be able to come to a decision on the wedding invite?  This is common.  A seemingly innocent envelope cost you ten minutes of your life and will cost you countless time in the future.  What do you do with this invitation?  You have a decision still to make.  You can’t make the decision now.  And there are a number of additional steps that need to be taken in order to close the invitation decision.

The above situation has caused you mental stress, wasted your time, and caused you to become unaware of what is going on in present reality.  You probably spent the ten minutes blanked out and visualizing different outcomes in your head.  A great organization system will prevent all that by dealing with the situation immediately, tracking any resulting actions, and keeping your mind clear.

Every time you think of something that needs to get done, a part of your brain continues to re-check the status on that open item.  David Allen refers to this as “an open loop”.  For example, I know that I someday want to trace my French-indian heritage.  But I also know that I don’t want to do it in the near future.  So this creates an open loop in my head, because it is an unfinished item that I may or may not want to do in the undefined future.  A good organization system will capture these types of things so it can release the slight, subtle, but still present mental stress.  You are freeing up “psychic ram” space similar to when you close down some of the programs on your computer and then it runs faster and more efficiently.

Feeling focusing and knowing that you are directing your energy to what you wish to accomplish is a great feeling.  I’ve already blogged about focusing on your most important actions.   Despite my best intentions, the top 5 action list can get overwhelmed or neglected if I’m not careful.  The organization system keeps my top 5 list on target and keeps my mind clear of distractions so I can focus on it.

Hopefully you are ready to learn more about this organization system.  I really feel it can change your life for the better.  Tomorrow I’ll discuss the first stage of the system – Setting up your filing system.”

Read Organization System Step 2 - Setting Up Your Filing System