Feeling the pain of not having an office and living out of the car has given me tremendous insight and some fabulous ideas for those of you who are in similar situations. Finding my "groove" has been a painstaking effort, but I finally have it all down pat! THANK HEAVENS!
Over the next few weeks, I am going to sharing some of the organizing solutions I have come up with and the tools that have helped me along the way.
The first one is my customized system for planning my little day.
I thought I would enjoy going back to the days of Day Planners, but I was sadly disappointed when I realized that my current job didn't really fit into the parameters of a Day Planner system. I was even more devastated to learn that I did not have a laptop, computer or Outlook to help me in my position. (Ya, can you believe THAT CRAP?)
Instead, I was given a Blackberry Pearl and sent along my merry little way. For the first couple of weeks, I was pissy, peevish, and down right indignant over the lack of tools to do my job. Ok, maybe a little bit more than pissy and peevish, I was beyond annoyed. I felt like I was being set up to fail and that there was no possible way to succeed in the position if I didn't even have what I needed to do the actual tasks assigned. I was not a happy camper.
Now I had the Blackberry and it has a little calendar in it and a task list, but for the love of Pete, typing with my thumbs all of the things I needed to accomplish in a day was out of the question. The bulk of a big planner was just ridiculous to even contemplate and since I spent 95% of my time in a car I needed to be able to write down notes while driving 70mph on the freeway. (Scary, I know!)
My organizing epiphany arrived the day I received my box of goodies from uCreate. Abundant in color and my extreme desire to use all of it to brighten my day, brought me back to the basics.
1 - uCreate Simply Silhouette Notebook
1 - Matching uCreate pen
1 - uCreate Post It Notes
1 - uCreate Post It Flag
1 - Pink Highlighter
I took the pink notebook that had the elastic band and I started labeling each page with the Day of the Week, the actual Date, made a section for To Do's, and a little section for Appointments. Toward the end of the notebook I sectioned off two chunks of the notebook for Notes and for Voicemails and labeled them with my Post It flags.
Then I got busy with writing down everything that I needed to do. The main reason for the bigger section for my To Do List versus appointments is because I have more action items than I have appointments. I don't necessarily HAVE to be anywhere at a specific time. It's mostly "popping in", which is why a Day Planner system didn't make sense. I do, however, have to put together marketing materials, pick up supplies, check in with graphics, create pricing, update promotions, etc.
Here is what my typical Day Page looks like. I have all of my To Do's listed and as I finish them I strike them through with a highlighter. Same goes with the little appointments at the bottom. As soon as I am done, I mark it through. You will also notice that I have a note on a Post It off to the side. This is because I was driving down the freeway at 75mph and I had to make a quick note to follow up on a client. I quickly wrote it down and when I stopped I just slapped it on the page. Why duplicate my efforts?You will also notice a nifty little flag at the top of the page. This is a visual reminder that I have things that I did not accomplish from the day before. This way I don't have to rewrite my To Do's on the next day and I can just flip through and see what I didn't get a chance to finish. As soon as I have finished with everything on that page, I will remove the flag.
The Notes section in my notebook is for meetings I have with clients or my boss. I like having everything in one notebook because I just don't want to carry a ton of crap with me and if we are reviewing a meeting I had with a client I can just flip to it without having to worry about it. It's all contained in one book.
Of course, I can't do anything without having my Voicemail Log. I originally started out with just using a separate Composition Book, but this is working out quite nicely. Although I do prefer the separation, this just makes a ton of sense at the moment.
I have only been using it for two weeks and I am sure that I will run into some snags when the notebook gets full and I have to switch to another, but I can always label the notebook by the dates in the planner section and tuck it away at my home office. But for right now, this little system is saving my life and I am loving it! Blackberry be damned!
If you have created a customized system for yourself, please share!!! I would love to hear about some other ideas and what you use!
Happy Organizing!
Suzanne Babb
