Posted by Louise on May 7, 2010 in
Being organised … with procrastination. I’ve got tonnes of studying to do for my OU course but every time I sit down to do some I get distracted and consequently get nothing done. I remember at primary school my report card used to have the “easily distracted” box ticked. It used to really annoy Mum but perhaps the teachers saw something in me that it would take another 30 years for me to notice my self. In my quest not to get distracted I found this handy little tip. The procrastination hack is shortened to (10+2)*5. It is ideal for:
- Procrastinators
- The easily distracted
- Compulsive web-surfers
- People with a long list of very short tasks (also know as mosquitoes)
- People having trouble chipping away at very large tasks
In other words, me. Like the page says, you do one job or task solidly for 10 minutes then have a break for 2 minutes. Then you repeat the process again, and again for a whole hour, hence the *5. Of course you can’t just start, well, I couldn’t. I didn’t have a stop watch. Like any good procrastinator I couldn’t stop procrastinating until I had all the tools. A few searches later and I found iTick, an app for my HD2. Cool little programme that acts as a timer and chronograph. Don’t ask me what the difference is.
I think I found the link to the procrastination hack on Flipping Heck which is another really good website. I was looking for tips on using Outlook categories as contexts. The site is full of useful hints and tips for using GTD and a tonne of other stuff like managing meetings and organising agendas. Shame it’s not been updated for just over a year.
Anyway, I’m already to get started. Or at least I will be tomorrow.
Tags: organisation
Well, my holidays are almost over :-( I haven’t really done much this holiday except sleep, eat, play World of Warcraft (level 62) and sleep. I did a bit of sleeping too. Today is the first day I actually feel recovered from last semester at work. I need another couple of weeks off now to enjoy my self.
As it is the very beginning of a new year I thought I’d better make some realistic resolutions and review last years. I haven’t looked at last year’s since last year so I have no idea if I have made progress on them or not. This year I would like to:
- Use Getting Things Done more effectively. I need to find a way round the OneNote 2003-2007 problem. I have heard that Microsoft were going to have an online version of OneNote bye the end of the year (2008? 2009? 2010?) but so far nothing there. This would be the answer to all my problems.
- Not prepare lectures or do marking or any other work stuff in my holiday time or after midnight. I know I will have to check emails and work in the evening sometimes but I want to keep this to a minimum.
- Keep all my inboxes empty. I can’t cope with having to deal with 300+ emails at home and at work again. It is not good for me mentally.
- Empty all the boxes in the dining room. These are the remaining boxes from my “old” office room. There are still a significant number to get through. I must make the effort to do this. I was going to do this over the holidays but I have been too busy sleeping and recovering.
- Write some more of my book. I’m not saying how much I am aiming to write but it would be good to write something.
I think that is enough to be getting on with. I don’t have a GTD wish list or whatever it is called because I feel that is probably the last stage of me getting my life and desk in order. Once I am at the stage of having a wish list then I will know that my life is almost organised.
Last year’s resolutions: Just discovered I haven’t made any since 2007. I have successfully failed to meet any of those.
Tags: OneNote, organisation, resolutions
Posted by Louise on Oct 18, 2008 in
Being organised,
Disasters,
WoW We got the furniture back from storage this week. My biggest fear was that it wouldn’t fit into the house any more. We have changed all the rooms around so much that they seemed full without the reintroduction of all the shit that was in storage. Thankfully most of it got squeezed into what can be loosely described as the dining room.
I have set my self the target of sorting one box a week. Today’s target was to sort the drawers from my old desk so I actually have room to sort boxes. I didn’t quite get as much done as I wanted to because I couldn’t find a hole punch! I can’t file stuff in folders without one. Nick helpfully suggested sticking a pencil through the paper into a ball of plasticine à la Blue Peter or using the rings of the ring binder to force a hole in the paper. I gave him a withering look and decided to stop sorting and start playing WoW instead. Two hours later I am still waiting on the blasted patch to download. In that time Nick has beaten me to level 50 and keeps trying to show me his pumpkin head and broomstick!
Anyway, I digress. Back to the house. All that needs doing now is the shelving. I’ve received the cheque from the insurance company for this so I just have to phone Jason the carpenter and sort out a date. We’re going to make this after pay day so he can do the airing cupboard door at the same time. Saves two lots of labour fees :-) Once that is done we just have to wait for MFI to deliver the bottom half of the damaged side board and we are beck to normal… well, as normal as the pair of us could ever be.
Tags: boxes, flood, WoW
Posted by Louise on Mar 25, 2008 in
Being organised I vowed to tidy my desk and office room this week. So far I have got off to a pretty poor start. All I have succeeded in doing is tidying out my filing cabinet drawers. I have chucked out a tonne of stuff though. Mostly old sets of phone instructions and insurance policies for mobile phones I had eight years ago.
With this new job starting next week I do need to get my life in order. I have succeeded in getting my UCS life and work organised. You should see my desk, I didn’t realise it was so large! I’ve been using the Getting Things Done method of organising. It has really worked for me at work. I feel far less stressed because I know that I have taken a note of everything I have to do, well pretty much everything. I do still have the occasional panic but they are far rarer. My biggest problem is actually doing the things I have noted that need to be done. It is easy to keep on top of all the small stuff like emails and writing the odd letter but the big projects are defeating me. I have several:
- Mentor training pack
- Dosimetry training pack
- PP Honours portfolio
- Brachytherapy objectives
- Schemes of work
Think that is them all but some are such big projects, like the mentor training packs.
That is my work life though. My home life is slightly less organised… who am I kidding? My home life is not organised in any way, shape or form! I have piles of stuff I need to read, tonnes of statements to file, boxes of “stuff” to do something with. I am hoping that I will at least manage to break the back of this challenge in the next week. I know I will have a tonne of stuff to chuck out, mostly paper, so I hope the nice recycling chaps at the local dump are feeling strong.