Let’s say you’ve got something you want to talk about with a certain person next time you meet him. It’s not that urgent that you need to call instantly, but can wait till you meet next time. Perhaps this is someone who is difficult to reach, even by telephone.
Let’s call him Bob.
It’s easy to remember that ...
To be effective on your own as if you were isolated in your own bubble is one thing, but what about when we work together with other people, in a project or in any form of team?
As soon as we are more than one person, it is easy ...
In times like these, it is more important than ever to work efficiently in the sense that we spend our time doing the right things. ??Now is the perfect time to better refine and elucidate our tasks and assignments so that we really have time for the most important ones, meaning, those which ...
We who do our best to be structured, do it because we want to move forward; we want a progressive movement in our life, in our careers or in our business.
What this “forward” looks like, is different for all of us, but what we have in common is that we decide to achieve something and then work as smoothly as possible in order to succeed. ??That’s why we need to see if we are actually moving forward, as well as define things we can do actively so that we’re truly taking steps in the right direction.
This means that ...
Isn’t it nice when everything falls into place, when you go from clarity to clarity, when your job runs smoothly and you really feel you’re getting something done???
Well, every now and then, everything stalls.?? You know what it can be like: ...
You spend quite a substantial amount of hours of your life working every week. If everything you do is about the details here and now, you’ll find that everything just keeps on spinning.
??You might have become quite good at ...
When was the last time you had an empty e-mail inbox? Do you remember how it felt???
Many of us have a lot of e-mails in our inboxes and believe it or not, but ...
Are you in the habit of writing a new to-do-list every morning? Do you have to transfer tasks from yesterday’s list to today’s list, because you didn’t have time for what you had in mind? ??
Do you then feel ...
When you decide to improve your personal structure in some way, by starting to work with new tools, by from now on planning your time differently or even simply stop doing something you have done before, it is easy to slip back into old habits, into a rut.
??Your new approach works brilliantly for a while, but ...
Are you a time-optimist to the point that you often drive like a maniac the last bit just to make it in time for the meeting? ??Is it more common for you to rush off rather than stop for a moment and make sure you’ve got everything you need before you step out the door?
Wouldn’t it be nicer if ...
You know how it is. You’ve got a task you really need to get done right now, but you keep getting distracted by other things.??
Maybe you have writer’s block or think the task is so boring that you find it hard to work focused with it. You check your e-mail, flip though Facebook, call someone just for fun, you go and get another cup of coffee and happen to hang around the coffee machine for a while and small talk, read an online newspaper, Google something you’ve come to think about, and so on.??
You do anything except what you actually know is the right thing to do right now.??
Now you are going to learn ...
Every now and then, I am invited to speak about structure and productivity at breakfast- or lunch-seminars hosted by business networks, business associations etc.
A short while ago, it was at a Rotary Club in Kungälv, Sweden, and again I was astonished by with what warmth the Rotarians receive their guests (me included). As tradition dictates, I had the privilege to sit at the president’s table and we began to talk about ...
Do you feel that you’re constantly lagging a little behind with what you’ve got to do, that you always complete what you’re working with at the last moment, that deadline is always a bit too close??? From time to time I experience this myself and ...
If you are in the habit of using a to-do list, it probably mostly consists of tasks you’ve realized you have to do and therefore wrote on the list. They are tasks you will carry out soon after that and then cross off or delete.?? But you have to keep even less information in your head if you let the to-do-list generate new tasks on its own.?? We all have tasks we perform on a regular basis. It may be tasks that you ...
Many of us experience chaos from time to time in our everyday life when we are flooded by a constant stream of proposals, information and messages, more or less unchecked, through too many different channels. It’s as if we are exposed to a bunch of pipelines which deliver contributions to our everyday planning.
??If we’re not to drown in piles of paper, ...
The fact that papers and documents which are trash should be thrown away and that good-to-have-material should be saved may sound obvious.
??However, ...
Do you remember the early 90’s legendary series “Twin Peaks”? Each episode contained at least one scene in which Kyle MacLachlan’s character “Agent Cooper” grabbed his dictaphone and began by saying “Diane,…” and then freely recorded his thoughts onto the tape.
?The story never revealed who ...
I sometimes get the question whether it really improves the efficiency to be structured.
Doesn’t it create even more work if you write down everything you have to do (which you’re not going to do right away) and categorize every task in different ways? Doesn’t it just turn into a constant shuffling and moving of papers from one folder to another, which in turn are to be browsed and emptied at different dates?
Since ...
For most people there are times when we during a longer stretch of time have had a heavier workload than we are comfortable with.
If you are the manager or leader of a company, an organization or some kind of group, it might be that you don’t have the time to perform all the tasks which are dependent upon you in particular to perform them (you having the position that you do).
If you have coworkers, ...
Some of us are fond of electronic gadgets, such as an iPhone or a smartphone with calendar- and task-functions which can be synchronized with the desktop computer or the mail server.
There are many advantages with digital systems. One can easily sort and filter out the to-do lists, you’ve got better opportunities for back-ups, etc.
But there are also ...
