There are occasions when we simply cannot forget to do or bring something. Writing it on the to-do-list or in the calendar is all very well, but then you need to remember to look where you have noted it as well, before you ...
When it is time for time off, such as last summer’s vacation, most of us want to feel and be freer our ordinary lives normally lets us. It feels good to allow for thoughts to flow freely and do whatever comes to mind. It is a true privilege to be able to let go of work and everything that our ordinary lives consist of, but unfortunately not everyone can do this effortlessly as ...
Since we who enjoy living a life where structure plays an active part want things to be done as smoothly as possible, we are interested in ways to use every situation we are in optimally and as efficiently as possible. There are ways to make this happen without making any extra effort ...
On a Monday in the beginning of March I had the intention to fly to a client and hold a one-day course in personal efficiency. But what was initially a two-hour flight turned into eight hours of traveling and I only made it half-way before I had to turn around and go back home with my mission unaccomplished. When things like these happen, it is easy to regard it as a lost day, but there are several things you can do to still make it into a productive day ...
We pick tasks from our to-do-list which we think we will be able to finish in the time we have at our disposal at the moment. We often make an accurate guess and manage to complete the task before it is time for something else. But sometimes we only manage to get half-way through what we are doing before we get interrupted by ...
When our lives are just spinning and you feel as if your everyday-life is like a rat race it is easy to lose sight of where you are going. Saying that it is important to explicitly formulate a vision for what you strive to achieve in the long run, is almost a truism. But I am not saying it for nothing. Remembering this will make what you do in your everyday life feel ...
My father in law is a horticulturist, which means he is an expert on gardening. As he crops trees and prunes gardens, the plants and trees can grow stronger and the entire garden can become a more beautiful whole. This principle goes for our project-lists as well…
If you want to quickly be able to assess if you have enough time to complete a task of not, there is a simple method you can use to make it easier to identify how long each task takes to complete ...
There are several pitfalls to fall into when it comes to structure. One of the ones I encounter most frequently when helping my clients is ...
Do you have a reading-pile? A pile for what you are going to read? If you do, when you look at it, what do you feel? Do you long for when you ...
The things we need to do are not only put on the to-do-list on our own initiative. On the contrary, we are often asked to do something by others.
It might be our boss who ...
You’ve tried it all. You have structured and systematized your workday so that you are aware of all things you need to do, you know where you have your material and you have all your various ongoing projects under control.
You know what your ...
Do you get easily distracted by all the papers on your desk when you really need to focus on a particularly difficult, complicated or urgent task?
Do these papers and piles concern ...
We are approaching one of the times during the year when most of us take a longer continuous break. It might as well be the summer vacation, but right now it’s the Christmas holiday.?? During these breaks, a ...
Does your agenda have a tendency to quickly fill up with meetings?
Do you tend to schedule too many meetings during the day and perhaps even have colleagues who “help you out” by calling you to meetings when they know you are not due somewhere else?
Does this result in that ...
This tip is a continuation of last week’s post. In it, just as I will in this, I promote the great structural tool that the “mind-map” is, especially digital versions, that is, those made in one of the mind-map-software available for purchase or downloading free (also referred to as “open source”-software).
A mind-map is especially practical when ...
This week I spent for the most part in Kramfors, a sawmill town on the Swedish High Coast in Västernorrland, which ...
Unfortunately most of us don’t just have e-mails, phone-calls and good ideas which need to be dealt with in our daily lives, but also a continuous inflow of physical papers and material to process.
We receive mail, notes from colleagues, we have ...
Presumably, there are days when your to-do-list just keeps growing, when most of the tasks are bigger and more time consuming, so you have difficulties applying the two-minute rule.?? If you would have had a lot of short and simple tasks on the list, it would have been easier, because then you would have been able to take fifteen minutes to quickly handle a handful of two-minute tasks.
Now it feels like ...
Whenever something shows up in your everyday life, ask yourself if it takes less than two minutes to do or complete.??It can be an e-mail, a colleague who asks you to do something, or something you come to think of yourself. If something can be done in less than two minutes, do it right away.??
When something takes that ...
