A question to ask when organizing your stuff
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There’s a lot coming at you most days: Emails to follow up on. Chat messages to digest. Tasks to complete. Documents to review and file. Meetings to prepare for. Notes to process. I could go on. It’s tempting to assume that as more information comes your way, you need an increasingly complex method for organizing it. But that’s not true. The more complex your system of folders and tags and labels, the more maintenance it needs. And the more maintenance your system needs, the less likely you are to stick with it. You need some organization, of course. When you apply some organization to your to-dos, your notes, and so on, you can better prioritize how to use your limited time and energy. But what’s the sweet spot between too little organization (so everything’s a mess) and too much organization (so you can’t keep up with it and your system falls apart)? In my video course Productivity 101, we develop an important concept that answers this question. For each type of information that comes at you—to-dos, notes, documents, email, et cetera—ask: What is my minimum viable organization for this? For your to-dos, it might mean a top-level set of folders representing different areas of responsibility. Maybe with some projects in each folder. For your notes, it might mean a set of tags. For your email, it might mean not much organization at all, except that you’ll star emails that you still need to follow up on. The trick is to see how little organization you can get away with and still feel in control. That’s the sweet spot—maximum results for minimum effort. So if you’re struggling to organize something, ask: How can I have just enough structure? |
Peter Akkies
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