Things have been hopping over here at Chez Turtle lately, with a number of deadlines, both big and small, looming at the end of January. I’ve got designing deadlines, design proposals, teaching proposals, finishing and everyday tasks vying for my attention. And the kicker is? I’m not by nature a very organized person – in fact, I’d venture to say that must of us who enjoy crafting tend toward the more disorganized side of things. So how do I stay on top of things?
I share a few tips.
- Stay accountable – for me, it means that I’m not running my business alone. Behind the scenes I have Mr. Turtle (my wonderful husband Michael), checking in with me and making sure things get done. It’s a delicate balance – asking him to keep me accountable doesn’t mean I want him harping on me. But it does mean I count on him to check in and make sure things get on my task list, big and small.
- Keep track of deadlines – I have a calendar to the left of my computer where I write down deadlines, so I can see, visually, when my high volume parts of the month occur. it might seem obvious to some that it’s a good idea to keep a calendar, but at one point I had all my deadlines on little scraps of paper scattered throughout the apartment. Naturally, it didn’t work.
- Break it down – I have a bunch of lists that hang out in the center of our kitchen table. There’s a monthly personal list, a monthly business list, and a weekly list, for both myself and Mr. Turtle. The weekly list is then culled for a few things (no more than seven seems to be my sweet spot) that need to get done each day. I break things down into tiny steps – like knitting 2″ on a shawl I have due, and I check them off as they get done. I like watching things get crossed off.
- Keep it small – Mr. Turtle helps me a lot with this one. Sometimes I get these grand ideas of what I can accomplish in a day… and he has to remind me that I need to keep things from getting overwhelming! Small attainable goals will always beat big goals.
- Enable yourself to succeed – I realized that there was an item on my list that’d been copied to the new list for several weeks. Last night I stopped and thought through why I hadn’t gotten the task done… and I realized I didn’t have the tools to get it done. I needed information I didn’t have. No wonder why I’d been avoiding it! So today, instead of that task being on my list, I’ve broken the task down, and just set myself the goal of getting the information I need to finish the task.
How do you manage to keep yourself organized?
