Perhaps you are under the impression that all organizers do is help people pitch junk, shuffle papers, and make the place look neat. Yes, we do help our clients downsize possessions, develop filing systems, and create adequate and eye-pleasing storage.
However, the results we provide have a much deeper impact on lives both physically and emotionally.
Have you been in a kindergarten class lately? It is amazing how much energy and joy these little tykes have! If a room of 12-15 busy five year olds can have a simple and sustainable order, we can learn a few lessons there.
My husband and I went to the Ohio State Fair on Friday with his brother and wife. We ate our way through melt-in-your-mouth-warm-mini donuts, Italian sausages, roasted ears of corn, and milkshakes. The best part of the day was watching the juggling act of Roberto the Magnificent. Roberto was the consumate entertainer – juggling knives on a unicycle, golf clubs, even taught a youngster how to juggle, a little. Obviously he had to be able to juggle a lot of different stuff while keeping up a conversational patter, or else we would all mosey on to the next food group.
What is our excuse? Why do we choose to juggle so many activities? Granted, jobs enable us to eat. What are some of the other reasons we try to jam so much into 16 waking hours? These are a few excuses I have identified in my life.
Living with and learning from my CIO husband, Jeff, I am well aware that I will never use all the power that is available in my computer programs. When I discover fun things that I can actually use, I want to tell someone. If I tell Jeff, he will say, “Didn’t you know that?” So, this is for you, fellow blogger. If you already knew that, just don’t tell me, OK?
This week I started color coding my appointments in Outlook. I type the event name in my calendar and hit enter. The little four-colored button on the toolbar is then available for me to choose a color for that event. The first time I choose that color, I am prompted to title that category. So far, I have colors for: family and friends, Martha’s time, speaking engagement, organizing appt, network/assessment appt, CEU class, and writing. I love it! I can see my day at a glance.
Now that I wrote that list of events, I realize that I have not scheduled two activities that I say are priorities – time with the Lord and exercising. Another benefit of color coding… you can see where you are over-committed and under-committed.
“Excellent at multitasking,” is one of the buzz phrases sure to jetison your resume to the top of the pile. Or is it? As early as 2001, a University of Michigan study showed that workers’ productivity decreases by 20-40% every time they multitask or engage in “task switching.”
A study in the NeuroImage Journal concluded that managing two mental tasks at once reduces the brainpower available for either task. Could this be why we hate to follow the driver who is talking on a cell phone?
Furthermore, “the process of switching back immediately to a task you’ve [recently] performed takes longer than switching back after a bit more time has passed. The brain has to overcome ‘inhibitions’ it imposed on itself to stop doing the [original] task in the first place.” This according to findings published by researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health in the fall of 2002.
Granted, there are a few careers that by definition are “interruption rich” environments, such as retail managers, mothers of toddlers, help desk technicians, etc. Even in these extreme cases where multitasking cannot be avoided, consciously choosing to take these three steps can increase focus and productivity.
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