This December we are discussing getting organized for the coming year, setting some goals and tracking the things that we accomplished in 2010. One of our readers, Alvina Lopez, has sent a nice note describing how she has changed her To-Do system for increased organization and success:

I am, by habit, a very disorganized person. I have a bad reputation among my friends and family for losing my things, running late for events, and forgetting important deadlines. But, I make up for my administrative faults with my great creativity. Unfortunately, when I tried to use my creativity to help me work full time as a writer, I realized that I had to take a serious look at my organizational methods if I wanted to figure out how to be successful.

I used to manage my tasks with one to-do list. Needless to say, it was a very long to-do list, because I put everything on it that needed to get done: errands, writing projects, dentist appointments; you name it, it was on there. Many of you organizational experts are probably shaking your head at how silly and naïve it was of me to try to organize myself that way. I mean, sure, I meant well. I tried to have a to-do list each day, but that list just ended up growing and growing as I copied over things from the day before.

So what I did is this: I started over. I took a day to brainstorm all of my goals. I brainstormed life goals, career goals, relationship goals, and so on. As I brainstormed them, I created categories and a timeline. The important thing for me was creating those categories and goals and putting them into a master document that I could refer to easily. Once I had these categories listed, figuring out my to-do lists was relatively easy, because I simply had to create lists that fell into each category and that supported each goal.

Not a Moleskine, but a mock-up for illustration

I did this by picking up a notebook, a nice Moleskine that I could keep with me. I sectioned it according to my categories, and then within each section I created subsections: daily to-dos, weekly to-dos. I stopped there because I felt as though my master document of goals could help me with long-term planning better than using paper to rewrite the same things for each month. Each night, I took a few minutes before I went to sleep to plan out the next day based on my goals, and I reviewed what I had accomplished.

So, then, every day I had a document to consult that would give me an idea as to what I needed to do in order to help me reach my goals. By making sure my to-do lists linked with my overall goals, I could remind myself that no matter what kind of work I had done, I had in some way made progress towards my overall goals.

A side effect of this system is that it greatly organized my schedule as well. Because I often work from home, having the book there and the various categories helped me manage my day. I could devote a few hours to one category, such as writing projects, and then once I had done one or two things from the list, I could move on to the administrative category, which would have me sending invoices to clients or bidding on future writing jobs.

Here are two more images of the mock-up.

This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online schools.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez [at] gmail.com.

This is a guest post from forum-member Scott, who discusses how he uses his Moleskine notebook and his smartphone to manage his productivity practice.

About the Author: Scott lives and works in San Diego as a “big box” retail executive and blog operator over at GTDRetail.com. Besides running GTD Retail and researching great things to do in San Diego, he also enjoys homebrewing and can often be found combing the internet for the next great IPA recipe or homebrew gadget. His brewer’s notes are kept in a Moleskine.

Though we all enjoy proclaiming the utility of a Moleskine notebook, when it comes right down to it, it isn’t the utility of the Moleskine that keeps me buying $12 notebooks, it is the way it feels. The cover is cloth-bound, the pages are thin, but they don’t bleed, the pocket in the back pops out with a certain stiffness when it is first used. The whole package feels solid and sturdy in my pocket. It isn’t just the way it feels when you buy it either – Moleskines mature in a very noble way. First, the bookmark begins to come apart, then the pocket begins to rip and tear, the pages yellow and then darken with oils, the corners crinkle in, the spine wrinkles, and finally the cover starts to crease. The degrade is predictable from notebook to notebook. In fact, I calculated how many pages each week should be allotted based on the predictable demise of my notebook.

There is plenty to love about other mobile organization systems these days with all of their apps and brightly colored displays, but a Blackberry with a cracked screen seeming to bleed rainbows into all but a third of the screen doesn’t maintain the same function that a weathered notebook will. In the end, both my phone and my notebook have a secure place in my system – my Moleskine playing the leading role with my phone bowing as a stagehand.

My Moleskine is broken into 8 specific sections: the calendar, my 4 @Locations (@Computer, @Office, @Salesfloor, and @Home/Errand), direct reports, projects, and someday/maybe. I keep a smaller notebook attached to the front cover of my Moleskine for notes, plans, and scribbles of any kind. I update the current and next week’s calendar during my weekly review from my work outlook calendar since new invites are being sent out all of the time. At the same time, my @Location lists are moved into the 8 pages following the current week’s calendar, and I keep the bookmark in the current week’s calendar. My tabs for each of my direct reports stays put for the life of the notebook.

My phone is a visual/aural reminder of specific dates and times that may need reminders. I have various tasks that need to be done at specific times on specific days consistently, but as I work on a sales floor, it doesn’t take much to get caught up with a queue of customers and start blowing those daily time-lines. My phone maintains my daily routines – my Moleskine just can’t function as that kind of reminder. Thus my routines are programmed as repeating calendar events in my phone.

While all of the programming, rewriting, and setup may sound a bit daunting, in practice, it is fairly easy to use. Every time someone brings up an issue that requires my action it is placed immediately into the appropriate @Location action list. If something needs follow-up in the next 2 weeks, it is placed immediately into my Moleskine calendar. If the follow-up occurs longer than 2 weeks out, it is placed into an action list to add to my outlook calendar. If I notice that I need to do something on a regular schedule, it is added to my phone calendar to remind me weekly. This way, I update my entire system from wherever I am, which is important in big box retail. Also, this keeps me to one main event calendar, with all other calendars being reminder or reference variations of my main Outlook calendar.

This is where David Allen’s version of GTD falls short for me: he designed a great system for logging, archiving, and managing the stress of work, but he leaves how to end up in those places often enough to complete lists at an acceptable pace as something of a gray area. Especially in my line of work, being able to stay in a physical location for more than half an hour is nearly impossible – we all have interruptions at work, but being interrupted to move from one location down an escalator, stopping with 10 questions along the way before being screamed at and taking another 10 questions on your way back to your desk is something David Allen doesn’t cover. To counter the constant movement, I had to ensure that my system was very mobile (almost like a traveller), but in a way that didn’t force me to utilize a phone in a way that might be rude or disrespectful to shoppers.

What I find with GTD is that you always find yourself working on some part of your system. It is never complete, though the improvement in utilizing the system may be consistent. Right now, getting myself into the right locations often enough in the right mindset to do my work is my struggle.

Finally, David Allen never said that his system would make you a good manager, though his systematic approach seems to approach management most often (and we all manage something sometimes). I know managers who are great at follow-up but do not care if their employees fail. I know managers who are very organized but struggle to inspire anyone else to improve their own organization. Having everything on a list doesn’t make anyone great, in fact, it will tend to make you come across as robotic and cold if that is all you are good at. My biggest “ah-hah moment” in my current job was the realization that maintaining my system was not nearly as important as sincerely understanding what my employees, peers, and boss had to communicate to me. You can’t be writing or typing in a phone while someone that struggles with their communication style is trying to get something across to you. Yes, I love the notebooks, and the expensive pens, and the cool tech gadgets to organize my stuff, but they are tools. Remember the people, because when your system fails, your seven employees will be the ones to ensure that you don’t.

An important part of my productivity system is taking a little time at the end of each day to do a quick review of my tasks, brain dump whatever is on my mind, and plan the next day. I’ve found that best time for me to do this is about 10:30pm, right before I hit the sack at 11. The problem is, I’ve found that when the last thing I do right before I go to bed is stare at a computer screen for half an hour, I’m usually not very relaxed, my mind is often racing, and I have a little trouble getting to sleep.

In contrast, I’ve noticed that when I take some time to “unplug” before bed, I tend feel less stressed and quite a bit more calm when I go to sleep. So I’ve decided to take my task list completely offline for a while, and do my daily review/planning not in my office at my computer, but in the living room while resting in a nice, comfy chair.

I’ve already started implementing my daily “lo-fi ritual” and I’m already seeing some key benefits:

• It’s more social. I usually plan while my wife reads. While we’re not having a fully interactive discussion, it’s nice to just sit in the same room, listening to the same music together as we wind down our day.
• I’m learning how to better use paper tools. I recently invested in a whole slew of Circa stuff from Levenger, along with a Shirt Pocket Briefcase, and I’m enjoying learning how to best use these new tools. I’m rediscovering a love for hand-writing things that I thought was long gone. Paper may or may not be the most efficient process for me (I’m still learning) but for some reason I’m finding it satisfying and stress relieving to physically write down my tasks and thoughts.
• It’s more focused. Even when using my to do list & note applications full-screen, there’s always this temptation to check Twitter or my email. With just a pen and paper, I can really zero in on what I’m intending to think about.
• It’s easier on my eyes. I do most of my work each day at the computer. I do a lot of my “for-fun” activities (StarCraft, ftw) staring at a screen as well. By the end of the day, my eyes are tired, so taking a break is a welcome relief.

I’m sure I’ll discover even more advantages to making lo-fi notetaking and tasking part of regular routine and productivity system. Do you have a lo-fi ritual? Why not share in the forums?