I was on a course today and got out my bits and pieces to ready myself.

If you’re interested, I like to have a highlighter ready and a notepad with a pen.

I also keep a separate place in my notepad for action steps once I get back to the office.

Anyway, my colleague next to me observed all my preparations and asked me what the best organising tools are. He knows I coach people to be more productive so it wasn’t totally random

I gave him the short answer but I thought I’d write a blog about it since I get asked this question quite a bit.

So, the short answer is I don’t believe there are any tools that are the best.

The long answer is:

We are all different, our styles are different and therefore our needs are different.

Which means the tools we need will differ from the next person.

I also think we need to be purposeful about what we want to achieve before buying a single thing.

There’s a myth going around that the latest greatest gadgets will “magically” make you more organised and productive.

That is SOOOO not true.

All the gadgets, phones, etc. in the world will not create order and organisation if you don’t first decide what your organising goals are and how you best want to achieve them.

You also still have to actually use that tool.

There are people all over the world who buy beautiful planners each and every year in the hope that the planner will make them organised.

It will… IF they write their appointments, to-dos and priorities in there, actually look at them and then take action.

I still believe a good old notebook and pen can help organise 90% of the population.

Often people get so carried away with the tool that they forget the tool is there to help them become more productive.

If you’re playing around with the tool all the time, then you’re not being very productive, now are you?

Sometimes all we need is a tiny piece of paper where we write down the top 3 things we need to get done, and then do them.

That’s it.

So, do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to know what you think.

Here are all my favourite organising tools.

P.S. Don’t forget the giveaway.

This is part 3. Click the tag at the bottom of this post to read the other parts in this series.

One of my favourite parts of this book was the workflow section. I love how Angela explains this and I’m going to be using it with my clients too because anyone can relate.

So!

If you think of your paper flow as a little car and your decision-making process is like coming to a traffic light…

RED means stop – throw those papers away

ORANGE means wait – file those papers

GREEN means either show (delegate to someone else) or go (do the work yourself)

Now that’s already really cool but then she breaks down the GO part further, and this part I LOVE!

1. Scheduled tasks go on your calendar
2. Unscheduled tasks go on your master to-do list
3. And the urgent tasks you just DO if they’ll only take 2 minutes
4. the parking lot is where we put things for future projects (I liked this term so much I immediately renamed my existing email folder)

The reason why I LOVE this part so much is because we all try and put unscheduled tasks in our calendar (on our daily to-do list) and that’s why we feel overwhelmed and unworthy when we don’t get those things done.

Of course, you add some tasks from your master list to your daily list once you have the scheduled stuff on your list. And of course, if I’m coaching you , we’ll always make sure at least 2 of those tasks move you towards your goals, so that you’re effective and not just busy!

(I deal with all this in MUCH more detail in Help! I need more time)

Is it just me or do you also think the whole paper flow is explained just beautifully with this easy-to-understand analogy?

P.S. If you’re on Facebook, you can check Angela’s profile under my friends. There is a lovely picture of her beautiful face