I’m paranoid about forgetting anything. I once forgot something very dear to my heart and immediately put in a system to make sure it never happened again.

Do you want to know what happened?

I do some volunteer work at the church so I’d made an appointment to see someone on a public holiday and train another person at the same time. So I’m at home, pottering around the house and I get a phone call. “Ps Marcia, are you on your way?”

I immediately realised what happened, apologised while pulling on jacket and gloves, and raced out of the house. I might even have broken a few speed limits getting to the church.

However, I hated the embarrassment. I arrived to find the two of them having some coffee and chit-chat, and we all had a lovely time the rest of the evening.

I then vowed to never let that happen to me ever again.

So here’s what I now do and how you can also remember ALL your appointments:

1. Write everything down in your daily planner.

Everything! Even if I set up the meeting in Outlook, I still make a note of it on paper. (I’m a paper gal and make no apologies for it). You never know when you’ll have a power outage and you can’t access your electronic diary. Or when there’s a public holiday and you don’t look at your email

2. Make it a habit

If a meeting is recurring, I follow the exact same steps until it’s ingrained in me that it’s a habit. Like joining a new class at gym. Or scheduling a new coaching client. Or putting a new system into place, like a weekly back-up instead of monthly.

3. Set multiple reminders

If I need to leave at a specific time to get somewhere, I set reminders in Outlook and sync to my phone. Because sometimes you do get carried away, especially when you’re working hard and you’re “in the zone”. The phone’s my back-up if I’m not working in Outlook.

4. Work your system

A system will only work if you work the system.

That means checking your paper planner every day. Or reading and actioning your reminders on Outlook instead of just clicking “snooze” or even “dismiss” by accident.

I check my daily planner as part of my evening routine so that I can mentally prepare for the day ahead and of course, choose appropriate clothes

Your action challenge

Decide on your back-up system – whether phone, Outlook or paper – and try it out for the next week.

Marcia Francois is a time management coach and speaker who helps busy women break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and take purposeful and focussed action. Visit http://takechargesolutions.org for your free Organising Success Pack.

P.S. This article was first published in 2007

I get many questions from clients and readers and one of the most common questions is this one:

How do I leave work earlier? I am working so late every evening and I don’t have a life outside of the office?

Here are my suggestions:

1. Make a list at the end of every day

This will help you to hit the ground running every day when you get to work and actually be more productive once you’re there.

2. Focus on your priorities first

Use an Eat the Frog principle and do nothing else before your main priorities (frogs) are accomplished every day.

3. Set some boundaries

If you are currently working until 6 or 7 every night (or even later), then set a small goal that says you won’t work until later than 6 every night next week (or earlier if you can). Then stick to it.

The next week set your goal a bit earlier – 5.45 and then 5.30 until you’re working until 5 normally (or whenever you’d like your work day to end). You can work late now and again (if you absolutely have to) but don’t make it a habit.

4. Set reminders in Outlook

Set a recurring appointment for the next month.

The appointment should be made for 30 minutes before you want to leave your office and should say tidy desk and write tomorrow’s to-do list.

Coaching tip – If you find it really hard to leave, make an appointment outside the office so that you absolutely have to leave at a certain time.

When I find myself slipping into the bad habit of working late, I start scheduling earlier gym classes and I hold myself accountable to a gym friend. Or I make a hair appointment to force myself to leave the office.

If you put these four tips into practice consistently, I guarantee that you will soon be leaving your office earlier to enjoy the rest of your life.

Since it’s Friday today, why not resolve to start next week off on a good note.

Make your list now and set that appointment in your Outlook calendar.

P.S. Let me know how you do

So many readers write in with this question: “how do I deal with overwhelm?”

A few weeks ago, I was dealing with my own overwhelm.

I had many meetings day after day after day (which means you get behind on the office stuff), my normal business activities plus I had to re-write a LOT of the copy for the website. All on deadline!

Add the stuff of life like cooking, cleaning and gym and you can see why I felt overwhelmed.

Doesn’t it feel good to know you’re not alone?!

We all have our own stories but the FEELINGS are exactly the same – a sense of being out of control and a to-do list a mile long!

So what did I do to cope?

1. Make a list

I printed out 10 of my master to-do lists (get yours in your Organising Success Pack) because it felt like I had hundreds of things to do.

I used one page for each project – website, clients, etc…

The amazing thing was my imagination was much worse than reality because I only needed 4 of those 10 pages Honestly, it does help to see how bad it really is, or isn’t.

2. Ask yourself a key question

When you feel overwhelmed, it’s important to realise that “this too shall pass” and to CONTINUALLY ask yourself this question:

What is the MOST important use of my time right now?

Remember, it’s not about being busy, but about being effective!

3. Cut out all non-essentials

Once you have the answer to the question in number 2, it’s easier to cut out the non-essentials.

Let go of the minor website changes and the email responses to your blog comments. Rather answer only client emails.

When the busy period is over, re-look at those non-essentials and REALLY question whether you even need to add them back into your life.

4. Focus and eat your frog

Now that you know what is MOST important, switch off cell phones, email, etc. and get it done.

If you have to do a proposal for a company, do nothing else til it’s done. That’s so that even when your day is done and the to-do list is still half a mile long, at least you have a sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT in having completed that most important task.

5. Categorise and batch

Once you’ve eaten your frog, and you still have energy, then categorise whatever’s left and tackle those items in batches.

Take your to-do list and use letters in the margin, like P for phone, E for email, etc. Then pick up the phone and make all your phone calls in one go. You save energy because you prepare once instead of 5 different times in the day.

And THAT is how I dealt with my overwhelm.

Next time you feel overwhelmed, try these 5 steps and get rid of that overwhelm at once.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners make the most of their time. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

What if you took just ONE tiny step closer to your goals every single day?

Just one.

It sounds harder than it is.

Honestly.

Let’s say your goal is to write a book.

Many people have this on their “things to do before I die” lists so I know this resonates with a lot of you.

It’s on my list too

What is the absolute first step?

Decide what to write about. This step looks simple but you need to see if people would read it, if publishing houses would buy it, if there’s a market so it will actually sell.

So maybe the first two weeks is spent checking all that out.

The rest of the month might be outlining the whole book – what do you need to cover, how many chapters? Etc, etc.

And then comes the writing. If I were coaching you, I’d make you write at least 5 minutes a day because writers WRITE.

To some, that seems like nothing much but 5 mins a day is 35 mins a week which is over 2 hours a month, at the very least.

And of course, some days just getting those 5 minutes done will be a miracle but other days, you’d spend 30 minutes or more easily writing.

That’s exactly what I mean when I say you can make big leaps with just a step a day.

People ask me how I get so many things done and it’s because I do exactly this.

Now I will confess I don’t always feel like writing or recording audio or _______ (fill in whatever you don’t like doing) but I do know that it will move me towards my goals.

So I have a rule.

EVERY WEEK, come hell or high water, I need to do AT LEAST one thing to move me towards my goals.

This helps me focus on outcomes even when I’m really busy. Busy with “stuff” means goals not achieved.

Think about one of your goals. Let’s say you want to go on a holiday to Ireland

Let’s break it down.

1. Decide exactly where in Ireland you want to visit.
2. Investigate prices of airfare, hotels, B&B’s, tourism, food, etc.
3. Check your savings account to see what you have available.
4. Based on the shortfall, decide on the amount of money you need to save every month.
5. Decide length of holiday and itinerary while there.
6. Book flights and check if you need a visa.
7. Book accommodation.
8. Book car rental/ decide on method of transport.
9. Pack your bags
10. Go!

Grab a piece of paper and write your own steps for your goal.

Your challenge this week is to take at least ONE step towards your goal this week.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com/ for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Two weeks ago I flew to Cape Town and Durban to speak at some Discovery award functions.

I flew in and out the same day which meant lots of time in airports and lots of time on aeroplanes.

Even though my main goal for the day was simply to show up and do an inspiring talk, I found that I actually had exceptionally productive days aside from the talks.

Let me show you what I got done:

On flight

1. Wrote out thank-you cards for the babies’ birthday presents
2. Read 3 ebooks I’d downloaded
3. Reviewed my notes for the talks
4. Planned out my How to say no without feeling guilty teleseminar (If you missed it, I now coach on this topic in 30 and 60-minute segments)

At the airport

1. Responded to all emails
2. Completed this expert interview
3. Returned and made telephone calls
4. Chatted to fellow passengers and tourists still in the country from the Soccer World Cup

The one thing which saved me such a lot of time and energy was using Platinum Parking at OR Tambo airport. Their service truly was fantastic and I will definitely be using them again. No question!

P.S. I’m not being paid to write about Platinum Parking

You may think, as a time management expert, that I have a perfect life as far as time goes.

Wrong!

I’m human and in addition to being late sometimes, I’ve also had some major bloopers, like the time I missed my flight from Dublin.

We were travelling from Dublin back to Johannesburg via London. At Dublin airport, we missed check-in by 5 minutes even though we were in the queue on time.

I must confess that I broke down and SOBBED!

As a result, we had to take a later flight from Dublin to London… that landed at a different airport, Gatwick. Our taxi broke many speed limits getting us to Heathrow on time for check-in but again there was a mad rush to get us on the flight leaving for Johannesburg. It was like The Amazing Race as we ran through the airport terminal for 20 minutes, only worse, as we were also out of shape.

If memory serves me correctly, we were in the last batch of 4 people who managed to squeeze through the aircraft’s doors on time. What should have been a stopover of 7 hours turned into a second, nearly missed flight!

How on earth does this happen, you ask?

Well, let me share the 3 critical mistakes I made:

Not leaving enough buffer time for the number of people involved

The more people you have to accommodate, the more time you need. We had been staying with a friend who was also going away that weekend and we (mistakenly) assumed that he’d take the same amount of time to get ready as we did.

We usually leave enough time to get to the airport and then add on another 30 minutes’ buffer time. In this case, we should have added on an hour.

Assuming that things are the same on weekends

At the time there were major roadworks in Dublin. Our friend was used to the detours during the week but not over the weekend. On this particular weekend, the highway was worse than it was during the week. Maybe it was the best time to work on the roads, but not for all of us travellers.

Not planning for different cultures and/ or countries

In South Africa, I’d had many, many customer service interactions where I could talk and reason with the people and get my way. South Africa is known for hospitality, friendliness and helpfulness.

The ground staff at the Dublin airport were not having my logic (that we WERE in the queue on time) and didn’t care that we might miss our flight to South Africa and that it was the last one for a whole day. I even started crying from sheer frustration and those cold-hearted ladies didn’t budge an inch.

This whole experience cost a LOT of money (had to get new tickets and pay a taxi to take us 50 miles to the correct airport) and time with friends (with our Dublin friend as we had a very unsatisfactory, quick good-bye and we totally missed meeting up with another friend at Heathrow), and was really not worth the extra 30 minutes it would have taken to let things work out perfectly.

Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes because I can assure you, you NEVER want to go through an experience like that.

I flew internationally twice after that incident and both times left an extra TWO hours’ buffer time as I never, ever, ever want to go through that again!

Have you ever missed a flight? Share in the comments.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and organising coach who empowers small business owners and other busy professionals who want to make the most of their time. You’ll get simple, practical organising and time management secrets to help you work less and enjoy life more! Visit http://takechargesolutions.org for your free Organising Success Pack.

When I coach people or do speaking engagements, I always stress the importance of writing things down.

Why?

When you write things down, it frees your mind for more big picture thinking and you don’t have to worry about the details.

So these are the 3 lists I suggest you absolutely should use to manage your time more effectively:

1. Master list

This is a place for a “brain dump”, a place for ideas you might want to pursue in the future or possible projects you need to tackle.

You can work off one master list for months, like I do with my business or blogging ideas. Or you can have a master list for a certain period, like a week, and then rewrite it at the start of the next week.

I have a master list of things to do in the house which I’ve been working on since we moved in four years ago. Honestly, I think there will always be items on this list.

2. To-do list

This list can be monthly, weekly or daily.

The difference between this list and the master list is that this one has a time deadline to it.

I have a monthly to-do list – I keep this one with broad goals like go to the gym 10 – 12 times – a weekly to-do list with about 5 – 7 business tasks to get done and then my daily to-do list which spreads out those 5 – 7 tasks so that I have only 1 or 2 to do daily.

I want to caution you to only put a maximum of 6 items on your daily to-do list so you don’t become overwhelmed!

3. Checklist

This is a place with a list of items which you check/ tick off.

This list is ideal for anything you need to do regularly, like a list of weekly cleaning tasks, office supplies, routine business tasks, etc.

Once you start using the right list for the correct task, you’ll be flying!

You can download free master to-do and other lists at http://takechargesolutions.org or http://organiseyourbusiness.com

Do you use lists? Which are your favourite ones?

P.S. Mine is my weekly to-do list

Many people who come to me for time management coaching say they want to be more productive.

One of the first questions I ask is this:

“What does the word productive mean to you?”

And here’s where the fun starts.

Because I get so many different answers.

• my emails cleared daily
• my house cleaned more regularly
• to do my work fast
• to get my chores out of the way quickly so I can play with my kids
• and on and on

All very different answers.

For me it means “getting through my daily, weekly and monthly goals effectively so that I reach my big, life purpose”

So I want to hear from you – what does productive mean to you?

I thought I’d share a personal experience so that you can learn from my mistakes.

I’ve been thinking about doing things a little differently in my business and so I decided to consult with other business owners in a forum I belong to and gather some opinions.

Well, as you’d expect, this one said this, another said that, still another said a different thing. Multiplied by about 10. Or so it felt.

There were some great ideas in there but I soon realised that I’d come to a screeching standstill due to overwhelm and I was indecisive.

Me- indecisive!

(if you know me in real life even just a little bit, you’ll know I’m not in the least bit indecisive. In fact, I err on the other end of the spectrum in that I can make decisions a little too quickly sometimes).

Although the same thing happened to me when I first walked into a baby shop – too many choices, too much to think about – and I walked right back out

It’s the overwhelm.

This time I stopped working on ALL my projects because I didn’t know which were good ideas, which were bad and which ones I had on my list because of a “should have” and not a “want to” based on other people’s thoughts and ideas.

Again, overwhelm.

So I made myself a cup of tea and checked in with my gut – immediately I felt good about proceeding with just one project.

When I have clarity on the rest, I’ll move on.

But this got me thinking -

How many times do we feel overwhelmed because other people feel that we should do things but yet it doesn’t feel right for us?

Things like volunteering for committees, at the children’s school, church, etc.

Also, if you’re online in any capacity, how many times do we do things, not from a place of authenticity, but because the Big Name Expert says to do so.

And yet it doesn’t feel right and so we stay overwhelmed and inactive.

This week’s organising challenge

* Think about areas of your life where you feel overwhelmed. Is it the state of your desk, your wardrobe, your children’s rooms, your business?
* Check in and examine why you feel so overwhelmed.
* Is it that you don’t know what to do or where to start.
* Take one small action and see how that sits with you. Keep building on that action, step by step, until you build momentum and can see your way out of the overwhelm again.

Break out of overwhelm is a fantastic 60-minute audio that was especially designed to unleash the secrets of getting out of the paralysis that being overwhelmed brings.

It’s accompanied by a comprehensive 27-page handout and is backed by my special guarantee if you’re not happy.

This is one of my favourite products because it helps you INSTANTLY get through your overwhelm.

I am teaching myself to let go.

I recently read a fantastic book called Motherstyles (Janet Penley) and it correctly identified that for my Myers-Briggs personality style (ESTJ) one of my struggles is letting go.

The book talks specifically about parenting but I recognise it in so many areas of my life and this is something I feel that I need to do some self-coaching on.

But as with everything in life, I’m doing it in baby steps.

So first thing to let go of was an easy-ish one. My diary (planner).

I have a GORGEOUS deep red diary/ planner but I haven’t been using it regularly. The same thing happened last year – I thought it was the maternity leave/ baby thing but no. I forget to look in it half the time and then two weeks pass.

And what good is a diary if you don’t look at it?

No more.

So I let go.

• Even though it cost a bit of money.
• Even though I’d customised it perfectly.
• Even though it’s bee-yoo-ti-ful. Don’t you agree?

And so on.

I was thinking about WHY I’m not using the beautiful diary and I realised I really, really, REALLY love a week-at-a-glance diary – that’s how I plan my life and that’s what works best for me.

I had a spare week-at-a-glance diary I got on a sale so I hauled it out and I am so much happier.

I planned out the rest of the month and it’s been so EASY doing it like this!

Small steps, people.

Yes, I’m sad not using the other but I cheer myself up because I’m teaching myself to let go

What are you working on? Please tell me I’m not the only one with issues.

Resources: How to set and achieve your goals