InnerTeub

My brother just wrote a post on getting things done and then told me to write one as well.  So, obviously, I have no choice: here guys go: here is how i get stuff done:

(Apparently I get things done by just doing what my brother tells me to do.)

My husband would suggest that I don’t get stuff done, and he’s not ENTIRELY wrong on that count in that I am the worst- THE WORST – at personal administration. Unread mail? No bother! Moved to Colorado in February — still don’t have a license! I am almost horrifyingly capable of letting non-work related paperwork and to-dos go to the wayside.

BUT! Having said that, I would suggest that I have cultivated some FANTASTIC coping mechanisms, because I do recognize that it’s Not Good to Not Care about unread mail. So I would say one of the smartest things I’ve ever done is marry someone who DOES care about unread mail. And putting on snow tires.  And the dog’s flea and tick meds.  Etc.

(Oh, stop looking at me like that. I’m not a total freeloader of his organizational mastery. I’m excessively on-point when it comes to clean sheets, grocery shopping, dishes in the sink, and kicking ass at my job. It all works out.) (I think.) (I mean, I am sure we both wish the other cared a little bit more about the things we care about, but I also wish that running shoes were free, so, like, you know, we don’t always get what we want in the world.)

Ok, having said all THAT, I clearly must have some skill at Doing Things because I have managed to juggle a pretty decent career, a lot of Ironman training, and a puppy that seems to love me and not be resentful of not ever seeing me, so:

1. Schedule. If there are things to do at work, it goes in the outlook calendar (which synchs with my phone.) I’ll block time in the day for my to-do list, and put those items in the body of the calendar appointment so I know exactly what I’m doing during that time. The biggest moment of weakness in my day is the first five minutes of my work day: if I don’t have A Plan in place with with very specific action items there’s a good possibility I’ll go “Oh, I’ll just check my email/reader/twitter” and pooooof! It’s 10:30 and nothing is done. This to-do list is always first scribbled on a steno pad notebook I have at my desk and can bring to meetings, because a) I prefer to handwrite things than type, so I always handwrite notes at work and b) I do love me some good old-fashioned Checking Off Of Stuff.  And for things that aren’t as simple as “Do this than it’s done” , I still schedule in the calendar — figure out milestones for bigger things and see when in a week I have time to devote to inching toward that end state. And as with the to-do list, that calendar notice has notes in — what I was thinking when I blocked the time, what info I need to pick up and start that effort, where I want to be at the end of that time block. It’s painstaking, but I’m a step by step person, and if I break the bigger things into those steps:  ain’t no thang, it gets done.

2. I also schedule working out. Physical activity is a Really Important (side note: I should title this post “I Capitalize Words That Don’t Need It and You Can TOO!”) part of my life and I like to assume that it’s going to be a time block in every single day. I don’t always succeed, of course, but when I think of the day in front of me I assume that at some point in between work and making dinner and seeing friends and husband and dog walking there will be working out occurring, and I figure out where that’s going. When I’m training for something specific I keep that schedule on my Outlook calendar at work as well; that enables me to see if it’s realistic to assume I’ll run for an hour in the morning on Wednesday, or if I have an early meeting that will make it a no-go. This, by the way, has been the biggest key to me successfully training for races — pre-planned scheduling of not only what the day’s workout(s) are going to be, but WHEN they’re going to be.

3. For family stuff, we use Google Calendar, and I generally try to synch that with my Outlook cal as well (my outlook pushes reminders to my phone via the exchange server, vs. gCal with pushes reminders to my GMail, which I’m more likely to miss)

I’m an EXTREMELY out of sight out of mind person, so I need things like a white board in the kitchen with a grocery shopping list on it, reminder notices that pop up on my phone, a to-do list in a calendar reminder AND a notebook that sits open on my desk.

But my biggest thing I do to get stuff done?

I get up in the morning. I know that I’m about 10x more clear minded and focused at 6am than I am at any other point in the day, and being up at that time of day lets me see how all the pieces — things I want to get done at work/working out/making dinner/running errands/playing with the dog/playing with the husband — how they all tetris together so it fits. While I *love* sleep and could easily sleep until 11am, I know if I do, I’ll get nothing done. I’ll have missed my window. The single nicest thing I do for myself is getting to bed early enough to support getting up early.

So. That’s it. Getting Stuff Done is NOT my strong suit, and if my husband still blogged he’d have a helluva rebuttal for this post, but I manage to make it work (although I’m sure there is an overdue library book that would beg to differ.)