Embrace it!

If you know anything about me, you probably know that I love everything organization. Planners & calendars are my best friends. I read blogs about time management, productivity, budgeting, business organization, home organization…etc. I feel quite lost when my room is not organized. And you’ve probably heard me say something like “I need to organize my life!!”

I’ve always thought it was due to my lack of discipline (which is still partially an issue) that I wouldn’t follow through with my plans. I would plan and plan and plan, and then I would change my mind. I would schedule my days down to the hour, and then do things completely on the fly. “Gosh what is wrong with me!!” I would make commitments to try harder, or consider signing up for bootcamp to get disciplined.

Recently, I’ve come to the realization that this “passion” of mine actually doesn’t fit my personality in the way that I would like. I am actually quite a spontaneous person.

I now understand why I am completely content just wandering around NYC or Chicago for a day trip by myself – meet up with friends if they are free, walk in and out of random stores, museums, bookstores, coffee shops .. and just see where I end up. It’s really the best way to breathe in fresh air and be thankful to be alive to enjoy the day.

So, I’m trying a new thing. I’m going to embrace this aspect of myself. See it as a positive to be flexible and adaptable, and use it to my advantage!

I still like crossing things off my to-do lists and follow through with commitments, but maybe I don’t need to waste time planning so much when I’m not gonna do it anyway. I’m just gonna let my free-spirited side just BE.. for awhile. We’ll see how it goes!

2011, Go!

I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to trying out new ideas for time management and organization things. A few of the blogs I follow target these areas. I mostly skim until something unique catches my eye, and then sometimes I get really excited when I find something I’m able to customize for my purposes. Implementation is the best part!

Anyway, this is my “system” for 2011; it is a concoction of ideas from various brilliant minds.

“Organizing My Life!”

I know I have been saying this for 6 months now, but big projects take time! I’m finally start to see the fruit of this whole thing and it’s a big motivator to continue!!

This is my system now, let’s see how long it lasts before I find something even better! =)

Emails:

1. I use Gmail for all the real stuff (professional networking, friends/family, church, etc), and transferred all other commercial sign-ups to my Yahoo account. No more “subscription” spamming my regular inbox! I will skim through my Yahoo account when I desire to.

2. I admit, I’m a little nuts with my Gmail labels – inspired by matrix organizational management (thanks Business degree! haha). I have labels that begin with #’s to signify the functional category (i.e. 3. Apartment, 5. Friends, 6. CFC). But, I also have labels that begin with an asterisk (*) to tell me if it has special content (i.e. *pictures, *contact, *interesting!)

3. I’ve read both pros and cons of using an email inbox as your to-do list. I don’t email myself to add to the inbox count, but I find it most intuitive to archive the email after whatever action is needed has been completed. Otherwise I probably won’t look at it again.

Applications/Networks:

1. I connected Twitter and Facebook so that when I update Twitter (usually through my blackberry), my Facebook automatically gets updated too.

2. I deleted a lot of RSS feeds that is irrelevant when I reorganized my Google Reader. I also put them in folders with consistent naming as my goals.
**Oh! Check the “Scroll tracking” box in Reader Settings, so helpful when you just want to skim. If you want to go back to read something later, you can always check the “keep unread” for that specific post. Love it!

3. I still have to finish sorting through my Google Bookmarks, so a lot of them are just under the folder “to sort…”

Notes:

1. I love Microsoft OneNote! I started using it last summer to prepare for Bible Studies and found it amazing at keeping things organized. For example, in my CFC “notebook”, I have a section for each small group (aka each year), and each Bible Study tab is listed by name and date – it’s a great place to keep all the notes, prayer requests, journal, etc. I love it so much that I have started to use it for any kind of research (and my personal journaling too!)

2. Todoist.com – this is a new find from Life After College, mainly because I was looking for something that I can use both at home and at work (they block a lot of websites). It’s a really simple online tool that keeps a list of tasks for you, but you can also organize tasks into bigger projects to keep things straight.

3. Moleskine notebooks do not disappoint! I personally love the calendar/diary combination one so that I can keep my daily appointments in the calendar and jot random notes down on the right. Small, compact, durable and lovely indeed. :)

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Next step: clear my desk and keep it clean! I’ve been inspired by ZenHabits to simplify my life. Yes!