2009 was the year of getting organized. Sort of. I spent the latter half of my holiday vacation last year training myself to work differently. Don't get me wrong, I've managed to do things somewhat right over the past 16 years of my working life, but more than ever in my career I felt like I needed a working makeover--a new framework for productivity.
If you'd sat down with any of my past bosses (including myself, as I've had numerous stints of self-employment), all of them could say I was organized. They may not have praised my communication style, or how I presented, or my problem-solving skills, but dang-it I was ORGANIZED. But as an entrepreneur I've found that being organized is just the ticket to admission into the stadium. No one gets a front-row seat, or to even perform on-stage, unless she's strategically organized.
There's been a quantum shift in the type of work that I do. I've always had busy work, information gathering, creative work, and what I call "social time", when I must actually interface with people, whether on the phone or in-person, what Tony Bacigalupo refers to (quoting the uber-smart start-up supporter Paul Graham) as "Management Time". But in the past few years I've had much less control over when I can schedule these types of work. I attribute this shift to three circumstances:
- I work primarily with people in different time zones (sometimes dramatically different). The time that I used to spend in-transit commuting, then catching up on trades/news, is now typically spent with me browsing email and needing to respond to our team on the East Coast, who have been up for a few hours. Much of my "information gathering" time in the morning is shot and hard to replace.
- Client interfacing. I set aside hours for client calls/meetings, which has been effective, but often team members need me on meetings outside of that time parameter. While I have been clear about my preferences for meeting times, it's unrealistic to hope that all important meetings will be conveniently slotted during my open avails, especially for last-minute, critical meetings with people on another coast. I find myself breaking my creative time for social time.
- Travel: Any weekly schedule that I set for myself normally gets blown up here. I've become very efficient at setting aside solitary work for the plane and mapping time for responding to messages, but I have never achieved full productivity while on the road, particularly with Creative Work.
I did several things to inspire my paradigm shift: I bought the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. Normally I don't buy such tactical books--I prefer to read about the psychology of getting organized and then develop my own system, but my old systems weren't working for me. My work was in too much flux. True to the reviews, the book did help me better align my workload with my priorities. I wouldn't call myself a total machine just yet, but I have a handle on my projects, even if I can't get through all of my email.
The next thing I did was look at my obsession with being organized, and whether I still needed to follow the rules I set early in my career of what that means. My obsession with being organized has something to do with wanting to be in control at all times, and with a general discomfort with the unknowable. In the past, I had no idea if my department would get cut in a downturn, but hey, at least everything was filed. When times were tough I often became more organized. It was a false way of feeling in control, doing "insecurity work."
Also, being organized was closely tied to past success. I recall my first job out of college working at a book publishing house. As an editorial assistant I was average. I could read manuscripts and pick out good work, but administratively I was not impressive. My manager had to repeat requests; I missed details. Finally, about a year into the job, when my boss was away on a business trip and I had less urgent work to do, I took it upon myself to clean out and re-organize files that had been carelessly piled together by previous assistants. I reorganized the manuscripts that my boss threw on shelves and never had time to sort through. When she got back she was sincerely impressed. Things changed after that because now I had a handle on everything. From then on I always ran a tight ship. Filing, labeling, and having things written in my planner meant I was on-track.
As an entrepreneur, being organized is still important, but time is at a premium. Being on the road--and on the run--so much, I don't have the career equivalent of time to fix my hair. I wake up and boom, it's showtime. The presentations I used to do weeks in advance (to give me time to review and absorb them) I now finish on the plane to the meeting. It's not ideal, but there's too much to do. Perfectionism is inefficient. In order to maintain quality I have to look at the ultimate outcome: What's more important? Providing a kick-ass presentation, or making sure I've labeled my files correctly? Ideally everything gets done, but more typically I've had to make choices.
There's another factor: my family. When I lived solo I would do crazy things like go into the office to finish my filing. Some would call that not having a life; I called it starting the week fresh. Now I call it insanity. Any free moments I get I need for the creative endeavors I ignored during the week or for spending time with my husband. When we add to our family that time will be even more precious, and my choices will need to be more strategic and refined.
I will be diligent about time-saving/optimizing strategies on this blog. If you have strategies, or areas that you'd like me to explore on this blog, don't be shy.