Organization, Productivity, and the Business of Government

For both individuals and large organizations, staying highly organized offers benefits such as increased efficiency and reduced stress. Most businesses today run specialized software like Cartegraph as a way to streamline processes and ensure consistency and accountability. These systems allow for the keeping of meticulous records, and organizations without them have little hope but to be buried in information with no way of finding what they need in an efficient manner.

The human mind is simply incapable of effectively multitasking, especially when it comes to remembering details. Not many people can manage their daily schedule as well as all other tasks to complete in the future without writing them down. In my experience, most employees have no problems completing their day-to-day activities at work, usually because the processes for getting things done has been set by their predecessors, and best practices have been established, while they sometimes struggle staying on task outside of work.

Personal organization is no different. The problem is that many people don’t take the time to apply similar best practices to their responsibilities outside of the workplace. In my opinion, anyone currently studying or working to grow their career need to be very conscious of what is going on in their life and what tasks need to be completed in order to maintain a high level of effectiveness. The added stress of bringing work home can be curtailed by ensuring that you remain on task. Staying organized is the best way to achieve this.

The first step is writing everything down. When I find myself in a mental rut, I find it helpful to sit down and dump everything from your brain into a list. Ask yourself things like:

• What is coming up that’s important?
  
  
• What commitments have I made?
  
  
• What things did my boss ask me to have done by next Monday?
  
  
• What things would I like to get done in my free time?

Making a list of these items allows one to first get a high-level idea of what is currently on their plate. This makes prioritizing and sorting these tasks much easier, saving time and preventing frustration.

How you decide to organize these tasks depends largely on how you decide what to work on. David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy advocates organizing these tasks into physical contexts (e.g. Home, Work, Computer) and creating separate sub-lists for each context. Organizing tasks in this way makes it easy to filter what you should be doing by your current location. I personally use this way of sorting tasks to keep my To Do list organized, but the options for organizing your system are endless.

If you’re not actively organizing your To Do list, try something new. David Allen’s GTD is hugely popular on the internet and has practically become the de facto method of organization in most web and mobile To Do apps. While this system of organization may not be right for everyone, I feel that David Allen’s book best clarifies what it means to maintain an organizational system and offers a way of organizing tasks that does not require one particular tool.

Making the commitment to take control of your To Do list and manage it as meticulously as you manage your work in the workplace is the biggest step to becoming a more organized individual. You may be surprised how much more work you can get done when you put forth a little effort in organizing your tasks.