Best Results Organizing

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

~Sren Kierkegaard

In the spirit of this quote, let’s tie up last year with a ribbon and prepare to open the gift of the coming year. Nothing helps us understand the past and stride into the future better than a well organized schedule-planning system. To that end, I offer six strategies for planning 2011:

1) Know Your Planning Personality

In days gone by, a free calendar from the bank or the butcher might have sufficed. No more. Now, the varieties and types of calendars are endless — digital or paper, ring-bound or spiral, sizes from compact to legal, hourly or by daypart, daily or weekly. It’s no wonder people tend to change systems each year, or sometimes abandon systems altogether.

Clients sometimes ask me whether they are hopelessly out of date using paper calendars instead of Blackberry, iPhone or other smartphone apps synced to their PCs. The truth is, high tech isn’t for everyone, and even those of us who practically live at the keyboard don’t always find digital calendars to be the most satisfying format.

The type of calendar system you use is far less important than your level of commitment to whatever system you pick. If you don’t currently have a system that works for you, it’s worth giving some thought to how you tend to keep track of things.

• Do you tend to be a linear thinker?
• Do you know the tricks to make your DVR record all your favorite shows?
• Do you enjoy reading gadget manuals? (Are you at least willing to do so?)
• Are you far more likely to log into Remember the Milk to track your tasks and shopping lists than to scribble notes on paper?
• Will you remember to sync and back-up every single day, and keep your gadget charged and close at hand? (Be honest!)

If this sounds like you, a digital calendar may be your personal scheduling GPS! Explore Google Calendar, Apple’s iCal, and MS Outlook’s calendar. Then, research reviews for the best calendar and productivity apps for your particular flavor of smartphone and verify how well they sync with your favorite calendar.

• Do you tend to remember landmarks rather than directions?
• Do you consider yourself a tactile person, remembering clothing, books, etc. at least in part by the way they feel to the touch?
• Do you color-code your appointments and obligations by life category or family member?
• Do your creative juices flow more easily when you write, rather than type, your ideas?
• Does the thought of using one more beeping device give you a headache?

If this sounds like you, paper calendaring may be your best bet.

Sometimes it seems that there are as many paper planner styles as people. Paper Doll remains loyal to the Franklin Covey classic-size daily calendar pages, though I bemoan the loss of their New Yorker cartoon-themed pages and have yet to find the mix of practicality and levity that they delivered. If you prefer the tried and true, At-A-Glance, offers clean lines and the ultimate in simplicity, as does the colorful MomAgenda. Lesser known outside the professional organizing field is the much-respected Planner Pad funnel system.

If you’re up for something novel and you tend to have a lot of recurring appointments, give a peek to the innovative, self-copying “Only Write It Once” WeekDate system:

If you usually doctor your calendar with doodles and sticky notes, consider the Bubble Planner, designed for those who love the mind-map experience.

2) Begin With The Basics

Whatever calendar system you choose, whether digital or paper, there are certain essential characteristics:

–Pick a calendar that lets you see a month at a glance as well as the daily view.

We tend to compartmentalize and think about what we have to accomplish on Tuesday the 11th, but might not take into account a late meeting the Monday night prior or leaving for a trip early the next morning, on Wednesday. Seeing the entire month gives us the chance to judge the ebb and flow of our work schedule, make sure we create  pockets of preparation before any influx of insanity.

–Select a planner that has enough space for you to write. For digital calendars, it’s important to have a system that won’t limit the number of characters as if you were tweeting your daily schedule to yourself. Only you know whether seeing merely a keyword, linked to a larger text box, will suffice. For those of us with sprawling, not-so-neat penmanship, a pocket-sized paper planner may cramp one’s style, literally and figuratively.

—Use one planner for both your business and personal appointments. If you keep one calendar for doctors’ appointments and kids’ schedules, and another for work, you’ll never know if your child’s recital conflicts with a major client presentation, or if you’ve scheduled yourself to attend a convention the week your children have parent-teacher conferences.

—Take your planner everywhere. This isn’t usually a problem with digital divas, but if you’re only in the habit of carrying your paper planner to work functions, rethink the style and size of what you use so that you’re comfortable taking it everywhere (and remembering to bring it home with you).

3) Commit To The Process

Having a great calendaring system is like having Jeeves as your butler. If you pay Jeeves poorly (i.e., use a cheap or kluged system) or don’t feed Jeeves (i.e., forsake updating with all appointments), your neglect will yield one insolent, neglectful butler (or a calendar of conflicts, illegible notes and missing appointments).

Picking a planning system that matches your personality and covers the essentials is a great start, but success depends on your behavior as much as the utility of the planner. If you’re the type who forgets to check your calendar, whether for entering data or attending appointments, these technology and accountability tips can help:

• Set an alarm on your cell phone to ring at the end of every day, around 5 p.m., to remind you to check your calendar for the next day and/or the coming week.
• If you have an assistant at the office (or a virtual assistant), schedule a time each day to meet and review newly-added appointments and obligations, as well as the next day’s agenda.
• Ask loved ones to prompt you by asking, “What’s on your schedule for tomorrow?” at dinnertime.
• Block family time on Sunday nights to jointly review the coming week. Make sure you’ve cordoned off time for anything important to them, individually, or for the family as a whole.
• Schedule your next appointment before leaving anyplace you visit intermittently (doctor, dentist, massage therapist, hair or nail salon, etc.) — but only if you have your calendar with you. If you aren’t traveling with your calendar, ask them to call you the next day (at a time you know you will be available) to set up your next appointment.

4) Get a Head Start on 2011

Financial advisors say that you have to pay yourself first or you’ll always find ways to spend all your money before you’ve saved a penny. Similarly, you have to schedule your life-saving, sanity-saving times to preserve your mental and physical strength. Once you have your new planning system in place:

–Review this past year’s calendar, month by month, and copy all the recurring information (birthdays, monthly meetings and conference calls, convention dates, etc.)

–For business, check the web sites for your Chamber of Commerce and networking groups and find out when the local business expos and trade shows will be scheduled and block time on your calendar to attend. For your personal life, review your favorite sites’ events pages to know when there will be special events associated with parenting and home-school groups, community associations and your house of worship.

—Schedule time for a healthy body. Grab the phone and make appointments for the coming year for yourself and for your family. Remember the doctor, dentist, orthodontist, and eye doctor, and plan out the most convenient times to have inconvenient tests like mammograms and colonoscopies. With everyone’s whole schedules open, this is a perfect time to take control of your life, so schedule your massages, fitness training sessions and chiropractic or acupuncture appointments, too.

—Follow the money. Just as you should make time to create a healthy body, take steps now to build healthier finances. Schedule appointments with your CPA for early-to-mid February, by which time you should already have all your 1099s, W-2s, and whatever other paperwork you need. Think about who else should have a few calm, pre-planned moments of your time. A financial planner? Your bookkeeper? Your insurance salesperson? Slot those appointments now, before they get booked up.

–Review last year’s appointments to see with whom you met, and brainstorm names of those you’d really like to meet. If you have a target goal for next year, like finding a new job or getting in shape, your calendar can be a vital asset. Pick a day of the week to focus on specific activities; for example, you can try to set up informational interviews on Wednesday afternoons or set aside time now, before things get crazy, to pair up with a friend to take a yoga or cardio class on Friday evenings (instead of going out for fattening dinners).

5) Build Administrative Time Into Your Schedule

Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or a business executive or a tearing-your-hair-out hyphenate, your schedule has to reflect time to plan what you do as much as it reflects the actual things you do.

For example, I schedule no client sessions on Mondays, so that I know I will always have one day per week for marketing, attending to finances and handling other administrivia. It also makes Sunday nights stress-free, as I know the only grumpy meanie I’ll be facing on Monday morning…is myself!

6) Time Travel

Just as you’ve created space in your schedule for everything you’ll be doing, create fresh spaces in your office to handle the upcoming activities:

Purge last year’s folders (and tickler file, desktop, drawers and other flat surfaces) of papers that are no longer needed for work, tax or reference.

Create folders for your 2011 expenses and 2011 tax prep for personal and business needs. (Of course, if you haven’t started gathering your 2010 paperwork, this is the prime time to do it.)

Develop files for conferences you’ll attend, giving the registration and travel information somewhere safe to live. File them away until they’re needed, but put a note in the appropriate month’s tickler slot or calendar page to remind you where you’ve sequestered them. (It’s time travel; talk to your future self!)

A feng shui expert recommends putting ten new, blank manila folders at the front of your customer or client files. I think it’s some sort of “If you build it, they will come” ritual. Like chicken soup, “It couldn’t hurt!”

Good luck getting your calendar in gear so you can plan a wonderful 2011. Happy New Year!