Archive for ‘Task Management’ Category
Paper Doll on the Magic of Making Lists
THE APPEAL OF A LIST
Paper Doll is a sucker for lists.
My childhood diaries (y’know the kind, pink with a lock that could easily be opened by a bobby pin) were just page after page of my mini-me wishes and hopes.
One of the first organizing-related books I ever purchased (when I was still in high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the top song on the Billboard charts
was Olivia Newton-John’s Physical), which still sits on my bookshelf, was Checklists: 88 Essential Lists to Help You Organize Your Life. It contains a wide variety of lists my 15-year-old self assumed would be, as the book title indicated, essential for becoming an adult.
Many of the lists were, and still are, useful. The “What To Do” checklists started with life transitions like how to find a roommate, plan a wedding, prepare for having a baby (or adopting one), buy a new or used car, or get ready for a move. These continued on through less happy events, like what to do if you’re going through a separation or a divorce, are a victim of a burglary, have to stay in the hospital, or need to plan funeral arrangements.
I will grant you that many of these step-by-step To Do lists, such as how to apply to college or for a mortgage are outdated these forty (gasp!) years later, and I can’t say I ever found the lists for buying a summer home or putting my boat in the water particularly useful. Oh, but the aspirational aspect of it all!
The other sections of the book were equally magical, with checklists for packing (for everything from a day at the beach to — I kid you not — sending your child to boarding school) to hosting social events (from children’s birthday parties to showers to Christmas dinners and Passover seders). And even after 20 years as a professional organizer, I still take a gander at the “What to Have” checklists for organizing every space from tool boxes and medicine chests to linen closets and garden sheds.
Even last week, when I was perusing the new books shelves at my public library, I couldn’t bring myself to bypass 52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time.
It’s not that I don’t know how to walk; I get my 10,000 steps every day. But I was captivated by a portion of the introduction, where author Annabel Streets (yes, a book on walking by someone named Streets!) writes:
Nor is walking merely step-counting or “exercise.” Yes, good physical and mental health are happy by-products. But the joys of walking are infinitely greater than clocking up steps. Think of it as a means of unraveling towns and cities, of connecting with nature, of bonding with our dogs, of fostering friendships of finding faith and freedom, of giving the finger to air-polluting traffic of nurturing our sense of smell, of satisfying our cravings for starlight and darkness, of helping us appreciate the exquisitely complicated and beautiful world we inhabit.
However, had the title on the spine not seemed like a ready-made list, I’d surely have moved on without it.
The world has been conspiring to put lists on my mind even more than usual lately, and if you don’t mind the presumption, I’d like to share some of the thoughts I’ve had regarding list-making.
USE LISTS TO SET (AND MAINTAIN) BOUNDARIES
Last Thursday, I was reading James Clear‘s weekly newsletter. If you’re not familiar with Clear, I encourage you to read his excellent Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
While I’m careful to keep my inbox lean, I confess that I subscribe to many (perhaps too many) newsletters for inspiration for this blog and to find resources for my clients. Some are on organizing and productivity; others are financial. I enjoy many of the AARP newsletters, particularly Sisters from AARP, which celebrates and offers wisdom for Black women. And though they profess to be about mindfulness, mental health, and positive psychology, I realize that many of the newsletters are written for millennials and Gen Z. I’m voracious.
Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter avoids any and all of the excesses many of my other newsletters display; his is pared down to the essentials: three wise (tweetable) quotes from Clear himself, two quotes from others, and one question for the week. (Last week’s remarkable question, “What is a small but courageous choice you can make today?” has floated through my head for days.)
A short “list” itself, the newsletter is what I, in all my years of blogging, can never aspire to: brevity. But I do not begrudge Clear’s success because you, my dear readers, are often the benefactors of the concepts he shares. Last week, he linked to a tweet by Jenée Desmond-Harris, a writer, editorialist, editor, and the current Dear Prudence for Slate.
I started dividing my to-do list into 1) things I have to do, 2) things I want to do, and 3) things other people want me to do. Life changing! I often don’t get to 3 and I finally realized omg, is this what it means to have boundaries?! ???
— Jenée (@jdesmondharris) June 26, 2021
I loved this tweet. First, I always try to teach my clients that when they’re overwhelmed and overburdened by a To Do list that is more a Could Do list, they need to check to make sure what they’re doing brings them closer to their goals.
When you're overwhelmed and overburdened by a To Do list that is more a *Could* Do list, check to make sure what you're doing brings you closer to your goals. Click To TweetAnd I’m sure you’ve heard me say that, more important than SMART goals (which are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-specific) are SMARTY goals, where they Y represents values and ideals that are YOURS.
If you are constantly laboring toward goals that are not your own, but are your spouse’s, your parents’, or society’s, you will eventually come to resent the labor and the sense of obligation, and likely passive-aggressively (or just aggressively) rebel, possibly without even realizing it, but to your detriment.
Second, I appreciated this tweet because it dovetails nicely with a quote from one my colleagues. Four of my veteran professional organizing colleagues — Maria White, Yve Irish, Karen Sprinkle, and Nancy Haworth — and I are in a mastermind group. To help us achieve our goals, we start each week sharing our intentions; at the end of the week, we report back on how well we’ve done, and discuss our obstacles (and whether they’ve been internal or external).
Yve, famous for her enthusiastic Memojis when sending cheerleading texts, replied to one of my weekly emails with, “Woohoo Julie! Two great organizing sessions and they both booked follow-ups! I think you got all of the important things done. Much of the not-dones are items from someone else’s To Do list.”
Until then, I’d been feeling a little down about not having achieved everything in my (admittedly overambitious) list. But Yve was right. The things I hadn’t completed had not been, in the words of Jenée Desmond-Harris, things I had to do or things I wanted to do.
They were things someone else wanted from me, tasks for which I had not obligated myself. Without recognizing I’d done it, I’d practiced that mantra found photocopied and posted on assistants’ desks nationwide: “Lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
I was focusing on the important and urgent tasks on my own To Do lists. I was guarding my own boundaries.
When we make our To Do lists, perhaps we should consider dividing them into these categories, what we must do and what we want to do, and put the oxygen masks over our own noses and mouths first before attending to others (tiny humans notwithstanding).
USE LISTS TO DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT FROM LIFE
Desmond-Harris, as well as my colleague Yve, got me thinking about the kinds of lists we create. We all have task lists, those To Do items, whether analog or digital, that get us through our days or weeks. At the micro level, these lists help us achieve our smaller, more discrete goals.
But what about our big ticket goals? Do you keep lists of those?
I went back to the post I wrote at the start of this year, Review & Renew for 2022: Resolutions, Goals, and Words of the Year to think about goals and visions. I found plenty of lists there, including Gretchen Rubin’s list of 21 things she’d wanted to do in 2021. Of course, she’s got a 22 in 2022.
When I got to the end of the post, I saw I’d linked to Jack Canfield‘s post on creating vision boards. About 16 or 17 years ago, Jack Canfield (of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) was a guest speaker at a NAPO Conference. He’d just authored The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, and everyone heading to conference was buzzing about it.
It’s been enough years (I was still in my thirties!) that you’d think the book would not have had such a hold on me, but the “assignment” on page 28 has held a fascination for me ever since.
In the chapter “Decide What You Want,” Canfield suggests readers make an “I Want” list and delineate 30 things you want to do, thirty things you want to have, and thirty things you want to be — before you die.
Readers, I went to an Ivy League college. I have a Master’s degree. I started my own business. But I have to tell you, writing out these three lists was the most difficult intellectual experience of my life. I’ve carried this folded-up list in my daily planner all of these years, taking it out with some frequency, and occasionally adding something new or checking off an accomplishment. My inability to complete the lists sometimes makes me wonder if I need a therapist or a life coach!
I only managed to come up with 11 things I wanted to do, of which I’ve done three (including finally reading Anna Karenina last year); and though I got to check off visiting the UK, the most exciting things I’ve done since creating the list, visiting Italy and publishing my book, didn’t even make the list! My imagination was too confined!
Similarly, my list of (tangible and intangible) things I wanted to have only made it to item 15. I’ve only acquired three, but those three (including my little, red Kia Soul) give me joy each day. And my shortest list, of things I wanted to be, only reached eight items, of which I’ve only achieved one.
And yet, I’m happy with my life and with my lists. The things we want at any given time help shape the choices we make; but the choices we make can shape what we want next.
The things we want at any given time help shape the choices we make; but the choices we make can shape what we want next. Click To TweetSometimes, our lists (like the ones in my elementary school diary) may seem silly in retrospect; others show us how far we’ve come.
What would you put on Jack Canfield’s lists? What are:
- 30 things you want to do?
- 30 things you want to have?
- 30 things you want to be?
DO YOU NEED A NEEDLE LIST?
About a month ago, the Huffington Post published a piece by Kelsey Borresen called Want to Declutter Your Brain? Cross Something Off Your Needle List. I read it within a day or two of publication, agreed with the general gist, and went on about my life, not having given it much thought. Since then, there hasn’t been a day when it hasn’t shown up in one of those many newsletters to which I subscribe or appeared in my Twitter feed.
The article is needling me!
It’s easy to see why. I encourage you to read it in full, but the basic concept is that we all have these things on our To Do lists that we fail, repeatedly, to do. Usually, they aren’t huge projects, but fairly simple tasks that we avoid, over and over. And yet we cross them off today’s task list and dutifully put them on tomorrow’s, where they will fail to be attended to for several days (or weeks) hence. And they’ll continue to needle us.
Quoting an Instagram post of chef/author Serena Wolf, who coined the term, Needle Lists are filled with the small tasks that create that hum of low-level anxiety as we continue to fail to accomplish them.
It’s the donation bags in our trunk (or worse, blocking the front hall) that haven’t been taken to charity. It’s the sink that’s full of dishes because the dishwasher of clean dishes hasn’t been unloaded. It’s the thank you notes that have gone unmailed (or unwritten). And for the past two weeks, for me, it was the oil change that I planned to get each day, but by the time everything else got accomplished, my mechanic had closed for the evening.
Wolf’s plan, simple but a bit of genius, was to set aside 30-60 minutes each Friday to tackle items on her Needle List. She notes, “Not only do I feel more relaxed on weekends, but it also makes me more productive during the week because I find it easier to focus with less mental clutter. The batching mentality also helps relieve any stress/anxiety when a new Needle List item pops up because I can drop it into Friday’s brain basket.”
Happily, this goes along with advice I’ve shared about time-blocking, here:
Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity
Paper Doll Shares Secrets from the Task Management & Time Blocking Summit 2022
Time blocking basics are key to the Needle List. Wolf has a place to collect these otherwise needling, cringe-provoking tasks.
She sidesteps the problem of there being no “Someday” on the calendar by scheduling these tasks for a fixed block, on Fridays. (For you, it might be a Saturday morning or a Monday afternoon or a Wednesday lunch hour.)
And she goes through her week confident that a task won’t fall through the cracks, so she can stop constantly reminding herself that there’s something undone.
If you’d like to try making a Needle List and time blocking a part of your week to address these things in a batch, I’d encourage you to use a tickler file to its best advantage.
Let’s say, like Wolf, you’re going to block Friday afternoons to stop things from needling you. Why not write yourself notes (so you’ll think about what you have to do, in a nuanced way, rather than just constantly thinking of what you will do) and collect them with receipts, items to mail, etc., in that Friday slot of the ticker file. Anything left incomplete this Friday gets moved to the next Friday opportunity; it’s no longer hanging over you; it’s been rescheduled!
THE POWER OF LISTS
- Lists can be organizational — they create structure and boundaries.
A shopping list ensures that you purchase what you need, and assuming you don’t go into Target (because it’s impossible to leave Target with just what’s on your shopping list) you won’t buy what you don’t need. Gift wish lists (including wedding registries) make it more likely that people won’t waste their money on things you don’t want or need, that won’t mesh with your values or fit your physique.
A To Do list helps you do a brain-dump of everything you know you must accomplish, and then create lists of tasks, whether in the order you intend to accomplish them or batched in groups so that you can take them from list-mode on paper (or in an app) to time-blocking mode on your calendar. And if your lists are divided, as Desmond-Harris suggests, into what you must do and what you want to do, leaving those things others want you to do for last (or never), safeguarding your boundaries, how many more of your big-ticket goals might you achieve?
A packing list, and other travel-related lists, can ensure that you consider your needs and wants without last-minute pressure. (Take Paper Doll’s 5 Essential Lists For Planning an International Vacation, for example.)
Lists of books we want to read, movies and television programs we want to watch, and places we’d like to visit create structure and boundaries without greatly limiting our options. When we’re faced with an Amazon or Netflix full of titles, lists of recommendations can keep us from wasting time surfing or making mediocre choices.
- Lists can relieve anxiety.
Trying to remember everything you need and want to do is exhausting. It’s also untenable. That’s where lists come in.
A well-done, properly-approached list can prune the stress out of your life. A massive list written on both sides of piece of paper, with items you need at the market combined with 5-year-plan types of projects without distinct tasks is not a well-done list.
Neither is anything scribbled on the back of an envelope, or on 63 sticky notes on every vertical and horizontal surface around you. Lists that live in all the different in-boxes of your life, in email and Asana and Evernote, in the notebook in your bag and the whiteboard in your office, are too likely to discombobulate you.
Some people swear by David Allen’s Getting Things Done, which, when followed closely, is a love letter to lists. I appreciate GTD and teach it to clients whose style it fits, but find elements of it to be overly complex.
Others swear by list-based bullet journaling, created by Ryder Carroll,
but which has long since taken on a life of its own, and which I (and many of my clients find intimidating in its modern form).
Personally, I’m a fan of the 1-2-3 list. I believe in the philosophy that if it won’t fit on a Post-it®, it won’t fit in your day, so I counsel overburdened clients to look through their master lists, brain dump lists, and inboxes, and for any given day, find one big task, two medium-sized tasks, and three small tasks which are their absolute must-do items for the day, the ones that if that’s all they complete, they’ll declare victory.
This is why, when I first teach clients how to use a tickler file (you have read my Tickle Yourself Organized, right?), I’m often discouraging them from piling too many things in any one day’s slot. I may write without brevity, but I coach others to embrace it!
- Lists can be aspirational.
As with Jack Canfield’s entries, not every list is designed to accomplish the things listed in that book I bought back in 1982. Yes, we need lists to tell us what to do, pack, and purchase. But for envisioning the possibilities in our life — and for reviewing with less embarrassment than reading our teenage journals — lists can help us imagine different lives.
Might you make a list of other careers you could have? Other cities (or countries) in which you might live? Other personal attributes you’d like to have, or habits you’d like to extinguish?
There are days (or years) where we feel boxed in, where it can be difficult to imagine a different “we” that we could be. Vision boards are highly touted for helping people imagine how (and as whom) else they might live. However, I’ve found that whenever I clip photos to create a vision board, they always end up being full of tall, lithe women with long ponytails, doing yoga with lush, green mountains in the background. Eventually, I learned that I don’t want to do yoga; I just want to be a tall, lithe woman with a long ponytail.
For me, vision boards don’t work for expanding my self-view, but lists do. Perhaps they will for you, too?
What lists are essential in your life? Please share in the comments!
Paper Doll Post:
Struggling To Get Things Done? Paper Doll’s Advice & The Task Management & Time Blocking Virtual Summit 2022
You have task lists. You have apps filled with task lists. You have alarms set to remind you to check your apps filled with task lists.
And yet, do you sometimes feel down in the dumps because you can’t achieve what you set out to do? If so, congratulations. That means you’re human. (No offense intended to my intergalactic readers, of course.)
The common parlance for solutions to getting things done is “time management,” but as you’ve heard me say often, we cannot manage our time, but only ourselves. Notwithstanding crying children, screaming bosses, and messed-up public transportation schedules, the inconvenient truth is that we really are the only ones in charge of what we do and when we do it.
Yes, there are consequences to us making the choices we do, but the key is that we’re controlling our reactions to the demands on our time. The minute we relinquish belief in our own control, we’re deciding the game is lost.
Thus, I see my role as one of explaining all of rules of the game, letting you know about the sneaky combatants trying to sabotage you (whether they’re in your own brain or out there in the world), and trying to arm you with mighty powers to vanquish whomever is trying to steal your time. (And yes, I realize this does seem to sound more like Dungeons & Dragons than time management.)
WHY WE CAN’T GET A HANDLE ON TASK and TIME MANAGEMENT?
There are a variety of reasons why people find it hard to accomplish important things.
Maybe We Don’t Know What’s Up
Sometimes, you’re unhappy with the way things are but you can’t really identify the problem and don’t know there’s a solution. (If that’s the case, Organize Away Frustration: Practice The Only Good Kind of “Intolerance” offers some guidance for both recognizing that there is a problem and locating a solution.)
Other times, you know what you need to accomplish and you do want to do it, or at least, you want to have done it. (In the words of Dorothy Parker, “I hate writing. I love having written.”)
Other times, you know what you need to accomplish and you do want to do it, or at least, you want to have done it. (In the words of Dorothy Parker, *I hate writing. I love having written.*) Click To TweetIn those cases, when your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went, there can be a number of causes. Read on.
Maybe There’s a Pandemic Going On
Early in the pandemic, there were the shifting sands beneath our feet as we couldn’t quite get a handle on things, so I wrote Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? 5 Strategies to Cope With Pandemic Time Dilation.
In that post, I covered research that is still apt today, about how the pandemic caused us to lose our sense of routine. Even if you’re back to working in the office, you don’t know if your child’s school is going to be closed unexpectedly, if planned meetings will “go virtual,” or if something (anything!) will turn out as it was planned. Two years on, and we are absolutely not back to normal, whatever we used to think that meant.
We also examined the research showing that our brains turned mushy, largely due to lack of novelty (for the work-from-homers) and something related to allostatic load, where our bodies’ physiological reactions to emotional stress caused a build-up of stress hormones. So, we couldn’t get our bodies in gear with the energy needed to perform all of the regular life-and-work mental tasks.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
And then our body clocks were out of whack because we weren’t sleeping (normally or otherwise), eating (normally or properly, and everyone’s move to drawstring waists seems to reflect that), we weren’t getting enough fresh air or sunlight, and we were getting too much blue light from our devices…which made it hard to sleep.
Guess what? We’re all still having trouble with these things, to one extent or another, two years on. We may have moved from the dining room to a bedroom turned into an office, or even back to our real offices. We’ve have moved on from Tiger King to Inventing Anna. But everyone is still having trouble with productivity!
In that post, I suggested strategies to cope with time dilation and get reconnected to time. If your task list means you barely have time to read this post, here’s a summary:
1) Put structure in your life.
Create daily rituals so you have a real sense of the start and end of your workday, and develop buffer habits so your brain gets the same benefits of a commute even if you’re walking around the block instead of driving to work while listening to your favorite podcast.
Time block to create boundaries in your day. (Of which, more later.) By blocking off specific times in your schedule for overarching categories (passive work projects, creative/active work projects, self-care, self-education, entertainment) you’re guaranteeing that there’s a place in your schedule for each. Knowing this gives you a sense of security, a system upon which you can depend.
2) Enhance novelty.
I offered up a laundry list of ways to boost novelty and get your brain making new synaptic connections. If every late winter slog through your day has been cold, grim, and not very novel, connecting with people you don’t normally speak with can spark enthusiasm for all sorts of things on your to-do list. It doesn’t matter whether that spark is a mild sense of competition with a former colleague or a stray comment you can build on to turn your work in a bold new direction.
In addition to new(ish) people, I suggested trying out different spaces, like working from a guest room or even moving furniture around to give you a new angle or a new vista.
3) Create vivid sensory clues for the passing of time!
At the time, I said:
Go Analog. Digital clocks don’t give you the same sense of the passage of time as old-school watches and clocks. Start by looking to see which of your digital clocks you can change to an analog appearance. Android phones allow you to change your lock screen from digital to analog easily. On the iPhone, the clock app iconis a working analog clock, but the lock screen stays digital. There are apps like FaceClock Analogue to give you a working clock, but they can’t be added to the lock screen.
I encouraged embracing the Time Timer and even hourglasses. The key? Shake up your relationship with time and make it more real.
4) Get what you know you need! I covered everything you needed to get enough of: daylight, sleep, exercise, and normalcy (including getting groomed and dressed). Judging from the people in PJs and slippers I see in the grocery store parking lot, I don’t think this can be said strongly enough.
5) Take a Technology Break – In some ways, this goes along with what I said about taking your view of time analog. Our dependence on technology takes us away from the reality of what we’re trying to do. Whenever possible, deal with the real and tangible.
Unplug when you can so you’re refreshed when you have to plug back into the matrix.
Oh, and in case you’re having trouble getting things done but feel like all of that stuff about the pandemic is old news, I invite you to read Rhymes With Brain: Languishing, Flow, and Building a Better Routine. The post dug deeply into brain-related changes you can make to get your mojo back in gear.
Maybe We’re Trying to Go It Alone
I mean, come on, any good D&D (or other tabletop game) player will tell you that you can’t go it alone. You need to forge partnerships. At the risk of pulling out every “maybe it was really the friends you met along the way” trope from TV and movies, getting support is essential.
There’s a reason they say, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
To that end, if your obstacle to getting things accomplished is a lack of external motivation, then look no further than two now-classic Paper Doll posts:
Count on Accountability: 5 Productivity Support Solutions walks you through options for motivating yourself through accountability with friends and strangers, individuals and groups, random humans and paid professionals.
Flow and Faux (Accountability): Productivity, Focus, and Alex Trebek pushes your task management forward when you can’t (or don’t want to have) an actual person pushing you to get your lists checked off, but you do need some kind of push. This post offers up a deeper understanding of what doesn’t work about virtual support and what does, so you can benefit from a little artificial intelligence (or artificial environments) without finding yourself stranded in an uncanny valley.
Maybe Our Spaces (or Our Brains) are Too Loud
Jump five years into the past for this Paper Doll classic. 5 Keys to Focus, or What Lord Chesterfield Knew About Multitasking, is (shockingly) one of the shortest posts in my 15-year collection.
From decluttering your physical and digital workspaces to shushing the distractions out there (in the world) and in there (in your head), to actually scheduling time to get it all done (ahhhh, there’s that hint again), this post will help settle your mind and turn you away from the dangers of multitasking.
Maybe We’re Stuck in the Past
If you can’t seem to move forward and take action on your tasks, maybe something is pulling you back?
It’s not always about finding a different method of keeping your conveyor belt of task management moving. If you need something with a little more of a philosophical bent to get you to let go, try reading Emerson, Angelou, Ted Lasso, Tashlich & Zen Monks: Letting Go for a Fresh Start.
Maybe We Haven’t Found the Right Tool or Magic Solution Yet?
Ah, you know this one. The truth is, there are no magic wands. (I told you so in The Truth About Celebrity Organizers, Magic Wands, and the Reality of Professional Organizing.)
There are bad solutions, like the kinds you see advertised on social media. (If you only see ads for a solution to something in the organizing and time management world, but aren’t seeing any of your favorite expert bloggers talking about the solution, there’s probably a good reason for that.)
And there are good solutions applied badly (or at least inexpertly).
And there are stellar solutions that work if you commit to learning, tweaking, and making your own.
I’ve certainly advised readers on my share of time and task management options. In the blog post about time dilation, I talked about the Pomodoro Technique, which is great for taking baby steps toward starting (and completing) tasks and conquering procrastination.
Other times, the blog has delivered insight about cognitive or tangible tools for organizing or accomplishing tasks:
Checklists, Gantt Charts, and Kanban Boards – Organize Your Tasks
Project Management Tools To Get It Done in 2019
Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity (and ooooh, that was a good one!)
And that last post is our long-awaited segue to what I especially want to share today — an opportunity for you to get some cutting-edge information from a gaggle of experts (myself included) on task management and time blocking.
THE TASK MANAGEMENT AND TIME BLOCKING VIRTUAL SUMMIT 2022
This all starts with my friend, colleague, fellow Cornell University alum — and, we were surprised to learn, former dorm-mate — Francis Wade, founder of 2Time Labs in Jamaica.
Francis operates in the field of “applied research in a world of increasing time demands.” (Sound familiar?) He’s also the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity: How To Protect Your Mind As Time Demands Increase. (You can read more about the book here.)
Way back in 2020 (pre-pandemic), Francis hosted the Time Blocking Summit, one of the first virtual time management and productivity summits I’d attended. Last year, it expanded in scope and depth and became the Task Management and Time Blocking Virtual Summit, and coming up soon is the third iteration, the Task Management and Time Blocking Virtual Summit 2022!
Registration gets you access to 40+ thought leaders and experts in the world of productivity, time and task management, wellness, and a variety of allied topics.
What Productivity Superstars Will Be Presenting?
I’m psyched to see that so many friends of the Paper Doll blog are set to participate, including returning speakers Ray Sidney-Smith, Dr. Frank Buck, Augusto Pinaud, and Art Gelwicks, as well as some NAPO colleagues I count as friends, including Casey Moore, Janice Russell, and Lisa Mark.
Also, I admit I’ll be fan-girling in my virtual seat when Laura Vanderkam, author of many productivity books, including 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think and Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done, is on the stage!
Oh, and to brag, Paper Doll will be on-stage, too! (Whoohoo!)
Last year, I participated as a panelist (talking about the future of time management) and moderated a Q&A panel. This year, I’m excited to be doing triple-duty!
I’ll be presenting my own session, Tickle Yourself Productive: Going Retro with Paper to Get and Stay Productive. But I’m also going to be moderating a panel on wellness, sleep, and productivity, and I’ll be panelist-ing to answer some deep and meaningful questions about my presentation.
What’s Going To Happen?
Held over three days (Thursday, March 3 through Saturday, March 5, 2022), the Task Management and Time Blocking Summit 2022 is delivering a number of different experiences for attendees, including:
- Pre-recorded video presentations — available 24/7 throughout the summit (so it won’t interrupt you getting your actual, already-scheduled tasks completed). Fresh content is will be added all day, between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. EST, giving people around the planet a chance to watch something new whenever they want.
- Live, interactive sessions — There will be Q&A sessions, where moderators and attendees get to dig deeper and ask presenters questions about the pre-recorded presentations, but also panel discussions on all things intriguing and timey-wimey (to borrow from Doctor Who).
- GTD Track — This year, the summit is going to honor the 20th anniversary of the publication of David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity with special content tackling the challenges many people encounter as obstacles to implementing GTD to greater success.
- Live Debate — My understanding is that some of the experts among us have been selected for an “Oxford-style” debate on a vital topic in the time management realm. Curious? You’ll just have to register and show up to see it in action!
- Online networking in a Zoom-like virtual ballroom (much like I described with last year’s NAPO virtual conference).
- App Discounts — Francis and his team will be inviting app developers to place their products in the summit store at a discount. I don’t have the secret details of the “who” and the “what” but last year, we had some pretty intriguing app developers share their wares. Keep your eyes open!
So, What Does It Cost?
Free Registration for the Task Management and Time Blocking Summit 2022
If you register for the free event, you’ll be able to log in and view all of the summit content for 24 hours after release. Francis also puts together a nifty pre-Summit Workbook to review in advance and use to keep track of what you find compelling.
As a “thank you” for registering, Francis is making providing registrants a complimentary, digital copy of his first book, Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure.
Premium All-Access Pass for the Task Management and Time Blocking Summit 2022
Anyone registering for the summit as a Premium, All-Access Pass holder (a $4700 value for $249) will also get a year of 24-7 access to all summit content, plus a digital copy of Francis’s second book that I referenced above, Perfect Time-Based Productivity.
But wait, there’s more! (I’ve always wanted to say that, along with “It’s a floor wax! It’s a dessert topping!) Francis gave me a coupon link for my readers, so if you buy the All-Access Pass before the summit using this super-secret-squirrel discount link, you can score a ticket for only $99.
If you do register and you watch my presentation, come to my panels, or see me in the networking events, please send me a “howdy!” And watch this space for a recap highlights in the weeks following this year’s summit.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, and I may get a small remuneration (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking through to the resulting pages. The opinions, as always, are my own. (Seriously, who else would claim them?) For more information regarding how Best Results Organizing handles affiliate links, please see the affiliate section of the site’s Privacy Policy.
Paper Doll Post:
Paper Doll’s 10-Minute Tasks to Make Difficult Moments Easier
Lately, I’ve been considering that it’s a bit ironic that February, the shortest month of the year, is National Time Management Month. We collectively assign the month with the fewest days to figure out how to achieve goals that would solve so many frustrations.
Wouldn’t a 31-day month be better for that?
A Necessary Caveat About “Time Management”
Time management, obviously, is a misnomer. We don’t really manage time, which is fixed. Every person gets the same 60 seconds every minute, the same 60 minutes every hour, the same 24 hours every day, and of course, 525,600 minutes in a year.
(With apologies to all of you who’d rather watch the Broadway version, linked above, than Glee‘s, but YouTube is really cracking down on music videos being played anywhere but their own platform.)
Rather, we must try to manage our attention, our energy, and our labor. Though we have the same amount of time, none of us has the exact same quality of our time, nor the same obligations.
The single, healthy, unencumbered twenty-something with a salaried office job has more (financial, as well as temporal) resources than the mom of two working multiple retail jobs, or the person going to school while taking care of an elderly parent, or the individual struggling to make it through these crazy times with a chronic illness, visible or invisible.
Often, when the media has articles on time-saving tasks, they fail to acknowledge the complexities of life. If you are beyond the juggling and are full-on struggling, we professional organizers and productivity consultants see you. And we know that when the you-know-what hits the fan, you’ve got limited energy and time to deal.
So, today’s post has ten-minute tasks (or projects that can be handled as a series of ten-minute tasks) that will make things easier for you and your family when things get “ouchie.”
Check and Update Your Beneficiaries
You don’t even have to do these all at once, though if your paperwork is already organized, it should only take you a couple minutes for each. Though the time investment is small, the ease of mind it will bring (both now, and in the future) is tremendous.
And yes, you can even consider these two separate tasks (the checking and the updating) so you can make two different checkmarks on your task list.
Pull out the file folders or head to your online accounts and check to see who you previously listed as your primary and secondary beneficiaries for any of the following you may have:
- life insurance policies
- annuities
- pension accounts
- Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)
- 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and other retirement accounts
- profit-sharing plans
- brokerage/investment accounts
Obviously, a beneficiary is someone who gets a benefit. When we’re looking at financial documents, beneficiaries are the people (or sometimes entities) that the account holder designates as the recipient of any assets in that account when the account holder eventually shuffles off this mortal coil. (I know, nobody likes to use the world “death” or think about it, but that’s why we have life insurance policies, wills, and similar accounts and documents — to make things easier when someone has passed away.)
“The Reading of the Will” — central to any good murder mystery
In most cases, setting a beneficiary (and usually both a primary and secondary beneficiary) is part of the required paperwork. Some states (usually “community property states”) require you to list your spouse (if you have one) as your primary beneficiary for retirement and other accounts.
You may be wondering, if you have a will, why do you need to name beneficiaries? That’s a darned good question.
The main reason is that when a person dies, a will goes through “probate,” a legal process where the court in your jurisdiction supervises all the assets in your estate getting distributed hither and yon. Depending on the situation, it can be murky and complicated, and take a long time, which is pretty miserable if your people need those funds.
However, whenever you have a beneficiary set in your insurance policies and various financial accounts, that money can go straight to your intended recipient as soon as the insurance or financial institution gets proof that you are no longer among us. That usually just amounts to a certified copy of the death certificate and some proper ID.
If you set your beneficiaries for any of these accounts several years ago, you may have picked someone no longer appropriate — parents who are no longer living (or not able to manage their own finances), former spouses or significant others, or even friends who are not part of your active life anymore.
I went through the “check the beneficiaries” process with one client who was shocked to realize that she’d never gone back to revise the beneficiary on a small 401(k) plan she’d never bothered to roll over from a job decades earlier. (Note to readers: don’t do that. Roll over your retirement accounts so you don’t have to hope your former employers have stayed solvent and managed your funds properly.)
Imagine my client’s shock when she realized that her [expletive deleted], [expletive deleted]ing [expletive] of a [expletive deleting] ex-[expletive deleted] husband was still her beneficiary! Be assured it did not take her ten full seconds, let alone minutes, to get cracking on changing that beneficiary!
Imagine my client's shock when she realized that her *expletive deleted*, *expletive deleted*ing *expletive* of a *expletive deleted*ing ex-*expletive deleted* husband was still her beneficiary! Click To TweetIf you never set your beneficiaries before or your want or need to change them, you’ll need a few pieces of information, like their Social Security numbers, birth dates, and contact information (like phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses).
EXTRA CREDIT: Here’s a time-saver so you don’t have to go through this entire process in the future:
- Create a spreadsheet (or even a handwritten note) with the first column listing all of your account names.
- Create a column and list all of the beneficiaries as they stand now.
- Create a column entitled “as of” and list today’s date.
- Any time you acquire a new policy, add a line to this list. Any time you revise a beneficiary, revise the spreadsheet.
This way, whenever you’re not sure whether you’ve updated your beneficiary, you’ll only have to look in one place.
EXTRA, EXTRA CREDIT: Checking your beneficiaries is easy and quick. Changing/updating them should be easy, but how quickly you can accomplish it depends on whether your insurance or financial institution will let you do this all online. But making this list is definitely easy and quick.
However, to take it a step further, fancy-up this spreadsheet with another ten-minute (or so) task.
Add columns for your account number, and the name, email address, and phone number of your insurance agents and financial brokers associated with each policy or account. Create a column to explain what kind of policy or account it is. And then make sure that someone you trust, like the person who has your Power of Attorney, has a copy or can access it when/if necessary.
Put Your Emergency Contacts On Ice
“Downtown Hospital Ambulance” by sponki25 is licensed under CC BY 2.0
In the early 2000s, first responders in the UK started suggesting that people list their “In Case of Emergency” contacts as “ICE” on their cell phones to make those contacts easy to locate. The idea quickly took hold in North America.
While first responders, themselves, generally don’t have the time (or authorization) to contact someone for you, nurses and hospital staff often do need to obtain important medical information when you are not able to provide it. That’s where your contacts come in.
As cell phones got fancier, the lock screens made accessing ICE contacts more difficult, but now, even if you are not able to respond, medical personnel may be able to use your thumb print access or facial recognition to get your emergency contact info.
But there’s something else you can quickly do to make sure your emergency contacts can, um, get contacted. Add your emergency contacts to your cell phone’s lock screen.
On an iPhone:
1) Go to the Medical ID screen. You can get there one of three ways:
- Long-press on the Health app icon. That will bring up a screen that looks like this:
- You can also manually open the Health App by tapping on it, then on your profile image, and then selecting Medical ID.
- Or go to Settings, then Health, then Medical ID.
2) Tap Edit.
3) Fill in all the fields that you want, but if there’s nothing significant, it’s better to type “none” than to leave it blank (so that you’re not leaving anything open to interpretation). There are fields for medical conditions, allergies, medications, blood type, weight, height, and emergency contacts. (Bingo!)
At the top, there’s an option to put in your photo. Do that; it ensures that an emergency responder can verify this is your phone.
4) Choose a name and phone number (or two names and numbers) for your Emergency Contact(s). Be sure you select names/numbers that already exist in your contacts list.
5) Scroll down to the section for Emergency Access.
6) Enable “Show When Locked” and “Share During Emergency Call.”
7) Tap “Done” at the top right corner to save your info.
Now, go look at your lock screen. You should see the word “Emergency” in the lower left corner of your iPhone. If your phone is locked and someone taps that, they can see your emergency information but nothing else.
If you don’t see the word “Emergency” there, hold down your power button (or power and volume-down buttons) as if you were going to turn off your phone and you’ll see the Medical ID access. (I guess it all depends on which version of iOS you’re using.)
For more information about the iOS Medical ID, Apple has a detailed page of instructions and explanations.
Assuming you have a photo somewhere on your phone to add in the photo field, this can usually be completed in well under 10 minutes. (The only sticking point is if someone has many medications or allergies they have to list.)
On an Android Phone
Although Android phones do not have one default health-related app, you can easily show your emergency contacts on your lock screen in one of two ways.
Method #1
- Open your Settings app.
- Tap “User & Accounts” and then select “Emergency Information.”
- Tap “Info” and then “Edit information” to enter any medical information you want to store.
- Tap “Add Contact” to add a person from your contacts list. Note, you might have to click on “Contacts” first to be presented with the list
Method #2
Android phones will let owners put any message directly on the lock screen.
- Open your Settings app.
- Tap “Security & Location.”
- Tap “Settings” next to “Screen lock.”
- Tap “Lock screen message.”
- Type your primary emergency contact (and, if applicable, any medical conditions). You could type, “In Emergency, call Lin-Manuel Miranda” and his number. What? Can you think of someone more comforting to have around in an emergency? OK, maybe Stanley Tucci. Or Paper Mommy.
- Tap “Save.”
After you’ve set this up, your ICE information can be found by swiping upward on the lock screen and tapping EMERGENCY and then “Emergency information.”
Do An Inventory of Your Essential Documents
An emergency is the worst time to realize you have no idea where your important documents are. Do you know which of these documents you have and where you can find them?
- Birth Certificate
- Social Security card
- Marriage License and Certificate
- Divorce Degree
- Military Separation Papers
- Death Certificate
- Passport
- Durable Power of Attorney for Finances
- Healthcare Proxy or Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare
- Living Will or Advanced Medical Directive
- Last Will and Testament
- Digital Will
- Driver’s License
- Voter Registration card
- Vaccination Record
- COVID Vaccinate Card
- Professional license(s)
- Other licenses
As with the beneficiaries section above, a great way to save time is to make a list (think of it as a treasure map) of where each of these documents are located. Use Excel or a Google spreadsheet and take note of what the document is and where it’s located (e.g., your family filing system, fireproof safe, safe deposit box, wallet, etc.).
EXTRA CREDIT: For good measure, for your passport, driver’s license, and any other licenses, take note of the expiration date.
And then for really good measure, put a reminder task in your phone to alert you one month before your any of these items expire to make sure you address renewals. (Give yourself a longer lead-time to renew your passport; also, as you’ve probably not been traveling out of the country in the last two years, you should check to make sure your passport hasn’t already expired.)
If you have a lot of documents, just do a few every day and you’ll be amazed at what a few ten-minute tasks can do to put your mind at ease.
EXTRA, EXTRA CREDIT: The Paper Doll archive has extensive information about what documents you should have and what to do if they’re missing. These posts are a great place to start.
How to Replace and Organize 7 Essential Government Documents
How to Create, Organize, and Safeguard 5 Essential Legal and Estate Documents
The Professor and Mary Ann: 8 Other Essential Documents You Need To Create
Protect and Organize Your COVID Vaccination Card
Paper Doll acknowledges that I write longer-than-typical blog posts. Feel free to consider reading each one to be a 10-minute task. But the knowledge you gain will contribute to your ability to use your time more efficiently. Because, the more you know, the better prepared you are for any eventuality.
Snap Some Photos to Take Key Information With You
Unlike the vital documents listed in the prior section, there are some pieces of information you are more likely to lack at the most inconvenient times.
Toy car accident image by Andrea Closier on Pixabay
For example, if you have an auto accident and the police or first responders won’t let you get back into your car for safety reasons, you wouldn’t be able to get your auto registration and car insurance paperwork out of your car. Yes, you’d have it at home, but that would slow everything down.
Or perhaps you need to fill a prescription at a different pharmacy from usual, perhaps when you’re on vacation, and they don’t already have your pharmaceutical company discount card on record.
Or maybe you’re unexpectedly with your spouse or child or senior parent in the emergency room, and the physicians want to know what medications, at what dosages, prescribed by what healthcare providers, the patient is taking. If that information is pinned to the fridge at home, but you came directly to the ER from somewhere else, that’s frustrating.
This is where the magic of modern cell phones (which we usually bemoan for the time they steal from us) comes in handy. Consider any of the following:
- auto registration form
- auto insurance card
- health insurance card
- homeowner’s insurance card
- pharmaceutical company discount cards
- handwritten instructions of how to get to a room or office you visit infrequently
- a list of the size/type of batteries and light bulbs you use for which items in your home so that you never again have to unscrew a light bulb just to know what voltage and whether you want a skinny-base or a fat-base bulb)
- etc., for whatever is important in your life.
You could snap all of these as photographs and store them in a photo album in your phone’s photo section. Name it “Remember” or “Vital” or whatever will catch your eye.
If you want to go to the effort of scanning the document and sending it to your phone, that’s fine, but iOS has created an easy option using the Notes app.
- Open a new or existing note.
- Tap the cute little camera icon.
- Tap “Scan Documents.”
- Focus your document, card, medicine label or whatever within your camera’s viewing area.
- Then you have two options:
- Let the auto-capture work its magic as the item comes into the viewfinder and auto-focuses, or
- Click the shutter button (or one of the volume buttons) to capture the scan
- Drag the corners of the scan to do any necessary adjustments.
- Tap “Keep Scan.”
- Scan more fiddly stuff to keep it handy or tape Save if you’re done.
From here, you can save the scan in your Notes or Files app in your phone itself, or upload it to a synced app, like Dropbox or Evernote:
As an all-Apple user, I don’t have an Android-specific scanning suggestion; if you do, please add your voice in the comments.
The next time a new insurance card or other piece of important information comes your way, take a snapshot or scan to ensure you’ll have whatever you might need when you are out and about.
As I often say, organizing can’t prevent all catastrophes, but it can make many of them less catastrophic. I hope these various ten(ish)-minute tasks will help ease many of the ickier moments in life for you.
Paper Doll Post:
Organize To Reverse a Bad Day
Summer Tears by Mark Seton (Creative Commons License)
In a perfect world, our time and task management wouldn’t depend upon our moods. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world.
In theory, our organizational systems should be designed so that we can accomplish our goals whether we’re feeling motivated or not. That’s the whole point of a system, to give us a framework when something external or internal prevents us from feeling our usual drive to achieve.
Last September, in Rhymes With Brain: Languishing, Flow, and Building a Better Routine, I wrote:
We also depend on activation energy. Because the hardest part of what we do is the getting started, we have to incentivize ourselves to get going. There are all sorts of ways we can trick ourselves (a little bit) with rewards, like pretty desk accessories or a coffee break, but the problem is that action precedes motivation. We’re not usually psyched to get going until we have already started!
Action precedes motivation. We're not usually psyched to get going until we have already started, whether it's a runner's high or Csikszentmihalyi's flow. Click To TweetWe may not feel like working out, but once we’re dressed in our best approximation of Venus and Serena, or the yogi of the moment, or whichever quarterback is getting all the endorsements, and have gotten ourselves warmed up, we’re well on our way.
When we lack our usual oomph, our knowledge of the benefits of staying organized may not be enough to keep us motivated to track our expenses, pay our bills on time, file our papers, and stick with our routines, but if we nudge ourselves with giving it just a little try (“just five minutes” or a Pomodoro of 25 minutes or whatever), we may find ourselves able to get into flow.
In other words, well begun is half done.
In that post on languishing, I talked about how to get past the (likely pandemic-induced) blahs and generate flow. We looked at several rhymes-with-brain solutions:
- Abstain from the distractions that steal your focus.
- Retrain your brain by shaking up the synapses and making different connections.
- Restrain yourself from frequenting the people who eating up your time and energy.
- Constrain your work areas and minimize the space they take up to keep from spending all your energy looking for your supplies and resources instead of using them to achieve your goals.
- Contain those items in the areas you’ve constrained (above).
- Maintain your successful routines.
- Attain (and explain) knowledge to keep your brain active.
- Gain momentum and jump-start your enthusiasm.
If you haven’t read that post, skedaddle over to it first, as conquering languishing might be just what you need.
BEYOND LANGUISHING
The problem with productivity is that sometimes, we’ll be going along just fine and hit a brick wall. If languishing is the “blah,” a really bad day is the “waaaaaaaaah.”
Judith Viorst captured it best in the title Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Whether you remember it from childhood, babysitting days, or from parenthood, you know what she means. There are days that can go wrong and completely wreck our moods and take our whole day off course.
Maybe it starts small: you accidentally pour the orange juice into your
Perhaps you have a fight with a loved one or the person with whom you get along the least well (that’s a nice way of saying it, right?) gets a promotion or media attention or some other kind of success.
Or maybe something truly terrible (but still in the realm of “bad day”) happens, like a fender bender or news of impending layoffs at work.
When a few small bad things happen in sequence, no matter how strong your intention, the collective experience tends to upend your schedule, foul your mood, and destroy your day. If you let nature take its course, you may feel better after a delicious grilled cheese sandwich or a tearful phone call to your bestie, or your bad morning may turn into a bad day that scrolls into a bad week.
So, let’s not let nature take its course. Let’s stop that bad day in its tracks.
ORGANIZE YOUR WAY OUT OF A BAD DAY
Organizing your space, time, and thoughts can be powerful. It can even prevent catastrophes. But other times, the best it can do is make catastrophes less catastrophic. At those moments, we must accept what has happened, or what is happening, and turn inward to control our response.
Insert a Break
Anyone who has ever used a word processing program knows the command to Insert Page Break makes sure that there’s ample white space between one set of content and another. You insert a page break between chapters in a book, or between sections in a report. It keeps unrelated material from flowing together.
In your time management, when you’re having a bad day, take a pause to keep your bad morning from flowing into a bad afternoon.
Let’s say something annoying happens at 9:45 a.m. Depending on how resilient we’re feeling, we may get a fat-laden snack from the vending machine or take a walk to get some fresh air, and then regroup. If that little break is enough to reverse course on your bad day, count it as a win!
Embrace Time Blocking
But if you’re feeling resentment from multiple recent annoying things bubbling up inside of you, you may be at risk of bringing the whole day down. Here’s where your break needs to be a little more focused. This is where we can steal from the concept of time blocking.
We’ve explored time blocking often, most recently in Playing With Blocks: Success Strategies for Time Blocking Productivity. At its most basic, time blocking focuses on creating chunks of time for particular activities.
The whole notion is that an endless to-do list never sets aside fixed time for the categories of activities we claim to value. If we are constantly putting out fires and dealing with interruptions, the most important tasks never get done. With time blocking in the way we normally approach it, there are some basic tasks:
Start with a brain dump of everything you need to accomplish.
Group all your tasks into categories. At the time, I said, Work categories may not be all that different from school categories. You had math (now it’s bookkeeping or bill-paying) or English (now correspondence, marketing projects, or reading for fun). All of those activities were regulated by a fixed schedule that ensured you had ample time to focus on each subject. A bell triggered transition time. Your schedule even accounted for lunch and phys. ed. to keep your brain and body healthy.
Schedule your blocks so that you guarantee yourself set time for dealing with each important category.
I also said to “bubble-wrap” your time blocks with buffer time, so instead of trying to having Zoom meetings and major projects back-to-back, you’ll have recovery time.
Sometimes, life circumstances require you to replace a planned day with different activities. But by grouping categories of tasks into blocks, it’s easier to slide the tasks around and move them to where they’ll fit.
And this is where time blocking comes into play on a bad day. When teaching clients how to time block, I usually suggest they make use of 90-minute blocks. Just focusing on the workday, and not taking into account your early mornings and what you’re trying to deal with from dinner to bedtime, it’s easy to see we have not one big blob of a day, but multiple blocks:
- Early Morning
- Late Morning
- Early Afternoon
- Mid-Afternoon
- Late Afternoon
Let’s say you have a run-in with a co-worker or get bad news from your boss in the early morning. Or you have a fight with your spouse or a frustration with a parent in the drop-off line at school. Or, someone is wrong on the internet!
©XKCD/Randall Munroe (Creative Commons License)
It is so freakin’ easy to let an ugly mood settle into your day like a bad cough in your chest. If inserting that page break into the story of your day did work, your next option is to tell yourself that the day isn’t lost.
Take a deep breath. If you’re actually time-blocking, look at the the blocks you have on your calendar and figure out what’s the next possible block you can slide to a different day so that you can use your Bad Day Rescue Toolkit (see below) to get out of your funk.
If your day is not so carefully blocked out, mentally flip through your obligations for the next several hours until a good dividing line appears. If it’s 11:30 a.m., declare bankruptcy on your late morning block, know that lunch is a built-in daily mental health repair kit, and try to move or cancel whatever is in that first block in the afternoon.
The point isn’t to run away and join the circus, but to give yourself ample time to treat the yucky experience as a bad chunk, rather than an entire bad day. Then apply chocolate, or a soothing phone call, or an unplanned yoga class, or whatever, to the bruise forming from your crash with whatever ruined your mood. Instead:
- Acknowledge that something unpleasant happened.
- Give yourself permission not to deal with all of your emotions regarding the experience right now.
- Take responsibility for clearing the decks for the next block (or two) so you can recuperate.
- Use your Bad Day Rescue Toolkit.
- Find your path to resilience.
Create a Bad Day Rescue Toolkit
More than a decade ago, Daniel Powter had a hit with the song Bad Day. (YouTube won’t let me insert it, but it’s worth it for you to go listen to it and watch the wonderful video.) My favorite part of the lyrics is when, after cataloguing the various travails, Powter sings, “You need a blue sky holiday.”
Every person’s Bad Day Rescue Toolkit will include different items, but use these ideas as a guidepost. The key is to organize as much of this now, when you’re having a fine or neutral day, so you’ll have it when you need it.
- Make a list of the phone numbers of your most upbeat and/or most supportive friends.
Note: these may not be the same people. Scroll through your phone and think about who you might call if you need to vent or need to be perked up. My BFF is my go-to when I need to vent, and I try to be that for her. I’m not as good at refraining from trying to fix the situation as she is. (If you just want to vent, tell the person that before you get started.)
But here’s a sneaky tip. Try to tell the whole story of whatever frustrated you only once, to just one person. Get it out — all the “grrrrr, arghh” — and then move on to the rest of the experience. If it’s the right time to start looking for support with solutions, do that. Otherwise, invite your callee to distract you. Let them tell you about an awful situation at work, something ridiculous their mother-in-law said, or what’s making them bananas these days. (Try to avoid politics. That’s giving us all bad days.)
- Keep a browser-bar folder on your computer or phone for websites that distract and amuse you — better yet, sync them for easy access. On Mac/iOS, back them up to iCloud. And here’s an article for How to Sync Browsers Between Your Phone and PC.
Similarly, start maintaining a folder (digital or paper) of jokes, funny stories, cartoons, or goofy memes. If you’re on Twitter, use the bookmark tool to save those long, ridiculous threads where people report silly family stories or embarrassing tales.
Airport cashier: “Have a safe flight.” Me: “You too!” I CAN NEVER COME HERE AGAIN.
— Jenny Lawson (@TheBloggess) November 1, 2015
This classic is one of my all-time favorite threads, and by the time I get days into the contributions, I usually end up looking like the laughing-crying emoji.
For professional humor, I particularly like comics that are gentle. My favorites are:
Liz Climo’s The Little World of Liz books and Twitter feed
Dinosaur Comics and Twitter feed
Nathan W Pyle’s Strange Planet comics, books, and Twitter feed
recently I started drawing a series called ✨Strange Planet✨
here is a thread of these comicshttps://t.co/WcqCOljAIJ pic.twitter.com/uuYnqeuCc8
— Nathan W. Pyle (@nathanwpyle) February 21, 2019
- Start saving videos that make you happy.
It’s shockingly easy. Make sure you’re logged into Google (because Google owns YouTube) and then whenever you come across a video that makes you laugh or lifts your spirits, click on the SAVE button to the lower right of the video.
This is how you create a playlist. When the little window pops up, click “Create New Playlist” and give your playlist a name, like Make Me Happy! You can also decide whether this playlist is public or private.
- Consider making YouTube playlists of other kinds of videos, like travelogues or workout routines — anything that focuses on what take you out of your head long enough to regroup.
Sometimes, you don’t even need to do the workouts (though it helps). Consider watching The Kilted Coaches. (Your mileage may vary.)
- Create a playlist of songs that reverse crankiness.
Having grown up in the era of mix-tapes, I found the late-90s/early-00’s experience of trying to make CD mixes frustrating.
Nowadays, most folks are going to make playlists directly in Spotify, so whether you want to do it on the desktop or via mobile, here are Spotify’s directions for creating playlists. (And, of course, if you prefer to watch videos along with listening to your music, you can search out your favorite songs on YouTube and follow my directions above.)
If you’re not that up on popular music, you can also search online for happiness-including playlists that other people have created. For example, The Ultimate Happy Playlist on Spotify runs almost two-and-a-half joy-inspiring hours and has more than 10,000 followers. From Katrina and the Waves’ Walking on Sunshine to Pharrell Williams’ Happy to many less obvious choices, it’s a good starter for dissipating a bad mood.
- Build up your success folders.
As we’ve discussed before, having tangible folders for papers and digital folders (generally for email) allow you to keep proof of your successes to read when you’re feeling down on yourself.
In my prior career, I had one particular manager who bore a striking resemblance to Dilbert’s evil, pointy-haired boss — I’m not sure what exactly went on during his long lunches, but depending on his mood, he’d either hunker down in his office or roam around to a pick a fight. He was once heard to scream at a hapless employee, “Everyone hates you because you use too much copy paper!”
That was the point when I first recognized how valuable and life-affirming it can be to keep written copies of positive comments.
You might have an email from a client saying that they couldn’t have accomplished their goals without you, or a handwritten thank you note that shows appreciation for something you’ve done for a friend. Or you might just get a note that says, “You’re the best!” or “You really made me laugh.”
The point is that we never know when an evil, pointy-haired boss, or a bad boyfriend, or a good person having a bad day is going to do or say something to puncture our self-confidence. You can’t organize your way out of being disappointed in a representative of the human race, but gathering up the equivalent of a positive affirmation in the form of someone else’s handwriting (or over their email signature block) can really help reverse a bad day.
Other options to develop for your Bad Day Rescue Toolkit might include:
- a happy list — Whether you keep a note on your phone or have a sprawling list at the back of your journal, keep a running list of things that please you. My own list is a heady mix of things my friend’s four-year-old has said (most recently, with a big sigh, “HOW am I ever going to find a wife?), experiences I love (like waking up, seeing I have hours before the alarm will go off, and going back to sleep), funny lines from beloved TV shows like The West Wing and Ted Lasso, and a sub-list of just completely unexpected experiences that always remind me that you never know what might happen next!
- a workout plan with moves that boost your endorphins, or a bookmarked schedule of live exercise classes (in-person or remote) for when you need some human interaction along with your running/biking/downward-dogging.
- a set of mantras to get you going again (whether it’s a serious one, like “I am not defined by one mistake” or one that makes you laugh, with expletives not deleted)
- a meditation app — Good Housekeeping has put together a list of the 15 Best Meditation Apps of 2022. Calm and Headspace get all the media buzz, there are lots of good alternatives, including quite a few that are free.
- essential oils — OK, to be fair, I really don’t know anything about essential oils. Mostly, I know that my favorite scent is a grilled cheese sandwich, but many people swear by essential oils, either in the bath or through a diffuser. And I hear lavender oil can release tension. (If you’ve tried this option, let us know in the comments.)
When It’s More Than a Bad Day
Obviously, all of these suggestions are for resources that will help you tackle a garden-variety bad mood or bad day. If you find you’re having more back-to-back bad days or weeks than simple organizing can handle, please give yourself the gift of qualified professional support.
Call your health insurance Member Services number or check their website for mental health providers in your network. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, please know that you can call NAMI (the National Alliance of Mental Illness) hotline at 800-950-NAMI or text “NAMI” to 741741, or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255)
A Parting (Musical) Note
I hope you’re having a good day right now and that this post has helped you prepare for the future, in case you need to turn a bad day around. Please share your own ideas for organizing your way out of a bad day in the comments section below.
Finally, even though YouTube won’t let me share the moving, official video for Bad Day, so many people have told me through the years that it lifts their spirits, I wanted you to have a quick option to listen. I’m not sure I know the neurological or psychological mechanism, but sometimes, a sad song helps turn a bad day around.
Paper Doll Post:
Cross-Training for Families: Organize for All Eventualities
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH CROSS-TRAINING?
The term cross-training appears to have originated in the fitness and athletic world. One’s usual sport strengthens certain muscle groups and develops a specific set of skills; training in different disciplines, allows you to address other muscle groups, gain and sharpen different skills, and create a more well-rounded overall performance.
Photo by Marta Wave from Pexels
Cross-training in business yields the same kinds of benefits. Let’s say you work for a widget-making company. (“Hi! I’m <insert you name here>. I work for a widget-making company!”) Your job might be to oversee the complicated machine that cuts out the widgets; your friend down the factory line has a complementary job, making sure that the widgets are quality-controlled to meet international widget-production specifications.
If your company is run smoothly, each employee must be crackerjack at his or her job. But what if there’s only one person who knows how to do a specific thing? What if that person wins the lottery and quits, or gets hired away by a competing widget maker? Sure, the company can hire and train a new widget quality-control specialist, but until that happens, a manager with prior experience might have to step in, reducing the time the manager can, well, manage.
But what if the staff were cross-trained so that in addition to knowing your own job up, down, and sideways, everyone had at least a little training at other people’s jobs? Wouldn’t that make things better?
When I worked in television, I was a program director at local network affiliates. My assistant and I each had our separate spheres of influence, but the truth was that on most days, I was handling managerial tasks (research, contract negotiation, meetings with syndicators, etc.) and my assistant was handling day-to-day operations (maintaining the film vault, overseeing satellite operations, quality-controlling programming tapes — because this was in ancient times, before programming all lived inside computers).
Ours was a two-person department; without cross-training on the intricacies of satellite operations and whatnot, my assistant would never have been able to call in sick, take a vacation, or move onward professionally without things grinding to a stand-still. Cross-training saves butts!
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels
Major advantages of cross-training in business include:
- Better efficiency, because the more people have a good handle on how to do any one thing, the better it will get done.
- Improved flexibility, because the organization as a whole can be nimble.
- Clarity for emergency response planning. Back-up plans can save companies and that can save lives.
- Better “coverage,” so that if there are greater needs in one area (like greater demand for boxing up widgets) employees from other departments can fill those roles.
- Better integration and institutional knowledge across the company. If you only know how your department works, and are fuzzy on the operations of the rest of the business, not only does it hold you back from spotting potential problems and making suggestions (for the company’s benefit), it keeps you from achieving personal growth by seeing what other possibilities exist for you.
- Better morale. The more you know how to do, and the better you are at it, the more self-confidence you’re going to have.
- More satisfied customers. If you are involved in client/customer-facing work, cross-training means you can respond wisely, deftly, and quickly to questions, yielding more confidence in the company and in you as an expert.
Cross-training in your family, especially with regard to essential paperwork, information, and rituals, has the same benefits. Think about what happens when one parent is the main caregiver for a child but has to leave for a business trip or to help an ailing grandparent. The other parent (or other adult in the household, if there is one) needs to step in and step up!
Cross-training in the family has the same benefits as with companies.
- Better efficiency, because the person who usually pays the electric bill, does the carpool drop-off, or renews the car insurance policies may not always be available without difficulty or overwhelm.
- Improved flexibility, because the family as a whole can be nimble.
- Clarity for emergency response planning. You back up your computer; shouldn’t you have backup for when you’re headed to give a career-defining speech and the school calls to say your child just threw up?
- Better “coverage,” so that when one adult in the family is overloaded, the other can pick up the slack without having to explain what to do, how to do it, what the pitfalls may be, and who may complain (about the color of the frosting or how the sandwich is cut).
- Better integration and “institutional” knowledge across the family. It’s not 1957; it’s unreasonable to expect that one member of the household is “in charge” of all things related to the kids or that one (other, or the same) person is “in charge” of all financial, legal, and organizational goings-on.*
*This is a really complex topic. Being a caregiver for children and running a household, even when one works outside the home for pay, involves not only the physical labor but the mental load and emotional labor of anticipating cognitive, emotional, and other needs of stakeholders (but instead of CEOs and shareholders, it’s tiny humans and life partners). I’m excited to note that my colleagues Regina Lark, PhD and Judith Kolberg have written Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work Is Never Done. It was just released, and deals more specifically with this concept.
- Better morale. It’s a reality. The more active a part of your family you are (or your partner is), knowing everything from which lullaby scares away the monsters to which color notebook into which the teacher requires permission slips be inserted, the happier everyone will be.
- More satisfied “customers.” OK, your kids and your spouse/partner, and maybe even other members of your household (like aging parents) want to feel confident that you’re a full-fledged member of the family, that you know what you’re doing and that you want to be there doing it.
Cross-training rocks!
SO WHY DO PEOPLE AVOID CROSS-TRAINING?
If cross-training is so great, why do people groan and avoid it? (I’m so glad you asked!) The sticking points are the same at work as they are at home, though they are expressed differently.
Inertia
At work: businesses tend to focus on urgent priorities, so even if there are directives from on-high requiring quarterly cross-training sessions, management often finds a way to avoid taking time away from meeting deadlines to carve out slots in the schedule for cross-training.
At home: same deal. Your life is busy. Maybe you read a blog post like this, or your professional organizer calls your attention to a problem waiting to happen.
Baby & Teddy Bear Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Or you hear a horror story about spouse who went on a business trip and the at-home parent couldn’t find the right sleeping stuffie, and so the child cried for two days straight. Or you hear about a widowed friend of your parents who didn’t pay the insurance bill because they didn’t know it came to the deceased spouse’s email address, not via mail. These are cautionary tales.
Focusing on the benefits rather than the inconvenience will help everyone acclimate.
Learning curve on new material
At home and at work, nobody gets everything right on the first try. It’s human nature to avoid attempting something if you fear you won’t do it well. In the workplace, Impostor Syndrome may kick in, and an employee may fear attempting something outside the usual skill set, fearing the inability to get it right immediately might lead to firing. And at home, someone might feel nervous about being slow to succeed at a task one’s partner already does well.
When you invite your partner to join in household cross-training, acknowledge that you have different skill-sets and you may not be equally adept at everything. The point at home isn’t to be perfect, it’s to be perfectly satisfactory as a back-up.
Job security
At work: If you’re the only one who knows how to do something, you may feel like you have job security. (Of course, the flip-side of this is that management will tend not to promote you if you’ve convinced them nobody else can master your area.)
At home: While most people aren’t afraid that a spouse will divorce them if they don’t pick up right away on how to use the digital password manager, we all feel a little anxious about being seen without our halos.
Fear of higher expectations, higher workload, and being taken advantage of
At work: It’s a reasonable fear that if you know how to do more, you might be expected to do more. To some extent, this can be a positive thing, allowing you to do your own rendition of “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!” This is your chance to step up!
But if your workplace tends to be firmly on one side of the continuum, anywhere from moderately dysfunctional to toxic, you’ll want to watch for signs that you’re being taken advantage of, and be prepared to negotiate for better pay and benefits (or depart for greener pastures with your newfound skills).
At home: Unlike in businesses, where capitalism is the basis of everything and mutual loyalty can be a dubious concept, families are based (or should be based) on love, mutual respect, and loyalty. The point of family cross-training is to strengthen the family, for the benefit of everyone!
Focus on how improving skill training and sharing knowledge will support the healthy growth of the partnership and create a financially and emotionally sound foundation for the kids, the parents, and everyone in the family.
AREAS FOR FAMILY CROSS-TRAINING
Your family is unique, so I won’t presume to know everything you should consider when cross-training. However, this list should get you started.
Organize financial paperwork together
Smead All-in-One Financial Planning Organizer
Get clarity on the status quo. Do both partners know the following:
- What household, credit card, and other bills does the family receive?
- What is the frequency of the billing? (Sure, most utility bills come monthly, but your water and sewer bills may be quarterly. Some insurance premiums are paid monthly, others quarterly; car insurance is often paid every six months.)
- When do the bills usually arrive? (The partner regularly paying the bills may have a gut sense of these dates and know there’s something wrong if the Capital One bill doesn’t arrive by the 10th; with the postal service continuing a massive slowdown, the other partner might be in for a shock if the bill arrived days or weeks late.)
- How do the bills arrive? Via U.S. mail on paper? Via email notifications prompting logging in? Are the bills auto-paid?
- How are the bills usually paid? If you were in the hospital and your partner sat down to pay the bills, not knowing that a particular bill is auto-paid could lead to an expensive double-payment.
- What’s the typical amount of each bill? If you don’t have a chat about these things periodically, you or your spouse might not notice an error in billing or a significant jump in costs.
This probably won’t be a one-time cross-training event. Discuss these issues, then consider spending one month with the partner who usually doesn’t handle the bills taking care of things and “reporting” back; alternatively, you can go through the process side-by-side. The key isn’t to micromanage, but to support one another for common financial goals.
Once your kids are tweens/teens, you might want to include them in some aspects of this cross-training so that they understand the complexities of household finance.
For more guidance on organizing financial paperwork, you might want to start with a classic Paper Doll post, Financial Filing—Scrapbooking snapshots of your money’s life.
Know your household computer set-up
Depending on your ages/generations, you and your partner might be a digital immigrant (a person born or brought up before the widespread use of digital technology) or a digital native. If one of you has discomfort with technology, you’ll need patience to approach these topics. If both of you are digital immigrants, consider hiring someone to help walk you through making sure you’re fully trained on how to achieve your computer-related goals.
Computer security image by TheDigitalWay from Pixabay
- How and where do you keep the essential passwords? It does no good for your partner to be willing to pay the bills if, in an emergency, they can’t log into the credit card or auto loan account.
- Are you happy with your password management system? (Do you HAVE a password management system?) Know where to find all the passwords that allow your household to run smoothly.
- Do you know (and know how to use) your computer backup system? From family photos to your browser’s bookmarks/favorites to all of your documents, everything needs a backup. I recommend a belt-and-suspenders approach, with local back-up to an external hard drive and cloud back-up via one of the popular backup companies. (I use Backblaze.) For more on backup, you might want to read a guest post I wrote for Alexa Bigwarfe’s WritePublishSell.com called 9 Ways to Keep Your Writing Safe.
- What about all your household tech? Do you know your DSL/Cable modem configuration URL (and the user name and password)? What about security settings for your internet router? If you (or your partner, or the internet tech) set up your Wi-Fi password eons ago, would you be able to find it to set up a new device?
Do you know the state of your estate?
From wills to beneficiary lists, from a Power of Attorney for financial decisions to your healthcare proxy, from your advanced care directives to how much (and what kind) of life insurance you have, chances are good that one person in your family took point and the other is only vaguely aware of what’s going on. Or, maybe you haven’t gotten around to squaring any of this away yet?
Either way, start with making sure you’ve both read up on the topics. You can begin with:
How to Replace and Organize 7 Essential Government Documents
How to Create, Organize, and Safeguard 5 Essential Legal and Estate Documents
The Professor and Mary Ann: 8 Other Essential Documents You Need To Create
Nobody ever likes talking about death. But talking about your estate documents, and maybe even working together to create them in the first place, is the first step to knowing that your family is safe and covered in case of the worst eventualities.
Other ways you can cross-train in the family
There’s obviously so much more than financial and legal paperwork and information to consider when cross-training. Your entire family might want to sit-down to brainstorm ideas. Some possibilities:
- Medical issues — Does everyone (or at least every adult) have a working knowledge of what to do in a medical emergency? My friend has Type 1 diabetes, and her 10-year-old has known, from an early age, how to help his mom by fetching a juice box to raise her blood glucose. Kids should know how to make a phone call to 9-1-1 and how to identify themselves, their address, and some basic information to relay about their parents.
- Medical care — Do you and your partner both know the pediatrician’s name and phone number? Where to find the First Aid kit? What medication you and your kids regularly take, so they can convey this in case of an emergency?
- Parenting essentials — This could be a blog post (or a book) all unto itself. From favorite sippy cup to which kids (and the kids’ best friends) have specific dietary requirements and preferences, from the name of the kids’ teachers to how to contact their friends’ parents (in case one of the tiny humans independently decides to get off the bus and go to a friend’s house without informing you), there’s a lot of essential information and skills that go into parenting. The grownups in the house need to share that wealth of information with one another!
- Laundry and household care — Are there sneaky tricks to getting household appliances to work properly? If something in the basement makes a weird, loud teapot-whistle sound, would you know that it was the sump pump having run out of distilled water? Does it do any good if your partner knows that and you don’t? (So much NOPE!)
- Auto care — Does one partner always handle the interactions with the mechanic? Maybe you need to share the knowledge so that you can speak authoritatively when you’re pressed to make a pricey decision.
Photo by MART PRODUCTION from Pexels
HOW TO PROPOSE FAMILY CROSS-TRAINING
You are the expert on how your family and household works. This post is just designed to give you an idea of how you can not merely share the load (and the information) but do it in a way that ensures your family’s immediate and long-term security. Whether the stakeholder is your toddler (who is sobbing that “that’s the wrong bedtime book”) or the finicky garden hose, the mortgage company or your partner’s grandmother, having a complete sense of what gets done — when, where, and most importantly, how — is essential.
I encourage you to share the concepts of this post with your partner. Talk about the benefits: efficiency, flexibility, clarity for emergency response, better coverage when one family member is overloaded, more integrated family “institutional” knowledge, greater morale, and a happier constituency of family members.
But don’t just talk about the benefits. Speak honestly about potential fears and reasons for avoidance (including inertia, worries about learning curves, the sense of “job security” and higher expectations). Ignoring them won’t make them go away, but talking may be just what you need to conquer those challenges and support your family team.
WHAT IF YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN?
I get it; not everyone has a partner. There are a lot of single parents, widows or widowers whose children are “grown and flown,” and just random singletons (like Paper Doll). That doesn’t mean that you’re completely on your own. Think about who you’d call in an emergency. To whom would you reach out if you needed someone to watch your tiny human? Who would you trust to log into your accounts and pay your bills for you?
These may not all be the same person. You may need to do cross-training with a number of someones: your ex, a sibling in another city, a best friend, a professional organizer trained in financial organizing (whom you can find through NAPO and AADMM), an accountant, an attorney, a hoc nanny, and others. The key is to start thinking now:
Who can be you when you can’t be you?
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