I’m not a naturally organized person. It’s simply not something I like, or have an affinity for. Over the years, I developed strategies, found tricks, and set-up tools to compensate for this. 2 books helped me set up the groundwork for this:

  1. Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
  2. Deep Work - Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

I adapted these books for how my brain works and made these rules:

  1. The Under 10 Minutes Rule: If a task takes less than 10 minutes, do it right away.
  2. The TMS/Calendar Rule: If a task or meeting is not in my Task Management System (TMS) or calendar, it doesn’t exist
  3. The 30 Minutes Rule: Work at least 30 minutes on a task before switching to anything else
  4. The Tracking Rule: Time everything

These four rules have had profound effects on my productivity and stress levels!

1. The Under 10 Minutes Rule

If a task takes less than 10 minutes, do it right away.

Basically, it takes more time and energy to note a short task to do later, than to do it right away. But you can’t use it to “break out” of a 30 minute focused work session!

For example, while reading emails, I complete small tasks and respond accordingly. During meetings or phone calls, I use an inexpensive notepad to jot down highly condensed notes. Afterward, I either complete small tasks immediately or file them This rule, coupled with the TMS/Calendar rule (below), simplifies decision-making as you get hammered with new tasks over your day.

2. The TMS/Calendar Rule

If a task or meeting is not in my Task Management System (TMS) or calendar, it doesn’t exist

Simply trusting your brain to remember something at a later time is both error-prone and stressful. Trying to remember all your tasks (personal or professional) is quite simply bonkers.

There’s a million TMS’s out there. I really like Clickup, which is the only one that “sticked” with me, but you can use whichever one you like. The two important things you need are:

  1. A reminder mechanism: a way for your TMS to remind you of something on a specific day
  2. A status mechanism: a way to tag a task according to how it’s progressing.

For the reminder mechanism, I use due dates. For statuses, I have a simple progression: Inbox ➝ To Do ➝ In Progress OR Waiting/Delegated ➝ Complete OR No Longer Needed

3. The 30 Minute Rule

Work at least 30 minutes on a task before switching to anything else

You’ll find a million variations of this rule all over the Internet, the most famous one being the Pomodoro Technique. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, and refers to tomato-shaped kitchen timers. Legend says early pomodorists would set a 25-minute timer, be 100% focused for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break, then start over again.

While I think it’s a great way to start gaining focus in work, I personally don’t like this approach, as it forces an interruption when you might have gotten into a state of flow. I prefer to minimize interruptions by silencing all notifications, flipping my phone upside down, and closing down all non-necessary tabs.

4. The Tracking Rule

Time everything

The first time I had to track my time, at my first agency job, I despised it. It didn’t help that we used a horrendous time entry system that crashed half the time, but that’s another story.

I started tracking my time again when I started working on my graduate thesis, using Toggl. I was curious to know just how much time a huge project like a grad thesis took. Soon after, I realized something: I was much more focused. Tracking myself doing a specific thing, I felt like I was “cheating” if I did anything else. It seems silly, but it worked!

Since then, I’ve tracked every (working) hour of every day, whether I need to for billing purposes, or not. I’ve found it reduces task switching and increases self-accountability, since I want to keep that timer running, and want to see in my weekly report if I’ve been slacking off. And it’s also just easier to bill clients, as I can give them a detailed breakdown of time spent on tasks.

My personal next steps

On my end, my next steps in terms of organization are to get a good Knowledge Management System in place. I started dabbling with Obsidian and the Zettelkasten Method, but I’m far from having made it a habit yet. Maybe I need to put that in my TMS?