Well, I finally missed a morning deadline here. The good news is that it was because I was dang busy this week. By three o’clock things had started to settle down a bit and I started trying to remember everything I had done today. I knew it had been quite a bit, but when I started writing it all down, I was surprised at just how much there was and how easy it would have been to lose track of it all to the general sense of busyness.
Keeping a work journal can help. Sometimes I manage to keep a more formal work journal, separating out each project with milestones and issues. But even if you just keep a running log of things accomplished, issues raised, open questions, and future plans, it can be useful. It doesn’t have to be fancy, although I vastly prefer to have a permanently bound notebook so that you aren’t going to rearrange or lose pages. Just a cheap composition book will do the trick. I also use my work journal to jot down test data or to work through possible ideas. Many is the item I’ve been able to answer a questions just by flipping back through the pages of the past week or two. This is also a place where bullet journalling could be very helpful.
And if you want more ideas for how to stay organized and you like podcasts, Kevin Sonney’s Productivity Alchemy podcast can be quite good.
Sam Herdman 