• The 4 Ideas That Will Revolutionize Your Productivity
• The 3 Stage Strategy For Dealing With Toxic People
• How To Make Definitive Changes To Your Habits
• How To Stay Productive When Bombarded By Interruptions
• A Guide To Prioritizing By Needs: Tasks You Want To Do
• A Guide To Prioritizing By Needs: Tasks You Should Do
• A Guide To Prioritizing By Needs: Tasks You Need To Do

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

Avoid it
One of the options is just to avoid the obstacle. Don’t want to go to loud, heaving party? Then don’t go. One of the simplest approaches to avoiding a problem is to delegate it to somebody else. This doesn’t just apply to work situations either. I’m not very comfortable with getting a waiter’s attention in restaurants so I will often let my wife do it (is it me or this a common trait with married couples?). One could argue that avoiding problems regularly will lead to a pretty bad habit in the long run. However, there are many obstacles in life we simply can’t avoid, and by rationally avoiding those we can, it saves us wasting our time and energy. Apply the 80/20 rule. Is it an obstacle worth tackling? Avoiding somebody you don’t like rather than going through an emotionally draining course of trying to resolve the enmity would arguably be the better approach in certain circumstances.

Resolve it
Perhaps the most standard option. It involves actively working on the obstacle (specifically, what is causing it to be an obstacle for you), with the aim of making it less of a problem or removing it as an obstacle altogether. The specifics of resolving such scenarios is far-reaching and could cover several blog posts of their own. However, the fundamental basics are to think proactively and rationally, and lay down good foundations for whatever you do. If you are a smoker struggling to quit and you keep frequenting smoky bars, it doesn’t take much rational thinking to deduce a positive step you can take to make things easier. It is very much like developing habits (indeed, many obstacles are often created by bad habits).

Live with it
Sometimes we have to be realistic, and accept that we are just going to have to live with certain obstacles. Busy traffic during the morning rush to work is a common example. Despite our best efforts at resolving such problems they won’t go away or get easier. You may have tried to heal a rift between you and your boss but she stubbornly refuses to reciprocate. At least you were proactive in facing the problem. It might seem defeatist but this is far from true. The key to this stage is acceptance. You’ve identified the problem, faced up to it, learned from it, but the obstacle remains. At least you can gain peace of mind and not be that person who continually moans about their problems without doing anything about it.

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

Many people have more good intentions and motivation than they realize. However because we spend most our time focusing on our efforts rather than the obstacles we come across as we progress, it’s basically the same as running into a brick wall every time. This is why I have decided to do this guide. Hopefully it will raise your consciousness regarding these obstacles so that when things don’t work out or the desired results aren’t achieved you ask yourself why that is. In this first part of the guide I will describe the process of identifying the obstacle and determining why exactly it affects you. In the second part of the guide, which will appear on Wednesday, I will discuss the three ways of dealing with obstacles and cover whether you can avoid, resolve or live with them.

Identify the obstacle
Surely this is obvious? Not really. As I have touched on, it’s amazing how many people fail to pick up on the obstacles in their life. People complain why they can’t find a date yet they never think to look at why this may be. They complain about the traffic when getting to work in the morning but it never occurs to them to search for an alternative route, try public transport or even ask to work different hours. If something is a problem to you it should be a natural habit to think and ask yourself why that is. Even if you don’t take it any further and try to resolve the problem, understanding it is half the battle. Start developing this habit today.

Why is it an obstacle?
An obstacle to one person is an advantage to another. Unlike an outgoing person, a quiet guy would consider a large group meeting a difficult situation. Why is this? As David Allen says, you can’t work on a project, it’s an all encompassing blob of different stuff. That’s why you need to come up with next actions, tasks you can physically act on. The same goes for obstacles (unless you are superman and can physically lift up the traffic works that make me late for work every morning). You need to ask yourself what is causing the situation to be an obstacle to you. The quiet guy finds the big gathering difficult because he is reserved and even shy. He can’t change the nature of the gathering (unless by some lucky chance hardly anybody turns up). However, he can take steps and measures to make the situation easier and more comfortable for himself.

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

Summy: “One more step to create a habit is preparation. With preparation making your habit stick is easier e.g. set your alarm clock if you want to get up early. The more preparation the better. Move the alarm clock across the room so you can’t easily hit snooze. Prepare your clothes so you don’t need to think about it as you sleep walk through your morning. Go to bed early to make it easier to get up. Know your morning routine in advance so you don’t have to think about it when you’re tired.”

I recently detailed a three stage strategy for dealing with toxic people. It’s a big issue that a lot of people don’t tend to focus on. There seems to be some sort of guilt about cutting people out of our lives even when they make us feel so bad. It need not be this way. Laura added a good extra point to the three I made:

Laura: “Giving a toxic person reasons only gives them a way to validate them in your favor and continue the fight for the relationship (or just continue a fight), or even use your words against you in trying to manipulate friends to be on their side. It’s better not to give the reasons, not to talk behind their back, but simply to say, “It wasn’t working out.” That way, it’s a clean break, and you don’t waste any more time or energy on the situation.”

Tage: “I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people try again and again to please people that couldn’t care less. I just wonder how happy they could make someone who actually cared about them.”

Shanel Yang also did a guest post recently asking whether you are productivity-inclined or simplicity-inclined. It provoked quite a response with many arguing that they weren’t necessarily seperate entities. What is your take?

Shanel Yang: “Productivity-inclined is a preference for hyper-productivity, squeezing in as much as you possibly can within a 24 hour period with an extremely full schedule and tight routine. On the other hand, simplicity-inclined is a preference for achieving goals and happiness by paring your life down to the essentials and actually have less items on your to do list but with more focus.”

Pascal Venier: “With all due respect, I fear I fundamentally disagree with you! I would be tempted to argue productivity and simplicity should perhaps not be seen as alternatives but deserve to be combined into what can be termed effectiveness.”

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

When does a task graduate from something you should do to something you need to do? A lot of it is down to commonsense. Most people will naturally pick up a feel of how long they can put something off before it seems fitting to start it. If you know the task is going to be a chore you start it earlier. If it’s simple with minimal risk of failure you can leave it later. Note that this doesn’t mean leaving stuff to the last minute. It involves giving yourself enough time to do something comfortably, yet knowing that if you weren’t to then start it you would fail to hit a deadline, suffer consequences of simply not get the task done.

Remember that prioritising by needs is all about managing your workflow. Because items you need to do are those you can no longer put off, it’s critical that you don’t become overwhelmed by them. If you are being bombarded by these sorts of tasks you need to catch them when they are merely stuff you should do. Be sure to refer to my previous post in the series for details on this. Ideally you want to have a trickle of “needs” intersperced with “shoulds” to stop that trickle becoming a flood.

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

• Write about what interests you
  It’s the simplest rule. If there isn’t the enthusiasm there, you simply won’t have the motivation to keep doing it. Last year I tried running two other blogs without much success because ultimately I just couldn’t be bothered writing for them. A good place to start is by doing a blog about one of your favorite hobbies or even your niche at work. One of the best things about regularly blogging is that you will learn new ideas and develop your own thoughts. Perhaps, businesses should encourage their staff to blog about their work and help improve their knowledge?
• Have a schedule that suits you
  For a newbie blogger it’s quite easy to fall into the trap of thinking that more posts automatically equals more visitors and then force themselves into inconvenient, difficult posting schedules. As I discovered for myself, it’s not the quantity but the quality. I used to stretch myself, my writing and my ideas over five posts a week. Now I only do three but it gives me the time to really expand and develop posts. The result hasn’t been a drop in visitors; quite the opposite.
• Network, network, network
  You can’t blog effectively in a bubble. Get in touch with other bloggers in your niche, leave comments, share links, use social network sites. If nobody is reading what you write, what’s the point? When somebody leaves a comment saying how they enjoyed reading your blog, or somebody submits your post to Digg and it sends thousands of visitors your way, that’s a great boost.

The best posts
I’ve shied away from doing too many links back to old posts because I already do a recap at the end of each month. However I think it’s appropriate with the second birthday to do something. To make it a little different I’m going to list my own, favorite top five posts from the last year (not an easy task). Do you agree with my choice? Why not leave your own choices in the comments!

• Habit Building: Laying The Foundations
• 9 Reasons Why Getting Things Done Sucks!
• Having One Of Those Days? Here’s How To Deal With It
• 4 Life Lessons From Gregory House M.D.
• 7 Reasons To Ditch Your PDA And Switch To Pen And Paper

The future?
My first ebook, Clutter 101, has gone down really well and I have a couple of ideas for my next ebook. I am also going to update my collection of templates as they have been neglected recently. Every so often I like to collect thoughts from all you readers so that I know I’m going in the right direction with Organize IT. Do you like the new design? Are you enjoying the quality of the writing? What would you like to see more or less of? Any other suggestions? Leave a comment below!

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

Richard Koch: “Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.”

Wilt Chamberlain: “They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you that practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.”

Davd Allen: “A complete and accurately defined list of projects, kept current and reviewed on at least a weekly basis, is a master key to stress-free productivity.”

Dr. David M. Burns: “Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.”

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

The “should” stage is really what makes this prioritization system work. If you can’t think about your workflow in commonsense terms, and the idea of juggling all your work seems alien to you, this system may not be for you. If you are a fan of Stephen Covey’s four quadrants you may see similarities between the “should” stage and the important/not urgent quadrant. In fact, that pretty much sums up this stage. You should do something because it is important (paying a bill promptly, doing coursework, responding to a phonecall) but because it’s not urgent or the deadline isn’t close (yet) it’s not something you need to do right now.

So why have this category at all? Why focus on it so much? To successfully prioritize by needs you have to funnel your workload (see the image above). Ideally, rather than being flooded by a mass of old-school high priority projects (arrow on the left), tasks should be dripfed to you based on when you really need to do them (arrow on the right). Obviously, however, this isn’t always possible and this is where tasks you should do take the focus. If you are expecting a torrent of items you need to do, you can make sure they only drip through, rather than drown you, by working on them while they are still in the “should” stage.

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

I recently returned to work after four months of parental leave. Four months does not seem like a long time, but it was long enough that I forgot about some of the aspects of working on a larger team in the same physical location. Specifically, I had forgotten just how many interruptions there are at the office. In comparison, even three kids at home were no match for the number of interlopers appearing at my office door. How does a person remain productive in the face of these distractions? What I’m going to say here is common sense, but I needed to remind myself of these ideas and thought other folks could use them as well.

Reduction
Simply put, the best way to deal with interruptions is get rid of them completely. But, unless you are willing to live the rest of your life as a monk in the Himalayas, this is a nearly impossible task. However, reducing the sheer number of interruptions is a good thing. How do you do this? First you have to look at the source of each interruption - there are those from others people (coworkers, friends, children) and then there are those where we are our own worst enemy.

Self-induced distraction
You’ve been working for ninety minutes since lunch and have made some progress on a project. Why not reward yourself with one more game of Scrabble on the iPhone? Well, unless one of your goals for the day is to play X number of games of Scrabble, you’re choosing to not move forward on any of the projects you have made a priority. Does that scenario sound familiar? We are often our own worst enemies in being productive. This has been talked about in so many places around the internet the last couple of years, but a lot of us are still struggling, so here is a list of ways to prevent ourselves from being our own worst enemy:

• Shut off email notifications - check email at regular intervals.
• Shut off IM applications - for emergencies, keep your cell phone close.
• Shut off Twitter (sacrilege, I know) - seriously though, we all love Twitter, but it IS a distraction. Shut it off when working on important tasks and, like your email, catch up on the latest happenings of the Twitterati at regular intervals through the day (this goes for sites like Facebook and Digg too).
• Limit your RSS access - nothing can kill your time like an impromptu browsing session of your favorite blogs. Check your RSS after hours.
• Reduce those ‘rewards’ - we all needs breaks, so the occasional game of Scrabble is acceptable, but be disciplined. If you start rewarding yourself after every successful 15 minutes of straight work, productivity may not be achievable. Limit the rewards to completing several hours of straight work.

Interruptions from others
There are a few things you can do to dissuade others from distracting you:

• Close your door - if you work from home, this is mandatory for good chunks of the day. If you work in an office environment, closing the door will also stop a good percentage of the folks looking for you. Every preventative measure counts.
• Work from a remote location - if your superiors permit this, work occasionally from home or from the local cafe. If people have work related issues that require your attention, email and your cell are there for use. But from being physically absent, you remove the idle chit-chat and water cooler talk that can take up so much of the day.
• Don’t pick up that phone - voicemail is an amazing piece of modern technology and the problem with phone calls is you don’t know how important each one is until after you answer. Instead, let the caller leave a message and you can decide what the priority is. And just like closing the door, a lot of people won’t bother leaving a message, meaning their reason for calling wasn’t actually that important.

By simply reducing the interruptions coming your way, you are setting yourself up for increased productivity. Organization is a key component to completing work, and that goes for your environment as well as your work and your tools. Consider the ideas above as measures you can take to keep your environment organized.

Getting back in the zone
Reduction by prevention is important, but we have to be realistic here. Interruptions will occur, and when they do, you need a plan to get back on track. Here are a few tips for keeping the ‘zone’ within reach:

• Break your projects into small tasks - this is repeated often nowadays. Goals should be attainable and projects should be made up of small, concrete tasks. And by having well defined tasks, you have the ability to more easily return to what you were doing when an interruption occurs.
• Keep a log - do you ever have those moments where you’ve just had an interruption or two, and after the offenders have left, you stare blankly at the wall saying, “Now where was I?” It happens. And if you are not able to immediately return to productivity nirvana, documentation is your best friend. Having a log of what you did during the day can be indispensable.
• Be organized - it isn’t any simpler than that. Getting into or back into the zone will always be hard if your work and tools are not organized. A clean inbox, email inbox and project/task list make getting to work easier.

Just give in
Occasionally, the best thing to do will be to give up on your planned tasks and go with the flow. Priorities shift constantly, sometimes within a very short time frame. There will be those days when everything you had planned will have to take a backseat to the emergency of the day. When that happens, show off your ability to ride the wave of unforeseen requests with calm certainty. It’s not going to do you or anybody else any good if you can’t let go of your plan for the day.

Interruptions are a part of life. Do your best to reduce them as much as you can, and have a strategy for dealing with the rest. It might just help you to check a few more of those tasks, and help you keep sane and joyful while doing it.

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life

• You may have noticed that I’ve sneaked in a new design for the site to freshen things up, seeing as the old one was a year old and looked really cluttered. It’s very much a work in progress and I will be tweaking, adding and removing bits over the next several weeks. I like it, I hope you do too. Let me know your thoughts and feedback on it.
• There is a new productivity blog out there with some big names behind it, called Work.Life.Creativity. What makes this one special and different from the crowd is the active forum community, which I will regularly be posting on. There are some great ideas, great discussion and great people on there so I definitely recommend you check it out.
• If you haven’t checked out my new, free ebook covering how to de-clutter your life, please do! I’m going to be turning my attention back towards the topic of clutter here at Organize IT soon, but in the meantime I have came across a Reader’s Digest article that covers 75 storage tips for each and every room in your home. Because how you store your possessions is one of the keys to effectively de-cluttering, it will certainly give you some ideas.
• How do I describe this site? The blog covers how to improve and accelerate your learning potential through a combination of mindmaps and life coaching principles. The mindmaps on it are incredible and well worth a browse. There is some deep stuff to delve into if you have the time.
• Tea is nowadays becoming a standard part of any healthy lifestyle thanks to more exotic variations like green, black and oolong teas. Personally, I’m a big fan of green tea, if only for the simple reason I think it tastes nicer. Men’s Fitness has a short but sweet look at these three types of tea and covers what the exact benefits are.

Check out my free new ebook, Clutter 101: The Definitive Guide To De-cluttering Your Life