Good morning all!
How is your week going so far? Busy? Are you following your agenda? Feeling organized?
Believe me, staying organized doesn’t come easy to everyone (speaking from experience!) however it’s a skill that can be mastered with the right tools. I believe that productivity is all about efficiency – getting done more, faster, with less. In my case a simple planner is the best method to achieve that.
Only one planner, you wonder?
Yes, that’s right! I’ve tried countless scheduling programs, reminders, phone apps, all of that at once yet the one thing that never failed me (also during wifi problems) is a simple paper planner with all my to-do-lists written down in one place.
The Northfolk Paper and my recent styling & photography collaboration with the two lovely creators – Sam and Rachel, has inspired me to think about my daily task planning and getting better at work organization. Their new planner comes in very handy; it’s user-friendly (even for a very chaotic user like me) minimal and…stylish. It does what it has been designed for – makes the work flow easy and enjoyable. A great tool for like minded professionals, creatives and entrepreneurs.
But how? How exactly can we stay organized? Here are my recent 5 tips which tend to work for me.
1/ Keep all the the lists, events, plans organized in one, dedicated place.
It can be a planner, a notebook or an erasable board next to your desk. It’s important that you have one reference point for all your plans and tasks. Good organisation is time saving and gives you more clarity.
2/ Turn never-ending, highlighted emails into a to-do list in your planner.
Many people (guilty!) use their email as a reminder which isn’t exactly productive. It requires opening your mailbox multiple times a day which can lead to distraction as the new emails come. The biggest time suck are the unexpected (often unimportant) activities. We all know that urge to read the email that just came but it all leads to focusing less on what is really important. Let’s try to keep all the tasks in our planners and limit checking emails to set times during the day.
3/ Revise your small tasks and big jobs daily.
At the end of each day write down your tasks for the day after so you step into the new day knowing what is waiting for you. All you need to to do is open your planner and follow your list.
4/ Don’t procrastinate.
Sometimes we schedule many little things for the day after (for example respond to X email) because we simply don’t want to do it immediately. I noticed it does help to scratch them off the list right off rather than plan them for the day after. If you are freelancer like me, in charge of your working hours it may be that you’re going to do one more thing in the evening before going to bed that’s going to set you up for a better day!
5/ Break down big tasks into smaller ones.
‘Shoot new campaign for X brand’ is a big one to see in my planner. However few smaller tasks, for example – create a mooadboard for the campaign, choose props, prepare photo shot list make it easier to go through the process and obtain satysfying results. It reduces the feeling of overload and the procrastination associated with taking on big jobs.
The Northfolk planners help to make everyday life organized so we can go out into the world with confidence and clarity (very much needed for me before the upcoming Milan Design Week and Wedding in less than 2 months!)
If you liked the above tips, you might also like “5 Tips to a Minimal Workspace”
Happy Planning! x
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This post has been written in collaboration with Northfolk Paper, Styling and Photography : Agata Dimmich for Northfolk Paper
