Life Practice · Orientation
We all have routines and habits that help us work out what to do when. But our routines often become fixed, while new routines might work better.
Illustration · 4:3
Same image as this function’s hub panel
Local Alignment · stones and paths: arranging, orienting
For a person to be fully-functional w.r.t. organising, they must apply thought to what they’ll do when. We can all create systems that set us up to think ahead, a little each day. Our personal organisation practices can evolve to the point where they take minimum effort. Yet the choices get made. And we always have a sense of knowing where we stand.
A lot of gumph gets written about ‘task management’, ‘time management’, ‘productivity’, and the like. None of it comes close to hitting the nail on the head.
The underlying simplicity is that what our personal organisation practices do, essentially, is match the things we’d like to get done with our opportunities for action.
What our organisation practices do, essentially, is match the things we’d like to get done with our opportunities for action.
On one side of the matching, there’s the things that compete for our time and energy. There’s the work tasks we’d like to complete. There’s the friends we’d like to spend time with, the hobbies we’d like to pursue, and the exercise that we know is important for our health. Maybe more than anything else what we crave is just a good night’s sleep.
On the other side, there’s the opportunities we have to take action. There are times each day when we’re in the right place to get certain things done, or when we’re with the right people. Some tasks are better undertaken when we’re in a certain mood, or have a certain energy level.
Effective personal organisation is about making good matches. We prioritise the tasks that are most important and we work out the most opportune moments for tackling the high priority tasks.
You can tell an effective personal organisation practice by how easy it becomes to make good choices of what to do next.
Life can be complex and frantic. It can be hard to make in-moment choices that are strategically sound.
If the prioritisation and the scheduling are carried out in advance, however, it becomes easy to make informed decisions when the crucial moments arrive.
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