Part 3 Organizing Around 21st Century Challenges 中

Main Idea

To get organized today, you'd better get good at minimizing distractions. Don't try to hit an ideal work-life balance, because it can't be done. Instead, integrate your life and your work together so you can tap into your full energy and brainpower. The three key principles to remember in this area are：

Supporting Ideas

Take notes so you can change contexts later on

Whenever you're concentrating on one subject and then your mind turns to something entirely different, you're changing contexts. Whenever you shift contexts, your brain tries to shift whatever is in short-term memory into longterm memory to make room for new information. That's hard work for the brain, and therefore after a few changes of context, you can feel mentally exhausted. To try and offset this, integrate lots of notes into your calendar, so that as you shift contexts, you have a flying start. Your notes will get you up to speed quickly and efficiently rather than sitting around wondering what you're supposed to be discussing.

It also helps if you eliminate distractions as far as possible. Turn your phone off when you need to focus. Check your e-mail only during breaks rather than getting notified each time a new piece of e-mail arrives in your inbox. Look for distractions that crop up frequently and work to eliminate them entirely.

Group tasks with similar contexts

The other strategy you can apply to help is to group together tasks that have a shared context and handle them all at once. As you plan your day, try to schedule meetings that have a similar context back to back rather than forcing your mind to mentally shift gears over and over. Admittedly, this is not always feasible, but if you do have options, try to group meetings with similar contexts together. And you might try to save the meetings with easier contexts for later in the day when you're more likely to be mentally tired.

Be careful not to sabotage your own efforts to be more productive. Instead of checking for new e-mail constantly, you might set up your e-mail so you have to manually hit the Send/Receive button. That way you can concentrate on what you're doing exclusively and then check your e-mail when you need a break. And in a similar vein, if you work in a cubicle where your coworkers come and go as they please, you might consider putting up a sign that reads："DO NOT DISTURB-ON DEADLINE."Put it in plain sight and then pop in some earplugs or listen to music on your iPod so you drown out background noise. Do all you can to avoid any involuntary context shifts you might be forced to make during your workday.

By all means rest your brain occasionally by taking a break and thinking about something entirely different. These breaks can be quite refreshing and invigorating. They can make you more productive rather than less productive. The real trick is to set up these breaks as rewards for good work accomplished rather than as ways you can avoid doing work altogether.

Integrate your work with your life

Lots of organizational systems talk about achieving a sustainable"work-life balance."This is usually code for wanting to work less and live more. In today's highly competitive world, this isn't really an option. A better and more realistic aim would be to find ways to integrate your work with your life in ways that reduce stress and boost your productivity. In other words, aim to sync what you do with what you like as frequently as possible.

How can you do that?

■Stop seeing work and life as two separate things that fit neatly into compartments. They aren't. Accept the fact that sometimes you'll have to work a lot and other times you'll be able to play a lot. Both can coexist within your schedule rather than being mutually exclusive.

■Set up calendars that allow you to integrate your life with your work requirements. Let people access them according to their needs rather than setting up artificial boundaries between work and life.

■Block out personal time from your workday when work is slower. Use this as an opportunity to recharge your batteries. You'll work smarter that way.

■Be perfectly happy to take care of business after hours if the need arises. Try to schedule what you must do in small chunks you fit in during what would be dead time anyway.

■When on vacation, make a decision-will you check for messages or make the world go away?Whatever you decide, let others know and then plan accordingly.

■If you have to make international trips for your work, schedule enough time in for exercise, rest and staying connected with your family.

■Make getting stuff out of your head and into your information capture system something you schedule every day.

■Be realistic about the fact that huge and unexpected challenges will crop up from time to time. Anticipate that you'll make mistakes because of the stress level, so cut yourself some slack. During difficult times, it's vital that you filter more intensively than usual so-don't become overwhelmed. Use the tools you've developed to handle information overload during periods of intense stress.

Key Thoughts

"I've offered 21 principles of organization. Some may make perfect sense for you；others, not so much. Whatever the case, I'd like to encourage you now to try applying at least a few of these principles to your life, to see which ones are best suited for the challenges you might currently be facing. Granted, not all my principles of organization will apply to every challenge you face. But I'll bet at least some of them will be relevant to certain challenges at certain times. Organizing your life frees you up to fully experience your life. Yes, it takes work to be organized, and to stay organized. But the reward is well worth the effort, I promise."

-Douglas Merrill