Q+A
“Please share organizational tips. I'm type A in theory but type B in practice and need help too.”
I don’t have an answer for this which is why I asked all of YOU to tell me your advice. This is what I heard back:
“Biggest thing is understanding that I find having to remember things stressful in a cognitive load sense and emotional sense. I structure getting through work pretty much entirely around not having to remember things. If I don't write something down it doesn't get done.
I can do deep/creative work for max 4 hours a day, maybe 5 if I get a second wind in the afternoon and change location and no one is bothering me. I block my calendar and silence notifications to get through this. It has to be in the morning for me (8:30-12:30 is best).
I'm constantly tempted to check email and Slack, and I can't actually go 8 hours without answering them because I might be blocking someone. I calendar time to address this specifically so I know it's getting addressed and I'm not keeping anyone waiting. I try to keep sound off and email tab closed if I'm not engaging directly. I do 15 min in the morning to unblock people, a 30 min block after I finish deep work block, and a 30 min - 1 hour block around 4:30 to close out stuff for the day. If I crack and check Slack in the interim (which I realistically do closer to once an hour), I'll set reminders within Slack to come back to it if I can't deal with it within ~45 seconds.
If I'm processing tasks, and something takes less than 5 min to do, I do it immediately. I know someone who is the office manager for a doctor's office and her whole philosophy is only touch something (task, piece of paper, whatever) once.
I live and die by Slack reminders and snoozing emails. I can't look at something in a queue; I find it distracting. If I know I'm not going to deal with a Slack or email until later some day, later in the week, whatever, I just use the built-in features in Slack and Gmail to deal with it later so I don't have to look at it and start half-solving the problem. This isn't great for texts but I would imagine some sort of pinning system might help and otherwise can ignore things?
Work planning - a lot of my work is cyclical/recurring. I plan out what I'm going to work on in what block/day the week ahead and I also set reminders for myself into the future. For instance, I have a calendar notif in October for when I will have to start outlining board meeting prep timeline. Now I don't have to get to early October and think when should I start putting this together.”
“I have terrible ADHD and refuse to take medication (or let it be a crutch)... compartmentalization works for me. I don't always stick to it, but when I'm doing good I'm setting aside time where I look at and respond to texts and emails and not looking at them/opening them outside of that time. Unfortunately this can kill the fun, spontaneity of texting or keeping up with a group chat. But exceptions can be made! Obviously, some texts are emergencies too. If I am not sticking to this, I'm marking it as unread to come back to... but as we all know, sometimes that means those messages stay unread. That's where the compartmentalization helps. Times that work for me are like, right after work/before dinner... close to bed is risky because an interesting conversation could spark and then I am not doing the things I need to do to get to sleep.”
“I have a planner that I really love!! It really helps me stay on top of my life. I try to designate particular times as "clearing email inbox" or "clearing Instagram messages" or "clearing texts" and just focusing on that as a task rather than trying to respond to things throughout the day. It's OK to not respond to things immediately. If you get a lot of emails that need the same response, having an autoresponder or a response you can copy paste is also a major lifesaver. Finally... I hire an assistant whenever things get too crazy lol.”