My Tools of Organisation

I'm a big fan of organisation. Looking at my bedroom, that might not be immediately obvious. At the time of writing this, there are two big bags full of CDs that should be on shelves. There's a coat that should be hanging up in my wardrobe. There are notebooks on the end of my bed that don't belong there. To make matters worse, there are wrappers from bars on my desk. I'm excusing myself of all of these things, because I've just moved into the box room again, without any of the functional shelving and storage space I actually need.

What I do have, however, is a FiloFax, a page-a-day diary, and more ring binders than most people consider sane. These are my tools of organisation, the things that keep me focused on different areas of my life. Mainly they're writing based. What can I say, my life is a lot less complicated than I sometimes let on. (Though, if I told you about every writing project I haven't considered "dead", the ones that are in folders and binders and notebooks in my bedroom, it would become increasingly complicated.)

So, let's leave it at "writing" and leave out the specifics of what I'm actually writing for now. I already talk about that enough.

My FiloFax was a present from my niece. Well, technically it was from my brother and his girlfriend, but it was given on behalf of my niece. I had wanted one for a while, but I didn't mention that to anyone. Now that I have one, I had to figure out what to use it for. So, I used the six tabs within it to designate different areas of interest.

Part 1: To-Do. This one is simple. It has note pages and to-do list pages alternating. I have a general list of things I need to do at the front of the section, but I imagine that when it comes down to the specifics of one or another, I'll use another page dedicated to it.

Part 2: Writing Notes. Anything I need to take a note of for a book or an article or anything like that will go on the note pages in this section. It's simple.

Part 3: Ideas and Inspiration. I've used it precisely once, so far. I got the idea to write a weekly diary series for a character from a series of books I plan on publishing, beginning this year. He's a cynical git, and it's a fun little series to have started. The first part, Dear Whatever went up on Monday on ParagraVerse. You can read it here: http://paragraverse.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/dear-whatever/

That's right out of my FiloFax. See how helpful my organisation is?

Part 4: Books to Read. I have three in here so far, but it's actually missing quite a few. They're books I don't currently own, though I'm considering writing the list of books I want to read that I already own in it, too. That'll certainly make choosing the next one easier. (At the moment I'm reading The Curve by Nicholas Lovell, but I'm nearly done, so I'll need a new one soon.) It's a thinner section than the previous two. It's just titles, after all.

Part 5: Travel. So far, it's empty. Why? Because I don't have the budget to travel yet. However, when I do find a way to travel, I'll be using this section to organise everything I want to do. I'll begin filling it in soon, anyway, with the things I'd like to do on the first trip I want to go on: London. The shows I want to go to, the touristy things I want to do, the people I'd like to meet if this were an ideal universe. Not every city will have one of those lists, but London definitely has one. People who know my little niche interests (you know, something more specific than books or writing) might be able to guess who a couple of them are from London.

Part 6: Contacts. So far, it has one thing in it: a business card. However, I plan on bringing the FiloFax with me everywhere, and having somewhere to put people's contact information and business cards is important. In the end, who you know is as important as what you know. This is the world we live in, now.

Obviously, my FiloFax also has the diary section that all FiloFaxes come with, and that's helpful. I use it record what I need to do in a day, and record what I did do, in terms of writing or publishing. I have a year planner that pulls out, too, but until I have my room sorted and can access my estimated publication dates for different projects, I can't really fill anything in.

Complimenting my FiloFax is my A4 page-a-day diary. Two things about it: it was cheaper, and it's not going to be carried around with me whenever I go somewhere. It's just too impractical for that. However, I'm using it plan out things like articles and stories, on the day on which they are due. This leaves me with a full page with which to work, and means I have every plan recorded in a nice hardback for protection, too. I used that diary to plan my first article of the year, and I used it to determine the possibility of even beginning the weekly diary series that I mentioned above.

Alongside this, and the oldest of my organisational tools, is an A4, green ring binder. It's basically my CV. Except that it also contains my CV, so that's a CV within a CV. It also has my first published article in a national magazine; the poster for The Rest is Silence and the letter from the charity we supported with it; printed records of monthly book sales from Amazon; and my notes from Brendon Burchard's The Millionaire Messenger, which I'm using as a template for planning various aspects of my life.

All in all, these three things focus on future planning and organisation. The binder is the long-term plan. The diary is the mid-term plan; nothing in it will be planned more than three weeks' in advance in full detail. The FiloFax is more short-term, updated at most a week in advance. It's also the one I'll address a lot more often than the others, because some days I'll need to record that I have successfully written a number of different things across different projects.

Does it  all work? Well, on the day I wrote this blog post - Monday - I also wrote four short chapters for an upcoming ebook. This was between doing various things around the house, checking in on people online, and spending a bit of time playing games online. I watched YouTube videos, I spent some time with my niece, and I arranged the bits and pieces within my new bedside locker. I had a productive,stress-free day, while managing to accomplish an awful lot. So yes, my tools of organisation work.

What about you? How do you stay on top of the various things life requires of you? Does anyone have an interesting App for that?

Life's Everlasting Learning

I've always liked school. Weird, right? I mean, I hated most of the work. A lot of that was mainly that I liked doing other things, and there was a lot of it. I get why we had it, though. It's all part of learning, and because of the way school works these days we had to get a lot of homework just to get everything done. But this isn't about school. This is about learning, which is precisely why I liked school.

See, I'm all about learning new things. I like picking up information and being able to use it. It makes my days so much better to be able to learn something in them.

So, even though college is over for the summer, I'm still learning. Admittedly, I'm not doing my research for my paper, but that can be done at another time. Right now, this is all about learning stuff for myself.

Brendon Burchard, this one guy who knows stuff (Google him!), advises people to set out each month of the year to learn something new. This month, I've been learning business stuff. Vague description, I know. I'm a writer don't you know! Specifically, I've read a book on marketing and a book on strategy, but I have books on other topics and I've been watching videos. I'm focusing on what might be of use as a writer, which subsequently included just about everything Burchard teaches on his different programs. Since I'm not exactly wealthy, I've been going with his free information in his videos and I bought two of his books. I'm still waiting for them to arrive.

I've also signed up for information from a bunch of others in the field, though, and it's meant that I have a stream of lessons coming into my inbox every day or every other day from a few different people. I take notes, I learn, and when I get things get up properly I can begin sharing what I know to save people who don't have it the time I spent watching all those videos.

I'm still looking for more stuff to learn, of course. If you know of someone who produces videos and webinars that are free to watch, even if it means signing up to their website to get them, let me know. I'm always up for learning.

That's all well and good for this month, of course, but what about next month? July is rapidly approaching.

So, I figured I'd tackle something I've been meaning to do for a long time: I want to learn how to cook. I'm going to start basic, and a co-worker and friend of mine has advised a book. She's ordered it into the shop for me to see. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. The book looks amazing, and it'll be worth the investment if it means I can cook my own food for the first time in my life. So far, I'm limited to food that goes into the oven without preparation, sandwiches and things that go into the toaster. The microwave, too, but I don't use that unless I'm just heating something up Mother of Mine prepared earlier that day, usually vegetables.

I don't imagine I'm going to be the most amazing chef in the world, but that's not the point. I need the basic skills to actually learn to cook, and there are some baking recipes in the book, too. Did you know I have a sweet tooth?

So, that's July sorted. August, I'm still stumped for. I mean, I'll be working on my research paper independent of this learn-one-thing-a-month idea, so I guess I just need to find something new. Maybe, just maybe, I'll start learning how to drive. Theory test, initially, of course, but I figure this is a good step. So, I can start learning to drive. Obviously, I won't be able to drive a car by the end of the month. Far from it. But I can at least get myself started on the path towards learning. And if anyone knows me well enough, they know I'll put my mind to this fully. I won't be the best driver in the world, but I'm so damn cautious I'll stay out of trouble.

September... trickier to tell. I have teaching practice and college starts back up and I have something massive to organise, so there's no telling what will happen with the month. Or the months to follow, for that matter. Obviously I'll keep learning to cook and keep learning to drive, but there's only so much I can do on that before I'm breaking the rule of learning something new every month. Part of me would love to learn to play an instrument, but I think I need to go for something more future-specific to get by in this. Possibly I'll start learning a new language.

I've always had problems with this in the past, and it comes down to not applying myself to it. But I figure, even if I only do this half the month as a beginner, I wake up early enough to go to college to listen to audio for about an hour before anyone even gets a chance to talk to me. I can use that time effectively, and I really want to give this a shot.

October... public speaking. Has to be. I mean, I'm already working on it, but it's something I need to get better at. Not just for teaching, but for everything else I plan to do in life. I want to be more natural when I speak in front of people. I tend to stick to notes and all that jazz, though I hate reading them out so I ad lib. I wouldn't be a teacher if all I did was read from a page.

November, I think I want to get better at organising. That sounds too vague, so I'll be more specific. I suck at lesson plans. I suck at schemes of work. I have no proper filing system. I need to get better at that sort of stuff, especially with all the plans I have for the next few years of my life. So hey, there's something. I'm choosing November for this because then the information will be fresh enough in my head even if I get busy to help me prepare for teaching in January more effectively. Yep, strategy. I'm actually implementing it.

And December...? I have no idea. Critically thinking about what I need to do in my life hasn't gotten me that far. That's probably because I haven't written out a strategy for the year. But hey, I reckon what I've got so far is enough to keep the brain going. Odds are I'll probably be learning other things in the middle of everything. I don't see the months as being so strict as to have to stop learning about something because I'm too busy with something else. Heck, if that was the case the school system of Ireland would collapse.

Game on, I suppose. Back to learning from way too many things at once to be sane.

What do you want to learn this year? Leave your answer in the comments below.