What are the best books you've read on being organized in business or life for that matter? I want to be able to get more done in less time etc...

The Hamster Revolution. Covers email and file mgmt. You would need others to play along to get he most out of it, but valuable even if adopting some key principles yourself.

Getting thing done: The art of stress free productivity and Focus: the hidden driver
Of excellence were influential to me

Try Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Troy91 said:

---

Try Atomic Habits by James Clear.

---

I'm reading this now. Really good.

Use outlook tasks like never before. Setup recurring tasks for everything: checking credit, changing air filter, work emails,etc. I live on them and forget everything.

SnowboardAg said:

---

Use outlook tasks like never before. Setup recurring tasks for everything: checking credit, changing air filter, work emails,etc. I live on them and forget everything.

---

This. And you can use David Allen's Getting Things Done approach to help you set up your Outlook tasks so they work better. We had a GTD presenter come to our office and I found that pretty valuable.

Also, found a lot of value in Andrew Mellen's "Unstuff Your Life" who I first saw at a conference a few years ago.

I just finished a book "Essentialism" that was thought provoking and argues most things aren't important enough for your time and attention, so do less of the unimportant to accomplish more of the important.

I liked Getting Things Done, but I haven't kept up on the system. I'm thinking of reading Atomic Habits soon, but I've already studied a lot on habits so I'm not sure if I'll learn anything new.

I use outlook tasks a little but probably not like I should. I go back and forth between paper and outlook. I recently started a project checklist in Onenote. It will take a little bit to see if it's actually worth the time to keep up with it. I've also heard of folks using their calendar religiously. Other than work appointments, I really don't pencil in every activity that I do throughout the day. Does anyone recommend this?

RG20 said:

---

Other than work appointments, I really don't pencil in every activity that I do throughout the day. Does anyone recommend this?

---

Not every activity, but I do major or deadline oriented time blocks where I may have to turn something by a deadline, whether that be my prescribed deadline or externally created. Some of this was derived from GTD approach from minimal or "zero" inbox where I drag emails into the calendar creating time blocks when I will address them versus having them sit in the inbox as non-prioritized to-do items along with other random emails.

Gotcha. I'll go check out that book. If I can get at least one nugget out of it, should be worth it.

Quote:

---

I just finished a book "Essentialism" that was thought provoking and argues most things aren't important enough for your time and attention, so do less of the unimportant to accomplish more of the important.

---

I feel like this sounds good, but people generally suck at categorizing the unimportant/important stuff.

A lot of people undervalue key facets of their job because they hate doing them and overemphasize things that don't matter...to avoid doing the things they hate doing.

I write things down on small pieces of paper, which then get lost in my mountain of small pieces of paper. If it's important they'll ask again.

For me, a big key is to the use the 2 minutes or less to complete philosophy. If I can snap back a quick reply and dispose of the issue, do it.

If not, select follow up and flag it for today, tomorrow, this week or next week. If the project has a specific deadline, I may use a custom date to put it back in front of me far enough ahead of the deadline to allow time for completion.

This allows me to be hyper responsive on routine silly emails while scheduling the lengthier topics for review when I have time and space to think.

This places the email in your Outlook task list according to your selected reminder date.

Also, use rules to bury emails in other folders that you cannot make stop coming to you.

Yeah, I created a followup folder and have just been dragging emails to that folder that I need to follow up on. I'll try out the flagging suggestion you made since that puts it more visible and forces me to attach a date to it.

Thanks

- Entrepreneurial Rollercoaster

but seriously, best in my experiece is get on Darren Hardy's daily video and into his program. If only I could go back in time and do this years sooner

Bump