I’ve been an organizing and time management consultant for nearly 20 years, helping individuals and companies to improve their spaces, systems, schedules, working relationships and lives so that they can achieve their goals.

No matter where I go in the world, or who I’m working with, everyone feels overwhelmed:  we live in a too much to do, not enough time, blackberry saddled, can’t turn off, can’t quite squeeze it all in world.  That applies equally to the philanthropist in New York trying to change the world, to the Midwest professor balancing work and kids, to the author (Fannie Flagg) preparing for a move, to the entrepreneur in Stockholm trying to take control over her business.

One of the problems I run into all the time is that while people have a deep desire to make their lives better – they just don’t always know exactly what they need. When you feel overwhelmed, you want quick relief, and reach out for solutions-- but it\'s often the WRONG thing....

Too often we spend the first hour or two of our day checking email and seeing what everyone else needs from us, before getting to our own critical to-dos.  The problem with that is that if you postpone your most important task until you take care of everyone else’s needs, the burden of the unfinished task hangs over your head all day, weighing you down with dread and guilt. If you knock it out first thing in the morning, the relief buoys you up all day long, energizing and boosting your productivity as you tackle the rest of the items on your to-do list....

            Many creative or “right-brained” people who have always worked in chaos both crave and are frightened of getting organized. On the one hand, you crave it because you feel the disorganization has kept you from achieving your full potential. On the other hand, you are afraid a more structured system might squelch your creativity, as you’ve usually produced high-quality work in spite of the chaos.

            A client, Jennifer was a freelance writer who was making a living at her crafter, although she felt severely held back by her chaotic work methods. Her home office was a wreck. She spent an inordinate amount of time searching for misplaced research materials and other documents. She has millions of ideas for articles—even a book—but could never take action on them because...

            Every hour of every day at work, we are bombarded with information that comes to us in myriad forms – mail, e-mail, reading material, computer attachments, phone messages, business cards. In order to avoid being buried under piles, we must be able to separate information we need from that which we don’t at lightening speed, without missing a beat.

            A cluttered desktop is one of the most visible and annoying problems that can interfere with being productive in your office.  There’s no room to work, it can be hard to concentrate, and it puts a dent in your....

            Email is the biggest source of distraction in the workplace. We interrupt ourselves every five minutes to check our inboxes, hoping for something more interesting, more fun or more urgent than whatever we’re working on in that moment.  Continuity in our thought process and, not surprisingly, our productivity plummets as a result.

            Email has created what I call our staccato work environment—where everything has to be “now, now, now!”  We assume people expect immediate responses, because an immediate response seems possible.  But just because messages arrive instantaneously in your inbox, doesn’t mean that you have to respond immediately.  I have clients who consciously choose to WAIT before replying, even....

Whether commuting, shuttling your kids from one after-school activity to the next, or taking a business trip, make a conscious choice about how you want to use that travel time. Travel time should never be lost time. Listen to music to escape. Talk to your kids to strengthen your connection with them. Listen to....

            Breaking the habitual dependence on mindless escapes such as incessant TV watching, video games, email checking, internet surfing, shopping, etc., takes a huge amount of will, tolerance, and commitment. These mindless escaped are so insidious, and you may be surprised how much they wiggle their way into your day. That’s why breaking your addiction can be a bit unnerving. When taking on a mindless escape, you’ve got to be brave, and the best approach is cold turkey.

 

Here are some mindless escape habit breakers:

 

Engage more deeply. If you are feeling bored or anxious, challenge yourself to stay put by engaging more deeply in your current activity. Boredom kicks in when we go on “automatic pilot.” Listen more closely to the conversation at hand, pay extra attention to the visual clues in your surroundings, notice....

            How long can you ignore all distractions and give 100 percent of your attention to one task? Ten minutes at a time? Thirty minutes? Two hours? Four hours?

            We each have a different concentration threshold. Find out what yours is. How long can you give one task your undivided attention before you begin to feel saturated, distracted, or antsy to take care of something else? Study yourself—you may be surprised what you learn.

            At the height of your threshold, there’s an enveloping feeling that anything would be better than what you’re currently doing. It’s like your skin no longer fits your body; you’re jumpy. Or you feel the pull of....

            If you keep your calendar on the computer but find yourself making appointments when you are at a meeting and scribbling them on paper, enter them on your computer the minute you get back to your desk rather than rely on the written record. If your database of business contacts is on the computer and you collect a business card at a conference, enter that information in your computer’s Contact Manager, and toss the card away.

            Alternatively, if you prefer to keep all phone numbers in an old fashioned Rolodex, and someone e-mails you...

            Deleting tasks means deliberately deciding not to do them at all. Take a hard look at every item on your to-do list and ask yourself: “What is the worst thing that would happen if this task or project weren’t done? Would my life change drastically? Would anyone else be irreparably hurt?” If the answer is no, cross it off your list. Let go of the obligation and guilt of tasks you will never get to anyway, and free your energy for what truly matters most.       

            More often than not, the act of eliminating tasks involves saying “no” to other people. If it is hard for you to say no, you will always end up doing things you don’t really want to. You have to learn how to balance doing things for those you care about while still honoring your own priorities....