Organization

Here’s a formula to predict how fully you accomplish any of your goals – in work, academics, personal relations, skill development, or anything else.

                Accomplishment = Talent x Effort x Luck x Organization.

                The organization part is the subject of this chapter. (The work part is covered in the sections on self-discipline and persistence. Innate talent and luck are by definition things we can’t change.)

                You can be close to a genius, AND you can work very hard, but if you’re disorganized, your efforts will not bear the fruit they should. You’ll be wasting your time working on the wrong things, never figuring out what the right things are or never getting around to them once you’ve figured them out. Or it’ll be so unpleasant looking for the things or papers you need that it will be hard to get yourself to work. Or you’ll not have the money you need to accomplish your goals because your finances are too disorganized.

                Organization is the skill that makes work and whatever talent you have pay off in really accomplishing what you want.

                Lack of organization skills by people in charge of the safety of others has cost countless people’s lives. Some disasters, such as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, have been linked not so much to evil or bad luck as to disorganization. Lack of organization skills by people in positions of financial responsibility has cost the jobs and the life savings of countless people. There are huge numbers of students who fail to achieve to their maximum performance, not because of stupidity but because of disorganization. Organization skills can and do make the difference between success or failure, poverty or wealth, for countless people.

                The key to organization is making plans and following those plans. The plans involve managing: 1) objects, 2) paper, 3) time and tasks, 4) money, and 5) your own thoughts.

                Organization skills are necessary because we do not have infinite memory. If it were possible to remember the position in which every piece of paper had been placed, there would be no need for file cabinets; if we could remember every appointment, there would be no need for appointment calendars. But because the complexity of life exceeds what we can hold in memory, we need customs and habits that are brain-extenders, ways of enlarging our effective memory or minimizing the drain upon it. Or put another way, having good organization skills can make us act in smarter ways without having to get a brain transplant. Put another way, poor organization skills can result in stupid acts by smart people.

                There is, however, a price to be paid for organizing. Things don’t automatically get organized just because you know how to organize them. It takes a certain amount of time, every day, to put things in order, to plan tasks, and to do the other jobs of organizing. Unless the time to accomplish these tasks is allocated and spent, it will not do any good to know the principles of organization. Furthermore, the jobs of organizing are not nearly as much fun as some other things one could be doing. Thus, it takes self-discipline to spend time planning and organizing rather than just going ahead and doing.

                Here are some of the basic principles of organizing:

                1. Benefit from having routines. For example, try to make a routine time and place for doing a certain activity, and try to have a routine places for certain things to be kept. And most essentially, there should be routine times allocated to organization itself.

                2. Group related things together, whether they are ideas, or papers, or objects.

                3. Put things in writing, so that you don’t have to rely on your memory.

                4. On complicated or important tasks, make plans for what is going to happen, and then carry out those plans, rather than trying to plan and carry out the plans at the same time.

Making time for the tasks of organizing

                Organizing oneself consists of several activities that take time to do. These are:

                1. Taking your physical objects, deciding where they should go, and putting them there.

                2. Taking pieces of paper, deciding where they should go, and putting them there.

                3. Organizing time and tasks: writing your goals, writing the tasks you want to do, ordering their priority, estimating how long they will take, and scheduling when you’re going to do them. Also, looking items written in the to-do and appointment book frequently enough to remind yourself to do them; and celebrating the accomplishment of tasks.

                4. Keeping records of monetary income and expenses, and making calculations about these.

                5. For important decisions, organizing your thoughts by writing them down and revising your writing.

                None of these tasks do themselves, no matter how much you know about organization. Sometimes disorganization is taken as a sign of attention deficit disorder. How much time per day are you willing to spend on these tasks? If the answer is zero, then there’s no need to resort to attention deficits as the explanation for disorganization. In order to be organized, one must be willing to spend at least some time, regularly, in organizing.

Organizing physical objects

                If your work area is too cluttered up, you might be tempted to run away from it rather than work in it. And if you can’t find the materials and tools you need to do your work quickly, your work becomes much less pleasant.

                The basic principles of organizing objects are simple:

                1. Make a “home” for each object, where that object will go when it’s not being used.

                2. Group related objects together, and make their homes as close as possible to the place where they will be used.

                3. Establish customs of putting objects back into their homes as soon as they are not being used any more, rather than doing so only when the space becomes so cluttered that there’s no more room.

                4. Don’t acquire so many objects that it becomes a needlessly complex task to keep them organized. In other words, de-clutter yourself.

                No one has time to waste on looking for objects like keys, wallet, appointment books, pens, glasses, coats, and so forth. With objects like these, it’s a good idea to have only two or three places you permit them to be. For example, my keys when not being used are either in a certain pocket or in a certain box, and nowhere else. My reading glasses when not being used are either in a shirt pocket or the same box; my computer glasses are in the backpack. My warm coat when not being used is hanging in the front hall closet.  If I can resist the temptation to put these down anywhere else, I will not have to look for them.

                In deciding upon a “home” for an object, I often think to myself, “If I forgot what the home for this object was and wanted to pick the most logical place to start looking for it, where would I look?” This often is the answer to where its home should be.

Organizing paper

                In this world of paperwork, it’s difficult to overestimate the importance of having a file cabinet with organized files. I think the best way to organize files is to have a title for each file folder, and to put them all in alphabetical order. At regular intervals, you process incoming paper by taking each piece and either doing something with it, filing it, or throwing it away.

                Let’s suppose the piece of paper is something you want to do something with at a later time. In that case, you file it and at the same time make an entry in your to-do book and appointment calendar that will remind you what to do with this piece of paper, and where it’s filed. For example, you might write, “Order book for math course. See to-do file for order form.”

                Two useful file categories are the “to-do” file and the “holding” file. The to-do file is for the papers corresponding to tasks you can do as soon as you can get to them; the holding file is for tasks that can only be done at some specified time in the future.

                Suppose that someone writes you a letter, and you want to reply to it whenever you can. That would go into the to-do file. You would put on your master to-do list (which we’ll talk about in the section on tasks), “Reply to Mr. X’s letter (to-do file).”

                Suppose you get in the mail a plane ticket you will use in three weeks. Then you would put it in the holding file, and make an entry on your master to-do list something like “11/21: flight to Cleveland, (ticket-holding file)” and on the day for 11/21 in the appointment book, you would write down something like “3:27 p.m., US Air fl. 43 to Cleveland, arrive 4:30 pm. Ticket holding file.”  Now this piece of paper has been processed and you don’t have to remember anything additional because of it – all you have to remember is to look at your notebook, which you already do anyway.

                What about things that should happen by a certain time, for which other people are responsible, things that should be taken care of without action from you?  For example, what if you send back a piece of merchandise, and you’re supposed to get a refund within a couple of weeks?  Or what if someone promises you over the phone that a certain very important job will get done by such and such a time? 

                In such cases, it’s good to do just the same sort of thing that we spoke of with the airline tickets. When you send in your piece of merchandise for the refund, keep a copy of the mailing slip or notes on when it was sent and where, and put these in the holding file. Then make an entry on your master to-do list something like this: “Verify receipt of refund from X-store, see notes holding file.” If the refund comes, then you can look at the holding file and make sure the refund is in the right amount, and check this item off your to-do list.  If the refund does not come, then you’re reminded of this by seeing the unchecked item on your master to-do list.

     Or in the case where someone has promised to do something very important by a certain date, during the conversation you take notes on what will be done by what time. Then you file those notes in your holding file, and make an entry on your master to-do list, for example, “By 11/30, printer to return galleys of book. Holding file.”  And on the to-do list for 11/30, write in something like “Call printer if galleys not back by today – holding file.” Now you have something to remind you in case the person you’re dealing with isn’t organized himself.               

                As with putting physical objects into their homes, one of the requirements for organizing is spending time putting papers in the proper file folders and file drawers. Is this fun? Not particularly. But it has a major payoff. Doing work that is not particularly pleasant for the sake of future gain is the skill of self-discipline. This skill is connected very closely to the skill of organization.

Managing time and tasks: goal-setting

                One of the great benefits of organizing oneself comes from setting goals for the future and systematically working toward them. This enables you to be “proactive” rather than “reactive,” that is, simply reacting to the events that come up. When one is proactive, one develops a vision of a desired future and tries to bring that vision into effect. There are several aspects of being proactive that are worth thinking about.

                Let’s suppose you’re a student, and your goal is to get better grades in your course work. The first step is setting the goal: realizing you want the outcome to take place, realizing things would be much better if you got better grades. In order to know what you’re going after, however, it’s not sufficient to have just a vague image of what you want; it has to be very concrete. Rather than just thinking, “I want to do better,” proper goal-setting involves getting an image of specific, concrete examples of what you will be seeing and hearing if the goal is achieved. Do you want to make straight A’s? Do you want to make the honor roll? 

                A second part of goal-setting is heightening your desire for the goal by dwelling on the benefits that would occur if it were achieved. Simply acknowledging, “Yes, I suppose I’d like that to happen,” is not sufficient for setting a goal; it’s important to sell yourself, to convince yourself how important it is that the goal be achieved, because to achieve it you will have to do lots of work.

                In selling yourself on the goal of getting better grades, you imagine that it will be more fun taking tests, it will be more fun reading your report card, it will be fun to be acknowledged by certain classmates, it will be fun seeing your family members pleased, it will feel good to know you have credentials that will help you get to the next step of your education, etc. If you can’t convince yourself that the goal is worth the work, maybe some other goal is more important to you.

                Another important part of goal-setting is generating some optimism – summoning the basic faith that, given enough work, you can achieve the goal at least to some degree. If you believe there’s really nothing you can do that will affect anything, it’s hard to do the work necessary to achieve a goal. If you believe your incomplete success of the past occurred because of fixed traits in you that will never change, it’s a good idea to work on changing this attribution. Some people have been able to radically change their lives for the better, and those people are made of the same type of protoplasm that everyone else is made of.

                But you can’t accomplish everything. Every time you work on a goal, you’re choosing not to work on certain other goals. For this reason, it’s crucial to invoke a well-grounded value system, to decide what goals are really most important. Is it more important to get good grades, or to gain popularity? Is it more important to get the absolutely top grades, or to contribute to the community by volunteer work? Is it more important to succeed in schoolwork or in athletics?

                 Sometimes such choices are very difficult. Is it more important to foster progress toward world peace, or to increase good feeling in the family by, for example, spending time in lighthearted recreation?  Is it more important to preserve harmony with a spouse, or to enjoy one’s favorite hobby? Sometimes people can choose “both of the above” when making goal decisions; sooner or later, however, something has to be eliminated because of limited time and energy.

                One approach to choosing worthy goals is to value those goals that make oneself and other people most happy in the long run – those that make the world a better place. This is the ethical rule of creating the greatest good for the greatest number, the utilitarian philosophy.

                Another approach is to choose goals using a principle that you would want all people to use. This is using Kant’s categorical imperative. Religious principles almost always contain elements of these two ideas.

                Here’s a menu to prompt you when you’re pondering what goals are important to you.

Goals Menu

For Workers:

                Would you like to get more proficient at any aspect of your work?

                Would you like to allocate your work time differently, to produce a better effect?

                Are there work achievements you would like to accomplish?

                Would you like to change any of your work habits, e.g. punctuality, establishing routines, permitting fewer or more interruptions, etc.?

For Students:

                Are there any subjects you would like to get stronger in?

                Would you like to get your academic work better organized?

                Would you like to get better grades or get other recognition for academic achievement?

                Would you like to be able to study better?

                Is there something you would like to learn about or learn to do?

                Would you like to log in more, or less, time studying?

For Students, Re: School Behavior

                Are you making life pleasant for your teacher(s)? Would you like to do this more?

                Are you making life pleasant for your classmates? Would you like to do this more?

                Do you have a good reputation at school for behaving reasonably? Would you like to do this more?

Athletics and/or Health and Fitness

                Any accomplishments you want to make in sports?

                Any sport you want to get more skilled at?

                Any particular sports skills you want to get?

                Do you want to get more exercise? If so, how?

                Do you want to improve your eating habits? If so, how?

                Are there other health habits or attitudes you want to strengthen, such as non-use of alcohol or tobacco or others?

Hobbies and Other Skills

                Do you want to take up any new activities, such as playing a musical instrument, learning to use a computer well, reading and learning about a new subject, hiking, cycling, etc.?

                Are there particular skill goals you have in any activity?

                Or do you have a goal of simply spending time enjoying some activity?

Relations with Family Members

                Are you pleased with the way you get along with each person in your family?

                Whom in your family would you like to get along better with?

                What would be happening less often, and what would be happening more often, if you got along better with that person?

                Is there someone in your family you would like to spend more time doing fun things with?

Social Life and Relations with Friends

                Would you like to make more friends?

                Would you like to have a best friend you’re closer to?

                Would you like your time with a friend to be more fun?

                Would you like people you don’t know really well to like you better?

Personal Development:

                What would you like to do to improve yourself?

                How would you like to make yourself a better person?

                What psychological skills would you most like to get better at? (Looking carefully at the menu of psychological skills will be helpful in making this decision.)

Religious involvement

                Would you like your religious life to be improved in any way?

Service to Humanity, Making the World a Better Place

                Would you like to be of more service to humanity?

                Would you like to be of service in some particular way?

                Would you like to learn more about how to be of service to humanity?

                After setting the goal, getting a concrete picture of what its achievement would look like, selling oneself on the importance of achieving it, and generating optimism that it can be achieved, what’s the next step?  A next important step is devising some way of measuring or monitoring the progress toward the goal.

                For someone playing the game of academic achievement, or for a track runner or competitive swimmer, such measurement is relatively easy: the grades on the report card, or the time that it takes to cover a certain distance. For goals such as increasing your enjoyment of acts of kindness or building your frustration tolerance, the measurement has to involve more judgment. But giving some sort of score to how well you do in these tasks, or keeping a record of how many and what sort of positive examples you’re doing, will help in the crucial task of monitoring progress.

                The next step is making a plan as to how the goal will be achieved. What are you going to do to bring about the desired result? How much time, at exactly what times of day, do you want to devote to working on your schoolwork? For goals having to do with other people, it’s good to think about the nine methods of influence remind yourself how to bring out change in people’s habits. (These are the methods recalled by the mnemonic oh am prism, and discussed in the introductory chapter of this book.)

                When planning, it’s useful to anticipate some of the obstacles that might obstruct progress toward the goal, and figure out how to get around these obstacles. For example, an obstacle to getting good grades might be that if I do poorly on one test, I might demoralize myself to the point that I give up and stop working. I can get around that obstacle by telling myself ahead of time that I don’t want momentary setbacks to deter me from my long-range goal.

                Another obstacle might be that people in my class may tease or even harass me if I get good grades, and I might bow to this pressure and do less well, in order to be liked by them. I want to get around this obstacle by cultivating relationships with people who will celebrate and admire my successes rather than punish them. I also rehearse saying to myself, “If they want to discourage me from achieving, I don’t care what they think.”

                Likewise, I anticipate the obstacle that fatigue keeps me from studying as much as I want to, and plan to use some twenty-minute relaxation and exercise sessions at crucial times to renew my energy.

                In planning how to overcome obstacles, and solve problems, consider the skill of individual decision-making, which is discussed in this book.

                The next step in achieving goals is to execute the plan, to do the work that was planned, while frequently monitoring progress toward the goal. If progress takes place, make sure to celebrate it thoroughly, to renew your energy for further work. If progress does not take place after a reasonable amount of time, return to the problem-solving or decision-making process, and decide how to modify the plan.

                (It’s often difficult to decide what a reasonable amount of time is – whether to stay the course or change tactics.  Information on how long it takes for the solution to work is crucial in making this decision.)  Persist in this process until the goal is attained.

                It’s useful to write down your goals. What things would you like to accomplish in your lifetime, and in the foreseeable future?  If you take the time to answer this question in writing, your time will be well spent.

                In setting goals, it’s sometimes useful for someone to think of the following categories: career, financial security, strength of support system, relations with family, child-rearing, relations with friends, health and fitness, personal development, and contributions to humanity.

                One element people often neglect when goal-setting is that of cultivation of their own relationships, their own social network. Who are the people most important to maintain continuing closeness with? Most of us spend time with people based on proximity or chance rather than a conscious effort to be with the people most important to us. In writing goals, a useful consideration is maintaining close relations with certain specific people, listed by name.

                If you write your goals and post them in front of you, and look at them as you plan your daily activities, you will have a means of keeping yourself centered on what is really important to you.

Organizing time and tasks: the logistics

                Once you have devoted time to figuring out what goals you have, the task is to translate those goals into daily activities that make progress toward the goals.

                Part of being organized is to have and use a to-do and appointment book.  For the student, this takes the form of an assignment book.  I use a four-inch by six-inch spiral notebook, one for each month, with two pages allocated to each day. When you open the book to any day, you see the appointments written on the right hand page, and the daily to-do list on the left page.

                In the front of the notebook is the “master to-do list.” This is where you write down everything, of any sort, that needs to be done. In other words, whenever you think of anything you need or want to do, write it down on the master to-do list.

                Then each day you make a daily to-do list. On the appointment page, you have written down any activity that is scheduled. Each evening you can review what you’re scheduled to do the following day. Then, for the time that is not scheduled, you can look at the master to-do list, and also your list of long-range goals, and put on the daily to-do list page the additional things you want to get done. Throughout the day, you then refer to these two pages.

                After you make the to-do list, order the priority of the tasks. That is, write 1 by the most important item; write 2 by the next most important, and so forth. You do this because you never know exactly how long things are going to take, so you never know whether you’re going to get through all the items on your to-do list. But if you get the most important ones done, then at least you’re putting your effort into the areas that will pay off the most.

      Another reason for doing the items in the order of the priority list is that by doing so you train yourself not to put off unpleasant or difficult activities. When a task’s number comes up, you do it, like it or not.

                Here’s a game useful to play with yourself. After making your daily to-do list and ordering the priorities, you look at your scheduled activities, and figure out how much time you have to devote to your to-do list items, and predict how many you will get done. Then, put a mark by the last item you predict you will finish. Then at the end of the day, see how your prediction compared with your actual accomplishment.

                There’s a major benefit in seeing how your prediction compares with the actual accomplishment: you gradually get better and better at predicting how long something will actually take to do. Being able to predict this accurately then allows you to make plans both for the long run and the short run. It enables you to make commitments to other people that you can more easily keep.

                When you finish an item on the to-do list, check it off, and congratulate yourself for finishing it, and try to feel good about what you have done!  If you can train yourself to feel good when you finish an item, you will get much more done.

                When you’re making a to-do list, it’s better to break down large tasks into small parts, so that you’ll be able to check off an accomplishment and feel good about it more often. For example, rather than having one item for “Do income taxes,” you could have separate items for “Sort out papers in tax file,”  “Find canceled checks for deductible items,” and so forth. Breaking a job down into small parts is often a very important step in overcoming resistance to getting it done.

                What if, as the day goes on, you decide that some task not on your to-do list is what’s most worth doing?  The to-do list of course can be revised at any point during the day. Some people write newly-arisen tasks on their to-do list and check them off, sometimes even after they’ve done them, just to aid in self-reinforcement.

                When you do a task so automatically and routinely that you don’t need even to think about whether and when to do it, your reward is not having to write it down. For example, most people never write, “Brush my teeth” on their to-do lists, because it becomes an automatic ritual.

Establishing routines

                Which of the following sounds more pleasant for you?

                To do laundry when you notice that no clean clothes are left, or to schedule laundry at certain regular times each week?

                To pay bills and process paperwork when you wake up in the middle of the night wondering if the phone will be cut off, or to have a certain scheduled time once a week for bills and paperwork? 

                To write your daily to-do list whenever you can remember it, or to have a certain routine time in the daily schedule for writing it?

                To call the doctor and try frantically to get a new prescription the day your blood pressure medicine runs out, or to schedule a routine way of renewing it regularly?

                To wash the dishes when there are no clean ones left, or to wash them routinely after every meal or once a day?

                To change the oil in your car when you start hearing strange noises or seeing warning lights come on, or to do it at regular intervals?             

                In the first instance, the stimulus to do the task is some sort of unpleasant circumstance; in the second instance, the stimulus is a regular habit or something on an appointment calendar. My observation is that having regular routines rather than reacting to the negative consequences of letting tasks go is a much more pleasant way to live.

                In many families where there are insufficient routines, these tasks become the source of much irritation and feelings of frantic emergency. It will be useful for family members to sit down together with pencil and paper and decide together what routines they wish to adopt, to write them down, and review them frequently. If the routines save time, energy and effort, keep them; if they cause discord and contention, make a different plan.

                What’s the routine for laundry? for dishwashing? for homework-doing? for cooking and mealtimes? for bedtimes? for buying of supplies? If some task causes a hassle repeatedly, raise the question of what the system is for accomplishing it, and try to arrive at a system that will eliminate the hassle.

Using task analysis and fantasy rehearsal

                How long does it take you to get organized into a new routine? For example, if you’re a student, how long does it take you to get a routine established that will let you get the right books and papers where they should be at the right times? If you’re a worker, how long does it take you to get to the right place with the right stuff in hand or in briefcase?

                If the answer is “Never” or “Too long,” task analysis combined with fantasy rehearsal might help.

                Task analysis means writing down the steps in carrying out a procedure, such as completing a day of school, performing a surgical operation, or cleaning a house. You take a procedure or complicated process, and break it down into its individual parts.  Let’s illustrate task analysis with a silly example. Here are the logistics of getting a drink of water from the kitchen sink.

1. Walk to the kitchen cabinet.

2. Open it.

3. Get a glass.

4. Walk to the kitchen sink. 

5. Turn on the cold water. 

6. Let it run until it’s cold.

7. Stick the glass underneath the stream of water.

8. When the glass is full, take it out.

9. Turn off the water. 

10. Lift the glass to the lips, and drink the water. 

11. Go back to step five if still thirsty. 

12. If not still thirsty, put the glass in the sink and walk away. 

                (I could have had the drinker wash the glass out, dry it, and put it away, but I’ll let the drinker be lazy, so we can keep it simpler.) 

                I left out a step, between steps 3 and 4.  Can you figure out what it is?  It’s not easy to write a task analysis and remember all the steps the first time.  Writing the task analysis forces you to think really hard about what the steps are.  If I were editing and revising this task analysis, I would include closing the cabinet door, so as to avoid hitting myself on the head with it. Thinking about these steps and writing them down helps you to get a very clear image of exactly what goes on in the process. 

                If you’ve ever written a computer program, you’ll recognize that writing a task analysis is like writing a computer program.

                Let’s do an imaginary task analysis for someone in high school who has a locker in the hall, switches classes every period, and finds it convenient to stop by the locker before each class.  This student likes to carry a book bag to all classes. 

                Let’s start the task analysis as the school day begins.

1. Pick up book bag I left on my desk last night and check one more time to make sure all my books and papers and my assignment book are in it. Take it with me to school.

2. Before the first class, stop by my locker.  Check what books, pencils, pens or papers I need for the first class, and put them into the book bag.

3. At the first class, turn in my homework paper when asked to do so. When I get a homework assignment, take my assignment book out of the book bag, open the assignment book to that day’s date, write the name of the subject, and write the assignment carefully.  (If there is no homework, write “none.”) Check to make sure I wrote the assignment correctly. Return assignment book to the book bag. 

4. Do steps 2 and 3 before all the other classes. 

5. Before going home, stop at my locker and open my assignment book.  Look at each assignment and make sure the books or papers I need to do each assignment are in my book bag.  Take the book bag home. 

6. At homework time, sit at my desk and read the first assignment from my assignment book.  Get out of the book bag what I need to do it.  Do it. Check it off in the assignment book.  Then put the completed paper back in my book bag, in the file folder for that subject.

7. Do the same thing with the other assignments until all are finished. 

8. Return the book bag to the top of my desk. 

                If there’s a procedure you do repeatedly and you keep forgetting steps, it’s a good idea to write a task analysis. The next job is to go over the task analysis repeatedly and memorize it. Next, you very vividly imagine yourself carrying out the procedure or do fantasy rehearsals of it.

                Here’s how a fantasy rehearsal might start for the task as analyzed above. 

                “It’s morning, and I’m about to leave for school.  I’m seeing my book bag on my desk, and I’m checking to make sure all my books and homework papers are in it. I’m picking it up and taking it with me.  Now I’m at school, and it’s before my first class.  I’m stopping at my locker.  I’m pulling my assignment book out of my locker and looking at it.  I see what I need for my first class, and I’m making sure I’ve got that book in my book bag.  I’m glad I checked carefully. Now I’m at my first class, and the assignment is written on the board.  I pull my assignment book out of my book bag, and I write the name of the subject and copy the assignment.  I’m checking it very carefully; yes, I’ve got it right, good for me . . .”

                As you do a fantasy rehearsal, remember to congratulate yourself for carrying out the steps well.

                If you find the way the task analysis is set up just doesn’t work very well in real life, then you can go back and revise the task analysis again, and improve the process. Then you practice the new plan in imagination. 

                When there is no problem with logistics or organization in the procedure, your reward is that you can file away or throw away your task analysis and stop doing fantasy rehearsal.

Reducing error in tasks

                Before a pilot takes off in a plane, she refers to a list of things to check and checks each thing that could possibly cause trouble during the flight. The same thing can be done, mentally or on paper, with any other task: you make a list of all the things that have to be done right in order for the job to be successful, and you don’t call the job finished until each one is checked off. Your checklist should cover all the errors you can think of.

                An example might be the task of child-proofing an area of the house where there are infants or toddlers. The checklist might have items such as the following: 1) Are there no matches and lighters available to the child?  2) Are no firearms available? 3) Are there no knives, ice picks, or other sharp objects available?  4) Are there no poisonous substances or medicines available?  5) Are there no heavy objects that can be pulled over or pulled down onto the child?  6) Are electrical outlets plugged? 7) Are there no opportunities for the child to get to a place high enough to be seriously injured if he fell? 8) Are there no objects small enough to be swallowed or choked on?  9) Are there no plastic bags that the child could suffocate from inhaling?  10) Is the temperature of the hot water from the faucet turned down enough that exposure to it would not burn the child badly? (This is not a complete list.)

                There’s a big difference between error-reduction using a checklist as mentioned above, and compulsive checking rituals or nervous worrying. The error-reduction method I’m advocating allows you to focus on one type of possible error at a time and feel secure that all have been checked once you’ve completed the list. Compulsive checking involves trying to think about too many aspects of the job at one time. When compulsively checking, someone can’t remember what has been checked and what hasn’t and tries to make up for this disorganization by repetition.

Organizing communications with other people about tasks

                In organizing your communication, a major goal is to place as few demands as possible on the other person’s memory.

                If the procedure you want someone to do is too much to hold in memory, write it down for them. Writing it down also prevents a good bit of telephone tag and a good bit of misunderstanding of verbal messages.

                Keep unnecessary information to a minimum. If we call the most important points the “signal” and the most unimportant points the “noise,” then you want your utterances to have the highest possible ratio of signal to noise. 

                Suppose someone asks, “Why didn’t you buy a new cartridge for the printer when you were at the office supply store?” If you say, “The store was out of them,” that utterance has a high signal-to-noise ratio.

                The following utterance, on the other hand, has a low signal-to-noise ratio:  “Well, I went down to the place about 2 p.m., no, I think it must have been about 3 p.m.; that’s right, it couldn’t have been 2:00 because I was still in a meeting until just a little before 3:00  – anyway, when I got there ­– it’s the place where we always get supplies down on Meyran Avenue – I looked all over the place, and at first it was hard for me to believe that they would have been out, because I’ve been going there for at least a year, and I don’t think there’s been one other time that I couldn’t find any, but I asked the clerk, who wasn’t in a very good mood today . . . ” In this example, the essential message is buried in a sea of irrelevant detail.

Deciding to take on a new commitment to a task

                Here is an important principle that accounts for a substantial portion of human unhappiness: People continue to take on new commitments to tasks until they are performing incompetently in at least one, if not all, of them. If people are performing successfully, other people will ask them to take on new things to do and often offer rewards for doing them. People tend to say “yes” to such commitments.

                A psychotherapist who establishes a reputation for very thorough and competent work tends to have more and more patients referred to him, to the point where he can’t keep up with who is who.

                An executive who establishes a reputation as a competent and thorough director of an organization is invited to be on more and more boards of directors, until she doesn’t have time to understand an organization she is directing.

                A full-time mother who establishes a reputation for organizing activities for parents and children to do together takes on so many projects that there is little time left to relax informally with her child.

                A couple enjoy their first child so much that they have four more, and find that, with their other commitments, they can’t give any of their children the time and attention they deserve.

                Of course, it’s possible to avoid new commitments, but it takes real effort to do so.

                Each person has only a finite amount of time and energy. As the commitments proliferate, something has to be sacrificed. Sometimes the task that gets sacrificed is spending quality time with family. Sometimes it’s enjoying time to oneself. Sometimes it’s the task of getting adequate sleep. Sometimes it’s the least urgent commitment someone has made to someone else, or sometimes the least urgent five commitments.

                Just as organizing objects is easier if you can avoid owning so many of them, organizing tasks is easier if you think carefully before taking on another one. Are you on top of things now? Is your stress level in a very comfortable zone? How much time will the new commitment take? With that time no longer available, will you still be on top of things and at a comfortable level of stress?

                This is the way to think before taking on a new commitment. The way not to think is simply to say, “Would this be interesting or worthwhile or profitable?” You must not only think of the returns, but of the investment of time and energy needed to reap the returns.

Organizing money

                Just as the disorganization of time and tasks leads to very unpleasant outcomes, such as the failures of businesses and marriages, so does the disorganization of money.  

                Most of the works I’ve read on managing money ask people to spend a lot of time making a very detailed budget and figuring out how much money does go and should go to each category of expenditure. But it seems that very few people in the real world can consistently muster the energy to do this. Perhaps the labor that such a task requires isn’t justified by the payoff. Is there a simpler and easier way to get a handle on managing finances?

                Many people have no real money management system at all and would do well to adopt the following “minimalist” approach to financial organization, rather than taking on a very detailed and laborious system.

                This minimalist system doesn’t require that you add up expenses and income. It doesn’t require that you categorize expenses into groups. It isn’t even necessary to record your expenditures and income in order to use it, although that is necessary for other purposes.

                In the most minimal of minimal systems, you simply calculate your financial net worth at regular intervals, say once every few months. You add up the amount you have in any accounts and subtract anything you owe.

                The change in net worth from one month to the next represents the same number you would get if you were to keep a detailed record of all your expenses and all your income and compute the total of income minus expenses.

                Under this system, any fluctuation in stock or bond prices is considered to be either income or expense. You don’t count the value of consumption items, such as china or cars, or anything else except a house when calculating net worth.

                If the trend of the net worth figure over the long term is upward in the amount you want it to be, you don’t need to waste a lot of time on further recording and calculation.

                If you have investments that fluctuate in value, you might want to get a handle on how much of the change in net worth is due to fluctuation of investment value and how much is due to the excess of income over expenditure. By doing this, you don’t, for example, lull yourself into living far beyond your means during periods when the investments fluctuate upward.

                To track this in a simple way, you put your income into a checking account and make your expenditures from it. You have your investments in a brokerage account. You record every transfer you make between the checking account and the brokerage account. If the net transfer from checking to brokerage is positive, you can meet expenses without relying on your investment income. If it’s negative, then you have to make some further calculations to see under what circumstances your expenses will be adequately supported.

                Of course, expenditures vary from month to month, and there may be some months where the change in net worth is negative, balanced by other months where the number is very positive. But by tracking net worth over time, you get an overall picture of your financial status. If you’re in the black by a sufficient amount to prepare for retirement, future emergencies, future college expenditures, and so forth, then you’re finished with this minimalist money organization procedure.

                If you’re not sufficiently in the black, then you need to add income or cut expenditures. If you need to cut, then there usually needs to be discussion among family members on which expenditures may be cut and which may not. In the minimalist procedure, you simply go out and cut whatever you can cut and see what happens. If this doesn’t work, then you go to the detailed budget figures, keeping track of food, clothing, phone, electricity, etc. But your reward for sufficient thrift is not having to do this.

Organizing thoughts

                Organizing your own thoughts is perhaps the most difficult, yet important, organizing task of all. When some people think or talk about their own lives, they are so scattered that their thoughts can never seem to get anywhere. They can flit from one thing to another seemingly endlessly. They seem to spend more time on irrelevant details than on important facts. They can talk at high speed for a long time, and then stop for breath and think, “Now what was it I started out to tell you about?” Such jumping from one tangent to another is called “tangential thinking.” This way of thinking is very frustrating, for the person trying to listen to it or read it, but even more so for the person who is thinking it!

                What are the characteristics of organized thoughts? You deal with various questions or topics one at a time. You pose a question and then try to marshal all the evidence and ideas necessary to answer that question, before going on to the next question or topic. If there are subtopics under a certain topic, you try to deal with those one at a time, too. You try to do things in some logical sequence. You try to finish one thinking task, in some sense or another, before taking up the next. 

                How do you learn to organize your thoughts better? One way is to practice writing them down. Why do elementary school teachers help students learn to make outlines of their essays? It’s because the principles of writing a coherent essay are exactly the same as those of thinking in an organized way.

                One special case in which organized thinking is useful is when people are making decisions or trying to solve problems in their lives. Here’s an outline for thinking about these decisions:

Outline for organizing thoughts about decisions

                1. What is the problem? How can I best describe the situation? What are the RELEVANT details about this situation, the ones that have some chance of affecting what I decide? Whom does this problem affect?

                2.  What are my goals? That is, what do I want to happen as a result of my efforts to solve this problem?

                3. What options can I think of? That is, what are the various alternative solutions I can imagine?

                4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the best of those options?

                5. Which option or options appear to be the first choice at this time?

                6. If I don’t have enough information to make a good choice now, how can I get more information?

                7. If I have made a choice, what are the specific details of my plan? What am I going to do, with and to whom, where, and when? 

                8. How am I going to follow up to see whether my plan worked or not?  

                Organizing thinking means not trying to do everything at once. I believe that therapists can be very helpful to people sometimes, just by handing them a piece of paper with these questions on them, and helping the person think about one question at a time, with one problem at a time. In doing so, they promote the process of organized thought.

                For more on the skills of organized decision-making, please see the chapter on decision-making. 

Organization skills checklist

                Are you willing to allocate time, regularly, to putting objects in their homes, filing papers, writing to yourself about goals and tasks, and organizing money? ____________

                Do you declutter your life by acquiring and keeping no more objects and papers than you really need? ________________

                Do you have a “home” for each object, especially the important ones? __________

                Do you have adequate file space to keep organized files of all papers you want to keep? _________

                When you receive a piece of paper that calls for some action later on, do you file the paper and make a note in your master to-do list of what you have to do, with a note in parentheses of where the piece of paper is filed? ___________

                Do you make written lists of your long-term goals? ______

                Do you periodically ask what is really important in life and revise your goal list accordingly? _____

                Do you have one, and only one, “appointment and to-do” book that is almost always near you? ___________

                Does the appointment notebook have in it adequate space to write daily appointments and daily to-dos and to see both of them without having to turn pages? ___________

                Do you keep a master to-do list, of all tasks to be done? ______

                Do you make a to-do list each day? ___________

                Do you put numbers by your tasks to be done, to order their priorities? _____________

                Do you check each task off the list as you do it? _________

                Do you remember to feel good when you check a task off the to-do list? ____________

                Do you make error-reducing checklists for important tasks, consisting of all the things that need to be right for the job to be complete and check them before finishing the task? __________

                Do you create regular routines, and do recurring tasks according to a schedule rather than waiting for some negative consequence to prompt you to do it? ________________

                In adjusting to complicated routines, do you write out a task analysis and do fantasy rehearsals? ______________

                Do you communicate complicated procedures to other people in writing rather than straining their memories? ___________

                Do you have a high “signal-to-noise ratio” when you communicate with other people? ____________

                Before taking on a new commitment, do you carefully consider whether you will have the time and energy to do it well, and say no to it if the resources aren’t there? ________

                Do you calculate, each month, the change in your net worth and adjust your use of money according to what those numbers tell you? ____________

                When you’re thinking about problems, do you try to think about one question at a time or one problem at a time? _______ 

Send mail to joestrayhorn@juno.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2003 Psychological Skills Press
Last modified: 04/12/03