Friday, March 28, 2008

The Power of Being Organized


After watching the Time Management Lecture by Dr. Randy Pausch I decided that making a serious effort at getting organized would immensely improve the quality of my life and help me work much more efficiently. It seems like every day I get some sort of important document in the mail or in a meeting and quite often a week to a year later I need that document at a minute's notice. For the past few years I thought myself too busy to worry about the little things such as filing away random pieces of paper that were pushed my way but would be frustrated when I would routinely have to spend 10 minutes or so trying to locate a lousy document I had lost.
After watching Randy's video, I spent about 5 days organizing loose documents into binders and boxes as well as reorganizing previous documents I had stuffed into binders and boxes. I also purchased about 10 sets of heavy-duty book ends to insure that the big and heavy binders would stand up straight in my book cases. I also reorganzied the books, journals and photocopied journal articles in my office. For the past week, whenever I needed or document or book I have been able to retrieve it in a matter of seconds. Everyday too I continue devote time to immediately filing documents that I received that day. I have learned that taking time to be organized from the beginning will end up saving you time. I hope that I can continue this when classed begin at the beginning of April and things get very hectic. Above is a picture of part of my new filing system.