by Eileen Roth
Store and organize phone numbers and addresses in a database. Let your modem do the dialing and your printer do the labeling!
Manage your time with calendar programs that offer daily to-do lists and meeting alarms.
Manage personal or business finances, from tracking accounts payable and receivable to writing checks and invoices and exporting the data to a tax program at year’s end, with an accounting-specific program.
Do your taxes and file your tax returns by modem with programs suited to the job.
Create grocery and other shopping lists in word processing.
Make your own greeting cards with a graphics or photo program.
Publish a newsletter, flyer, or announcement, complete with pro layout and graphics, with a desktop-publishing program. Send it directly by e-mail if you like.
Make overhead slides simply by filling in the preexisting templates in presentation programs.
Archive photos on CD or the Web, where you can give friends and family a code to view them. Use programs from word processing to graphics to specialized photo applications to place, play with, and touch up your photos in a variety of formats.
Store, organize, and analyze your recipes with culinary programs, or toss all the old ones and search the Web for new recipes when you’re ready to cook.
Making Data Management Easy
Everybody needs easy access to facts in many aspects of business and personal life. Facts are even more useful when you can store, sort, and use them efficiently, and these are just the sorts of tasks electronic technology does especially well. Data is your friend, and cyberorganization can tailor data to your needs.
Tables: Think like a grid
Tic, tac, toe — a table has the column-and-row format you know from the classic game, but you can go beyond three to display all the data you need to see. Easily created in a word-processing program, tables are great at-a-glance tools for categorizing and comparing information. You may use one while house-shopping to list features down the left side and the homes under consideration across the top; to decide what telephone system to purchase for the office; or to draw up a definitive list of laundry loads and settings as described in Chapter 11.
Tables can be sorted by simple criteria (usually alphabetical), but can’t calculate numbers or create charts or other output, so stick to word-driven data.
Spreadsheets: Tables that act and do
A spreadsheet is essentially a table that reads numbers and performs operations, so if you want to add or subtract, multiply or divide, or even run a logarithm or employ if-then logic, this is the data-management method for you. With search, sort, and calculating capabilities, a spreadsheet can help you analyze profitability, compare credit card rates, compile statistical results, and more. Spreadsheets can also create graphs and charts from the data you put in them, which is useful for analysis, reports, and presentations.
Whatever your spreadsheet applications program, find out how to format and edit worksheets, create formulas, and search and sort, and you can have the basics in hand.
Databases: Information machines
At heart, a database is a table that performs certain functions on the data inside to produce lists, reports, and responses. A simple database lies behind some contact-management programs, while more complex and customized databases are used to run all aspects of business. Databases useful for daily organizing tasks include
Build-your-own databases, from a simple address list to more complex applications for the computer-savvy, that allow you to define your own fields and generate custom reports. Associations use databases to maintain their membership lists, as do many subscription houses, while project managers may use one to track project time and costs. You can also use a database to create periodical indexes, customize customer service, or catalog your CD or wine collection.
Contact-management programs that unite name, address, and phone functions with the ability to take notes, track correspondence, and generate meeting and follow-up reminders. Salespeople, lawyers, stockbrokers, accountants, and freelancers are among those well served by such features.
Accounting programs that track income and expenses, create invoices, write checks, generate various financial reports, and even interface with tax programs that can figure and file your taxes.
Staying in touch: The concept of contact management
Most people know it’s who you know, which is why a concise contact- management system is critical to being wired to the world. There are three primary formats for the classification and storage of contact information: the computer databases discussed here, card files, and address books. My experience has shown that different systems work better depending on how much you correspond by phone and/or mail, what these contacts are meant to accomplish, and your own individual style. The trick is to pick one system and stick with it. Keeping names and numbers in different locations turns every phone call into a mystery to solve. Leave the sleuthing to Sherlock Holmes and centralize!
Computer databases: If your computer is on all day and you do a large volume of contact-based work, this is probably the way to go. Handheld computers are a variation on the same theme, and can synch up with the program on your main system to keep information current in both places.
Card files (such as Rolodex): The original modular system is tough to beat for simplicity. Easy to move and toss as they change or become irrelevant, address cards also flip quickly and display all the information you need at a glance. It’s easy to keep your file right next to your phone and find the number you need. A few hints:
•Classify: File friends by name, clients by company, and vendors by subject — all delivery services under D.
•Color code: Use colored sleeves to identify different groups, such as blue for business, pink for personal friends, and so forth.
•Glue: Don’t staple business cards to Rolodex cards; the staples can catch your fingertips as you flip and they take up extra space too. Use a glue stick instead.
Address book: A book is handy if you need to take your contact infor-mation on the road and don’t have a handheld computer or electronic organizer. Most paper organizers come with an address section. When buying yours, look for a three- or six-ring binder with plastic tabs. Don’t write on the divider pages, because you can’t replace them without replacing the whole book. Instead, stock up on refill pages and toss pages as they become outdated or too messy to read. Transfer any current addresses to a fresh page first.
Whatever your contact system, remember that you should enter information as soon as you receive it so you can throw the original piece of paper away.
If you don’t have a database or aren’t familiar with how to use one, you can achieve many of the functions you need for basic data management with a spreadsheet.
Balancing Personal or Business Finances
One of the most tangible payoffs of getting organized comes from bringing order to your financial affairs, whether personal or business. Balancing your budget and putting your money in the right place can help beef up your bank account, enhance your peace of mind, and ensure your future. Technology can keep track of the details and even do the math.
Get fiscally organized with four steps even a spendthrift or expense report dropout can follow:
1.Track your receipts to see what you spend. For one month, collect receipts for every transaction, from the grocery store to the gas station, restaurants, stores, airlines, utilities, insurance, lawyers, online vendors, office supplies — everything. Be sure to make a note of cash expenses when you don’t obtain a receipt for things such as parking, fast food, or taxicabs.
2.Assess your expenses. Organize the outflow by creating two forms, monthly and annual — in a word-processing table, or in a spreadsheet or bookkeeping program that can crunch the numbers — to analyze and sum up your expenses. Across the top go categories (some broken down into subcategories), and down the left-hand side runs time — days of the
month for a monthly report, or months of the year for an annual.
After you set up this form on the computer, use it for your expense report at work or for accounts payable or yearly expense forms, year-end taxes, or for a home-based business.
After entering your expenses on the form, you can throw away any receipts not needed for tax purposes, expense accounts, warranties, or returns. Home-based businesses, however, should save all receipts.
Remember that anything you buy can prove defective or fall apart. You can protect your purchases by holding on to receipts for three to six months in case of returns. Filing purchase receipts by the month in a small file box with tabbed dividers makes purging the old ones easy.
3.Assess your income. Create another form with the 12 months listed down the left-hand side and estimate all your revenues for each month: sales (business) or income (personal), investment earnings, child support, and so on. Use the previous year’s tax bracket to estimate the percentage of gross revenues you’ll pay in taxes, and subtract that amount from your annual total at the bottom.
4.Compare the inflow with the outflow. Subtract your annual expenses from your annual post-tax income. Hopefully the result is positive, leaving you some latitude to save, invest, pay down bills, buy new equipment, or even take a great vacation. If the result is negative, your budget is out of balance and you need to trim expenses, increase revenues, or both.
Keep enough money in savings or easily liquidated money funds to cover 3 to 12 months of expenses. Many people stake more than they realize on receiving their regular salary and anything from a market shift to an unexpected health problem can seriously downsize your income.
See Personal Finance For Dummies, 3rd Edition, by Eric Tyson (IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.) for more on balancing your budget and planning your financial future.
Organization is the heart and soul of information technology. The word system, from the Greek set up, was in the lexicon of organizers long before words came to describe the architecture of cyberspace. Whether you work with your kitchen cupboard or your computer files, systematic thinking can transform your life as radically as the Information Age has revolutionized society. Enjoy the ride!
Part V
Time Management Strategies for Home, Office, and Travel
In this part . . .
W hoever said that time is money was understating the case in the extreme. Time is a part of life itself, and Part V can help you make more of every moment.
No matter how smart or how rich you are, you never get more than twenty-four hours in a day. However, with the right time-management techniques, you can easily add some extra accomplishments or free time. Trim a week off an unwieldy project. Make a plan for five years out, then make your plan come true. The principles in this part can help you put time on your side at work and play to get the most living out of every day, not to mention arrive at meetings early, pick up your kids on time, and make it to the movies at the appointed hour.
Chapter 18
Planning Your Day and Your Life Like a Pro
In This Chapter
Planning for work, play, and personal agendas
Assessing values and setting goals
Keeping track of absolutely everything
Working with your personal rhythms
Rewarding yourself for a job well done
T ime isn’t money — time is the stuff of life itself. No amount of money in the world can buy a minute or an hour. Don’t bother trying to cash in your mutual fund to recover a moment you missed, whether it’s a kid’s soccer game, a partner’s spontaneous kiss, or a meeting that determined the promotions list. Planning means allocating one of life’s precious commodities — time — unrecoverable and ever ticking by. Plan today to make tomorrow everything you hope and dream for, or at least to make sure you get the laundry done.
A plan is a road map to get you from here to there — from morning to night, from the beginning to the end of a project, from your first paycheck to a fat investment portfolio. Planning is the same process you go through when you drive to a new destination, though many plans are more important and so promise bigger payoffs than mapping your route across town.
Kevin, a highly skilled airline technician, told me he signed up for my time-management workshop because he worked such long days that his salary broke down to the minimum hourly wage he would earn at McDonalds. Whether you use time-management techniques to make more of your workplace skills, to free up time for fun, to run your household more smoothly, or simply to maximize the moment, the benefits of planning your day are cumulative, so you want to get started now. Planning may sound like work, but guess what? It’s a lot less work than not planning. Furthermore, I make plotting your course easy with a four-step method to foresee the future. Just follow four steps with the aid of an easy-to-remember acronym—P-L-A-N— prepare, list, act, and notice.
Carpe diem: Seizing the day
Time management is a deep issue for me that goes beyond the sometimes superficial details of today’s To Do List. I lost my mother to cancer when she was just 49 years old. She never heard anyone tease that she was over the hill. She never knew that I married, or met my daughters. She never went to Europe. All the things my mother didn’t experience and the time we didn’t share make every minute count for me.
Preparing for Your Future
Preparing for the future is the most critical step to time management. If you ever gave a speech unprepared, bolted out of bed remembering that an early morning meeting starts in 20 minutes, or tried to cook a fancy dinner without any forethought, you know that doing things on the fly is difficult, if not impossible. Even if you pull it off, the results are usually sub-par and the process stressful. Extend the implications to big issues such as plotting out your career, having a family, or retiring, and you can see that preparation is the point on which effective time management pivots.
Preparation is the part of planning in which you figure out what you’re trying to accomplish and why, who will be involved, and where, when, and how you can do it. To help you through the heavy thinking are my high-performance prep questions, the Five W’s plus How. Every time you need a plan, simply ask yourself: Why? What? When? Who? Where? How? The answers can map your path.
Assessing your values
Why? Every plan is driven by values. From deciding on a vacation destination to funding a capital renovation, from buying a home to building a skyscraper, knowing your purpose is the first step to preparing your plan.
Purpose is derived from values, whether held by an individual or an organization—so start your preparation by assessing your values or those of your team, family, or company. Your answer may be quite different depending on whether you’re drawing up a five-year plan or starting a single project or job, whether you’re deciding on the kids’ activities for the year or whether to have kids at all, for instance. You may want to ask yourself some deep personal questions, such as: Is this a time to lead or serve others? Do you want power and the responsibility that comes with it, or would recognition for a job well done please you more? Does financial security take first priority, or is it time to take some creative risks? Take out a piece of paper and write down the top ten values guiding this plan, and then rank them by number. Here’s a list to get you started.
Accomplishment
Adventure
Caring
Comfort
Creativity
Excellence
Family
Financial
Friendship
Fun
Happiness
Health
Home
Honesty
Humility
Independence
Knowledge
Leadership
Love
Loyalty
Peace
Power
Recognition
Religion
Security
Serving othe
rs
Solitude
Stability
Structure
Trust
Wisdom
Once you understand your value structure, write a mission statement to point you to the plan you want to undertake.
Companies have long used mission statements to guide their strategic planning, and recent years have proven the benefits of clear mission statements for individuals and families too. Mission statements are value-based and answer the question Why? Here are a few examples:
To enjoy some quality time with my mate or significant other.
To move the company from a high-risk leadership position to a mid-tier provider with better profit margins.
To have more relaxation time, entertain friends more often, and eat more healthily.
Discovering your goals
What? Now that you know why you’re making a plan, what are you trying to accomplish? If values are the planning environment, goals are the product —the carrot, the target, the end result or outcome you’re aiming for. Are you getting up and going to work every day without a goal? Your lack of direction may cause you to miss out on opportunities for promotion, personal growth, and a comfortable retirement. Trying to improve your tennis game? You may be much more motivated if you set a goal of having a smash serve by August.
Plain and simple, goals get you what you want. They are the concrete, material, and practical things that you actually do to accomplish the mission. For instance, if your mission is to have the most perfect lawn in the neighborhood, your goals may include planning a watering and fertilization schedule, consulting with lawn and gardening experts or books, and investing in high-quality lawn care tools. If your mission is to be healthier, dropping ten pounds may be on your list of goals. While your mission states your overall vision of how you want to live, your goals are the specific accomplishments that make the mission come true. Table 18-1 shows some goals to go with the mission statements made in the previous section.