After reading about the Getting Things Done process, I looked back at the ways that I have kept myself organized in the past. I am generally a very organized person and pay close attention to deadlines or due dates. However, I may not be organized in the stereotypical way with everything in its place. I like to think of my way of getting things done in the past as organized chaos. In the past and still to this day I frequently use my monthly agenda for important dates, meetings, and deadlines. As for day-to-day or weekly tasks, I frequently use lists or the forever trusted post it note. Post it notes seem to be one of my life lines with notes and mini agendas that give me daily goals, weekly goals, or possibly a note of something coming up in the near future. After reflecting upon my ways of organization and reading about the Getting Things Done process, I tried it out.
To organize my process, I choose to use paper and pencil. At this point in time, it seemed to be the fastest way for me to get everything out in the open and to be able to edit it with ease. While I am an owner of a Blackberry smart phone, I have not used it for many of the features is possesses. I would like to rely on it to help keep me organized, but due to the cell phone policy at our school, it is not something that I can use during the school day in front of students, as students are not allowed to have them out during the day. When cell phones are used and learning and organizational tools in the classroom (Which will hopefully happen soon), I think I will utilize my phone more as an organizational tool for myself.
Going through the process for the first time was a bit tedious for me. I understand that once it becomes more familiar and second nature, the process will tend to streamline and speed up. The collect step was fairly easy. I was able to create quite a comprehensive list of tasks to complete ranging from short-term tasks to long-term tasks and to focus on deadlines of certain tasks. For the process step, I felt that going through the 5 steps was too much to think about or ask for each step. The organize step allowed me to prioritize and organize the tasks in an easy manner to keep me on task, meet deadlines, and complete the tasks in an easy manner. I agree the review step holds the whole process together, but when looking at your organized list you should constantly be reviewing your process and making changes concurrently. As far as the final doing step, I don’t think it was necessary to ask all the questions associated with this step. Once you have your list, get to it. There are some times where it doesn’t matter what you can do, the time you have, or the energy you have. These are the times that you just have to get the task done regardless of the fact that it may be something you want or do not want to do at that moment.
I think there are components of this process that I can apply to my everyday life that can help me stay on top of my organization skills. I think the organization step will benefit me the most by helping me prioritize what needs to be done and to do so in a timely fashion.
Other than taking some of the parts and applying it to my already organized chaos of planner and post it notes, I do not think I will continue the entire process in my quest to get things done. In the time that it takes to go through the steps and ask the questions, I could have already completed some of the simple tasks on my list versus sitting down and going through a process that seems somewhat tedious and unneeded at this point in my life. I do think that when I transition to using my smart phone as an organizational tool, I will be able to keep myself organized quicker by using software available to me and keep the tasks organized as they arise from the moment I enter them into my phone or software program. Until that time, even though it may seem to be a bit old school, I am going to stick with my tried and true post it note system and my monthly agenda.
