#1 Organize the Priorities

The first area I wanted to tackle was my big-picture view of things. Although I had a pretty good grasp of what was most important, I found myself struggling with two main distractions: sub-projects and outside pull for my attention.

Sub-projects

I already had my income divided into three main “buckets,” but within each of those buckets, there were usually at least a half a dozen sub-projects competing for my attention at any given point, and I was constantly getting new ideas to add to the list. That made it really difficult to stay on track and make sure that the most important things were actually getting done, so I needed to decide on my top three priorities within each bucket. That way, when I sat down to work on a given bucket, I wasn’t wasting time trying to figure out what sub-project to work on next.

Outside Pull

Another common distraction was people approaching me to help me with their projects or to collaborate on joint ventures of some sort, which can be a good thing, but not if it keeps me from working on my top priorities. It can be tempting to want to drop what I’m working on in order to make room for a new and exciting opportunity, but the reality is, there are only so many hours in a day, and if I tried to do everything, nothing would ever get done.

It’s a very slippery slope, so I had to figure out a good way to track these outside distractions and make sure I didn’t allow othem to pull me away from my top priorities. I revamped my schedule a bit (a constant work in progress) and set aside three hours a week, in one-hour blocks, for “outside stuff.” For now at least, that’s going to have to be the limit, so when someone contacts me to write a guest post, for instance, or contribute to their project in some way, I can look at my schedule and see how many blocks of “outside stuff” time I have left. When they’re gone, they’re gone. That’s the only way to keep myself disciplined, while still allowing a little wiggle room for those shiny distractions.

#2 Organize the Environment

Another constant source of frustration was my work environment. There were all these little things that were just not working well, either from neglect or poor planning, so I decided to fix those while I was at it. Some examples:

• The desk organizer where I keep my calculator, which I use quite a bit, was filled with scrap pieces of paper and business cards. Every time I grabbed the calculator, the entire mess of papers would come with it. It’s been that way for a year!
• My desks had very little empty space for writing or organizing projects. I like to plan on paper, and anytime I do this, I end up bumping into phones and books and other unused clutter that is just taking up valuable real estate. I actually would regularly think about going to work at my kitchen table so that I’d have room to spread out all my notes!
• My desktop file bins had become overtaken by takeout menus, magazine clippings, and stray notebooks that weren’t being used (because I forgot they were there). Instead of holding project-related notes, which is what they were intended for, they had become junk bins.

All those little aggravations and areas of clutter were just slowing me down and adding to the chaos, so I started cleaning out and organizing in a counter-clockwise fashion until I had the entire room cleaned back up.

The funny thing was, when people came over, they always commented on how organized everything in my office was, which is probably why it took me so long to realize I had a problem. It doesn’t really matter how organized it looks. Neat does not equal efficient or effective.

Stop and look around your work space. Think about the little inefficiencies that always make you shake your head in frustration and say, “One day, I’m going to have to organize that.” Set aside some time this week to tackle it. I was able to get everything done in two or three hours, and I know I’ll save that much time in improved focus in the coming week alone.

What are the little inefficiencies in your setup, system or schedule that could be improved?

Photo by Flickr user orphanjones, licensed under CC 2.0

1. Read It Later. A very cool Firefox extension from the Idea Shower, Read It Later sits in Firefox’s toolbar with two simple icons: one to save your current page to a reading list, and another to serve you with a page from your reading list. You can also right-click on links that you want to read later, which is useful on social bookmarking sites such as delicious or Digg, or on your favorite blog (such as Web Worker Daily).

So how does this reduce clutter? Well, if you use a bookmarking service or just use your browser’s bookmarks, you probably have a large number of items that you’ve bookmarked that you want to read later. Read It Later simplifies all of this by keeping everything in one list, and serving things up as you want to read them. Check them off when you’re done reading, and they’re removed from the list. It’s hard to get any simpler than that.

2. Morning Coffee. We’ve mentioned this before, but the Morning Coffee extension for Firefox is a useful way to open all your daily sites in tabs with one click of the Morning Coffee icon. Sure, you could do the same thing by creating folders for your Firefox bookmarks and opening them all in tabs … but Morning Coffee puts it all in one click, and that one click can open different tabs for different days of the week or combination of days. It simplifies your bookmark folders in this way by putting everything in one button, one click.

3. Google Docs. For me, Google Docs has been a godsend when it comes to organizing my online files and keeping the clutter to a minimum. Why? Because now I do all my word processing and spreadsheet work online, all my documents are in one place, and I can access my documents from anywhere. Because now I don’t have to worry about filing documents … I just save them, and then do a quick search when I need them. Simple and easy.

4. RSS. Sure, you already use RSS to read your favorite blogs. But do you make the most of RSS’s power? If there are other sites you check regularly, using an RSS reader can greatly simplify your life … just subscribe to the RSS feed on a page, and you can get updates whenever you like.

What can you follow with RSS? You can see the latest posts on your favorite forums, keep up with sites like Digg and reddit and delicious, a Wikipedia page, your favorite magazines, a Technorati search, Amazon’s bestsellers, a shared Google Calendar, and much more.

I recommend using Google Reader, because it keeps things extremely simple, it’s fast, and easy to use. Within a few minutes, I can read all my feeds in Google Reader using super fast keyboard shortcuts.

5. Gmail. The best way to stop junk mail is at the source. Gmail has the best spam filter I’ve seen (the last time I got junk mail in my inbox was months ago), which is one reason I recommend it for getting rid of clutter. And if you set up Gmail filters to unclutter your inbox, and archive and search rather than file, email clutter is a thing of the past.

What are your favorite tools for reducing online clutter? Let us know in the comments. 

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So let’s take a look at some simple ways to clear through your pile of old files — in your file cabinet, on your computer, and online.

Paper Files
The first thing to do is to look at the scope of work you’ve got in front of you: I only have a drawer’s worth of files, but if you’ve got several cabinets of files, you may want to limit your scope to the most active files or drawer. If you just have a drawer or two of files, you can do this in less than an hour (probably).

Now that you’ve figured out your scope, find an hour of free time and do the following:

1. Take all your files out and pile them. If you need to do it in 2, 3 or 5 piles, that’s OK. The key is to clear out your file drawer(s) and get everything in one area.

2. Go through the files one at a time and make quick decisions. Start with the top file, make a decision on it, and then go to the next one. Don’t put off any decision on any file. When you make the decision, you’re going to place it in one of the following piles:

• Active. If you’ve used this file any time in the last 6 months (you can set the time frame to a year if that works better for you), put it in the active file. If the file looks bloated, you can weed out any unnecessary documents to thin it down if you like.
• Archives. These are files you don’t use anymore, but you might like to keep for possible reference. But be vigilant about these files, as you don’t want to keep a bunch of files you’ll never use again. Financial documents are a good bet, as are anything else that’s not easily replaceable or that you can’t find online or somewhere else.
• Trash. Try to get rid of as many files as possible. It feels good to clear out old files you’ll never need again.

3. Clear out your drawer. Now that your file drawer is empty, clean it good. It’s nice to start with a clean drawer.

4. Put your files in order. Trash the files you won’t need, and find another place to store your archives. Then put your active files back in your file drawer. It should be much less full than before. Alphabetize your files before putting them back.

You should be all cleared out and ready for a great new year!

Computer Files
If you’ve got a ton of files on your computer, it can be useful to clear out the clutter here too. Set aside 30-60 minutes for this.

Basically, you want to repeat the same process. Take all your various folders and put them in one place, if they’re scattered. Then go through them, one at a time, and sort them into three folders:

• Active. All the projects you’re currently working on.
• Archives. Within archives, you should have subfolders (unless you’re the type to search instead of file). Don’t keep archives if you’ll never need the files again.
• Trash. Delete all the trash instead of creating a new folder.

Online
What files do you have online? Take a quick inventory, and set aside 30 minutes for each type of file. Some of my examples include:

• Email. Now is a great time to clear out those old emails, especially the ones with large files or emails before 2007.
• Google Docs. I store most of my files online instead of on my computer.
• WordPress. As I write a blog, I have a lot of files stored in WordPress. Whether it’s old image files I don’t need, old posts that are worthless, or plugins and themes that I’ll never use again, I can weed through the unnecessary stuff.
• Box.net. I store a lot of files online. Same process as above.
• Flickr or Picasa. Whatever photo service you use, you might have ones you don’t want anymore. Same thing with YouTube or other video.
• del.icio.us. Or other bookmarking services. Are you ever going to need all of those bookmarks? Weed through them if you have time.

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On the other hand, an empty inbox and a clear desk are the results of quick decisions.

Quick decision-making can have many positive results: it can help you stay on top of a rising flow of information and communication, it can reduce stress, it can improve your productivity, and give you a reputation for being on top of your work.

But the habits of years of indecision can be hard to break. Let’s take a look at some tips that can help build the habit of quick decision-making, and clear the piles from your life.

1. Determine your criteria. Often the reason for indecision is that you don’t really know the basis for making a decision. Determine your criteria beforehand, and decisions will be a snap.

As an example, let’s look at the decisions required to clear your email inbox: you need to make a decision on the action needed for each email, and then take that action. So the criteria for each email should be: does this email need a reply, an action to be taken, info to be forwarded or action to be delegated to someone else, an appointment to be made on my calendar, info filed for future reference, or no action needed at all? And once you’ve determined which of the criteria the email meets, you should know what decision (or action) should be taken for each one.

It’s the same for any other decision-making process: determine the criteria and the action to be taken.

2. Know where things belong. Once you’ve determined the criteria, you should know where to put something based on that criteria. For example, if you decided that a document needs to be filed for future reference, do you know where to file it? If you decided that you need to take action on an email (but can’t take that action at this moment), do you know where to list that action? Do you have a to-do system where that action can go?

After each decision is made, the result of that decision should have a place to go. If it doesn’t, you need to designate it now. Where do appointments go? Where do actions go? Where does reference stuff go? Where does stuff you need to follow up on go? Where does stuff you don’t need at all go (in the trash, probably)?

3. If there’s still a pile, analyze why. If you’ve taken the first two steps above, and there’s still a pile, you should figure out what’s creating the pile. Is there a reason you’re putting off the decisions? If there’s a fear of making a decision, perhaps you should ask yourself what the worst possible outcome of making the decision. Whatever the reason for the pile, you’ll need to figure out how to address it. Usually it just means you need to create a system for preventing the piling (or modify an existing system), and teach yourself to stick to that system.

4. Know what matters. For decisions slightly more difficult than what to do with an email, you may want to decide how to get to the heart of the matter. What matters most with this decision? If you know that, you can eliminate all the other factors cluttering your mind and make a decision based on what matters the most.

5. See if you have the info you need. Sometimes you can’t make a good decision because you don’t have all the necessary information. In that case, make the decision to take action now: send an email requesting the info, look it up on the web, make a phone call. But don’t let the situation continue, with no decision made because of a lack of info. Make the decision and take action to get that info.

6. Ask yourself: What happens if I don’t act? Sometimes, the best action is no action. Especially if you have a million other actions to take. So if there’s no consequence for not acting, perhaps you can trash or file that email or document without taking action. If so, I heartily recommend doing so. It’ll save on the stress put on your life from too many pending actions.
7. Know your desired outcome. Again, this is for decisions more complicated than what to do with an email, but sometimes the problem with making a decision is that you don’t know where you want to be. What do you want to happen with a project? If you clearly define your desired outcome (write it down), you can easily make decisions, because it’s just a matter of figuring out how to get to that desired outcome.

8. Determine what’s next. Once you’ve made the decision, take the step to ensure that decision gets carried through. Now that you’ve made the decision, what needs to be done next? In the case of an email, you might need to file or trash it. In the case of a paper on your desk, you might need to file it, or fax it, or put it on someone’s desk. In other cases, it might be that you need to send out an email, call someone, file something, put something on your calendar, etc.

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