Time for a change
Nov. 25th, 2007 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringIt must have been 1994 that I was sent along, at short notice, to a time management seminar run by Day-Timer. Somebody else within the department had pulled out and I was hastily selected as a replacement, which suited me just fine, because if there is one thing I like, it’s being a student and lolling about in class.
Perhaps it was also because I wasn’t achieving much at work, but realistically, most of my time at Attorney-General’s was spent marking time while the team waited for software and legislation to arrive so we could get something done. There was no point in coding up programs in obsolete software, nor implementing legislation that was all going to change as soon as Parliament got its act together. We mostly worked on documentation, sent emails to each other, and at lunchtime (or when the boss was out of the office) we’d have a multi-player game of Bolo.
Anyway, it was a day off from make-work for me, so I turned up at the Garden City Motor Lodge and joined a motley bunch of public servants in a seminar room under the command of a time-management trainer. He distributed various worksheets and materials to us and talked us through common-sense principles of time and work.
Turned out we all had problems with time wasters and distractions and inefficiency.
Here was the solution, the trainer announced, distributing little packages. These turned out to be starter kits of the Day-Timer system. A taster of the real thing with a month’s worth of pages in a cheap plastic binder.
He led us through how the system worked, how we could enter our appointments on one side of a daily record page and on the other side record what we actually did. Separate sections tracked expenses and tasks arranged in order of priority and importance. Entries could be cross-referenced.
The organisation of tasks was interesting. You wrote down what had to be done today and arranged them in order. Attending your boss’s morning briefing was high importance and priority. Renewing your passport was high importance but low priority, because it had to be done, but maybe not right away. Attending a colleague’s birthday lunch was low importance but high priority. Reading through junk mail was low importance and priority.
There were various codes to rank tasks further, but the idea was to do stuff that had to be done, and do it promptly.
I’m big on systems and I fell in love with it. At least the notion of it, even if I’m not big on the discipline needed to make it work. That night I thumbed through the catalogue we had been given and made out an order for a proper leather binder and a complete set of filler pages. When it arrived, I was as happy as a dog with two tales to wag, and I set about following the system, organising my life in to this American Filofax.
Over the years, I’ve experimented with different formats and binders, most of which either had to be carried or made my pocket bulge in a rectangular fashion. I use my organiser as a wallet, credit card holder, address and phone book, mini-atlas, calendar, diary, travel wallet and so on. Indispensable.
My current organiser is a superseded Kathmandu travel diary I found second hand for four dollars. Lots of pockets for organising, an exterior pocket for sunglasses and boarding passes, clad in waterproof yellow, and with a zip closure so that nothing falls out. I love it.
But it’s getting a little old and tired now. It’s been travelling around the world with me and every day gets crammed into the pocket of my cab door. It’s fraying at the edges and looking scruffy. Sigh.
I ducked into OfficeWorks the other day. They have various Filofax, DayRunner and Day-Timer systems on sale. I usually get an annual refill there instead of sending away to the official Day-Timer shop, and I looked at the refills. And at my tired old binder. Sigh.
Time for an update. None of the binders on offer looked good to me. Black leather or uppy-yuppie designer models. Nothing with an outside pocket. I need an outside pocket so when I go through security I can pull out my passport and boarding pass without fumbling with zips.
I sent away for a catalogue, and I spent my spare time on Thursday’s shift checking out the organiserporn, reading the descriptions of the smoothness and richness of the leather, the convenience of the pockets and zips, the layout of the filler pages. Sigh. I love browsing through catalogues.
And they make it so easy to order stuff nowadays. Well, all but Levenger. Anyway, I’ve sent off for a new binder. No longer BookCrossing yellow, I’m sorry to say, but burgundy leather. With “Coastliner” filler pages, so I get a faint seaside background to my diary.
Ooh, I can hardly wait! I’ll organise my life afresh when it arrives. Lord knows I need to get my time together because I have so little of it. No more maundering on the Internet!
Perhaps it was also because I wasn’t achieving much at work, but realistically, most of my time at Attorney-General’s was spent marking time while the team waited for software and legislation to arrive so we could get something done. There was no point in coding up programs in obsolete software, nor implementing legislation that was all going to change as soon as Parliament got its act together. We mostly worked on documentation, sent emails to each other, and at lunchtime (or when the boss was out of the office) we’d have a multi-player game of Bolo.
Anyway, it was a day off from make-work for me, so I turned up at the Garden City Motor Lodge and joined a motley bunch of public servants in a seminar room under the command of a time-management trainer. He distributed various worksheets and materials to us and talked us through common-sense principles of time and work.
Turned out we all had problems with time wasters and distractions and inefficiency.
Here was the solution, the trainer announced, distributing little packages. These turned out to be starter kits of the Day-Timer system. A taster of the real thing with a month’s worth of pages in a cheap plastic binder.
He led us through how the system worked, how we could enter our appointments on one side of a daily record page and on the other side record what we actually did. Separate sections tracked expenses and tasks arranged in order of priority and importance. Entries could be cross-referenced.
The organisation of tasks was interesting. You wrote down what had to be done today and arranged them in order. Attending your boss’s morning briefing was high importance and priority. Renewing your passport was high importance but low priority, because it had to be done, but maybe not right away. Attending a colleague’s birthday lunch was low importance but high priority. Reading through junk mail was low importance and priority.
There were various codes to rank tasks further, but the idea was to do stuff that had to be done, and do it promptly.
I’m big on systems and I fell in love with it. At least the notion of it, even if I’m not big on the discipline needed to make it work. That night I thumbed through the catalogue we had been given and made out an order for a proper leather binder and a complete set of filler pages. When it arrived, I was as happy as a dog with two tales to wag, and I set about following the system, organising my life in to this American Filofax.
Over the years, I’ve experimented with different formats and binders, most of which either had to be carried or made my pocket bulge in a rectangular fashion. I use my organiser as a wallet, credit card holder, address and phone book, mini-atlas, calendar, diary, travel wallet and so on. Indispensable.
My current organiser is a superseded Kathmandu travel diary I found second hand for four dollars. Lots of pockets for organising, an exterior pocket for sunglasses and boarding passes, clad in waterproof yellow, and with a zip closure so that nothing falls out. I love it.
But it’s getting a little old and tired now. It’s been travelling around the world with me and every day gets crammed into the pocket of my cab door. It’s fraying at the edges and looking scruffy. Sigh.
I ducked into OfficeWorks the other day. They have various Filofax, DayRunner and Day-Timer systems on sale. I usually get an annual refill there instead of sending away to the official Day-Timer shop, and I looked at the refills. And at my tired old binder. Sigh.
Time for an update. None of the binders on offer looked good to me. Black leather or uppy-yuppie designer models. Nothing with an outside pocket. I need an outside pocket so when I go through security I can pull out my passport and boarding pass without fumbling with zips.
I sent away for a catalogue, and I spent my spare time on Thursday’s shift checking out the organiserporn, reading the descriptions of the smoothness and richness of the leather, the convenience of the pockets and zips, the layout of the filler pages. Sigh. I love browsing through catalogues.
And they make it so easy to order stuff nowadays. Well, all but Levenger. Anyway, I’ve sent off for a new binder. No longer BookCrossing yellow, I’m sorry to say, but burgundy leather. With “Coastliner” filler pages, so I get a faint seaside background to my diary.
Ooh, I can hardly wait! I’ll organise my life afresh when it arrives. Lord knows I need to get my time together because I have so little of it. No more maundering on the Internet!
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 08:11 pm (UTC)Co-workers would always be amazed that I remembered their birthday or company anniversary, and it was a good way to recall exactly what year something happened (Now what year did we take that cruise?)
Highly recommended!