GetOrganised: sorting out routine tasks

GetOrganised

For March 2013, each Sunday I'll be helping you to GetOrganised. I'll share tips and tricks aimed at making organisation work for you...noting of course how you could possibly tweek everything to suit your needs.

We know what needs to be organised, and even know how to make sense of a to do list. But what about those routine tasks that need to get done daily, weekly or monthly?

Routine tasks can be simple tasks like checking email or more time consuming ones like putting together a budget or report. If not properly organised these tasks can take a few minutes, or a few days. Then because these are routine tasks, pushing them back can cause a very much unwanted pile up of things to do.

....yea....you've probably just thought about the 100+ unread emails...if you're anything like my boyfriend you probably have about 200+...and never really plan to read them.

Anywho...what's the solution? First of all you have to make note of what your routine tasks are and how frequent these tasks need to be done. This of course makes perfect sense. With that list, you can now see what tasks you definitely need to make time for on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Because the lists will differ for each individual I can only tackle what I believe are generally routine tasks for everybody.

Emails
Depending on what your job entails and how many email addresses you have, the number of email you get daily can range from 1 to 'I give up on keeping track.' Regardless of how many emails you're getting, try to make set times for checking email (twice a day or every few hours depending on the volume of mail) and use folders to organise email that you have already looked at and only need to keep for reference reasons. All other email should be trashed as soon as it can be.
As for new email, the best way to clear up your inbox is to look at your mail in three categories (in my opinion): subscriptions, important mail and personal mail.

1. Subscriptions

Six months ago you thought signing up for mail from 'bestsiteeverblahblahblah' was the best decision. To this day you have never read an email they've sent..or what they send is of absolutely no use to you...so what's the point of having them fill your inbox? Once the subscription is not benefiting you, unsubscribe!
The rule also applies for social media networks that you're going to log into and check anyway. There's no need for you to get an email every single time someone comments on your pic, when you know you're going to be logged into Facebook and see when the notification comes up. For most sites you can adjust what you get mail for and how often you are sent mail. Consider that option if it's that important for you to get an email from social networks...otherwise...unsubscribe!

2. Important mail
Email is popularly seen as the means of communicating with co-workers, classmates, potential clients et al. So your inbox probably has loads of important mail that you've read and need to follow up on, or those you need to read and download documents from, etc, etc. It can be hard to organise mail like this depending on how many you receive on a daily basis and how quickly you can respond.
You probably also have a mobile device that you use to check your mail. And as convenient as it is, these devices can be one of the reasons that important mail gets forgotten! If you read an email and can respond without needing to do any further follow up, then send an answer ASAP! Otherwise, the easiest solution is to use the 'star' option.
After reading an email (assuming you need to follow up but are unable to respond at the time) add a star to it so you can check it again at a more convenient time when you aren't as busy (preferably at the beginning/end of the day). Try to avoid taking more than a day to answer, and when you've done your follow up, remove the star from the email.

3. Personal mail
Photos from the last family event or forwards with cute messages may give a lift to your day, but if you aren't careful you end up spending hours looking at all this and getting no work done. Unless it's related to a family emergency, leave the personal mail unread until you're on outside of work hours. After viewing them, either download what's important, put it in a folder or trash it.


Cleaning
Cleanliness is next to Godliness but depending on what needs to be cleaned, cleaning can be a few hour task or something that needs a weekend. There's no going around the fact that the average person has more to do than they have time for, and sometimes it's the routine cleaning that takes a back seat.
Of course you take the time to wash dishes and do laundry, but dusting, vacuuming, and clearing out your wardrobe does need to have every now and again. The solution is to choose one or two days per week and make them your cleaning days. On these days you can tackle one more area that needs a pick me up, that way the cleaning doesn't pile up and become overwhelming. We'll tackle the cleaning schedule a bit more in another GetOrganised post. Until then, here's a cute printable cleaning schedule from modernstylemama.com


Budgeting
Oh the distress of managing money....distressing of course if there isn't much in your life, but superbly important if you want to make sense of your spending!
No matter how much you make, tracking your monthly spending puts you in a better position to see what your spending habits are and possibly get to better spend money on things you want 'just because'.
Of course in my world the main reason behind budgeting is to save, and since I don't have one set full time job with a steady income, it's even more important for me to know how much is made monthly and how much is spend. I'll admit, I know little about accounts but I've found a way to break down my income and expenses without making me feel totally confused.
I make a list of the incomes and various expenses based on where the money comes from (whether your main job or a special project) and where the money is spent (home, bills, transportation, pets, donations, etc). Since I'm not the best at explaining accounts, here's a sample personal budget I put together. It's saved as a Microsoft Excel document that you can edit and use.


I know these are just three of many routine tasks, but I really hope that breaking down these three helps you get things more organised and helps you better organise the other ones you have.

Now you can break your list into categories and plan out how you'll get your routine tasks done.
Please let me know how the templates work out...especially the one I made for you. Next week I'll give you some great tech-solutions you can use to GetOrganised!