| Mediaspin,
What you said made a lot of sense. I simply can not keep everything I need to do in my head particular during the last severals when I get older. So I have done something similar to what you have done, which is to keep a planner in which I write down all appointments I have with people. On top of that, I keep a To Do Lists at least once a week, and I update it whenever needs arise. It takes me a long time, sometimes as much as half an hour in one sitting, to come up with a detailed list of things that I need to take care of either immediately or within the next week. If I plan to call some people, I would dig out their telephone numbers and put them beside their names. Yes, it takes time to do so, but once I have the TO Do List made up, executing it is much quicker than one can imagine. And I make quick notes of what my cnversation is about in writing. If I need to call a business to check some information or to make a complaint, I would write down the date, name of person I contacted and the action I took, and make notation if I need to follow up on the case. By doing so, should I need to contact these people again, I would try to speak with the same persons to save time repeating what I had said before. Another tool I use which saves me a lot of time retrieving documents is to keep anything worth saving in my filing cabinet. Then once a year, I go through the files and toss out paper I no longer need. By faithfully keeping good files, I can find things much quickly than if I have to look for them in piles of paper work. Of course nowdays people can save documents in computer files, but I still do things the old way. Another trick I use is to keep many things that I want to put in storage in clear plastic bags or in ziploc bags instead of shopping bags which I can't see through. Again, this saves me time. Anyway, this is a big topic to cover. What I shared with you guys are just a few good habit I formed which has helped me. |
On Time Management