Successful people are productive people. Part of being productive is taking control over those areas where you can exert some control. Here are 10 areas of your personal and professional life over which you can exert some control:

1. What you wear. I’m assuming that if you are reading this article, you are an adult. So you get to choose what you wear.

2. What you think. Exert the executive control that is part of the mature human’s brain. You are not a goldfish.

3. Those with whom you associate. We are defined partly by those with whom we associate. It has been said that others know who we are if they know who we “hang out” with. Associate with the best. If you want to grow and be successful, be around others who are growing and being successful. Duds hang out with duds.

4. How you spend your time. You have 168 hours each week…just like everyone else. It’s the great equalizer. What makes the difference is how you spend (or invest) that time.

5. What you do with your money. You get to decide where your money goes. Really.

6. Where you work. If you find yourself complaining day after day, week after week, month after month, or (heaven forbid) year after year about your job, your boss, your profession, then make a change. You choose.

7. Your responses to others. You can control whether you allow others to offend you, make you mad, give you joy, insult you, inform you, edify you, build you up, support you, or…

8. Your attitude. As an adult, you get to decide whether you are positive or negative, open or closed, and so on. Take a good look at your attitude and see if you think it is the attitude of someone who is successful.

9. Portions of your environment. Take control over the aspects of your environment that you can (lighting, colors, clutter, etc.)

10. What you ingest, including food and drink. By the time you are out of your teens, you have a pretty decent sense of what food and beverages work for you and which ones don’t. Have more of the ones that work for you and less of the ones that do not. No one is forcing you to do any differently. It’s under your control.

My belief is that we all have more control than we think we do…at least over those items that I’ve listed above. Be thankful for the control you have and use it in a productive manner.

Recently a professor of art history sent me this question:

I came to one of your workshops when I was a visiting professor and found your suggestions very helpful. Now, I’ve moved into a tenure-track position and I have a BIG problem. I have lots and lots of computer-generated data. Some of the files I produce are for research, some are for teaching, some are images I use for teaching (I am an art historian). I start with what I believe is a logical system for filing and then I have a disaster. There are books out there that deal with filing paper, but how do I file computer files and find them again. Any suggestions? I cannot be the only person out there having this problem.

And she certainly isn’t! Organizing paper files presents its own challenge, but often, even when people have that handled, their digital files may be disorganized. Here are nine productivity tips to help with this situation (which is a common one):

1. Recognize that creating and maintaining an organized filing system for your digital files requires time and effort. Just as you can’t expect your physical space to organize itself (darn it!) neither can you expect your digital system to magically get itself in order (if only!)

2. Designate one of your computers as the home. Just as you wear your clothes to work and take them with you on trips (in a variety of suitcases), you know you need to eventually get your clothes back home where you can find them.

3. You need to get a plan first. Part of the reason things have gotten spread all over the place and not where they need to be is because you didn’t have a plan. Now, however, you know you need one.

4. Determine an overall file structure or scheme. Think in broad categories first. For example, for professors, their overall work life tends to be divided into three main categories so you could have the broad categories of teaching, research, and service. Each of these will be its own folder on your hard drive.

5. Create your new folders and open a window that displays these new folders. Size the window so that it is large enough to see but is not filling your entire screen.

   Note: If you don’t have two monitors, this is one of those times when you will wish that you did.

6. Open a second window with your old file structure in it. You want to be able to see these windows next to each other (or on separate monitors so that you can be dragging and dropping as you reorganize.

7. Drill down on the folders (folders within folders) that you have created in the past. If you find any folders, files, or documents, that are complete trash, toss them (delete them).

8. For the folders, files, and documents that you DECIDE to keep, start dragging and dropping them into your new file structure.

9. Acknowledge that some files and documents are used in multiple categories (e.g., as a professor, your research, teaching, and service are likely to be connected) but make a determination as you are reorganizing your files about where they most closely belong….for now. You do NOT want to have multiple copies of files and folders in the different categories because this will lead to mayhem and never knowing what is most current.

It is likely that this is going to take you several hours. I recommend NOT trying to do this all at once. It’s too exhausting. Work on it for an hour or so one day, make careful note about where you left off, and then take it up again the next day.

This is just one step toward overall peaceful productivity as a professors.

There are thousands of people who will be reading this post. I know we have people reading who have one drawer (and only one drawer) that is a little over-stuffed and that clutter stresses them out. It may not be necessary for them to repeat this process.

However!  For everyone else, you can identify with some version of the following:

• you have a whole desk that needs decluttering – or  

• maybe you have an entire office that has gotten out of hand – or  

• maybe your garage is a stressor on your relationships because no one can park a car in there and no one can find anything that is ‘stored’ in the garage – or  

• maybe the department where you work has a ‘storage room’ that has become a junk room and with the budget cuts, you need to make sure every spare pen, ream of paper, box of rubber bands is used before ordering any more and you have a sneaking suspicion there are actually supplies ‘stored’ in the storage room so you need to get in there and get it squared away.

Very few of us have only one tiny area that needs decluttering (and that we need to de-stress over). That’s why you have to ’rinse and repeat’ whatever practices you put into play when you are getting rid of clutter. You will need to toss, clean, resist getting ‘new’ junk, over and over until you have removed all the detritus, all the unused, all the unloved and unneeded items from your space. It may take a few days to do this or it may take months. Either way, it’s worth the effort.

Remember, your goal is peaceful, predictable productivity and by decreasing your clutter you can decrease your stress and move closer to your positive place of being energized by your work and home instead of dragged down by the stress.  Expect a journey to that goal.  I’ve been on that journey for over 20 years now…and I wouldn’t have persisted if I didn’t know it made a difference. 

And you are invited to learn more from the full-color Get a Plan! Guide(R) to Ridding Your Workspace of Clutter to REALLY get going on decluttering.  This special Get a Plan! Guide(R) will give you (and others with whom you work) suggestions and motivation to start de-cluttering your workspace (and even your home).

Delegating is an essential part of being productive both at home and at work. There are certainly tasks that I am sure you have done where you asked yourself “did I earn a master’s degree to qualify me to stuff these envelopes?” Other times, you wonder, “Hmmm….why am I doing this when a machine can do this just as well?” And still other times, you wish later (rather than sooner) that you had delegated.

Here are a few ideas to consider as you think about becoming a better delegator.

1. Know the definition of delegation. In general, delegating means asking for help with a task or larger project (and receiving a commitment to do what is asked). There are more involved definitions, but this is enough to get us started. Be very clear that delegating is NOT dumping and that if you are NOT an effective delegator, you cheat yourself, your company, and those with whom you work (plus your family if you still have one!)

2. Be clear on why you need to delegate. If you possess more time than you need AND all the knowledge in the world AND every skill that is imaginable AND interests and passions so diverse that it’s hard to fathom, you don’t need to consider delegation. For the rest of us…we do.

3. Write down the crises that have occurred because you did not delegate. This should not take long, but I’ll wait for you. Unfortunately, this is a case where recognizing what happens when we DO NOT delegate can encourage us to start being better delegators. It might be part of why you found this article.

4. Generate a list of people to whom you can delegate. Don’t forget teenage neighbors, anyone who needs to earn extra money, people who are “looking for something to do,” and family members. If you will just put on your thinking cap, I’m sure you will come up with quite a list. At this time in our economy, you can find incredibly talented people who will be thrilled to do some work for and with you.

5. Have a method for tracking delegated tasks. It’s easy to lose faith in delegation if it is causing you more stress than ever. That stress can be at least partially relieved if you have a way to track what it is you have delegated. You can:

• keep a list,

• write dates for checking back in your planner,

• set up a “help desk” system on your server,

• create a spread sheet…

 or a myriad of other possibilities. There are both simple and complex ways. Try something and if the method doesn’t work, try something else. And hey, you could even delegate the responsibility of finding a tracking method that will work for you.

Truly, productivity in business (and in our other endeavors) requires that we become effective and efficient delegators. See if you can implement are refine one of the ideas discussed in this article to enhance your overall productivity – by delegating. I believe you can!

There are a variety of ways that your office, workspace (and home) end up partially cluttered with things that belong somewhere else (or to SOMEONE else). You can do some major de-cluttering just by designating a box or some other type of container labeled “belongs elsewhere.” Depending on your situation, this could be a rather large container or something a little smaller. It’s up to you.

Now, take this box into the area where you are decluttering. Start looking at every shelf, in every drawer, in every corner, and in every pile. If you see anything that doesn’t belong in your space, regardless of whether it belongs in another part of your house, to a neighbor, to the library, or to your ex-husband, put it into this box. “Belongs elsewhere” means just that.

To get you thinking, here are some ideas:

• last year’s scholarship committee notebooks that need to go on to the new chairperson,

• the big 3-hole punch from the front office,

• a pair of tennis shoes you brought to work 3 years ago when you were going to walk everyday at lunch (and you haven’t walked at lunch since then),

• the 5 library books scattered here and there,

• a plant that has grown too large for your desk and really should be taken home for your living room,

• a sweater that one of your students left in the room last year (and he’s graduated now),

• the lab manual for a course you are teaching next semester that you borrowed from a friend until yours arrived (and yours did arrive last week).

You get the idea. Somehow, items have slowly but surely moved into your space – sometimes through your efforts and other times, seemingly by themselves. Of course, it will take effort to move them back out again. So create your box labeled “Belongs Elsewhere” and put anything in there that needs to be transported someplace else. Later (not right now), you will deliver these items to their new and/or rightful owners or locations.

And you are invited to learn more from the full-color Get a Plan! Guide(R) to Ridding Your Workspace of Clutter to REALLY get going on decluttering.  This special Get a Plan! Guide(R) will give you (and others with whom you work) suggestions and motivation to start de-cluttering your workspace (and even your home).

Write down a problem that you have been trying to deal with (or that you’ve ignored) in your business.

I’ll wait.

OK. I’ll assume you have that written down. Now, change the wording of that problem into a question.

I’ll wait.

OK. I will assume that you now have a great question posed. You want a question that is begging for an answer. You don’t have to write it already knowing the answer…you just have to write it as if you expect an answer (from somewhere, anywhere!)

Now you go to the really fun part, which is generating at least 30 responses to whatever the question is that you asked. Just number a piece of paper, put your question at the top and start writing.

I am quite sure that you might be thinking, “Oh, brother, Meggin. Are you nuts? I can’t come up with 30 ideas, answers, alternatives, ways, or any other label for this question. That’s impossible.”

Actually, no, it’s not impossible. Pretty much the first 12, 13, 14 or so ideas that you or your team generate are the ones you need to get out of the way to allow the really good ones to come through. So often, we stop right about the 12 -15 mark (if we even get that far). And while the real answer MIGHT be in that group, if you don’t push past that, you won’t really know. I can literally feel a shift when I blast through the first easy ones. It’s quite interesting and fascinating (and very cool). Dee Hock said,

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.

This activity is one way to do this. Start writing and feel free to blast right past the 30 mark. There is nothing magical about 30 and certainly should not be seen as an upper limit. I just needed to give you a target that was well past the dozen where you’re likely to write the standard responses. You need and want to get to the newer, fresher, more creative ideas.

So just write. Don’t stop. Don’t think you’ve exhausted the answers. As long as you have working brain cells, there are more ideas.

NOW you have some ideas and solutions to choose from. I believe with my whole heart, that there are no problems that cannot be solved through people putting their creative minds to work.

Join me in that belief and in living that way.

1.  Define what a productive environment is like for you. There is not one and only one definition. It depends on your style, your work, your space, and more.

2.  Study the ergonomics of your work space. Especially think about getting a better keyboard – one with a built-in wrist pad.

3.  Take a look at your lighting. If you don’t have a window, consider light bulbs that simulate outdoor light.

4.  Consider sound. One of my assistants doesn’t even have the speakers plugged in on her computer. Music is entertainment for her, and is therefore a distraction.

5.  Assess the quality of furniture and other accoutrements. If your file drawer is always sticking, it has an impact on your productivity.

6.  Get the supplies you need, but don’t store anything that you don’t use EVERY DAY on the top of your desk.

7.  Use the ABCD concept for spaces around your desk. Think of your desk and associated areas as a target. You sit in the bull’s eye, or “A” area, and anything you can reach without moving your chair is also in the “A” area. I like to call this “prime real estate.” Ask yourself if you use the items in this space EVERY day. (Do you really use the phone book every day?) “B” space is for every other day, “C” is weekly, and “D” space is materials that you must maintain but that you do NOT deal with very often.

8.  Eliminate rather than add. You don’t need MORE stuff, you need less. You probably try to convince your colleagues of this fact, too.

9.  Take it all away and put it all back at least once/year. That means everything in every drawer and stuffed into any desk cubby – remove it and then mindfully replace it. You will only put about 50-60% of it back and realize the rest either belongs somewhere else or doesn’t belong anywhere and can go in the trash or recycling bin.

10.  Hire someone for a couple of hours or more (a professional organizer). For more information about professional organizers in your area, just check with The National Association of Professional Organizers.

Take the time and energy to make sure that your desk and workspace are places where you can work productively. It’s worth the effort

In today’s world, people think that the height of productivity is responding instantly (or as close to instantly as possible). In fact, in many cases, this lessens your productivity. In business, we can’t afford to be less productive. Here are tips for downshifting your ability to be responsive so you can upshift your productivity.

Knowing what your strengths are and then working through your strengths will change your business and professional life. Here are three books worth reading (and I have read them more times than I can count).

Now, Discover Your Strengths – Buckingham, Marcus & Donald O. Clifton

Do you think you are productive when you’re crazed? Do you think others around you appreciate it when you are on a rampage (or even something shy of a rampage)? Hm… probably not.

A question, which comes from my definition of “pockets” as being the difference between being calm and crazed is this (and it’s the one you need to ask and answer):

Where has the difference between “calm” and “crazed” disappeared for you?

You may have answers that just pop right into your head right this minute. Or, maybe you need to think about it as you go through your week. In case there isn’t an announcer standing right by you saying, “Hello! You have no pockets here. You are now crazed or dangerously close to crazed,” here are some signals to be on the lookout for.

1. Your to-do list is impossibly long for today and this week. (Sound familiar?)

2. You are running late - even once this week. And I mean 5 minutes late or 5 hours late. Late is late.

3. You apologize for not getting something done, getting it done late, or because whatever it is has not been completed at the level you had hoped and that another person expected.

4. You are coming up short on your bills.

5. You spend time searching around for items in your home or office.

6. You are tired - physically, emotionally, intellectually, and/or spiritually. You might even use the word exhausted.

7. You experience a feeling of dread about some upcoming event, task, or other commitment.

8. You pray (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively) that SOMETHING/ANYTHING will cancel. Sometimes you say it out loud and sometimes you’re just chanting to yourself.

9. You have not exercised - not just today, but lately…or in recent memory.

10. Someone in your family has mused quietly (or shouted) that he or she would appreciate being put on your schedule sometime.

Eek. Kind of uncomfortable… and these are just ten possibilities. You have your own cues and clues that you are setting off the crazometer.

What I want you to do is make a list to keep handy this week. You may certainly start a list right now of where you think the difference between calm and crazed has disappeared… but I want you to be watchful as the week goes on. Just notice, “hmm… I have completely lost, misplaced, or squandered the ‘pockets,’ that is the difference between calm and crazed, in this area or that area.” Write these instances down because you will begin to notice patterns as you do so.

Only when you notice and acknowledge that you are getting dangerously close to crazed can you do anything about it.