Done!

To be able to bloom and grow, a garden needs to be pruned and cropped. Taking care to cut down some and guide the remaining branches of a tree will in the long-run make it strong, big and beautiful. The same principle goes for our projects and engagements. If we do nothing to sort amongst them our energy and attention gets increasingly scattered, but if we make sure to with greater care select what is important for us to do in order to grow and prosper, we will achieve what we strive for faster. This week's Done! is about how to crop our project-list and hence be able to finish more.

When you have a few moments to spare, you might take the opportunity to glance at your to-do-list to see if you have enough time to complete a task or two. But assuming that you, like most people, have a lot to do and many engagements to fulfill, the list is both extensive and detailed. This is, if you have read and followed my previous advice on how to create an effective to-do-list, as if should be, but can be inconvenient when you want to quickly identify what you have time for right now. This week's Done! is therefore about how to take your to-do-list one step further and make it even easier to use as a tool in your structured life.

There are certain words any management- or project-group should tread carefully around. They are words which are illusively tempting to use but which will bring nothing but trouble, or at least delay any progress you might have had if you refrained from falling for the temptation... In order to make projects move forward, concrete steps are needed to set motion to the progress. Therefore, the first Done! of 2012 is about how to avoid one word in particular and thereby do yourself a big favor.

Most people are familiar with the expression "less is more", but few implement this brilliant phrase. Strangely enough, it is in the areas which are in greatest need for less, where there happens to be more. We need less stress, fewer meetings and fewer deadlines to adhere to. But instead we often have more than we can cope with. This week's Done! is about how we can implement the concept of less is more in our calendar.

All people have a creative ability, and we all get ideas. Some get more brilliant ideas than others, but success comes from going through with what you come up with, not just getting the idea itself! It is therefore essential that you have a good place to store, or park if you will, your ideas until the time is just right for you to set them into practice. This hundredth Done! is about eight ways in which you can safely store your ideas until that moment arrives.

There are many bad habits you can suffer the consequences of, and one of the worst is the habit to consistently postponing things. Procrastinating is indeed a nuisance as it gives you more to do, an increased general stress-level, makes others annoyed with you and removes any flow you might have had if you dealt with matters at once to move things forward.

Without knowing what is functioning inadequately in our system of structure, there is no way of knowing what needs to be improved, and hence there is no way of improving it. The key to moving things forward and achieving a better personal structure is therefore awareness. Today Done! is about how to increase our level of awareness and insight, and then begin making improvements!

When we fail our ambitious attempts to become the structured, efficient people we want and strive to be, a sense of despair may not be far away. But, not to worry. You might just be making one out of two common, but crucial, mistakes. Today Done! is about two mistakes common when initiating a change for the better and how to avoid them.

I think it is safe to say that e-mailing is today one of our most used ways of communicating with each other. And it has its merits. But any tool not used properly and without clear intentions, is an inefficient or even a bad tool. And not having a defined way of using your e-mail tends to create more stress than it should. So today Done! is about how to better handle the usage of your e-mail and hence make it into the powerful structural tool that it actually is.

Being ambitious is often considered positive. Those with high ambitions get rewarded in our performance-focused society. But being ambitious has its downsides as well, and there are more than one negative consequence to over-achieving. Hence, today's Done! is about how to adjust your level of ambition to correspond better with reality and thereby achieve more in the long-run.

In certain situations or professions we may be in dire need for obtaining the right information, and preferrably all of it, right away. Trying to keep all the information we are provided in your head is challenging even for the most alert person, so the need for a tool to immediately handle and safely store the information becomes evident. Today's Done! is therefore about the ultimate tool for making sure you obtain and keep the right information, right away.

Sometimes it is hard to get going, everywhere we turn there is a hill sloping upwards, and we can't for the life of us get the wheels turning in whatever we should be doing. Today's Done! is about two equally simple approaches to initiating tasks and projects which can help you deal with even the most slow-started tasks.

Keeping things simple is sometimes more difficult than it sounds. Many, or should I say most, people have tendencies to, at one point or another, provide unnecessary information, be ambiguous, redundant, or simply beating around the bush too much. Thereby we waste precious time and energy. Today's Done! is about the art of getting straight to the heart of the matter and the benefits of doing so.

Being constantly logged in to and active on our e-mail account is true for most people. What might be equally true is the temptation to use the e-mail as a provisional to-do-list. We tend to think of this as a temporary solution to a problem which we actually create by commiting this structure-sin... Today's Done! is about the golden rule of keeping things in one and only one place, and what the repercussions are of breaking this rule.

We are all different. Some are more prone to regarding the glass as half-full while others see it as half-empty. But regardless how optimistic we normally are, in certain situations (in particular unexpected ones), we should consider our approach and attitude more carefully, and use it as a tool to "think on our feet". This week, Done! is about how you can move forward even in the most unexpected or stressful situations by applying a more embracing approach, and by using two particular words to set the course.

When a task becomes a project, and one project turns into several, many or even too many projects running simultaneously, we need structure to keep track of them all, make sure we are progressing in all and that we aren't neglecting or forgetting any of them. Today's Done! is about six methods you can use to create an overview of your projects.

We all need space, peace and quiet from time to time, and even more so when involved in something which requires our full attention and concentration. But making sure to work undisturbed at times can be difficult, especially if your colleagues are used to you always being available. Today's Done! is about how to get that un-interrupted time without stepping on any toes.

It is easy to dismiss reading as something you do continuously, in passing or "when you have time" and hence it tends to not qualify for the to-do-list. This is a mistake often leading to piles of materials we "will get to eventually". Today's Done! is about regarding reading as a task just as all other tasks on our to-do-list, getting to those accumulated reading-piles and what good will come from doing so.

Sharing our knowledge and expertise can sometimes be scary. We may be afraid of becoming superfluous and of not being needed (since our colleagues now know too). But doing the exact opposite of these fears often proves the contrary. Today's Done! is about how to make yourself dispensable and by doing so gain more time, energy to do what we really want to and more trust from our colleagues.

Being kept waiting, on hold or standing in line for something is to most people both frustrating and irritating. But rather than letting a situation out of your control get to you, there are ways in which to change your focus and use the time kept waiting contructively. Today's Done! is about channeling that aggravated energy into doing something which moves you forward while you are waiting.