Task List

In a meeting this week, one of my co-workers extolled the virtue of using Microsoft Outlook tasks to provide a single, visible to do list.  I'm a fanatic about putting all of my appointments in my Outlook calendar, so it made sense to further consolidate my activity view.  This is only day two, and it's a long weekend, but I'm cautiously optimistic that this may be just the tool I've needed to simplify my life.

Are You Carrying Too Much?

For many years, I was a terrible packer.  Because I didn't take time to plan what I would actually want and need to wear during a particular trip, I packed far too many items.  In recent years, as I've taken time to anticipate my wardrobe requirements, I've lightened my load and simplified my life. 

Planning streamlines nearly all aspects of our lives.  We can get caught up in such extreme busyness that we don't think we have time to plan.  I find that is when I most need to invest the time to accurately assess all that needs to be done and develop a plan to successfully execute.  When I don't stop to plan, my mind becomes like my formerly over-burdened luggage - full of way too much disorganized stuff.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

We all have our methods of dealing with the never-ending demands on our time and our ever growing number of possessions. My challenge is trying to keep up with everything once it's not visible, whether it's commitments or things.

My commitments are noted in my on-line calendar as actual appointments or as all-day events which serve as reminders of pending reports, occasions or the need to take action. And, of course, my never-ending to-do lists supplement my technology tools. Thank goodness for email folders. Different projects can be organized and the folder title provides a visual to easily find all of the relevant information.

Our stuff is easy to find when I put like items in a logical place. The difficulty is trying to locate a rarely used item that has no peer. Then the search begins. What would have been a logical place at the time the item was stored? Edgar recently asked for his grandfather's monogrammed cane. We both remembered that it had hung in the hallway of our old home with other Rice University memorabilia. The challenge was to ascertain what might have been a safe and logical location when we moved. After a search of all the readily available locations, I discovered it carefully stowed in the cabinet of the grandmother clock. Seemed logical at the time - grandfather cane/grandmother clock.

How do you deal with those things that are out of sight to keep them from being out of mind?