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I am a small business Conversation Consultant and public speaker that uses the power of the internet to leverage your success. Productivity in Context is a web magazine focused on Productivity and tools for organizing. Make this your headquarters for improving your life and work through increased mindfulness, education, and workflow practices.

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Please contact me via e-mail: stephen @ hdbizblog dot com

I hear something like this almost every day:

“I have so much stuff to do, can you help me get it together?”

Every time I receive an e-mail like this, my first response is, “Look around your office or workspace. Is everything put away, are your supplies stocked and handy? Or are there piles on piles of stuff and you don’t even know where your stapler is?”

Nine times out of 10 the answer includes “piles of stuff”. My advice to these folks is always the same, and I will share it with you here. (Bookmark this page for future reference!)

How to organize your workspace, once and for all

Get up from your desk, go get a big trashcan and a box of manila folders. Then close your door (if you have one, put up some tape if you don’t) and ask someone to cover your phone for an hour. It’s time to get to work. It’s time for you to invest some time in preparing yourself for success.

1. Look at your desktop, your shelves, in your desk drawers and file cabinets. Is there anything there that you do not need to get your work done? Of course there is. Toss it in the trash or take it home. A couple of pictures or decorative items are okay, even good for you, but your desk shouldn’t look like grandma’s mantle. Use the manila folders! Every piece of paper gets it’s own folder. Label the folder, and make a new stack on the floor, we’ll come back to it shortly.
2. Collect all of the sticky-notes, memos and reminders that you have plastered all around. You leave these things out so that you don’t forget - well, sorry to tell you but, you stopped “seeing” those things quite a while ago. Create a text file with Notepad on your computer and type the essential information into it. Save it as “Reminders” and place the icon in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. Now all of your reminders are in one place and out of the way.
3. Go through the files in your filing cabinets. Apply the principles from Step 1 above: if you don’t need it to perform your job, get rid of it or archive it.
   NOTE: Everything that goes into an archive box must be tracked. Make a list of the items/files/documents that you put in that box. Number and date the box. Then create another text file and enter the list of contents. Save the text file as “Box # date”, and put it in a new computer desktop folder called “Archives”. Now whenever you need to find something in an archive box, you can use Google desktop search.
4. Tear down those piles of stuff. Steps 1-3 should have cleared up some storage space in and on your desk, and in your filing cabinet. Now you have some room to put away the stuff in those piles, and that stack of file folders on the floor. This is where it gets a little more personal, and I am going to describe the simplest, most stripped-down organizational system ever.
   All of the stuff in those piles is going to get sorted into 4 stacks:
   1. “Today”
   2. “Tomorrow” NOTE: this does not mean tomorrow in a literal sense, it means soon
   3. “Later”
   4. “Delegate”

   Look at each item/document/folder in the pile and decide which stack it should go in.

   • Is it urgent? Yes - Put it in the “Today” stack. No - put it in the “Later” stack with a due date on it.
   • Is it just important? Put it in the “Tomorrow” stack, with a due date written on it.
   • Is it neither urgent nor important? Well, it should go in the trash can unless it needs to be archived.
   • Is it something that someone else can or should handle? Put it in the “Delegate” stack, with a note of who it is assigned to and when it is due.
   • Not sure what to do with it? Archive it.

   Take some time to consider each item in the pile, but not too much time. Also, you may begin to feel your excitement build as you clean up your workspace & organize your tasks. Be careful. Resist the urge to actually start doing these tasks. Yes, you will get flashes of inspiration about some of these items. Write it down and attach it to the item.

You are almost there!

After your desk and file drawers have been purged and organized, all of your piles have been conquered, it’s time to make something happen.

1. Put the “Later” stack in your file cabinet. You will not need to look at it until the end of the day tomorrow.
2. Put the “Tomorrow” stack in the file cabinet too. You will look at this stuff in the morning.
3. Put the “Today” stack on top of your desk, you are going to address these items in a few minutes.
4. Pick up the “Delegate” stack and go find the people that you are assigning these items to. They deserve to get these assignments as early as possible. When you hand off these assignments be sure to communicate clearly what is to be done and when it is due.
5. Take a break! You’ve earned it. Congratulations on overcoming your mess and getting your tasks organized!

Hooray! I’m organized…now what?

Now it is simply a matter of doing and of ongoing maintenance. When you are done with your break, sit down at your desk and do the things in the “Today” stack. You may not be able to get them all done today, and that is okay. They have likely been building up for a while.

While you are working, more inputs (tasks and other “stuff”) may be coming your way. You need to handle each incoming item the way you just handled your piles:

• Is it urgent? Yes - Put it in the “Today” stack. No - put it in the “Later” file with a due date on it.
• Is it just important? Put it in the “Tomorrow” file, with a due date written on it.
• Is it neither urgent nor important? Well, it should go in the trash can unless it needs to be archived.
• Is it something that someone else can or should handle? Put it in a new “Delegate” file, with a note of who it will be assigned to and when it is due.
• Not sure what to do with it? Archive it.

At the end of the day, take your remaining “Today” items and put them in the “Tomorrow” file. Then go home, you are done.

When you get to work tomorrow morning, you will find that you are still caught up and organized. Now you have a simple routine in place to handle all of your tasks:

1. Pull out the contents of the “Tomorrow” files, this becomes your “Today” list of activities. Do them.
2. Follow up on any delegated items that are due today.
3. Process all incoming tasks and “stuff” into your filing system.
4. At the end of the day, put any remaining items in the “Tomorrow” file and look at the “Later” file - review the due dates and choose one or more items to work on tomorrow.

Good luck, and keep on working. Here’s to being done!

For more helpful tips and discussions of practices like this, visit the Work.Life.Creativity forum.

For what it’s worth, this is what my workspace looked like on 23 Sept:

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And this is what it looks like today:
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I went all-out and cleaned out the desk drawers, for the first time in a while.
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I even went so far as to organize all of the stuff on the shelves…
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…

Now that I am working from home again, it is even more important to maintain my system, and to keep it as stripped-down as possible. In this way I can get more done in less time and get done. Because it really is about being done, not working all the time.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/3fpu8k. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Dave Crenshaw has a post on a subject that is near and dear to my heart:

Over a year ago I was working with a business owner who was in severe time debt. He was working in the ballpark of 90 to 100 hours per week, and both his business and family were suffering. We started by calculating his per-hour worth. When doing his most profitable activities, he was worth $500 an hour or more. Yet we found that he was spending approximately half of his time, 45 hours or more per week, performing $25/hour, $10/hr, and even minimum wage type work! Why? A huge factor was that he was surrounded by Time Liabilities.

At one point during our training he needed to punch holes in some paper for a three ring binder. Yet when he went to punch the paper, his paper puncher clearly wasn’t up for the job. He had bought a cheap model that had was basically broken after a month of use. I watched as this business owner kept turning his stack of papers around twice to punch. Most often he kept misaligning the punch and ruining the stack.

This poor fellow was spending lot of time on everything but that “vital 20%” of effort that brings in the 80% of the results (your mileage may vary, I just like the simplicity of the 80/20 “rule”). Do you ever catch yourself doing things like that, at home or at work?

Are your own practices holding you back?

Take a few minutes today to think about your workflow, what your nominal schedule will be when you start working on Monday morning. If you get to the office and you are not looking at a streamlined and productivity-optimized workspace, then get ready to make a change.

Monday’s post will give a step-by-step description of how to get your “stuff” organized, with pictures! Don’t miss it - Subscribe to the feed, get the next post in an e-mail.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/4nd4cd. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Today’s post is from Mike St. Pierre

About two years ago, I decided to become part time mason and install a paver patio in my back yard.  “How hard could it be?” Or so I thought.  Pavers, sand, earth and some man power- a piece of cake, right?  A week later and a new patio had emerged from the rubble.  Just like that.

This past week, I somehow got the itch to once again to work with stone, only this time installing a new tile floor on my porch.  Just like before, I emerged (like the phoenix) from the rubble as did my new floor.  It looks great!  If you look in the far left corner, you’ll notice a screw-up but I’m guessing that most readers won’t stop by the house.

I used GTD to do both of these projects, although I was hardly aware of it at the time.  Thankfully, GTD is firmly embedded in my productivity DNA and “works” for me without even thinking about it.  What aspects of GTD did I use?

Project List: I wrote down the materials I would need, where to get them and when I would purchase them.  I also created a list of tools that I had and needed to borrow or buy.  In this project, the tile saw was crucial.

Desired Outcome: I had a clear sense of what I wanted the porch to look like and worked towards that goal.  Every detail was arranged so that I could enjoy the porch with some friends and have a decent cup of coffee at the same time.

Next Action: Each night after I finished my work, I would look at the porch from my kitchen window, thinking about the next day’s steps that would need to be taken.

Close the Open Loops: Many weekend warriors have trouble finishing the job.  Sure, most of it is done, but they feel that a few details here and there can wait.  And they wait.  Until their spouse screams at them to finish the darn thing!  My porch project was simple enough that I could get it 100% done in order to cross “New Porch Floor” off my project list.

Now that’s GTD in action.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/3qo7kl. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Editor’s Note: This post is kinda long and rambling. I am talking here about what I have been up to, and what I am going to be working on in the future. If you’re just here for actionable productivity tips, skip it. If you are interested in the new direction I am taking, please read on.

There’s an old cliche that says “Entrepreneurs do what other people won’t in order to do what other people can’t.”

The suggestion there is right on the money - that the entrepreneurs who get to live the life people dream about did so because they were willing to make the sacrifices it took to make that life happen.

So the question really is: can you afford not to be an entrepreneur?

If your answer is “yes”, then your life will probably be just fine. Keep doing whatever it is that you enjoy doing. But if you really want a taste for what it means to control your own destiny and reap the benefits of taking risks, starting your own business is really the only option.

Getting a Paycheck vs Getting a Pay Out

Most of us see starting and growing a business as leading to the financial rewards of being the business owner. That’s because business owners enjoy the difference between earning a paycheck and earning the bigger reward - a pay out.

You may think those with a big paycheck, like those sports celebs with the $25 million contracts are the big winners. Not at all. It’s the person who can write that check, like the owner of the team.

Even if Kevin Garnett continues to be the highest paid player in the NBA for the next decade, he still won’t be writing the checks that his boss can.

The real cash comes from either the profits of the business on a regular basis or the eventual sale or IPO of the business down the road. Until your earnings are tied to the performance of the company, not your position, you’ll never be in the situation where you can truly enjoy the real rewards.

Give Yourself a Raise

As big as they can get, paychecks are inherently limited to what someone else is willing to pay you. If you can’t stand the idea of someone else determining what your pay scale should be, then starting a company is the fastest way to change all that.

The day you start your own company, the only person that will ever determine your income is you. If you’re as good as you think you are, the sky’s the limit.

Most entrepreneurs are stifled in their current jobs, both financially and creatively. Since salaries are often dependent on age and experience, not raw capability, your wages probably do not reflect what you are truly capable of.

Consider this: Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Steve Jobs were all around 30 when their companies went public. How much do you think that they would have been paid if they had stayed on in their salaried jobs? Clearly their ages had nothing to do with their capability, and starting their own venture was the only way to prove that.

Don’t Leave Money on the Table

When you’re working for a paycheck, you’re making yourself a bit of money, but you’re also making the company a bit of money. Every hour of your time is putting a dollar in your pocket, but it’s also putting a dollar in the owner’s pocket as well, which is good for him, not so good for you. This is the part that bothers me the most. And as I get older, it bothers me more and more.

Of course, the fastest way to double your pay is to put both of those dollars in your pocket for the same amount of effort! As the owner of the business you may have more overhead than you would as an employee, but long term you’re not only maximizing the payout on your time, you’re creating a business that will one day exceed your own value.

On the other hand, by leveraging the power of the internet, you can keep that overhead to a minimum.

Build Your Own Cumulative Value

Even if you’re incredibly well paid in your current position, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re only one person. You can only earn as much as your own time and contribution will afford you. At some point, in order to get to the next level, you need the company working for you, not the other way around.

That means taking on employees and leveraging the economies of scale. As the employer, you can infinitely scale the size of your income by adding more business and more employees. At some point the cumulative value of their contributions will far exceed what you could possibly earn as a worker bee.

Stop the Slow Bleed

No one is ever surprised to hear that you can make a great deal of money as a successful entrepreneur. They are mostly just afraid of taking that chance. People also tend to be afraid of not having that steady paycheck coming in every two weeks so that they can pay the bills.

The real chance you’re taking is in not thinking about just how much you’re losing by not being an entrepreneur yourself. When you add up how much value you’re losing by taking a paycheck every week, you start to wonder what was keeping you from taking the plunge in the first place.

In many ways, starting your own company is the only way to eliminate the risk of not being paid enough.

Starting My Own Company

That is why I have chosen to begin my own company, start working for myself and be my own boss. This new venture will start small, with a new blog and a new focus on small business development.

This blog will stay the same!

Everything that you, the readers, have asked for (and demanded!) will be here for you. The change is that the other topics that I enjoy writing and learning about (such as Leadership and New Media) are going to be found at their new home:

In Context MultiMedia dot com

Please come on over and check it out. It’s a mini blog-network aimed toward small business and developing that business by developing the entrepreneur running it. I have learned a lot over the past two years of blogging, and I am looking forward to sharing that information - helping you to help yourself. I will also be offering my services for hire, on Productivity, Social Media Consulting and more.

The primary categories that we will be addressing at the new site are:

Blogging for your business

Conversations with your market

Leadership in the New Media world

Marketing to the Long Tail, and the Head

Networking for success through Social Media

Each article, or post, will also be tagged with a more specific topic name. In this way you can not only just read posts about Blogging, for example, but you can read all of the posts that are tagged “blogging tools” or whatever topic you wish to develop today.

Click on the category links above to learn more about each specific category. I’d love to hear your feedback!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/4prntp. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen