Busy or Unorganized

Ok, this one may push a few people's buttons but I thought I should write it anyway. I frequently hear the words "busy" in business and felt the need to address this and challenge others to get honest with themselves.

I personally happen to be a very organized person but even I fall behind from time to time and need to pick up the slack to catch up and stay on track. I don't blame it on "busy" though, I blame it on me being disorganized and not keeping on track and handling my cycles one at a time until done...done...done.

We all have the same amount of time in the day and we are all "busy" but it's no excuse to let anything slide. Besides, the people you are telling that you are "busy" don't buy it anyway.

So get organized and call it what it is - lack of organization. Your simply not getting your tasks done on time and are wasting time during the day or being inefficient. Organized and productive business people can get a spectacular amount of tasks and actions done in a day and while you are blaming your disorganization on "busy" you competition and prospective clients that you can't seem to get around to are out-tasking you or bypassing you.

So my challenge to you is for you to stop using the excuse of "busy" and simply call it what it is, unorganized, and then address it for what it is and work toward the solutions. How can you get more organized? How can you be more efficient during the day? How can you get more done? etc etc. Focus on ways to handle your organizational problems like using a daily targets plan and check off as done or not multi-tasking anymore and just focus on doing the task at hand and then go to the next and the next and the next. A sort of "Get it done, handle it now, what's next?" type of system.

If you are truly honest with yourself on this, you will agree that you are not actually busy, you're disorganized.

Here are a few ways you could be more organized:

1) Make a daily agenda with targets for the day that must be hit
2) Handle each target daily one by one, completing each one fully before doing the next
3) Schedule and/or budget your time on your calendar to make sure you are being fully productive with your day
4) Knock off all wasted time during the day such as office chit chat, browsing the web aimlessly, jumping from task to task and not fully completing any of them etc etc
5) Check your email only after a task is done. IE. Do a target fully and then check email and handle and then go back and do the next target
6) Don't accept interruptions. Tell people you are in the middle of a task and will come see them as soon as it is completed. Then do so and go back to the next target right after

These simple steps will help immensely. I would also recommend you make a list of all of the ways you are being unorganized or inefficient during the day to look at each one and handle each one appropriately.

Time is precious, why waste it and get stuck into indefinite "busy" mode?

- Robert Cornish