Chapter 8

How to Manage It All

Time Management Implementation

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it's not all mixed up.

—A.A. Milne

Now that you've decided what Gain activities would bring significant results in your life and have committed to prioritizing and planning accordingly, as well as keeping up with all your “have to” obligations, you might be wondering, “How do I manage it all?”

Do you remember back in your academic life, when you had a separate notebook for each school subject? When it was time for math, you took out your math notebook. You knew exactly which one it was because you had written “Math” on the cover, and your notes from your last math class were right there! We color-coded everything: red for math, blue for science, yellow for history, and so on. That's what back-to-school was all about: deciding where your stuff was going to be for that year so that you could easily find it when you needed it. We were so brilliant back then, weren't we? Most of us were more organized with our important information at age 11 than we are now. Today, many people are more likely to be in this situation:

“Where are your notes from last week's meeting?”

“Ooohh … umm … it was a yellow pad.…I doodled a tree in the corner. Look for the tree.”

How's that for a retrieval system? (Your schoolteachers would be disappointed.)

Being organized simply makes things easier —to find, to remember, and to manage. It also saves time. Time management is ...

Get Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress, and Lead by Example now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.