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Is Technology Preventing You From Staying Organized?

Technology has come a long way and I sometimes feel as my parents used to feel in not completely understanding or being able to stay caught up with the new technologies that are constantly introduced. In some ways I don’t care if I stay current. In fact, I often lament to whoever will listen that technology is pushing us apart from each other. It got me to thinking – Is technology preventing you from keeping organized?

Organize your time yourself, don’t let email organize it for you

“Snail mail” seems to have become something that is a vehicle for junk mail these days. We used to eagerly await the arrival of the mailman to our front door or go to the mailbox once a day to receive our bills, letters and other important documents. We knew what time to expect the mail and would plan around it and once it arrived we made the time to open the mail and react accordingly.

email

Now we receive most of our mail electronically and it comes in constantly. It’s almost impossible not to reach for the phone or computer when you hear that “ding” that tells you that mail has arrived. Just like today’s snail mail I’ll bet a lot of your email is junk, both at home and at work.

Unless you are expecting something very important to come through, try turning your notifications off and checking email once an hour or so. If you are like a lot of folks you receive a lot of emails from the same address that you never open. Mark these as junk and have them sent directly to your junk folder if you can’t unsubscribe so you aren’t wasting time deleting them each time they arrive.

Assign time for electronic leisure activities

With most newspapers, books and magazines now available in electronic formats a lot of us are reading on our computers, pads and other hand held devices. Video games have become extremely addictive with their life like graphics and have become as large an industry as the movies.

Unless we assign a time to spend on our devices it is easy to get caught up in a game or article and before long you’re behind in other things. Assign a time for your electronic leisure time and stick to it. Get your exercise, do your chores or spend time with family. Organize your time for the important things in life.

Back to basics with planners

Like you, I have a phone that does it all. It holds my music, takes pictures, connects me to the Internet and yes, it even receives and makes phone calls.

It also has a planner but I prefer a manual planner that I can write in for several reasons. I have yet to see a decent electronic planner that shows me the whole week with any great detail. I also like to write in detailed notes in my planner and check items off once they are completed giving me a sense of accomplishment.

Day planner

I can have my to do list, my items to follow up, my urgent items and my goals all in one place. And more importantly my manual planner will never run out of power so it is always accessible. Electronic planners are good but the old fashioned manual ones keep me better organized for the week.

So you think you can multitask

Even before technology became what it is, our brain was not able to fully focus on two things at the same time. A lot of people believe they can now do just that with today’s technology but not so.

Technology has changed, our brain has not. We can get more than one thing done at a time quantity wise, but it is proven that quality suffers. When working on a project, organize your time to focus on one task and give it your all for a better result.

Technology has helped you in so many ways but it can also eat a lot of your time and distract you from what needs to be done. Organize your time so you control the technology, not the other way around. Let me know how you make out.