Sunday Reading-Time Management Time management trick: wardrobe arrangement method (1)

"Let me tell you how I tidy the wardrobe. First of all, I will take everything out of the closet and put it on the bed at will. Then, I will sort the clothes scattered on the bed, such as which clothes I can't wear anymore, which clothes I wear in autumn and winter and which clothes I will wear recently, and put them on the bed in order. Next, plan the space of the wardrobe, where to put underwear, where to hang suits, where to put sportswear and so on. Then according to these plans, put away all the clothes to be worn, and store the clothes that are no longer worn separately from the clothes of other seasons. Not only that, but also organize the wardrobe every week to see if there are any clothes that have not been put away, or look at what clothes were worn last week, and then consider what clothes to wear next week. Finally, wear the right clothes in the right place. A good wardrobe finishing process has been established, and it is no longer necessary to turn the wardrobe upside down when going out. "

"Sounds quite organized, but I still don't understand. What does this have to do with time management? " Xiao Qiang asked.

"In fact, these five steps correspond to the five horizontal processes of time management secrets: collection, processing, organization, review and action. Let's talk about these five horizontal processes in detail. "

"Why do you want to collect? Are these five steps essential? " Xiao Qiang asked.

"Yes, in any case, we will go through these five stages in our work:

1. Collect everything that attracts our attention;

2. After treatment, determine its essence and solution;

3. The conclusions of the organization;

4. List them as options for our actions;

5. Action.

Collecting this link is the first step of the wardrobe arrangement method, which requires us to collect all the things that attract our attention. For example, you are concentrating on preparing the meeting materials at two o'clock this afternoon, which is an important and urgent matter. At this time, Mr. Wang suddenly called you and asked you to contact the supplier and tell them that the check will be delivered next Monday. What should you do? Do it at once? No, record it on a piece of paper first, and then continue to concentrate on preparing the meeting materials. At this time, Xiao Wang from the R&D department came to you and asked you to provide a survey report on the use of the new version of the software. What should you do? Do it at once? No, record it on that piece of paper just now, and then continue to concentrate on preparing the meeting materials. Suddenly, Outlook pops up a dialog box and receives a new email. What should I do? Do you want to check it immediately? No, record it on that paper first, and then continue to concentrate on preparing the meeting materials. I've just been working 10 minutes, and I'm calling you to come up with a new product sales strategy before next Friday. Will you prepare your sales strategy immediately after you hang up the phone? No, write it on paper first. After 20 minutes, my colleague asked you on MSN when you are free to play badminton together. You replied that you were busy, and then what? Immediately consider playing badminton? No, it's still on paper. After another 40 minutes, accountant Sun came over and handed you the detailed report of marketing expenses last month. Will you study the report as soon as you receive it? No, put it aside and take notes on that piece of paper at the same time.

If you happen to be busy for three hours like this, your paper should look like this:

Collection basket:

1. Contact the supplier and the check will be delivered on Monday.

2. Provide Xiao Wang of R&D department with an investigation report on the use of the new version of the software.

3. Check the mailbox.

4. Come up with the sales strategy of the new product before Friday.

5. Play badminton when you are free.

6. Study the detailed report of marketing expenses last month.

We call this piece of paper a' collection basket', and what is written on it is called' material'. This process is called' collection'. Of course, to illustrate the principle, I listed the most representative events and used the simplest tools. We'll talk about this later. "

"What about my previous treatment?" Xiao Qiang thought.

"This you should know better than me, you may:

1. After being disturbed by other things, important and urgent meeting materials cannot be completed on time.

When I was thinking about the sales strategy, I was interrupted by something else and couldn't think of it.

Can't concentrate on everything, creativity and execution are greatly reduced.

Being disturbed by temporary emergencies will not only affect your mood, but also increase your stress and tension.

You work hard under pressure, but the work shows no sign of ending, so you are very upset, have a bad feeling towards your colleagues, complain to your boss, and perfunctory about your work. Subsequently, your colleagues, boss and work also deal with you in the way you deal with them, forming a vicious circle.

6. Deal with everything at once, and as a result, you fall into a blind trap and can't distinguish between priorities. "

"It's sad that you say so." Xiao Qiang said.

"Work is actually a way to make money. Don't we make money for a better life? Why do people feel anxious and sub-healthy because of work? Like David? Allen said that we should try our best to pursue a' quiet mind' in our work. In karate, "inner peace" is used to describe the state of readiness. We can imagine how the water in the pond will react if a stone is thrown into a silent pond. The answer is: respond according to the quality and strength of the input object, and then return to calm. The pool water will neither overreact nor let itself drift. When we enter this state, we will find that time flies quickly and feel that we can control everything without being nervous at all. To achieve this' inner quiet' state, it is necessary to constantly practice and optimize the' wardrobe arrangement method'.

Remember, the key to collection is to put "everything that attracts our attention" in the "collection basket", so as to clear our minds and achieve the realm of "inner peace".

The realm of "inner peace" is ... high, really high! "Xiao Qiang praised while thinking.

"Let's talk about collecting tools. In fact, there are quite a few tools for collection, including paper tools and digital tools, such as:

A real work basket or an area of the desktop is used as a collection area.

Paper notebooks, notes, memos

Electronic memorandum

sound pick-up outfit

e-mail

Specific work baskets: standard plastic frames, wooden or metal woven frames are the most common, and are used to store paper materials, such as documents, materials, invoices, invitations, etc.

Writing paper or notebook: loose-leaf book, spiral bound book, shorthand book and standard white paper can capture your inspiration well. The advantage of post-it notes is that they can be posted in your office area to remind yourself at any time, while memos and notebooks can be used to do some systematic things.

Electronic notebook: Nowadays, electronic products are emerging one after another. Almost all mobile phones support post-it notes and calendar functions, but if you plan to manage your time well, I suggest you use a powerful smartphone.

Audio products: At present, the products that can be used include telephone answering machines, voice mail boxes and recording equipment, such as digital tape recorders or miniature tape recorders. These devices can temporarily store audio information that you need to record or process. The biggest advantage of using this tool is that it is easy to collect ideas in your brain and achieve almost complete synchronization, but it requires a sequencing step, so few people around us do this.

E-mail: If you keep in touch with all corners of the world through e-mail, then your computer contains some temporary areas that can be used to save the received information and files for later browsing, reading and processing. The management of e-mail is also a university problem. If you can organize your email clearly, so will your work.

Regarding the use of tools, we also have the following supplements:

1. The fewer collection tools, the better. Some people like to collect with pen and paper, some people like to collect with mobile phone, and some people like to collect with Outlook, which is understandable, but if you collect with pen and paper, mobile phone and Outlook at the same time, it is a big taboo. We should establish our own collection system according to our own situation. For example, I have been focusing on collecting mobile phones with pens and paper. My mobile phone has a full keyboard, so it is very convenient to input. No matter at work, on the bus, or chatting at a friend's house, I can always record the thoughts in my mind. For example, when I was at work, it suddenly occurred to me that my wife wanted me to go home at night and buy some bread. I quickly wrote it on my mobile phone, set a reminder to get off work, and then continued to work. In this way, although my brain had ripples for a while because of this small stone, my brain quickly returned to normal working condition.

2. Make sure to take out the tool within 5 seconds. Inspiration is always fleeting. If you can't take out your tools within 5 seconds, you need to consider changing to a collection tool. As soon as I get to the office in the morning, I will take out my collection book, which records the completion of yesterday's work and the work that needs to be completed today. After a brief browse, put the books in front of you to make sure they are within reach. Then on this day, write all the things related to work in this collection. Go through today's work again after work and delete what has been completed from the collection basket. Close the collection basket and you can go home easily, hehe.

3. Empty these tools regularly. I don't want my stamp album to be full of unfinished business. My goal is to finish it today. The work basket is just a temporary storage. I will review my collection basket every Friday afternoon, take away all the unused things, finished things and things given to others, and leave my collection basket empty for the weekend.

Xiao Qiang has been doing as Laofu said. While listening to Lao Fu show off his unique skills, he recorded some of his puzzles and thoughts on' wardrobe layout' on the post-it notes provided by Starbucks. Seeing Lao Fu talking about the collection part, he said, "It seems that I will take my collection basket with me in the future, hehe. No wonder the boss always carries a pen. It turns out that it is his collection basket, hehe ... "

"You are wrong, our boss won't take the collector with him. You can observe that he has only a pen and no paper. Do you know why? His pen is for signature, not for collection. Hehe, his collector is his secretary Xiao Zhang, and everything is stored in Xiao Zhang. "

"Oh, I see, can't afford a secretary can only use pen and paper, ha ha. I also want to ask, what should we do if we collect so many messy things? " Xiao Qiang asked.

"Let's take the previous example. Let's take out the donation basket just now. "

Collection basket

1. Contact the supplier and the check will be delivered on Monday.

2. Provide Xiao Wang of R&D department with an investigation report on the use of the new version of the software.

3. Check the mailbox.

4. Come up with the sales strategy of the new product before Friday.

5. When are you free to play badminton?

6. Last month's detailed report on marketing expenses.

"Well, there are already many things in the collection basket, but at that time, in order to keep our thoughts calm and focused, we didn't even know what they were. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, after we concentrated on preparing the meeting materials, we began to pay attention to the collection basket. We need to mark the tasks in the collection basket as executable or non-executable within 2 minutes. "

Collection basket

You can contact the supplier and send the check on Monday.

You can execute a user usage report that provides a new version of the software to Xiao Wang of the R&D department.

You can perform a mailbox check.

You can implement the sales strategy of launching new products before Friday.

When are you free to play badminton?

Unable to execute the detailed report of marketing expenses of last month.

"When we deal with the fundraising basket, we don't deal with it at will. We should follow the following principles:

Several principles of handling collection baskets

1. Start with the top item. This principle is very important. We should have equal opportunities in everything. The verb' deal with' doesn't mean' spend time', it just means' judge the nature of things, decide the next action plan, and then deal with it accordingly'. In any case, you should try your best to reach the bottom of the work basket as quickly as possible, and don't run away from anything.

2. Only deal with one thing at a time. Here we still follow the principle of "only one thing in mind", and deal with one thing before dealing with the next.

3. Never put it back in the collection basket (except for the forced interruption). When you take something out of the collection basket for the first time, immediately judge its essence and handling methods, never put it back in the collection basket, and strive to be the best the first time.

Back to our example:

1. Contact the supplier and the check will be delivered on Monday. This is obviously executable, just pick up the phone.

2. Provide Xiao Wang of R&D department with an investigation report on the use of the new version of the software. Writing user usage report is the work of subordinate Xiao Li, and it needs to be entrusted to him, so it can also be implemented.

3. Check the mailbox. See if the email is spam, work email or notice letter from Taobao. This can also be achieved.

4. Come up with the sales strategy of the new product before Friday. This is a new task. It can't be done at once, but it can be done.

5. Play badminton when you are free. We can't decide when to play badminton now, we can only do it when we are free one day. Therefore, this matter cannot be carried out for the time being.

6. Study the detailed report of marketing expenses last month. Sun accountant gave you this report not for you to execute, but for your file for future reference, so it can't be executed either.

We usually divide the tasks that cannot be performed into three categories:

1. garbage: Never do such a thing, wasting time and life. I usually filter out the garbage when I collect it, so in our example, there is not a piece of garbage.

2. sometime in the future/maybe: for example,' when are you free to play badminton', which is something that will be done when certain conditions are ripe in the future. There are countless such things: traveling to Shandong in April, tidying up the office, going to the hospital for rhinitis surgery, and so on.

3. References: For example, the accountant gave it to you because you have the right to know about it, which may be used at some time in the future. The correct way to deal with this kind of thing is to classify and file. "

Collection basket

You can contact the supplier and send the check on Monday.

You can execute a user usage report that provides a new version of the software to Xiao Wang of the R&D department.

You can view the mailbox.

You can implement the sales strategy of launching new products before Friday.

Sometime in the future/maybe not. When are you free to play badminton?

Reference cannot execute the detailed report of marketing expenses of last month.

We can divide things into five categories:

1.2 minutes to do: a phone call can be done in 2 minutes. For such a thing, our action should be-do it at once.

2. Projects that require multiple steps: Most of the tasks encountered in the work need to be decomposed before we can execute them, such as' come up with the sales strategy of new products before Friday'. Can you do it at once? No, because you don't know what to do yet.

3. things assigned to others: this kind of thing is our favorite, because we can easily throw this monkey to others, such as' providing a user report on the new version of the software'. You can call Xiao Li to explain it and tell him that it must be finished by next Wednesday.

4. What to do at a specific time: These things are written on the calendar. On the one hand, they may come from things that require multiple steps, because you need to do some today and some tomorrow. On the other hand, some things need to be completed at a specific time or environment, such as urging Xiao Li to submit a user report next Wednesday.

5. To-do list: These are the remaining common tasks, such as "checking email" in the example. For these things, get it done as soon as you have time. Now the collection basket should look like this. "

Collection basket

A 2-minute task can be performed: contact the supplier and send a check on Monday.

Entrusting tasks that can be performed: provide users' usage reports of the new version of the software to Xiao Wang of the R&D department.

To-do list, which can be executed: check the mailbox.

Multi-step project that can be implemented: come up with the sales strategy of new products before Friday.

Sometime in the future/maybe not: When are you free to play badminton?

Referenced, unable to execute: detailed report of marketing expenses of last month.

"The' 2-minute task' mentioned above is a very interesting principle: if it is something that can be completed within 2 minutes, please' finish it immediately'. For example, send an email, clean the office, tidy the desk, give someone a call, and so on. Some people think that what can be done in two minutes is too simple, and they can do it whenever they want, but they often put it off again and again, and finally complain that there are too many things, which is really annoying. You can do the experiment yourself if you don't believe me. The "two-minute principle" is specially used to deal with these "trivial matters".

In general, 2 minutes can make people relax without losing their minds. What is said here is "general situation", that is to say, this is not an absolute value, just like a person's body temperature, it is different and there is no need to force it. You can be 2 minutes, 1 minute, or even 30 seconds. If it really exceeds expectations, it needs to be considered according to the situation. For example, you planned to make a phone call for 2 minutes, but now it's over. Do you want to continue? Of course! If you plan to report to your boss in 2 minutes, but unfortunately, the boss wants to talk to you about another problem during the report, do you want to continue? Of course!

You might say,' Don't we advocate focusing 65,438+0,000% of our energy on what we are doing? Don't you need to avoid cracking time as much as possible? "Why are we interrupted by the two-minute rule?" The reason is that if we don't interrupt at this time, we will lose more later. For example, when you are concentrating on writing a market report, your wife calls in and says, "Husband, the water pipe in our house is broken. Can you find a property to repair it?" Although I really want to say,' why don't you call yourself!' But obviously, it is relatively simple to stop and contact the property for 2 minutes at this time, explain the problem, make an appointment for maintenance time, and then return to the previous job. Ideas should not be completely lost, but should be regarded as rest. On the contrary, if you don't do it right away, you need to open the collection tool, put it in your time management system, make a good reminder and do it. This may take several times as long as it takes to do it directly, and it is not worth the loss. All right, that's it. I'll talk about so many' handling' links first, and it's up to you to practice. "

"Wait, LaoFu, I think the first link, that is, the" collection "link, is easy to achieve. I usually do similar things, but I don't do them thoroughly enough, and I don't realize the importance of collecting all the things that attract our attention from my brain, so I often feel in a hurry, which I understand. But I think the' handling' link is a bit cumbersome. I have to write down whether it can be executed in the collection basket first, and then I need to classify the executable things. Is there any simple way? " Xiao Qiang listened carefully to Laofu's explanation and pointed to the form that Laofu had drawn on the table.

"Oh, well, I may not have explained it clearly. Judging whether it can be executed and classifying executable things is the work carried out in my mind and does not need to be written in the collection basket. Remember what I said before, the brain is used for analysis and creative thinking, and everything that needs to be preserved is written on paper. So, so far, we only have one collection basket, and the others will be quickly processed by the brain and written into other lists, including future time/possibility list, to-do list, project list and so on. I'll talk about this later.

When I mention "list", please note that I only refer to a group of items with similar characteristics. The list can be in any of the following three forms:

1. folder: It includes some independent records, which record things belonging to the same category.

2. A real directory listed on a piece of titled paper.

3. Software programs or detailed directories in electronic organizer: For example, the task module in Outlook software or the list function in PDA.

A piece of paper with a title can be regarded as:' collection basket',' future time/possible list' and' to-do list'. The Project List usually uses folders to keep information related to the project together. "

"Oh, I see." Xiao Qiang said with satisfaction.

Why is it that the more urgent things are, the more prone we are to "muscle weakness"? Why can't you concentrate on getting things done quickly when you obviously haven't done what you should?

Study, study and study again-I believe you will make progress. The so-called "learning can't be done well" is actually the result of "not believing that you can learn and not learning well" in most cases. Can you believe it?