Organizing My Thoughts

One of the problems with the book "300 Writing Prompts" is that it changes the nature of how I spend my thinking time.  It sends my thoughts along the lines of the prompts rather than me allowing them to drift across current events, tasks ahead of me, or other things that are percolating within the murky recesses of the gray matter between my ears.  They lead me down someone else's paths even though I make those paths my own.

One of the best things about spending thinking time in the morning is that it allows me to organize my thoughts.  I am able to prioritize tasks, place new information into the context of previously conceived opinions (which sometimes modifies those opinions) and allow my mind to establish new connections between disparate pieces of information that may provide hints at opportunities ahead.

I probably began to establish the habit of "thinking time" sometime during the 90's.  It likely came out of the book which accompanied the Franklin Planner that I used at the time.  It was a fantastic tool.  The one that I carried was of the larger size and it was expensive, but with it, I established several habits that have served me well.

One was the making of a "rolling" task list.  The planner had an area to the left side of the page that was designed for making a list of daily tasks.  Symbols were used to prioritize those tasks and to denote their disposition.  Some were done, some delegated and some "rolled" forward that might be "in progress."  One of the keys was in the way you handled action items that stemmed from the tasks.  If a "next step" was delayed for several days, such as the follow-up on an item, you would simply turn to that day in your planner and enter the item in the task list for that day as an action item.

To the right of the task list was a daily schedule.  Appointments were entered as they were set -- whether on the current day, or one in the future.  If you needed a reminder about an important appointment coming up, such as a presentation that required preparation, you would enter the preparation time as a task on the task list in the days prior to it.

The back of each task list/calendar page was for taking notes.  That way, the right-hand page was always available for notes.  Additional notes pages could be added because it was in a 3-ring binder.  I learned to keep extensive notes.  Every telephone call, every meeting discussion, etc. was entered into the notes.  It created something like a diary of each day.  It was invaluable for going back and reviewing meeting notes.  It also became critical in one particular incident in which the company for which I worked was sued over an alleged breach of intellectual property.  My notes proved the sequence of events in our favor and the lawsuit was dropped without ever going to trial.  Our company attorneys were amazed by the detail.  It provided everything they needed to counter the suit.

I miss my planner.  I have never fully adapted to the electronic versions of it.  Most of the time the electronic tools are convenient, but for me, the electronic planners are not.  I don't like carrying a laptop into a meeting and it is sometimes a pain to enter events into an electronic calendar -- especially "ticklers" prior to something which requires planning.  It also is difficult to keep the task list coordinated closely with the calendar so that they are conveniently visual in a side-by-side fashion.  Then there is the issue of notes.  I now keep a yellow legal pad on my desk where I record notes of calls, meetings, etc.  I have boxes full of yellow legal pads.  They are not well organized.

I suppose I drifted a bit from the original commentary of this post regarding "thinking time" except that my thoughts definitely drifted along the paths of becoming better organized.  I guess I am organizing my thoughts on personal organization.  But, then there is organizational organization and inter-organization organization and oh, well....