4 steps to finding order in the chaos

In today's highly competitive economy it's in all likelihood that you are handling more than one assignment at a time and communicating with more than one person in a day regularly. These kind of job roles and profiles send in a lot of incoming ie multiple emails, calls and meetings each demanding your attention.

There is this never ending amount of data thrown at you, almost making you feel like you're suffocating under a never ending pile of information and tasks. There is a relief; there is an order in all that chaos. You just need to take a step back and see it.

There are 4 steps by which you can very easily organize and manage this mountain of chaos. It is the basic principle of categorizing all your incoming data.

There are two kinds of information that you receive - one which you can act upon and the other that you file away for future reference.

Information you can act upon is usually that which requires your attention with regards to appointments, meetings or tasks that need to get done.

The second category of information which may flow in through the course of the day is that of a filing nature. This is all the information that you may need to assist you to complete your set out activities for the day. These may include contact numbers, reports, data, notes or other documents.

The first step towards organizing your data is to identify the two broad categories of act and information to organize data and then work around them.

There are 4 core principles that function to make sure you have complete order in all the chaos that comes to you during the day. These four core categories are that of : Appointment, Tasks, Contacts and Notes/documents.

Appointments: These include all the activities that have been scheduled at specific times for the day. It may include your conferences, meetings, projects or any other commitment. These are pre-defined and pre-determined activities, they include everything on your agenda that you targeted to complete prior to any other information coming your way.

Tasks : These are all the things that you need to do but haven’t yet scheduled in. Nothing is constant in today’s global economy. You’re bound to have unexpected tasks come your way that will demand your attention. If during the course of the day you have an unexpected event come up at a specific time, immediately schedule it in the tasks section rather than throwing it on a piece of paper or your to do list.  

Contacts :This one consolidated place where you have the all the contact details for the all the people you need to connect with. It makes it easier to have a one point systematic contact list rather than having emails in one device, numbers on a another and so on and so forth.

Notes/Documents: This includes all the other information that doesn’t fall into any of the other 3 categories. It can include supporting information, reference documents etc. to mention a few. The base of finding order in the chaos is to have One Master Task List, One calendar, One contact list and One system for all your notes and documents.