Earlier this month I attended a seminar on Productivity and Organizing at Proteus Gowanus presented by writer Oliver Burkeman, a freelance journalist who writes a regular column for The Guardian newspaper. Burkeman has read and reported on an obscene amount of self help books and as he says on his website,

"Each week in This Column Will Change Your Life, I write about social psychology, self help culture, productivity and the science of happiness, and make unprovoked attacks on The Secret. I'm working on a book about the upsides of negativity, uncertainty and imperfection."

As someone straddling the roles of Account Manager, Project Manager and Strategist, using myriad tools, apps and techniques to organize my time, I was especially relieved to hear one of his principles: "Rebel against pointless organizing!" The following is a summary of his principles and techniques aimed at creating balance and sanity within chaos.

There will always be too much to do.
The goal isn't to get it all done, but to relate to it all more calmly - to retain sanity in the midst of chaos, so you can choose to focus on what matters.

Get everything out of your head.
The human brain is a terrible task-storage mechanism, and when your subconscious is constantly reminding you of unfinished work or unmet commitments, stress is the result.
- Technique: one big list of everything
- Technique: time maps*
*mapping out your tasks on a daily, weekly or monthly calendar

Three stages of stuff.
Every task or potential task

a) first collects in one of your buckets* b) then requires a decision, and then c) needs to be done (or abandoned or refused).

By consciously separating these three stages, you can stay in control of multiple projects without having to shuttle between them all the time.

* a framework within which to caputure your todos/task lists  ie. Personal, Financial, Travel, Family

- Technique: streamline your buckets (carry a collection folder*)
* a large envelope, file folder - anything to capture your notes, post its, business cards, receipts, etc.

- Technique: make time for processing

You can only do physical actions.
Projects often don't move forward because a physical action hasn't been defined. Even 'thinking' counts as a physical action.
- Technique: rephrase your tasks

Rebel against pointless organizing!
The less likely you are to need to find something, the less time you should invest in making it findable. with digital information, almost anything's easily findable.
- Tecnhique: one email archive folder