Free For All Friday - No. 734 by Anita

As we're just into the last month of the year, I thought that I'd do a bit of an update about how things are going with my inventory, set up and productivity in general. 

Inventory update

1. Pocket (A7) Moterm - I was briefly tempted to try pocket as my main planner, but I know that the page size is too small for me. Keeper? No, to be rehomed next year
   
2. Lefax City slimline - such a beautiful binder, but personal size is what's best for me. It did work well for a short period, whilst I was clearing a backlog, but once that was reduced, it made sense to move back to the personal with any remaining old notes to process kept in my A to Z section. Keeper? No, gifted to Steve
3. Personal Kensington - yup, back in my old faithful friend again. Keeper? Haha, can't imagine letting this one get away again 
   
4. Custom Van der Spek - holding spare inserts. Keeper? No, to be rehomed next year, as I'm always in my Kensington and it's too beautiful a binder to be just used for spare paper
5. Vintage non-branded - I love the colour, but again, I find it hard to leave my Kensington. Keeper? Nope, to be rehomed
6. A5 Original for work - whilst it was great in many ways, I realised that a notebook is easier to write meeting notes in and I don't need to move pages around anyway. Keeper? No, returned to the previous owner
7. Filofax Billingham - a new (to me) purchase this year, which I need to write a post about.

Set up

As mentioned before, I have two set ups that I use and have been in the simplified version for a number of years now. However, as I'm planning on looking at more personal projects next year, I've decided that I will be changing back to my GTD based one from 1st January. At the most basic, I will have a list of current projects, which I will keep up to date, so that I can easily check if they all have a small next action ready to keep moving them forward. My main goal for my 2023 set up is that it will be consistent, current and context-driven (from Getting Things Done, as per this video). 

Time blocking and WIP list

After working for the same company for 13 years, I finally changed jobs in 2020, which was quite a difference, as I'd gone from working in an office on set hours to a fully flexible home-based role on a zero hours contract. Pretty much all of my work, apart from a tiny amount of admin, is done for individual clients, so it's all about time blocking, which I'm finding a very efficient way of working, plus it helps that there are generally less interruptions at home, compared with my previous office environment. Not only does blocking out time enable my boss to see what I'm up to in my shared Google calendar; it also helps me plan my work and keep track of any clients that I need to give more time to. It has also made me realise that I can get much done in quite a small amount of time, as long as I'm good at keeping track of my progress with a particular task or client. 

So, from this work experience, I have created a new list for my Filofax called Work In Progress, which is aimed at recording where I've gotten to with a task and I'm finding that it's working really well for me. I don't know about you, but I'm normally good at keeping on top of the important stuff, but sometimes the smaller things get a little waylaid when I run out of time and/or energy! I then have to figure out where I'd gotten to, or sometimes I just forget about it all together... The idea with the WIP list is that it's for less important or maintenance jobs that I want to keep momentum on, so that it's super easy to pick up where I left off. It's also working well for larger tasks that I want to break down and say to myself, "Just do five minutes, you can do that".

At the beginning, I write in capitals what the subject or context is, e.g. Philofaxy, Moneywiz (software that we use to track our finances) etc. and then I write what needs to be done after that. Some of the items below are part of a bigger project and could go on my normal next action lists, but I've put them here to remind me of my progress for now. If needed, I will also note what's been done, e.g. for Moneywiz, I've updated the Tesco interest rate, but all the others need doing still and I've done all the vacuuming, except for the lounge and bedroom.  

Well, that turned into a longer post than anticipated, but it's actually helped me to start thinking about 2023 and what I'm already doing that's working well.

Have you anything that you'd like to share about what's been working well for you this year?

And as always on Fridays, please feel free to discuss anything organiser related. I hope that you have a great weekend.