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Check out this article from NALS. Does your typical day at the office look like this? Is it time to go home but you haven’t gotten much done?

“Is It Quitting Time Already? But I Have Not Done Anything?

By Rita J. Thatcher, CPS, ALS

Does your typical day at the office go something like this?

When you arrive at the office, you decide to water the office plants first. On the way to get water, you look over at the coffee pot and decide to make coffee.

As you start toward the coffee pot, you notice mail on yourdesk that was delivered after you left yesterday.

You decide to go through the mail before you make coffee. As you start to open the mail, the phone rings.

You answer the phone and it is your boss, asking you to print out a brief he needs for a meeting that day.

On the way back to your desk from the printer, you stop to chat with one of the other secretaries, who reminds you that today is the office potluck.

You leave the document on her desk while you make a mad dash down the street to the local grocery store to buy some potato salad.

When you get back to the office, you have three phone calls to return, but first you need to retrieve the document for your boss.

On your way to pick up the document, you stop to put thepotato salad in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

One of the other attorneys is there and he asks you for a file that he needs immediately. You return to find the file and the phone rings.

You answer the phone and it is one of your clients, who is very upset about the amount of her bill.

You call the billing department to find out what amount was billed and why, only to find that the billing person has gone to the potluck.

So you hurry to the kitchen to enjoy the potluck lunch, only to be interrupted by a call on your cell phone from your boss wanting his copy!

By now you cannot remember where you left it, so you frantically enlist the aid of everyone in the office.

As you search for the document, the billing person returns your call and you get into a heated discussion on the billing snafu.

As you hang up the phone, you notice that you have received 78 e-mails so far, so you start going through your “in” box.

As you are trying to answer your e-mails, the door opens and your boss bursts in demanding his copy.

You run down the hall screaming like a banshee and suddenly trip over the document itself that someone has left on the floor.

You scoop it up and make your way, limping, back to your boss, who proceeds to chew you out for not having it ready earlier.

At the end of the day: the office plants are not watered; the coffee never got made; the mail never got opened; the client’s billing error has not been resolved; you are starving to death because you missed the potluck lunch; your body is banged up and your ego bruised; and you will be lucky to have a job tomorrow! You are really baffled because you know you were busy all day and you are exhausted!

We have all had days like this, but not because we all have “Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder”! Interruptions and distractions are the plague of the working professional today. But there are ways to control these critters, and organization and planning are your key weapons.

At the beginning of the day, make a list of the tasks that you need to do that day. You could also do this at the end of the day for the next day, but for me it works best doing it in the morning. You can use a daily/weekly planner, or just a legal pad. If you have a big project that you know will take several days, break it down into smaller tasks and put just the first one or two tasks on your list for the day. (As I grow older and more forgetful, this list becomes absolutely necessary!)

I know you have all heard this before, but the trick is to actually use that list. Assign each task to one of the following categories: (A) absolutely must be done today, (B) would be nice to do today but could wait a day or so, or (C) to be done whenever there is time. Then further prioritize all your “A” tasks, “B” tasks, etc.

How do you set priorities? Sometimes it is pretty obvious— you have a filing deadline for a court case, or a letter your boss has told you must go out that day. Sometimes it is not so obvious. If someone has given you a task to do, be sure to have a clear understanding of when they expect it to be done. It also helps to look ahead and realize: “Hmm, I am out on vacation next week and this is going to be due the day I return. Maybe I better finish it before I leave.” I am pretty flexible with my categories. Sometimes I have a task that is really kind of a low priority, but I get tired of seeing it on the list and having it hanging over me every day, so sometimes I move it up and make a point of getting it done. Also, as situations change, sometimes an “A” task can become a “B” task or vice versa. That is why you need to review your list several times a day.

As the day goes on, it is very tempting to let a phone call pull you away from a job you are working on. E-mails are the same way, only worse. You are tempted to drop everything and handle that phone call or that e-mail right away because “it will only take a minute.” But those “minute” interruptions can add up and steal your day. You need to add it to your list and determine if it changes your other priorities. If it is not that important, you can come back to it later.

Another way to handle phone and even e-mail interruptions is to ask the other person how urgent the request is. You might explain that you are in the middle of Project X, and ask if you could have the information to them by the next day. You might be surprised at how much can be put off until the next day.

There will always be interruptions that you cannot ignore—like when your boss comes out and says “I need this copied right now” or “Call right now and make this reservation.” The important thing to remember is that when you have dealt with the interruption, get back on track with your “to do” list.

It is important to carry over tasks that you did not complete to the next day; thus, when you are making your list in the morning, be sure to check the previous day’s list for items that still need to be completed.

My planner is my lifesaver at work. I could probably do without my purse, but not without my planner. When I find myself going around in circles, I grab my planner and bring my focus back to the day’s purpose. I still have days where I wonder where the time went. By utilizing these organizational methods, luckily those days are the exception rather than the rule. Happy Planning!”