Peace of Mind Organizing

The morning rush

2 April 2008

I’m a punctuality-challenged person. That’s not a great trait for a professional organizer. My clients have an expectation that their organizer will arrive on time. And besides, it’s just good business to be respectful of your clients’ time.

Here’s the thing. In my case, it’s not that I lack a sense of time. I know pretty much at any given moment what time it is, within five minutes. I make a game of guessing the time before I look at my watch and I’m almost always within five minutes of being right. Heck, I sleep in my watch, I depend upon it so much.

And it’s not that I’m a lazy bones who can’t get out of bed. I’m a morning person and I pretty much get up at the time I determined the night before. (I do use the snooze button, but I build that snoozing time into my calculation of what time the alarm should go off.) I get up a solid three hours before my appointment time.

No, my problem is that I try to cram too many things into my mornings, before I leave the house. Each morning, I try to calculate what time I need to be in the shower in order for me to shower, put on makeup, get dressed, and walk each of my two standard poodles (separately) before I have to gather my things and leave.

It’s a good system, except that what I’ve found is that I try to do too many things in the time between when I sit down at my computer with a cup of coffee (by that time I’ve done my morning routine) and when I get into the shower. I look at the blogs that are important to me. I write my own blog entry (most mornings). I answer some emails. Time just zips by and it’s hard for me to pull myself away from the computer.

I’ve actually been working on my punctuality this year (Joe’s Goals has helped). Things have improved. However, I’ve had the experience lately of being late because I misremembered my appointment time. This has happened twice in the last month. That’s unforgivable. I also had an experience in February where I forgot to take with me the Freedom Filer kit that the client had hired me to implement for her. Luckily, she was extremely understanding and we put our time together to good use. I came back the next day (at no additional charge) and worked with her on the filing system.

If that’s not a big enough clue that I need to do things differently, I don’t know what is. So I’m instituting some new policies and procedures here Peace of Mind Organizing HQ.

My husband is a pilot. He flies motorless aircraft, aka gliders. (If you live in the St. Louis area and want to arrange to experience motorless flight, his club, Silvercreek Glider Club offers glider rides.) He’s explained to me on several occasions how pilots are required to go over their checklist, out loud, prior to taking off. Each and every time.

Checklists are now in my future. My plan is that after I’ve finished cleaning off my office desk each evening, and while I’m putting together my task list for the next day (a la Do It Tomorrow), I’ll put together a checklist of the things I need to take with me on my next day’s appointments. I’ll allow myself to leave that sheet of paper on my clean desktop. In addition, I’ll check my calendar for appointment times and calculate my pre-departure schedule for the morning and leave that on the desk. No more late appointments. No more forgotten supplies.

That’s the plan. If I slip up, I’m lucky enough to have the nicest, most understanding clients. They realize I’m human (I make that abundantly clear). But I hope not to have to count on their largesse much longer.

Tagged with: control, joe's goals, mark forster, punctuality, routines, silvercreek glider club, time management

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