As good as we are organizing our communication systems, sometimes it’s tough to manage our daily routine. It gets more challenging when you have so much to do, and you can’t move on from one thing to another because your mind is all cluttered up. I know that these scenarios are all too familiar. With that, we’ve asked our co-church communicators about this dilemma, and here are some of their tips for self-organization in communications for all of us!
Deadlines and Planners:
“Put everything on a calendar and stick to it. On Sundays, I look ahead at the week. Every night I look at the next day. And every morning, I look at the rhythm of the day. Leave margin between meetings, tasks, and projects so if one runs over, it doesn’t mess up the whole schedule. Also, it’s important to know your own rhythms and schedule accordingly. If you don’t like to talk to people first thing in the morning, schedule tasks like email, text, the, etc., the first thing and schedule meetings later in the day when you’re at your best.” Dawn Morris Kuhl
“I use a paper planner. And read all the stuff on minimalism because what keeps me unorganized is pure clutter. Schedule time in your day to get rid of clutter and to actually organize your current projects.” Beverly Myers
“Ask for deadlines and don’t take “whenever” as an answer.” James Earley
Devoting to stay organized can be a daunting task. In a digital age, it’s not uncommon for people to think keeping all their planning digital is the best way to go. However, as you can tell many still believe in writing things down the old-fashioned way when it comes to deadlines, planning, and scheduling is one of the best ways to stay organized. With that in mind, Church Communications created an awesome calendar just for church communicators to help them stay organized because we know first hand how crazy things can be.
Apps & Process:
“Google Calendar for meetings. Evernote for notes. Gmail for ongoing message thread-with lots of filtering and labels. My inbox only has less than a dozen items in it.” Eric Liang
“What I do is modeled after Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner process. There is a lot here, so I would be happy to explain more if it’s helpful to anyone. Step 1 – List your biggest wins for the week. Step 2 – After Action Review (How far did you get in accomplishing your Big 3 tasks for the week? What worked? What didn’t? What will you keep, improve, start or stop doing based on your experience this week?). Step 3 – List Sweep (Review and process tasks and action items: deferred tasks, deferred email, review notes, review goals). Step 4 – Major Events, Deadlines, Tasks (What will or should happen this coming week). Step 5 – Weekly Big 3 (Referring to step 4, list three items you must accomplish this week to advance your goals or projects).” Aaron McCullough
“Anything you have to do and can’t do right now goes on the to-do list app or journal. Sometimes my to-do’s look like “think about the first steps for X project.” I’ve found that helps keep my brain from being too cluttered and helps me to focus on the work I’m doing right now.” Tim Arndt
“Online? Take a day to sit down and create organizational structures. Folders are your friend!! If you try to do it as you go, it will never be as efficient if you take the time to stop, plan, and consider what you might need … and redistribute items accordingly. The biggest lesson for me lately is that even “small” things TAKE TIME! and it’s OK to LET THEM!” Caroline Walls
Conclusion:
Admitting to yourself that you need to be more organized is the first step. From there, you can take further steps to adjust your old ways and set a daily routine that will be easy for you to follow. We hope these tips for self-organization in communications prove helpful! Here’s to more organized and productive days ahead of us!
P.S. In case you missed it check out our awesome Church Communications Calendar:
