Back to the post that I was talking
about at the very beginning of the video
where one of my subscribers was talking
about the fact that she just keeps
forgetting what people
are asking her to do.
This is actually a perfect opportunity
for her to leverage technology.
Now I shared this of course
in my Facebook group,
but I wanted to share it here as well.
So here is how you could leverage
technology to help you with something as
simple as forgetting what
people are asking you to do.
Well, hey there,
welcome to Mak Tv where we of course
believe that the transformation from
manager to leader is such a crucial one.
And that's because they change
lives and they are having a profound
effect on today's working environment.
So today's video is actually inspired
by a post that was in my Facebook group,
the awesomesauce new manager
crew. Now in the post,
she's actually talking about the fact
that she's feeling really frustrated over
the fact that she keeps forgetting
what people are asking her to do.
But at the core, really what this is
is an issue of organization, right?
Because when you're organized, you
don't feel so flustered or overwhelmed,
by all the things that are coming
at you. So in today's video,
I'm going to be talking about five things
that you can do or start implementing
that will help you instantly feel this
sense of relief and to obviously get
yourself organized.
Now I will say you don't have to implement
everything that I mentioned in the
video. You know,
just pick a couple that really resonate
with you or kind of fits your vibe.
The goal here is that you take some sort
of action and actually make progress.
And so I don't want you to
feel overwhelmed by trying
to apply all the things.
Just pick one or two,
maybe at the max three that really
makes sense for you and take some
action. So let's get started.
Tip number one is really simple,
but it is my biggest tip ever.
So I'm going to actually whisper it
because I don't want anyone else to hear.
Okay,
so here's the secret tip
number one is to not work in
clutter. Yeah, it's that simple.
Just don't work in clutter. Now,
I know I mentioned this in my previous
video right here where I was talking
about the fact that it's really important
to set up your environment in a way
that allows you to focus. Well the same
thing goes for this as well. You know,
if you are in a messy environment
then you're going to feel messy both
physically and mentally as well.
So it's really important to set
yourself up for success by setting your
environment up for success.
So what you want to do is clear
out your desk once a week take,
give it a good wipe down, make
sure everything is nice and clean.
Make sure that things that don't really
need to be hanging around on your desk
are in your drawer.
Take down sticky notes,
do whatever it is that you can to
make sure that your area is clean.
And then the second part of that is to
make sure that your digital space is
clean. So you don't need to
have 50,000 tabs open, right?
Close down a few tabs and only
use what you actually need.
It's incredibly important to make sure
that your physical space as well as your
digital space is clear of clutter so
that you can actually feel like you're
in control of what you're doing.
Tip number two is to plan your week.
You know people that are
organized plan their time.
Now if you do not have an agenda
or a calendar of some sort,
then I highly suggest you do that.
Having some sort of agenda or calendar
will help you to feel far less frazzled
about what you have to do because
you will know what is coming up.
So here's what you want to do
with your agenda, your calendar,
or if you use something digitally,
this is what you want to do.
You want to spend 20 minutes at the
beginning of your week just planning out
what you're going to do for the week.
Now I tend to really like planning out
what I'm doing in terms of outcomes as
opposed to like all
the really small tasks.
I just like to think that
way in terms of, okay,
what is it just very high level that I
have to do and I work towards doing that.
Some people like writing down like
every little thing they have to do,
which if that's you,
then that's totally fine as long as you're
putting it somewhere so that you know
that you know you have to do it.
So another thing that's really good to
do just as a little side point sub point
is to actually build in cushion time
into your week for when priorities change
or when unexpected changes happen. Just
so that you're not feeling, like I said,
flustered when something does happen
that you weren't necessarily expecting.
And then at the end of the week,
what you want to do is block off 20
minutes of your time for thinking time.
Now this is my absolute
favorite time of the week,
not necessarily because
it's the end of the week,
but because I get to do thinking time.
Here is why thinking time is so important.
Now a lot of us fall into
the trap of being busy bees.
We're super busy doing all the things.
But sometimes in some instances
we're busy doing the wrong things.
So if we don't stop to think and reflect
about what we're doing and if it makes
sense to be doing it,
then we're going to constantly be in
that cycle of being busy and doing busy
work that's actually wrong. This
is why thinking time is so vital.
So all you really need
is about 20 minutes,
20 solid good minutes at the end of
the week to reflect on your week. Now,
of course, I think it's important to
reflect on the good things, right?
Reflect on your achievements.
That's really important.
But it's equally as important to think
about the things that aren't really
necessary for you to be doing, right?
Think about things that
need to be adjusted.
You know the goal here is to
get you out of the weeds, right?
Because that's what makes you feel
overwhelmed and frustrated, right?
Being in like the minuita type of stuff.
You want to get like
higher level than that.
You want it like elevate yourself out
of that and the only way that you can do
that is through thinking
and reflection time.
So schedule that in because if you
don't schedule it in it won't get done.
Tip number three is to leverage
technology to set up systems.
Now I talked about this a little bit in
my video right here where I was talking
about time management tips and how you
can use systems to really like regain
control of your time. The same
goes for staying organized.
The two really go hand in hand.
You always want it to be looking for
ways that you can do things in a far more
productive manner and you want to be
using technology to help you do that.
So going back to the post that I was
talking about at the very beginning of the
video where one of my subscribers was
talking about the fact that she just keeps
forgetting what people
are asking her to do.
This is actually a perfect opportunity
for her to leverage technology. Now,
I shared this of course
in my Facebook group,
but I wanted to share it here as well.
So here is how you could leverage
technology to help you with something as
simple as forgetting what
people are asking you to do.
So something that I tested for myself
that actually worked really well is using
a Google doc and a zapier integration.
And you're welcome to use this as well
and just like amend it to however it fits
to you. So here's how it works.
What you first want to do is create
a master Google sheet, right?
So you name it, whatever
you want to name it,
name it something that makes sense to,
obviously you and the people that
you're going to be sharing it with.
So in my case, I named it Maks request.
So what I did was I opened up this Google
sheet and in one column I had name and
in the other column I had
requests. It was as simple as that,
two simple columns.
And then what I did was I obviously edited
the doc so that whoever I was sharing
this link with would be able to edit it.
So you want to be able to give everyone
that has access to the link editing
rights. The next step would be to share
it like crazy. Share it with your team,
share it with your boss,
share it with basically anybody that
you wouldn't be collaborating with or
anybody that might be asking you to
do something for them. And here's why.
When you are walking down the
hall and somebody says, Hey, um,
I was wondering if you would be able to
do this, this, this, that, the other,
here's what you can say.
Sure I can do that for you.
Would you be able to just put
that in my request doc for me?
I want to make sure that I really
understand the details right?
Cause oftentimes that's when people are
asking you to do something when you were
like almost on the way to the bathroom.
And that's how you know that's a good
chance for forgetting what they're asking
you to do. Or when someone like sends you,
like if your office has some sort of
inner office messenger or something like
that and someone asks you to do something,
you can send them back the link.
Now I will say that this is one of those
cases where you need to explain the why
behind the what.
I mean I think in a lot of cases you
should be explaining the why behind the
what, but especially in this,
because I think that people who you are
sending this to might feel kind of like,
well, why is she sending
me this link? Well,
the truth is you don't want to forget
and you want to make sure that you're
doing it the right way, right? So
it's important to explain that, Hey,
I've created this because
of the fact that you know,
I get a ton of requests a day and I
want to make sure that I prioritize what
needs to be priority on
my list. As well you know,
things get lost in
translation very easily.
So I want to make sure that I clearly
understand what you're asking me to do.
And the best way for me to clearly
understand is if you, you know,
dictate exactly what it
is that you're asking for.
And if I have any questions I'll
come back and ask you. Right?
So you want to clearly explain
the reason behind having this doc.
And now you can keep it pretty simple
and just check this Google doc every day
to see if anybody has asked you to do
something that needs your attention right
away or you know, that you can plan for.
Or you can take it a step further like
I did and integrate it with Zapier.
Now Zapier is a workflow
automation tool. Okay.
So it's a workflow automation tool and
it's basically designed in a way to
trigger an action that
you want. So in this case,
what would happen was every time someone
entered something into the doc for me,
what Zapier would do is actually
trigger an alert to my email.
That's how I had it set up to say,
Hey, there is a new entry in your doc.
That way I didn't have
to check it every day.
You can actually also integrate it with
like maybe your project management tool,
so if you're using Asana or
Trello, Trello is my favorite.
What it'll do is automatically update
your card for you and let you know that
there is a task. Again,
that way you're not having to constantly
check on what's being updated.
It's like doing the work
in the background for you.
Now Zapier is free for up to five zaps,
so that's five workflows
or five sets of automation.
So in this case the Google doc
would be considered one workflow.
So you could actually use Zapier for
four other things that you might be
thinking in your mind, huh,
that's an interesting tool.
I would like to use that to
automate this or automate that.
You can use it up to five times.
So I'll leave the link for Zapier
in the description box below.
Tip number four is to cut
out applications. Now,
I know I just literally said that it's
important to leverage technology to help
you.
But you know technology is one of those
things that it's like really good in
some areas but too much of
it causes like an upset,
bad stomach kind of situation.
You want to be able to use technology
in the right way and sometimes if you're
using too much of it,
it can cause a ton of distractions or
you're like looking in a ton of places for
one thing and that actually
causes disorganization.
It's a good idea to look
through everything you're
using and see if there's any
sort of overlap or if there's things that
you don't necessarily need to be using
and just cut it out.
It is far better to be using a few
really good applications than a
ton of applications that fit
like kind of fill small gaps.
Tip number five is to set a
specific time for checking email.
Nothing to me is more
irritating than email.
Email is so annoying.
I mean instantly with a fly in
or some sort of notification,
somebody else's problem
becomes your chaos.
And it is so easy to get sucked
into that hole and so if you
make it an aim to just block off a little
bit of time in your calendar each and
every day checking email,
then you're not like going through your
day basically reacting to everybody
else's problems.
Now if you're looking for more tips and
advice in terms of how to manage your
time more wisely and how to be productive
and increase your focus levels,
and then I highly suggest you check
out these videos right here. Now,
if you're a new manager and you're looking
to accelerate your learning and you
want to network and gain a community of
people that you can actually talk to you
about what you're experiencing, the
struggles that you're experiencing,
then feel free to join my free Facebook
group called the Awesomesauce new
manager crew. I will put the link
in the description box below.
If you like this video,
I do suggest that you hit on the subscribe
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miss out on other videos that
I share here only on Tuesday.
Thank you so much for watching. It
was a blast to be with you today.
I hope you have a
fantastic rest of the week.
Don't forget to keep smiling and
I'll see you in the next one.
