I love this hilarious cartoon by @gemmacorrell. It’s so me!

Making art is really important to me. It lights me up and puts a fire in my belly. But as you know, to get your work out there to share with other people involves a sh*t load of other stuff too!

Soooo, how do I keep myself organised? Well, you might have realised by now I’m a lists kind of girl. Never happier than when I’m ticking off things on my to do list. But, and this is a big but, lists do not help me organise my time, instead they allow me to procrastinate and get on with tasks that maybe aren’t very urgent or sometimes even important. I’m sure you can relate.

I use a OneNote notebook. It’s a bit like my business brain! It contains info, links, website copy, course notes, social media posts, exhibitions, printing info etc etc. It also contains my monthly planner organised by themes and subdivided into tasks. It’s a bit like an organised brain dump! But…… and again here’s that big but, other than acting as a beautifully arranged to-do list, it encourages me to complete tasks I’ll enjoy doing rather than the most urgent and important ones.

As luck would have it, I was listening to a podcast a couple of months ago and heard someone refer to the Eisenhower matrix which they used to keep themselves on track. I quickly rewound, jotted it down and proceeded to investigate the following day.

Well! What a discovery! It’s a decision making matrix that helps you determine what’s important, prioritise your tasks, save time and be more productive. Win win!

‘What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”
Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States

So what is it and how do you use it? Here’s an example of how I use it:

1  At the beginning of each month, or in fact any time I’m feeling overwhelmed by jobs I need to do, I brain dump everything onto a piece of paper. Somehow the physical act of writing it down removes it from the whirlwind zone and makes it more concrete.

 2 I transfer these tasks into the correct categories on my monthly planner sheet e.g. webpage, social media, painting, personal etc

 3 I remove completed tasks from the previous month’s matrix, and rearrange or remove the tasks left behind

 4 Then I add the new tasks to the 4 sections of the table, using the following criteria:

Urgent and important activities – tasks with due dates or consequences for not completing quickly

Not urgent and important activities – tasks with flexible deadlines that are important for my goals

Urgent and not important – tasks that need to be completed but can be given to someone else to do

Not urgent and not important – unnecessary tasks that will distract me

I add the tasks to my monthly planner sheet as well as to the matrix because it allows me to see how I’m spending my time. I can see if there are areas I’m neglecting. It helps me keep on track. And also it gives me a sense of achievement when I’m wondering what I’ve been doing all week!

There’s a ton of info on the internet about this. Here are a couple of links I found useful:

https://asana.com/resources/eisenhower-matrix

https://friday.app/p/eisenhower-matrix 

I hope you found this helpful. How do you organise yourself? I’d love to know! Please share in the comments below.

Until next time.

Marion x