Podcast 104

Do you ever wish you could convince your co-workers to be better organised and more productive? Well, this week that’s what I am digging in to.

 

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Script

Episode 104

Hello and welcome to episode 104 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, GTD, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Have you ever wished you could convince your teammates and the people you work with to be a little more organised and productive? Well, that’s the topic I am tackling this week.

Now, before we get into this week’s question, I’d like to point out to all you wonderful listeners that we have just entered the last three months of the year. Yes, 2019 has entered its final few months and that means it’s the best time to begin thinking about what you want to achieve next year. 

Now, this is just the thinking stage. You do not have to plan anything yet. When you begin the process in October you give yourself plenty of time to think of, ponder, wonder and reject ideas for next year. It also means that you have time to really go deep and consider all things in your life. 

To help you, I have an annual planning template that you can download for free from my website—carlpullein.com— All you have to do is go to the downloads page and there, near the top, is the PDF file waiting for you to download it and start filling in. 

If you are an Evernote user, you can also add the Evernote template to your Evernote by clicking on the link in the show notes. I did a video last week on how to complete the planning sheet, so if you want to learn more head over to my YouTube channel and watch the Evernote video from last week. 

Okay, on with the show and that means it’s now time for me to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice, for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Kelly. Kelly asks: Hi Carl, I have always been an organised person but I work in a team of people who never write anything down and are always forgetting deadlines or not replying to messages and emails in a timely manner. Is there anything I can do to get my team more organised?

Ooh, great question, Kelly, and one with a simple answer—no. 

You see the difficulty here is to become better organised and more productive is a choice. It’s not as if there is a switch you can pull and everyone in your office will start following GTD or COD. 

However, while I was thinking about how I would answer your question, Kelly, I remembered a time when I worked in a car dealership and the general manager, whose name was Andrew Donovan, was one of the most organised people I have ever met. 

Andrew wrote everything down and when he asked you to do something, you knew he would not forget to follow up with you. 

Now, this was before smartphones and computers on every desk—it was the early nineties—and Andrew’s system was simple, yet brilliant. 

Whenever Andrew had a meeting he would write everything down on to a sheet in a reporters notebook. Everyone in the meeting saw him do this. So you knew if he asked you to do something, it was written down. Once the meeting was over, Andrew would then add the action and follow up items to his leather A4 diary which went everywhere he went. 

What I noticed was that Andrew’s system was soon adopted by many of the departmental managers and that trickled down to other team members. 

Now, I don't know your position in your company, Kelly, but whatever your role, that is perhaps one way you could change things within your team