16: 5 Struggles of Digital Organization
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Welcome to episode 16 of Permission to be Messy. I'm your host JoAnn Krall, and today I'm talking about five struggles of digital organization. So in this world that we live in now with so many automations and ways that we can do everything digitally, many people are still struggling and it really hasn't provided extra efficiency and productivity for some people, and there's some reasons for that. And I'm gonna talk about those today. I'm gonna give you the five top reasons and then some tips, and strategies to help you overcome that.
So the first thing is an over-reliance on technology. Technology can be so helpful in managing tasks and keeping you organized, but relying on it too much can lead to complacency, and when we lack the ability to organize any other way. So when glitches happen, sometimes that just throws everything off.
The second thing is a lack of clarity and prioritization. So with so many tasks and responsibilities, it's really easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of what's most important and sometimes when we have everything all set up and everything's automated, we're not really thinking about the overall importance of things.
This can be something that trips people up so be aware of this as you're trying to automate.
The third thing is an inability to focus. And this is caused by the constant notifications and distractions that we get from technology. We get the notifications on our phone, we get notifications on our computer. In, in the old days the telephone was ringing, but it wouldn't ring as often as the notifications that we get now.
So it's really important to think about that as being one of the reasons why you may be a little bit overwhelmed.
The fourth thing is a lack of systems and processes. I talk about this all the time, but sometimes we try to automate things, but we're really not thinking things through and it's important to have those systems down and I'll talk about this when I talk about the tips.
The fifth thing is just simply too many options. There's so many things to choose from, and finding the right one can be half the battle, and sometimes we've chosen the wrong one. I've talked about this before and actually you can go back and listen to, episode. 11 where I talk about picking a project management software, and then also in episode 13 I talk about going all digital. So these are some things that if you have systems set up but they're not working for you, you might wanna listen to those.
So how do we overcome these five things? The, the over-reliance on technology, lack of clarity, inability to focus, lack of systems and processes, and just having too many options.
Before you start to implement any automations, it's really important to obviously get organized first and these are some tips, specific to automations that you can do. First one. You know what I'm gonna say is to declutter, reduce as much as you possibly can. And what does that look like for automations?
That may be the number of tools that you're using. Can you find a tool that can do more things in one, so that there's less talking to each other? Are there tasks that you can remove from a process? Look at your process and say, all right, what can I eliminate? Reducing as much as you possibly can.
And then the second thing, getting organized manually first, Mapping things out manually before you even head to a digital system can really help. Some people wanna go straight to the digital system and that works for them, and that's totally fine. I'm not saying that's the wrong answer, but if you've tried to create things digitally and you're missing steps or things are not working and you know it's not flowing well for you, think about creating everything manually.
This will be helpful too, because if your systems break down, you'll at least understand where things are in the process and it will help, to have that roadmap for you.
And then the third thing, evaluate your current situation. this goes hand in hand with decluttering and, mapping things out. But take some time, really assess your current level of organization and, automation and think about what needs improvement. and at this point you could actually start researching, do I need different tools?
Are the tools that I have. Okay? Because now that I've decluttered and I've mapped things out manually, I can see how I can improve what I have.
The fourth thing is to define your goals. this is important that you know why you're automating. Are you automating because you need more time? Are you automating because you don't want things to fall through the cracks?
determine what outcomes you wanna see and what specific problems that you wanna solve. Having that mapped out is gonna help you when you go into step five, which is always last, as I always say, is then developing the system. Now, I did talk about creating, getting organized first manually, but in, in this case, the system is now the actual automation.
So this is when you know You've reduced as much as you can. You've defined your goals, you've evaluated what you have, what you've done, you've mapped it all out manually. Then you can then go in and create those automations or use those tools that will do things for you automatically.
And when you're creating systems, talking about all those notifications, know yourself. Are you going to pay attention to the notifications? Which notifications do you wanna get? How often do you wanna get them?
Anytime you're trying to create automations, don't try to create a bunch of different automations all at once. Start small, start with a small item, a small project.
So I'll give you an example of something that I was doing manually and I finally automated it, but I had to understand the full process before I did it, and it was all just simply around my calendar and my scheduling. So I, at the time when I first started going digital, I was using a platform called cozi.com, and I was using it for both my first personal and business.
And I liked the platform, but when I took my business all online, I was now allowing people to schedule through, a scheduling software called Acuity. Some of you have probably heard of that and
what was happening is I would manually block off on Acuity when I had appointments on my Cozi, like personal or business and. It just, I'd have to block off time really quick, make sure nobody booked and then, it was just Acuity wasn't talking to cozy and I should back up.
It took me a very long time to even use a digital calendar because I'm very much paper driven. Of course, I still use a paper calendar. I realized that I could do both and that it was really important for me to have a digital calendar, but I also needed to see it on paper. So I do mimic my calendars on paper.
But I digress. so I found a way at the time to have my Acuity talk to Google Calendar and have my Cozi talk to Google Calendar and so the three calendars were all talking to each other. So if somebody. Went to go book an appointment with me and I had a dentist appointment, they wouldn't be able to because it would be blocked off, and that was great.
for the time being, I think it was because I really didn't wanna let go of that Cozi.com. I really enjoyed it. I didn't like Google Calendar, so that worked. But there came a point where it was like, okay, this is getting a little out of hand, I said, you know what? This is what I need to do. I need to simplify.
I'm going to just use Google Calendar for everything. I use Google Calendar for my business and my personal. And so now I only have to have Acuity and Google talking to each other, and it makes it really simple and I don't have to worry about blocking off times.
So that really made my life so much easier. But that was just as an example of me creating something that worked at the time, but then realizing that I needed to simplify it and it worked. And I love Google Calendar now. I don't know why I fought it for so long, but I really, I really like it.
So I hope this was helpful. I would love to hear from you what kind of automations you use, whether it's personal or business. reach out to me and let me know.
My contact information is always in the show notes, and there's always other resources in there as well. It is very warm here as I'm recording. It's almost 80 degrees, which seems crazy because it's been raining for weeks. So I'm feeling really peppy and really excited to, have the warm weather here and to get back out and moving.
And as always, I'm wishing you much productivity, peace, prosperity, and the permission to be messy. Thanks for listening.
