Category: Disorganized

How I Stay Organized By Being Unorganized

7/13/2014

by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

In addition to having a full time work at home position, I also do freelance writing, run several websites, and more almost full time as well. Plus, I’m a busy mom who has lots of little human people and fur kids to dole out attention and time to every day. This means that my days are extremely busy. I keep it all well-maintained and organized by being a bit unorganized – okay, I’m very unorganized most of the time.

My days are very unpredictable. I choose my own hours in the work at home position I hold. However, I choose them based on when the best times to work are according to the workload and other factors. When it comes to work, that particular position comes before any other tasks, so everything else has to be worked around that.

But doesn’t that require organization? Well, in a sense it does. But, not really. Let me explain. I don’t have time to sit and write out a bunch of elaborate plans. Work is always staring me in the face at every turn and much of it comes without advance notification. I have to be able to just jump into my work when it’s there.

“Normal” organizational strategies would take up the time I need to get all of my daily tasks done. So, how do I know what to prioritize? Everything has to be an almost instant decision-making process. I never know what’s going to happen at any given second in a day. I might have a client with a rush order, a technical issue to monitor at one website, countless reports at another, a sick kid, and a million other things.

Sitting down to create lists and plans would take away from the time needed to get these things handled. Therefore, I get everything done by making the quick executive decision on which things need to get done in each moment. This strategy has worked for years and always keeps me on top of everything.

Although there are days when I have more work than I can handle, most of the time, the best thing I can do is to not have a pre-written plan or order for tasks. This may sound like my days are crazy – and they are. However, they’d be even crazier if I had to write plans. They’d have to be changed so often that I’d have to spend even more time rewriting them all day long when I could be working on my daily tasks instead.

Staying organized by being what most would call unorganized has been working for me for years. However, everyone works differently. Therefore, if you try my strategy, keep in mind that it may or may not work for you. What’s your usual strategy? Is it similar or different from mine and how’s it working for you?

*Photo Credit: Lyn Lomasi

**I originally published this on Bubblews.com (no longer published there).

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Quick Web Writing Tip: Make an Easy Outline to Speed Productivity

7/31/2011

1 Comment

by Lyn Lomasi; Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

Need a simple way to speed up your writing that you can use each and every time? I did too. That's why I invented my own outline or template, modeled after the style I use most frequently. If you write for several venues, you may need a different basic outline for each.

Design your outline. Think about what you will need within all or most of your submissions and design an inclusive outline. I most often write informative how-to-type articles for various clients, as well as my own venues. I use the below outline most often, so that is the one I chose to use as an example. For most clients, my outline usually needs a title, byline, introduction, 5 steps, and a section at the end linking to three related pieces. Because I write for myself when I'm not writing for clients, I can use that same format for most things, unless I am doing a quick tip or that outline style won't work for the piece.

Each time you have an article idea, fill in what you can before writing. This has been even more of a life saver than my outline itself. I fill in the title and each point before I start writing. I generally will go through and do this with all my planned articles for each day before beginning to write. Sometimes an article will start flowing while I'm in the middle of this process because once the main points are filled in, it's very simple to complete the process. So I'll stop and finish that article. Once you try it, I can almost guarantee that you will never write an article the 'regular' way again.

Below is a sample outline, followed by that same sample filled in with info needed to begin an article.

Sample outline:

Title
by Lyn Lomasi

intro

Tip sentence. text

Tip sentence. text

Tip sentence. text

Tip sentence. text

Tip sentence. text

More from Lyn:

link

link

link

(As you can see in the above outline, each area that needs bold or italic text is pre-formatted that way to keep it easy.)

Sample outline 2:

Guide to writing for the web
by Lyn Lomasi

intro

Gear your text toward people and search. text

Gain an audience with niche specialties. text

Keep your audience by being truthful. text

Use personal experience to gain trust. text

Publish often and be consistent. text

More from Lyn:

link

link

link

(As you can see in this second outline sample, it will be very easy for me to write and fill in the rest of the details because I have my main points. They just need to be explained.)

30 Day Web Writing Boot Camp for Writers & Business Owners - Improve Writing Skills FAST

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How I Stay Organized By Being Unorganized

Quick Web Writing Tip: Make an Easy Outline to Speed Productivity

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