How to become organized in your personal life
Does anyone have mastery of this yet. I'm getting about VP level and I realize you have to have your personal life organized to have your professional life organized, you can't just keep raw dogging life week by week like when you were an Associate. I have zero personal organization skills and it affects work, how do you guys keep track of personal to-do's, make plans ahead of time (so used to just making last minute plans because of on-call work culture), make sure personal things don't slip, etc.
dude what
Set realistic expectations for yourself. Everyone in PE has personal lives that are sort of in perpetual chaos, so you have to think 80-20 and prioritize the few personal decisions that matter the most. Anything related to personal finance should come before all else (why the hell are you in this industry if it doesn’t?), next dental cleanings (it’s literally not worth it to let your teeth rot by skipping dentist appts every 6 months to work more), then health stuff broadly (annual physical and blood work), then family commitments, then friend comitments. Outsource what you can, like laundry and cleaning your apartment, since you won’t have time or emotional availability to deal with them.
The likelihood though that you will work in PE long term and not have burned family or friend relationships at some point or won’t be constantly in suboptimal physical condition is next to 0. Focus on the absolute basics: making sure your finances and basic health stuff (dental cleanings) are in order. After that try your best to actually be present and emotionally available for people when you can be and try to not binge on late night seamless when you’re at the office or drink excessively on the weekends. At best you’ll come out with a heavier wallet, intact teeth, not obese, and hopefully relationships with friends and family that aren’t totally and permanently obliterated by your lack of emotional availability.
Great recommendations by poster above. on a high level make priorities for what matters most and outsource other things.
On a low level, I’d suggest making yourself plans in advance. E.g., every Sunday you’ll write yourself a to do list for the day ahead (on Monday you’ll do it for Tuesday etc) and for the overall week. Mark different groups with a a specific colour and have a legend somewhere (personally, Ive it in the beginning of every moleskin book, color stripe and written definition, like organisation, sport, deadline etc. but don’t overwhelm yourself, max 5 groups should do it).
Carry the book with you like it’s your third arm, look up what’s to do, override done items and remove colours from the notes attached and look up what’s next.
Create time tables for tasks: for example, you assume the explanation and introduction you’ll give an analyst will take 30min. To give yourself some buffer, you make it 45min and don’t stress yourself as much. Compare after if you’re off. If so, by what margin? If not, great, you can use it as a building block to plan other things ahead.
Use outlooks calendar (best case synchronised with your phone) and put yourself hard reminders in there, as well as quick breaks in between. Sometimes 5 mins off and taking a stretch or walk to coffee machines works wonders for me to regain focus. return and continue.
Quick checks with pre-written lists: for PPT, print it, do a, b, c in order to review, check and send. Same for Excel or other things.
If you’re noticing you’re behind with a task and Titanic is hitting the ice again, take initiative and communicate (as you’ve written down expected time, roughly estimate how much more it will take). If things hit the fan, outsource if possible, else bite through and try to do better next time.
Lastly, don’t beat yourself up over (minor) mistakes. It happens. Bad enough if your seniors already clapping you down, don’t need to further beat yourself up for it, just try to avoid it next time.
Good points here. One thing I do differently is use an app for the to do list, calendar stuff. I find it way easier to keep updated and regularly reference than paper. I use one called Amazing Marvin. (I wouldn't necessarily recommend that specific app though because they've really slowed development of it and the mobile app has lost a lot functionality. But I've been on it long enough I have so much on there and the desktop app is fine. Something like Todoist is much better supported. Downside of apps, though).
Having the calendar sync is huge. Being able to use the app to link my Outlook calendar for work and Google Calendar for personal lets me set things weeks in advance and forget about them, until I look ahead a few days and remember it.
Will check it out, thanks!
Got recommended today "Obsidian". A friend said, it's helping him with the PhD organizing but doesn't allow synch on all devices yet (at least in free version).
Get a wife who does that stuff for you
Write shit down.
Most disorganization is just forgetfulness.
Keep a list or make calendar reminders and you'll be fine.
I keep an active to-do list on my phone and update it as I progress. Each week, I have x number of things that I do every week, those get put in my phone as Reminders and I can forget about them until I get notified.
At first, I would do this every day to extreme detail - like brush your teeth after lunch - to now it’s just the important things because it becomes part of your process.
For me the most important thing is to wake up daily at a certain time, even in the weekend. I prefer to keep apart personal life from prefessional, I try to focus on work and after it I already start to deal with daily life routine.
Notes app
- to do list - today/tomorrow/near-term
- long term to do list - random things I need to do / not urgent / things I don't want to forget
- misc lists - list for shit to do with my GF, maybe a list of small goals, etc. - customize however you want
Excel sheet
- tab for net worth
- tab for career stuff / contacts / networking
- tab for goals / other random things i want to track
can also create a personal outlook or gmail for scheduling stuff with friends - i don't do that though
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