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ep37. Organisation - West Park Bench Podcast | Otter.ai

ep37. Organisation - West Park Bench Podcast

Caron Lyon26min

Caron Lyon

00:04

Welcome to Episode 37 of the West Park Park Bench Podcast. What a glorious day. Here in Long Eaton to mark this in time. There was a thunderstorm to end thunderstorms from my experience. I remember standing on the landing, when I was a child with my dad with the lights off and looking at thunder and lightning cracking in the distance in the dark that really stuck with me. This I think my also it lasted for about an hour and it just rumbled around very grey sky it wasn't particularly visually dramatic, but audibly dramatic. And when the flashes it was like God was taking flash photography. And I actually go to yoga on a Monday night. And I did search, as I strangely always ask particular questions if I want to know something that I don't think I know. I do tend to ask Mr. Google and if it is something that I want a little more of an extensive answer before I go searching I might ask chap GPT. So says, Can I go out in a thunderstorm? because I was gonna have to walk up to Trent College and from Trent College on campus to the yoga hall is under some trees and I know as a child, and when I was at Brownies they always said don't quit submit of a field. Don't go into a tree. And if your hair stands up on end, get as low down to the ground as you can. Don't take an umbrella. So I and it said exactly the same thing. And I was thinking should I Is this something I should really listen to the world and anyhow by the time it had abated I decided to go in the car. Hey travel in a Faraday Cage! I decided to go in the car it was at by that point the storm had come overhead and it was throwing it down with rain. So I was actually quite pleased. However, finding a parking space coming back was not as difficult as I anticipated, but it's always a nightmare, which is why I rarely take the car anywhere. It's not completely eco. It's the fact that I don't want to lose the parking space.

Caron Lyon

02:41

Anyway, Episode 37.

Caron Lyon

02:50

Organisation is the title. I use a lot of apps services platforms and tools apps as I have the acronym. So again, applications, platforms, tools, and services. And there's so many of those and it all depends what you need to do to determine which of that tool set you need. And actually in an ideal world, you want to have as few as possible.

Caron Lyon

03:25

But where do you start? And I watch a lot of bullet journal videos and arty creative digital journals where people make them so beautiful. And I am not that creative. I have played around with some of those notebook journaling things where you can make them pretty and you can put washi tape in and you can have different days of the week. And you can put sort of stickers to say what you're doing. But for me, I need to have something that's a little bit more reference related and a little bit more realistic for me and it does come down to What is it that you need to organise? If you just need to structure your regular time. I think one of these pretty sticky journals could be the way to go if you're doing the same thing quite regularly. You just want to be able to look at it and go yep, this is what Monday looks like. This is what Tuesday looks like if you want to shape your days and they're quite regular. I think having a sticker book journal is fun.

Caron Lyon

04:46

However, if you need to get stuff done, which I do, the first thing I would say to somebody is go back to basics and get yourself a paper notebook and a pen. Doesn't have to be pretty, doesn't have to be considered whether you're gonna go down the bullet journal theory, or you're going to implement a filofax type thing. It could just be a pile of paper.

Caron Lyon

05:22

sorry about that.

Caron Lyon

05:25

And you need to start with a to do list. What is it that you need to do on that day? And master the clearing of a to do list Now that in itself sounds like a very easy step. But what tends to happen is there's more stuff that you need to do than you have time to do it in and it all pulls out. Once you've got somewhere to put it you find that it all pulls out.

Caron Lyon

05:58

Once you've got your To Do lists, a whole book of those to do lists, clear them out, start a new one each day, cross them out. Now if you want an app if people want an app and they're listening to this because yeah, this is going back to the beginning. You don't know whether you want to use... there's Trello and there's Monday and there's Asauna. And there's Motion and there's... I'm sure Google have their own system, combination of tools that you can use to plan your day. But the one that if you want an app, and the one that I really like and I went back to last night because I was thinking about this, and it is called Tomorrow. And the idea is that you have two pages the app has two pages. It has a to do list on one side. And it has stuff that you're going to defer to tomorrow on the other page, and you write your list and you tick, once you achieve one you tap it crosses it out, it will disappear the other ones if you haven't knocked them on to tomorrow, when you open the app the next day, they will all be on the left hand side. And then you can tackle the ones that you need to tackle cross them out and the other ones will be deferred to the next day and in terms of a digital structure having something like that is a really good place to start.

Caron Lyon

07:37

Now, I use a paper notebook. I also have notes on my phone and notes on my phone I do find is probably a more advanced adventure into this kind of to do organisation stuff. Now when I'm really in a flow and I've got my To Do Lists working and I've got my calendar, structured. I tend to then have pages in my notes app on my phone, which can also be looked at on my desktops and my laptop and I can look at it on my iPad and I can start putting down ideas for blog posts, titles for blog posts, notes that come to mind, paragraphs of text. Now, these tools are searchable within themselves. They're not connected to anything else, and they're not accessible by anybody else. And if you are working in a way, that means you don't need to share your workflow with anybody else. Finding this set of tools that suit you best...

Caron Lyon

08:57

...just had some walk past it's always a time either a dog walks past I'm gonna pause for a little water here as well because it is a really nice warm day. Really sheltered. This is the best park bench I've found so far. I did at the beginning of the park bench podcast, have one that was further up by the swimming pool but a lot of people walk past that and it's in the sun and people tend to use it so it wasn't always available. So this became my stunt bench when actually No The one to my left is my stunt bench. And it was starting to get a bit mucky it's under the trees started to get covered in bird muck. So the next one down, and actually this one covered by shade right now. Right in the middle of the expanse of the park looking out towards the Tennis Centre and the five aside basketball court and the waterpark and the Pavilion and the bandstand and the children's play park. Such a gorgeous park West Park if you've never been here and you're in the East Midlands, junction 25 of them one, West Park has a great car park. Park in the carpark walk into the park it's just you know it's not a paradise oasis. It's it's just a it's a swathe of reality it has its very real place, very used place

Caron Lyon

11:01

and that's my dog walker

Caron Lyon

11:02

so Organisation...

Caron Lyon

11:12

What is it that you're trying to organise? I think this is the key thing and I want to have some of these conversations and this really must be a blog post. What is it that you want to do? Forget about the tools. What is it that you need to do? And I think just the ToDo stuff, your notebook is one thing but then you've got the whole digital documentation and how do you organise a drive? I think that's something different so your your own activities in a notebook and they can become digitised. I think this comes back. I haven't quoted this for a long time. In fact, I don't even know that I've quoted this in this podcast series. But there was an adage right at the beginning of my social media journey and it came from a theatre director called Marcus Romer.

Caron Lyon

12:08

Don't add technology to the way you do things change the way you do things when you know what the technology can do.

Caron Lyon

12:16

So you need to know what it is that you need technology to do. You then need to know what the technology does so that you can then integrate your process. There is always going to be compromise if there isn't compromise. That's fantastic. If you can find a tool that really suits you. But there tends to be a compromise and those compromises tend to be the tipping point for moving on to a new platform or using a new tool or decided you need something different but initially, you need to establish your toolkit.

Caron Lyon

12:53

Now, I use Google. I use Google Drive. I use Chrome. I use a lot of the extensions that plug into Chrome that augment my Gmail. Gmail is my primary email reader. It's not my primary email account. That's another podcast. But it is what I open it is the app I go to check my mail, any mail that I want to be seeing that's related to me directly goes into my Gmail inbox.

Caron Lyon

13:33

So I have this tool set. That is Google and Google Drive has that facility. So before Google before all that stuff, I would have had paper folders, A4 pads, A4 paper, filing cabinet, I would have had in that filing cabinet dividers to keep stuff in to keep things organised. I would have had maybe pockets inside file binders. So each project that I did would have its own file its own leaf binder I can't remember what they are now. They have the silver hoops in and you pull them apart and you put your paper on ring binders I think they call it a ring folders. Wow.

Caron Lyon

14:28

So that kind of paperless had to at some point translate into digital and mainly because I needed to be able to share something across the Internet where it wasn't possible to send a bit of paper. Now. The early early days. that's what faxes were for. You could send a piece paper across distance, put the paper in it scanned it. It transferred the data it printed the other end and then you add your copy. But Google Drive, Google Docs, Excel spreadsheets. And in fact I did use Word and the Microsoft suite when I first trained when I did my Microsoft Office users certificate. It was the Microsoft suite that I first learned how to word process on to learn how to do Excel. It was where I learned basic database stuff. It's where I learned basic presentations on PowerPoint. So those tools were part and I couldn't afford to pay for the subscription every year. So I was looking for free alternatives and the free alternative, I think I tried libre office for a while. But it didn't kind of fit in with the the tools and the tools that I use with Google. So Google Drive.

Caron Lyon

16:01

So first of all, if you're going to use Google Drive, you put documents in it, and after a while you would find that you just had one big box with loads of bits of paper.

Caron Lyon

16:18

Search is a lot better now so you could search for it. If you could remember what it's called. You can search them in recently updated so the ones that you worked on most recent you could file to the top. You could sort them in name order. You can search them in date order, but ultimately those search mechanisms are going to come to a point where it's just too much. So you're then going to need your first folder structure your first and you can either have and for me, I kind of started with work and not work...

Caron Lyon

16:58

And then in the work folder, I would have jobs that I you might have a folder for a project that you're doing, or a department that you're working in and how you break that down into what your first file structures are. I think the danger is creating a big folder structure and then never using it and you have loads of empty folders.

Caron Lyon

17:25

The main reason for organising things is so you can find them. If you were buying a folder structure, like a filing cabinet, you would be restricted to the size of the cabinet in the room you're going to put it in, and then you might have a drawer and that would be the only place you would have to put documents and you would have a divider system that you could divide up. But to start with, you've got your first piece of paper that's gonna go inside your structure, where is it going to go? And how are you going to find again?

Caron Lyon

18:05

So that as an introduction, is what I've been thinking about really in terms of how to get on this first stage of digital organisation. I attended Producers Pool a couple of weeks ago now and this was something that came up someone asked what was the best organisation tool and of course everybody would go I use this and I use this and I use this and everybody uses something different. The people who are most successful are the ones that have an organisation structure, and the tool has grown around them. To find that tool first of all you need to know how you can organise yourself and not spend your whole time working out how a platform works, because they're quite complex.

Caron Lyon

19:01

So if you're wondering, I think that this for me is what these platforms so if you're gonna use something like Trello or Asana or Mondays or Motion, once you've got your organisational structure, the reason why I've used any of those platforms and I've got active accounts with Asana and Trello. You get to a point where certain tools have certain features. So they all have very similar things in common. So one of the major things moving from a single to do list, or notebook onto something like Trello. Trello has boards and within those boards, you have columns and within those columns, you have cards. So each item on your to do list is a card in a column, and you start off with a to do column and all of your cards or all of the items that you need to do. Your second column is In Progress. Your third column would be Done. And the idea is with these tools is that you are progressing your tasks through a process. But until you know what your process might be and what your destination point is. It can be very overwhelming and quite frankly a bit pointless.

Caron Lyon

20:30

I've got a lot of boards that have been populated and then they've stagnated. I've got projects where I've worked on, especially Asana. Asana has been a tool that I have encountered because people I've worked with have already started using it and to maintain a consistency I have used that tool and it's very, very similar to Trello.

Caron Lyon

21:03

One of the things that's more prominent in some in Asana is the collaboration with others where you are the lead on a project and you're wanting to assign tasks to people. So this is the other component of organisation platforms is that they have this ability to work collaboratively and to be able to assign people a task and for those people to complete that task. And then put it back into a process or pass it on to somebody else for their job to be done. And if you're not working in a system that needs that progression within a team, you might not need one of these tools, or you might have it just to be able to work through a process.

Caron Lyon

21:55

So we've got the roller rolling past. So I will let that go. And I think I'm probably coming up to much more time than I would normally do so let me wrap this up. So organisation firstly, what is it what is it you need to organise? Paper notebook To Do list cross off on the to do list now I did come across something that I thought was very helpful and that is actually to have a To Done list which is stuff that is done. So you might have a to do list and you keep adding to it and you keep adding to it and it just becomes a weight. If you have an empty page which is a done list. When you've done something, write it down. When you've done something, write it down. And so that then builds a set of accomplishments and that can actually be a really good way to get things done and see your accomplishments rather than it being just chipping things of an ever growing to do list.

Caron Lyon

23:08

So that's your paper. If you want to go from paper and you want to start thinking about digital, look at the tomorrow app. Left side stuff you've got to do right side stuff that can be left until tomorrow. And then if there was one other thing that you were to do, I would consider whether you were a Google person or not. If you are a Google person, find the ecosystem find your Google Drive, create two folders, Work, Not work! Work. Social but work not work. And I think start from there. Anything that's work related, put it in work, anything that's not work related, put it in Not Work. So it might not work stuff. I have a lot of the crafting stuff that I do I'm wanting to make little boxes and I know if I find something and as a document I would save it there. I'm not going to go into what goes into those things. I think that's a different thing.

Caron Lyon

24:14

This, this is about finding your balance going into the summer. So if you've been listening to these podcasts this year, the 2023 my word for 2023 has been Balance and I've really been examining that concept and how it applies to my imbalance and how I can find some sort of balance. So going into the summer I am really taking a step back and using the time and the space that I have to not worry about filling it with work. I can cover my bills.

Caron Lyon

24:55

So moving forward, that balance is going to be really key. When I come back for August I'm going to be running the digital free fringe for the Edinburgh Fringe that's going to take up most of August. What's going to happen in September, October, November. And that's where I need to start looking at my balance and start thinking about what my word for 2024 is going to be.

Caron Lyon

25:21

So thank you so much for listening. I've not said this for a while at the end. I'm Caron I live in Long Eaton I am a Creative Producer and Social Technologist.

Caron Lyon

25:50

and that was a fine walk past.

Caron Lyon

25:53

Do get in touch if you want to create a podcast series if you want me to talk about particular word. Do let me know how these podcasts resonate. If they do. I love recording them. And I'm not going to stop.

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