How to Improve Organizational Skills & Increase Your Knowledge

Organization and knowledge are complementary traits.

Continual personal development helps individuals refine existing skills, while building new ones. Organizing personal and professional matters helps to develop an overall perspective of accomplishments, obligations and opportunities. Prioritization is a key characteristic of strong leaders, and the ability to organize, assess, and schedule efficiently helps them expend energy and focus on things that matter. Accordingly to John Maxwell, author of "Developing the Leader within You," efficiency is the foundation for survival and effectiveness is the foundation for success.

Things You'll Need

• Personal data assistant

Instructions

1. Establish a baseline of existing personal and professional commitments. Perform a 90-day assessment of all pending appointments, obligations and engagements, and document them noting priority (low, medium and high).

2. Invest in a personal data assistant (PDA). Load the prioritized data from your 90-day assessment into the tool, and schedule the appropriate deadlines using the calendar feature. Be sure to create reminders for each task.

3. Organize your business and home offices. Remove (or de-clutter) anything that is not directly associated with your scheduled tasks. Collect, categorize and label remaining files and documents, and place them in folders -- on your computer or in traditional paper ones.

4. Define educational and professional goals that align with personal interests or career objectives. Establish a daily (or weekly) routine that incorporates some aspect of training or skill attainment. If the desire is to become a writer, then purchase a vocabulary book that enhances diction and application of words. If promotion is a goal, acquire additional skills in the area of expertise through continuing education or on-the-job experience.

5. Evaluate performance (organizational and developmental) periodically and reinforce the process. After the first 30 days, determine which strategies worked well and which did not. Cease unproductive activities and expand in areas of improvement. Each person is different, so it will likely take a few attempts to find the optimal approach, but keep trying.

References

• "Developing the leader within you"; John Maxwell; 1993
• "Organizational Behavior: A diagnostic approach"; Judith Gordon; 1996