A Good Whiteboard is Worth More than You Think
March 23rd, 2006 by Matt InglotOver the past few years I’ve had to re-invent my approach to organizing my life multiple times to keep on top of the ever-increasing volume of tasks and information that I have to process daily. Two seemingly simple yet elusive desireables essentials in a good organization system are the ability to trap random thoughts and ideas easily, and the ability to view your world at a sufficiently high level to understand how everything fits together.
Paper has a strong place in these areas, as does effective organization software. I use paper frequently for rapidly jotting down plans that I develop in key brainstorming sessions. It is the most flexible media to output ideas on, and as long as you’ve brought enough there is no need to worry about running out of space. Software programs are very good at storing large collections of data, and more importantly they can effectively display the relationships between this data. I use Microsoft Outlook on my desktop and PocketPC to store my appointments because the software is able to quickly show me what my whole week looks like at a glance.
However regardless of how many products and techniques I tried, I was not able to find something that felt right for viewing and storing certain things. I realized that my frustration lay in the fact that most systems hide the information from you until you actively choose to retrieve it. In the case of paper this might mean having to dig it out of a filing cabinet or paper tray. With software there is typically a program that you need to run, and all too often the information you need isn’t the first screen of the program. When you wish to take a 5 second glance at something, even 15 seconds to retrieve the information can be too much.
My solution was to purchase a whiteboard and to hang it on the wall behind my chair. I didn’t allocate any specific purpose to it at the time, with the idea that my use of it will evolve naturally to fit those items that will truly benefit from being whiteboard based. Within the hour I had a list of open contracts and potential clients, along with the status of each client’s project. This list alone has been invaluable, as I can scan the sales and customer relations horizon simply by rotating my chair. I can also quickly make notes and easily change the list from day to day as Tilted Pixel operates.
I found myself slowly taking up the second half of the whiteboard with a list of items that required action from me over approximately the next week. This too was very beneficial as I could now get a sense of what was required from me and key deadlines at a glance. Note that I didn’t prioritize the list in any way as this is something far easier to do in my head and in the context of my immediate situation (How much time do I have? Where will I be today?).
Very quickly I found myself wanting to be able to write even more things down, so I purchased a second board. I now have a slightly more advanced but just as easy to update area for tracking the high level view of my business, a terrific action list, and space for jotting down random thoughts, URLs, and even information during a phone conversation. I will soon have an area for my personal goals at various “altitudes” as having these always visible will make it much easier to see if the decisions I make throughout my workday are inline with what I wish to achieve.
Altogether I paid under $70 for my boards, and could have spent less had I been willing to shop around. These simple and low tech tools have since saved me countless hours of time by cutting down on the amount of time spent organizing my day and pulling together the data that I need. Key information is literally just a chair swivel away now and I highly recommend giving this productivity tool a try.
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