Have some time that I am planning to come back to write something in this blog, but life has been very complicated in the last months. It has some time when life becomes complicated for me. Since I finished my PhD and started as a postdoctoral researcher, I need more skills related to my organization. Because I struggle a lot to manage my variety of interests and goals. Also, I was worried about what was expected of me as a postdoctoral researcher. As a fresh PhD, I imagined that I should know several things that I didn’t know. Most of them, I still don’t know very well. Of course, this was a huge source of anxiety that instigated me to want to know more things in a short time space. If this wasn’t enough, in 2022, I became a parent and life becomes even more complex.

Because of this, I have an intimate desire to do a lot of things that are not very related. So, I started to look for ways to improve my personal organization to make everything fit in my short wake-up hours, by searching courses and any material that I could find. I read some books such as How to take Smart Notes, How to Become a Straight-A Student. I also started to follow a Brazilian blog about a personal organization that was actually pretty good, plus another about writing that I already follow. At first was a lot of information and little organization. This increased my anxiety. Eventually, when I relaxed a little and started to understand what works better for me. In the end, something is better than nothing.

Has already been two years since I am in this effort, and just now I can say I am getting better about my workflow. This is why I would like to write about it, and this is why I delayed it so much, I was in a very productive flow in the last months, despite all the changes in my personal life. Actually, I was afraid of trying to add more tasks to my day by day and lost everything I had accomplished so far. Now that the year is ending I would like to write at least three posts. I took the courage to face this blank sheet.

I believe that you, the reader, expected to see something about personal organization. So I will give some tips based on my particular experience. Before that I have to highlight that I like routines and rules, I prefer to work on commercial hours and sleep at night (remember, I have a family) and I have multiple interests beyond my current job as a postdoctoral researcher. Given that, my tips are of two types: technical and non-technical.

Technical tips

By technical I mean tips that rely on some workflow or specific software. For example, I like to use Trello dashboard to centralize my to-do list and weekly organization. I try to do time period planning: yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly in a notebook using manual writing. I don’t have much time to do this, so I try to do it pragmatically. This helps to prioritize things. Other techniques that I use, include keeping the inbox e-mail empty, but just looking it one or two times a day; having software to take notes and organize them (I use Obsidian); and some reader apps to save links for later reading (I use pocket and trying to use Instapaper).

Non-Technical tips

The case is no matter how much software you use and how many rules you apply in your routine, you never will be capable of accomplishing everything. That is the hard part for me. The secret of my productivity in the last months was the prioritization which let me without reading several things that I saved in my fancy software, keep editing my notes in Obsidian. Something that I learned by being a parent is that we have to choose our battles. Personal organization is great, but in the end, you have to learn to say no to most of the things that pop up in your mind, and to focus on the ones you have to deliver. And, if you have others that you desire to follow, it should fit in this very tide place of your day-by-day routine.

Clousure

Sorry, I feel that my message wasn’t so positive at the end. Then I would like to write a little more to convince you this is a positive post. I didn’t give up on doing a lot of things, I just tried to do them in their time, reducing the anxiety related to it. I believe this understanding is what I have accomplished in my journey so far. Personal Organization is also about self-knowledge, prioritizing is discovering what is important for you. Creating a workflow that valorizes your priorities means you recognize your inner desires.