Morning Everyone, In my bid to become more organised and efficient, does anyone have a Microsoft Excel document, or similar, which they use as a calendar/diary to plan and track your jobs-to-do list which you wouldn't mind sharing? Or, any tips on what has worked well for you in the past would be greatly appreciated? Thanks all, TJ

We use Outlook to keep track of the deadlines that we have missed!

An ex-boss of mine 20 yrs ago (self-educated, started out as door to door vaccuum cleaner sales!) taught me a ton of good habits. I make a list (on paper) every single morning of what I want to get done today and keep referring back to it. Hardback A4 notebooks, with drawings, scribbles, scrawled notes are brilliant and difficult to recreate by computer. I keep old ones and still refer back for important data. I like whiteboards too. One of the best things I ever did to help me focus on the important stuff without distraction was to set whichever email client I use to only check for new mail every 30 minutes. I may yet change it to 60 in future. If someone wants me more urgently they'll phone, and it's amazing how much time is wasted on thinking you just have to quickly deal with something. Those two things above help structure and focus my day - odd stuff always happens of course but crossing things off the daily list is a great motivator. At the moment I use Wunderlist for other task tracking and have tried Outlook, Things and OmniFocus in the past but these things need to be really simple to keep me using them (Wunderlist is pretty good so far, you can share tasks and send it tasks from Outlook and it appears on all your phones, etc if you're into that kind of thing). This stuff is all so personal (and you can't substitute for motivation) that the most important thing is probably to take at least some time each day to think about it. Good luck

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Had a quick play around with the "tasks" function on Outlook, think I will give it a go and see how I fare on. Although, it seems that even with modern technology at our disposal many still prefer that paper list in front of us or the use of a notice board. Emails every 60 minutes sounds wonderful, I can only live in hope. Thanks, TJ

I think this is a really good question. Personally I use two apps on my ipad and ipod touch - 'pocket informant' which includes the calendar and tasks lists, and a nice little app called daily deeds where I can tick off that I have checked my task lists, sorted out my in-tray etc. Pocket informant syncs with Google calendar which in turn syncs with outlook. I respect other people for getting on with paper based diaries or white boards. However, having such messy writing and being the sort of person flips between order to chaos I prefer to use computer based apps. However, I have yet come across a calendar app that shows a whole year or 12 months at a time where you can see all your appointments/commitments like a wall a giant wall calendar. So if anyone has come across anything like that, please let me know. I always find it a bit stifling only being able to see a month of appointments at a time.

Outlook for me - especially for adding recurring tasks ( great for those long-term reminders, RA reviews, getting the MD to update the statement of intent each year and so on.) I also keep an A4 hardback book, I just write each new day at the top of a page and then add any seemingly meaningless drivel that I think may be of use ( I take it everywhere - and home too). It has two uses: firstly, when I write something down I tend to recall the events much easier. Secondly I sometimes need to refer to meetings, notes etc. and or, things I've said to people. I bought a tablet for just this purpose - syncs with Outlook just fine but I thought I could adapt things to simplify inspections etc - that I have to get my head round now. It is good for keeping all those HSE ACoPs in pdf though. You will need to decide what's best for you and what you can work with, don't be afraid to adapt, change, alter etc. Best of luck. Paul