Are you very organized? How do you do it?
 

I have set out lately to make this a much bigger priority...do you folks keep very organized?

I attached myself to a the Google line of products, Hosted GMail keeps my mail really easy to access and archive...Google Calender does a really good job of keeping day to day stuff in sync. I also have a little filing cabinet and a white board for idea stuff.

It is still hard for me to know when to throw stuff out.

It's not a conscious thing for me. I'm simply wired that way.

No

Very easily - it comes naturally.

i'm not sure how i do it. my wife is a packrat and sometimes i drive her insane, though. course i'm also cheap and have less crap to organize.

Ha, I admire the consistency.

Just tryin' to help, man.

Absolutely not. Every few months I go through the piles of paper on my desk, and throw away about 90% of it.

Yeah, I think you're either type A or not.

Buy the book Getting Things Done and also the audiobook. It's important that you buy both for the maximum amount of success. It will change the way you look at organization. David Allen takes a lot of the ideas taht are out there and links them all together in a coherent system that makes getting organized a snap. I've been using his system for a year now with great success.

I'd get it, but I'd just end up losing it.

People are or they are not by trait, but that does not mean that one can't become organized it just means they have to be dilligent at it. You will not immediatly become organized but it something that if you're dicipline to accomplish it can be done. Once over time you have worked out your system it makes it easier to do and you don't have to think about it.

I am extremely unorganized by nature. My job (project manager) requires me to be very organized. Here are some of the things that I have implemented to force myself to be better:

1. When dealing with electronic items, I use Outlook for as much as I can. I keep my calendar in Outlook, obviously my email and also my "to-do" list. That way it's always on my computer and also on my phone. If I'm away from the office and need to remember something, I ALWAYS put it in my to-do list on my phone. It's the only way I'll remember.
2. I try to keep my "to-do" items separate from my "to-keep" items. For paperwork, I have a single inbox for things that require my attention. I try to push everything out of that box as quickly as I can. If I'm waiting for someone else to be able to finish something, it stays in the box. When I go back through the box (I try to do that daily) it helps to remind me to hound whoever is holding me up. Same thing goes for my email. The only things that I keep in my inbox are things that require my attention. When they are completed, they go into other folders (I'm in construction, so I file them by project).

The most important thing is to get into a routine or put a system in place that basically forces you to be more organized. You can't change your traits, but you can come up with tools to help yourself.

Microsoft Outlook + Outlook ActiveSync on my phone. I also never, ever print anything. If someone gives me a hard copy of something, I scan it to PDF format.

Email + Calendar + Task list, I have no reason not to be organized.

Seconded. This is a very good book/method.

On the home front, I married into organization. My wife is a "list person" and very organized. I am a "wing it" person. It can be frustrating at times, but I have found it to be in my best interest to defer to her in a lot of things.