Some tools I use to keep my work life organized
Paper planner - All of my daily tasks are on my paper planner. The one I use has a full page per day, which is a must for me with how busy I am.
Time blocking (digital calendar) - I put all of my recurring tasks as repeating events on my digital calendar. This way, I know approximately when I want to do them, how long they will take, how busy I am, etc. This also makes sure that I keep track of them, since recurring events are fairly foolproof. It's also very easy to move them around just by dragging and dropping. As a note, I do also include these tasks as daily tasks in my paper planner, so that I can see them all in one place.
Flagged emails & unread emails - I use flagged emails to indicate that I need to remember or reference something. I mark emails as unread to indicate that it's an urgent task I haven't addressed. My goal is to have 0 unread emails at the end of each day, but I may flag a lot of emails through the day for later. I even have a time set away each week to go through my flagged emails.
Outlook email rules - I receive and send hundreds of emails every day. I took a couple of hours once I got settled in my role to set up 20+ rules to automatically categorise emails so that it's easier for me to go through them. For example, I have a folder where auto-generated reports go. I can open that folder and go through emails only in that category, which makes it a lot easier to tackle things in cohesive chunks.
Notebook - I use my notebook for any meeting notes I take. While I do have at least a dozen meetings weekly, my biggest use for this is during my twice-weekly team meeting where we divide up and plan tasks. During this meeting, I write my tasks in a notebook, and then I later add them to my planner. This allows me to take my time to plan them out as they fit in my schedule, while having detailed notes elsewhere.
Spreadsheets - I have a computer science background, so I am able to create very powerful spreadsheets. I created for our team multiple comprehensive tracking spreadsheets, so that we can keep track of (for example) thousands of contracts with ease. It took a while to perfect each tracker, but it's well worth the effort.
"Housekeeping" to-do list - My team has created a to-do list of housekeeping items, such as updating templates, etc. This list is mostly for me due to my role, so I tackle these smaller, less-urgent items when I have some spare time.
What's your planner type of choice?
Paper
Digital
A Mix
