David N. Brossard
Manager, Technology Planning & Services, Chevron
San Ramon, CA
I used to think that being organized was something that happened to other people because they had the “organization gene” or iron discipline. I'm stunned at how naturally organization came to me thanks to Kate's coaching. Even changes in my habits formed over decades were easy once I understood the reasons and saw the quick results.
I used to have a bulging email Inbox in which I tried to track urgent items in Outlook by setting reminders. It would not be unusual for me to have 2,000 items in my Inbox.
I now have an email Inbox that has zero messages most days when I go home. When I have all-day meetings or take vacation, I can quickly get on top of my Inbox when I return and empty it in a day or two.
I used to have a very cluttered office with piles of papers and project folders. As priorities would shift or emergencies arise, I would shift quickly from one project to another (and to another) without organizing the first project so that I can easily find and return to it when it becomes my top priority. I would often have to dig through stacks of papers to find to-do lists or reference documents which I would occasionally only find weeks later when I finally got thoroughly frustrated and cleaned up that stack.
I now have totally clean and organized work surfaces (no stacks – not even a scrap of paper) and I can find any of my reference materials within seconds.
I used to make to-do lists and priority lists, but had difficulty sticking to the list as new priorities arose.
I now have and take time to plan what I will work on each day based on what are my highest priorities at the time and I have the system that allows me to adjust priorities through the day as things change.
I used to periodically lose track of pending deadlines and then have to scramble at the last minute to meet the deadline. I used to worry about “dropping the ball” – even when I wasn’t. I now plan my priorities fully aware of all of my deadlines and I don’t even worry about dropping the ball.
I recently was out of the office for a two-day workshop. In my time “before Kate”, I would have felt overwhelmed about where to begin, my workshop materials would have been added to one of my piles, and I would have spent a lot of energy remembering what was high priority when I left my office for the workshop. When I returned to my office "after Kate", I was quickly able file the items I brought back from the workshop where I can find them, decide when to take action on things that came up at the workshop, and then shift to working on top priority items that had been waiting for me to return.
Now I come into work each day energized, in control and on top of things.