The City - December 19, 1999

How the Pros Keep Up to Speed in the Fast Lane

Linda Rothschild
President, National Association of Prefessional Organizers

Method: Teaches clients to streamline everything into one universal system, or two at most, and to keep paper or electronic backups. Uses a monthly organizer because she is always mindful of relationships between dates that are sometimes very far apart.

Mantra: "it's not what you use. It's how you use it."

Howard J Rubenstein
Public relations executive

Method: Maintains two identical Week At-a-Glace books, one for him and one for his assistant, listing 10 or 11 appointments per day. Keeps a small card in his pocket with 100 very important telephone numbers in tiny print on one side and his daily schedule on the other. Spends 20 minutes every morning poring over appointments for the next two to four weeks, and 30 minute in the evening reviewing a printout of the 100 or so calls he gets each day. The calls are color-coded in red, yellow or green, depending on whether or not action has been taken.

Mantra: "I try to return every phone call, and I've never missed an appointment in 45 years.

 

George Calderaro
Director of Communications, New School University

Method: Keeps all appointments and tasks scribbled in a rainbow of random color across each page of his heavily filled calendar book. Maintains a supplemental invitation pouch on the inside cover, "in case I can't read my own scrawl about the detail." Jokes that his illegible records might one day thwart tax auditors. Keeps phone numbers in a separate Filofax.

Mantra: "It's messy, but it works for me."