I've been investing myself in the organizational strategy described in David Allen's book "Getting Things Done".

I can't point to massive accomplishments yet. I'm still in a process of getting the system up and running. The system's big benefit is the sense of control it instills -- which clears out the mind, so you don't feel so stressed out. That, I think I'm beginning to get.

I strongly recommend the book. It just makes sense. ...Though I can't personally vouch for result yet. ...Except in terms of long-range planning, perhaps. I think I'm farther ahead on planning for the holidays of upcoming months than I would otherwise have been.

A few of the key ideas:

• Collect every single to-do item in your life into an in-box.
  
• Keep lots of lists. If they're complete enough, they constitute a "virtual office", so you don't have to rely on physical stacks of paper and what-not cluttering up your environment.
  
• Keep your lists on loose-leaf sheets from a legal pad, inside manila folders. This maximizes freedom to flip around between projects.
  
• For every to-do item, ask "what is the next action step?" That is, what is the next physical action required? [I'm still struggling with this one.]
  
• For projects [anything that requires more than one step], write down somewhere why you're doing this thing, and what the end result you want looks like. That is, describe the desired outcome. [This is more important with big projects, I suppose.]
  
• Have an in-box where all of the crap goes, every day. [Me, I've got a downstairs in-box -- a basket -- to make it easier to transfer stuff to the master upstairs in-box.]
  
• About once a week, go through your in-box and sort its contents. [Struggling.]
  
• Allen has a nifty flow chart showing how to sort absolutely everything that might be in the in-box.