Organization can be tough since we’re all trying to do a million things at once. We deal with many factors during the day: work, meetings, friends, workouts, groceries, chores. Even though life can get hectic, it doesn't mean you have to live a complicated and random lifestyle. Here's our 7 steps to get organized now!
1. Establish A Morning & Night-Time Ritual
Organization is nothing more than a series of good habits, so the first step in achieving organization is creating order for yourself. If you don’t already, establish rituals that both start and end your days. For instance, each morning shouldn’t be a rush to make it to work on time. A good morning routine is leaving time for you to ease into the day ahead of you. Take 20-30 minutes to yourself each morning to enjoy some coffee, meditate, exercise, or whatever you want. This will prep your mind and body for the busy day ahead of you.
Then as bedtime approaches, you want to start doing things to help unwind you from the day. You could take a relaxing bath or shower, read a book, have some chamomile tea, or do some yoga. Eventually the habits will stick and you’ll start associating these habits with relaxation and sleep.
2. Create Actionable Goals
Having actionable goals actually help prevent your day from being taken over by random intrusions. They help keep your focus on what’s important, but only if they’re easily actionable. For example, don’t choose the goal to lose weight, since it's not actionable every day. Instead, choose to eat one apple per day. Make sense? Remember, organization is simply a series of good habits. So if you can keep adding good habits to your daily routine, then organization is the natural result of it!
3. Use A Calendar
A calendar is an organized person's best friend - if used correctly. First, keep your calendar where you can easily see and access it. If it’s electronic, then keep it open or keep its icon somewhere you can click easily. If it’s a paper calendar, keep it on your desk or near a doorway you always walk by. Second, don’t rely on memory when it comes to due dates and tasks. Immediately add them to your calendar without hesitation or write it down somewhere, then transfer it over to your main calendar. Finally, don’t fill every time slot you have available with tasks. This will kill your flexibility and make it harder to adjust things throughout your day.
4. Prioritize Important Tasks
Task lists are great when it comes to organization when used in the correct way. You should always limit tasks to 5 or fewer per day on your list. This forces you to pick only the most important tasks, and ensures that you actually complete your task list every day. Additionally, don’t give equal time and attention to every task. If a task is more important, put it higher on your task list and spend more time doing it. If it isn’t, then move it down. Organized people always focus on the important duties - that way they aren’t distracted by low-level tasks.
5. Clean Your Work Space
A messy work space is not good if you want to be more organized. It’ll just take you longer to start working and you’ll be looking for work material when it should just be in the right place all the time. Therefore, take the time to clean up your work space and spend about a minute every day organizing it. It really doesn’t take much to clear it up - as long as you do it regularly.
6. Keep Everything In One Place
With that said, if you keep everything in the same place, you can easily find it later. It may sound like common sense, but it needs to become common habit as well in order to lead to organization. So whenever you use something, take the time to put it back where you found it. Otherwise, you’re going to quickly build a messy and unorganized environment for yourself.
7. Throw Out One Item Per Day
Many of us have too much junk and don't have the time to go through everything in one day. However, you can do a little removal each day. Look around your place and if you can find at least one thing that isn't used or you're done with - throw it out! It's that easy.
Remember: there’s no need to go crazy trying all of these out. Just pick one that works for you and give it a go. Then, once you master one tip, move to the next. It’s a simple strategy that’ll work for even the most unorganized person out there, so give it a try!
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-Gina
