A lot of people nowadays think
that being organized is some sort of magic or divine gift, as the majority of
us can fall into anarchy so easily; loosing the track of spending, bills that
come from nowhere, deadlines that go and go as bad surprises, and so on.
Really organized people are not
born successful and organized; they have worked on that through years and they
have to cultivate well habits, which then assist them to stay organized.
So even if you believe you are a
disorganized person –as you can easily see that- you can learn also how to be
organized. From making plans, noting things down, to eliminating the
unnecessary and organizing things that really matter, be sure that you will
become an well organized person as long as you are willing to learn and keep
good habits.
Here are the essential habits on
how to organize your life:
Your memory is vulnerable: write
things down!
It is hard to find nowadays
someone that remembers –by himself- every single birthday and sends cards for
holidays. For the rest of the population, it’s not magic and they don’t rely on
memorization. Trying your hard to memorize every important event will neither
be possible nor help you to stay organized and updated. You may consider
writing things down.
As history shows, writing is our
way of remembering things precisely, and it is permanent with the information
easy to locate. With the technological advance, you can use your phone, your
computer or your tablet for the same purpose.
You will remark that you were
only complicating your life by attempting to assemble important dates and
reminders in your brain. So write down every single important event: family
birthdays, holidays gifts, shopping lists, meetings, job events, and so on.
Avoid procrastination
The longer you put something on
hold, the more difficult and complicated it will be to get it complete. If you
chose to have a less stressful and less arduous life, then organize and do your
tasks as soon as possible. Making the effort to get things done as soon as
possible will lighten significantly the task than doing it later.
Mixing the two previous advices;
think of something that you should take care of in your life, write it down and
then write also down when you can do it and what you must have to get it done.
If all necessities and time are suitable, just do it!
Learn the habit of making
schedules and deadlines
There is a famous Arab proverb:
“Time is like a sword, if you don’t cut it, it cuts you”. Successful people
don’t waste any time, they simply recognize the importance of time and that
keeping things organized goes in correlation with staying productive and
healthy, thus they make and keep schedules for the day, the week, the month or
even the coming years. They make realistic deadlines and set reachable goals.
And the most part of all that, they stick to their plans!
Write down the goals you want to
achieve that month, this year or in your life, write then plans and path to
reach this goals and precise what you need to attain them.
Frequent cleaning up
One of the best ways that keeps
people organized is to assign certain time of day for uncluttering messy things
and cleaning up. It helps also to revise your notes, see if you have missed
anything and evaluate how much you are sticking to your plans and heading in
the right path.
It doesn’t have to be a large
amount of time as you may think, as 20 to 30 minutes a day is sufficient for
that.
Remember that finding time each
day or each week to organize may become a challenge. Well organized people make
sure they allot sufficient time every day or less to organize their things. As
you know, stuff does not stay organized on its own, and when organized, it will
find its way to anarchy; it needs to be reorganized continuously and
consistently.
Know how to manage your spendings
One disadvantage of being
unorganized is wastefulness; overspending your money and relying –without other
choice- on credit cards till pay day.
You can easily avoid this
situation by reasoning your spending, consider buying only priorities when you
think you have “excess” money, and also you can get a money management app.
These apps can be used to record
your income, your monthly bills and document your whole spending (you must be
honest at this point). This way, you can get reminders sent to you by the
apps before your bills are unpaid. You can also appreciate how much money you
have already spent so you will know exactly where and on what your money goes
and how you can minimize that.
Get everything at your home
It is so easy to get lost if you
don’t have a stable home. Keeping your life controlled means keeping your
things in their proper places. Organized people keep order by storing important
things properly and by tagging storage spaces.
Make storage spaces easy to
access especially for things you use all the time, and avoid letting your
storage spaces get messy.
Choose one place in your home
that is easy to access, obvious in the mind and you can reorder at anytime. If
there is so many scattered stuff, group these items together, once you have
sorted everything, make categories for similar items and don’t forget to label
them, put them in an alphabetic order in their proper places.
Work it hard!
Once you have assigned your
responsibilities and made a realistic schedule, then you can know exactly what
you have to do and when you can do it.
Staying organized is not an easy
task to accomplish. It involves that you work hard with a consciousness of
this; when you work harder, you can benefit your tidy home life later.
Say goodbye to unnecessary things
More stuff in your house means more
and more clutter. People who live organized lives only keep what they need and
what they really want. Having fewer things also means that you give an
importance to these things and you enjoy them more, feeling better about using
all things you own, rather than letting a big chunk of what you own on shelves
collecting dust.
When you feel that you don’t have
the sufficient space to keep all the stuff you own, instead of creating or
renting a storage unit, buying a larger home, or stocking things in complete
anarchy, get rid of some things.
Write down the things you think
you truly need. Then, note down a list of all things that you own. If the
number of owned things you surpasses your best need list, then it is time to
organize and get rid of the excess.
How can you do that? It’s simple!
Donate to thrift stores or charity, sell on line (like on Craigslist or
eBay), make a trip to multiple recycling centers. You can also set up a garage
sale; it is a direct effective way!
Determine your responsibilities
If you think being organized
means having a lot of deadline, responsibilities and stuff to do, think again!
An organized life is not overfilled with meetings, deadlines or
responsibilities. Actually, it has less than you think because things that
generate anarchy and stress have been gradually organized out.
Look at your to-do list, go
through this list and find one task that you can remove from your list or pass
to someone else, now you can feel the stress of having to do it go away.
Generate a list of your Passwords
in a safe place!
Nowadays, passwords are so
crucial in keeping your virtual life alive and preserving your privacy and
security. Unluckily, using the same exact password for every website is a bad
idea; it makes you vulnerable at the first hacker attack, at the same time
having a lot of different passwords is more secure but it becomes difficult to
remember all of them.
You can centralize your passwords
and sensitive data by writing them on a list or in a book that no one can find,
or you can use a mobile app that lets you to create one single password to
secure all your other passwords, smart move!
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