5 Simple Tips to Keep Your Life Organized
Having enough time for work, school, family, friends, and personal goals sometimes feel like too much that we wish we have more than 24 hours in a day! We get too caught up with everything, and we don't often know where to begin (there are times we end up not doing anything at all!). Unfortunately, this leads to bad habits, bad moods, and unorganized life - which are pretty much the last things we want to experience.
Feeling out of control of your life tends to make you feel stressed and overwhelmed, which leads to this unending cycle of unproductivity. The key is not always in having to do the big work, but in simple consistent ways to organizing your tasks effectively and efficiently.
Here are goal-smashing ways that will help you reduce your tendency to fall into mediocrity:
Set SMART goals
Making it SMART means being: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. This principle will be the backbone of your actions. It is very important that you are realistic about what you want to achieve, and you know why you want to achieve it. By knowing your goals, it is easier to prioritize and plan all the other steps necessary to attain them.
While setting your goals, you need to think about the areas of your life you want to develop, things you want to be done, or habits you want to build.
Plan ahead of time
Once you have a vision of your goals, brain dump on everything that you need to do to achieve them and estimate the time you need to allot, starting from the tiniest action to the major ones. Life is uncertain and you may have many things going on every day, so you have to think about how you can incorporate them all into your daily life in a way that is productive yet not too overwhelming for you.
Dedicate some hours on a specific day to do your planning for the next week. If you can, do it all in a day every month!
Create a detailed to-do list
The next step is to put it down into words! Whether you want to write it down or use a digital planner is up to you. This part is important because it helps you see it more clearly and keep it all together so you will not forget about them. You will also get to recognize what needs to be included, which no longer serves you, what to remove, and so on. And it is a way to declutter it out of your head!
In writing your to-do list, the more specific you are, the better. Assign time throughout the day, list down your priorities, identify when you would like it done, etc.
Use tools and put everything in place
When thing still feels unorganized and in shambles, take advantage of available tools to simplify and automate the things you can. For example, Trello and Google Drive (or Dropbox) are great platforms to create a digital workspace and store important photos or resources. There are also advanced automation tools you can get if you are looking for a more sophisticated and quicker way to get organized. This will make you feel like a pro and boost your urge to take an action!
Remember that it does not have to be fancy. Your goal is to make organization easier, more effective, and also in a way that suits you.
Track your progress
Let's be honest: tracking is boring and at times tedious! But it is just as important if you want to continue the game to being better and having an organized life. It will allow you to identify what you need to improve and will help you better understand yourself. This is also necessary to know what your next steps are. Take note that it is not enough to be consistent; you have to be wise about which actions you need to be consistent with because doing things that no longer serve you will cost you time and effort.
Have a regular review or reflection of your habits and assess their impact on your goals. Once you are done, cut out what is not working for you, develop those that do, and think of more ways to be and do better.
These tips will help you in most of those you'd like to achieve. While doing them, remember that being productive is not just about how much stuff you do, it is about making the most sense out of the time you have. When you are more intentional, it is easier to go in the direction you want to walk through on.
