24 Ways to Stay Organised
May 22, 2017
When you are organised, life can feel as easy as a vacation. Here are 24 tips and tricks to help you feel happy, relaxed and calm in your daily life.
- Set alarms on your Phone. These are great for time sensitive tasks. I set alarms for everything from bus pick up reminders to calls I need to make on certain days.
- Have an assigned spot for your keys and purse. This tip will save you so much time, every time you walk into your home place your keys and purse in their designated spot(s). You will always know where they are and you won't have to hunt them down when you need to leave. Plus, you'll love it so much that you will want to find homes for everything else you use on a regular basis.
- Have a place for your planner. Like your keys and purse, it'll make it easier to find your planner when you need it and it gives it importance in your mind as a key part of your life organising system.
- Have everything that is scheduled and/or time sensitive for everyone in the family/household (appointments, schedule, kids activities, events, deadlines, etc) in one calendar or planner. Life is easier to schedule if you have everything in one place. You won't have to hunt through 47 different planners and calendars to find out if someone is free on a certain day or to know what's on the schedule for any given day.
- Establish habits. Habits make life so much easier, as if it's on auto-pilot. This is especially true for those boring or annoying tasks.
- Establish a morning routine. This gets your day off to a great start and enables you to attach new habits as you become more and more accustomed to your routine. If you'd like to learn how to set up your perfect morning routine, check out this post here.
- Review often. Looking back is a great way to see what's working and what's not. Check out this post for more on this!
- Cut out what isn't working. Keep an eye on what's not working and if you can get rid of that squeaky wheel, do so as soon as you can. If you can't, then try to simplfy or change it so that it is working better for you.
- Visualise the end results, your final outcome, and work backwards from there. If you know the reason WHY you are doing something in the first place, it's easier to do the tasks and get them off of your to-do list as you move forward towards your goal.
- Do a little bit every day to build consistancy. Things can get done a little at a time. Even if you are going slowly, it's better than not starting at all. Building consistency creates habit that will eventually make the tasks easier too!
- Be prepared. Boy scout or not, life is unpredictable so always be prepared for what could happen. Just remember not to spiral down into becoming a Debbie Downer and focusing on all the bad things that might happen.
- Plan in time for the unexpected. Leave space in your planner for things that may trip you up, especially if it's for an appointment, deadline or other time sensitive things that you can not be late for.
- Don't over schedule yourself. Even if you are physically and mentally capable of knocking 712 thing off of your to-do list in one day, it doesn't mean that you should! If you keep up that pace, eventually you will burn yourself out! Here's a post with some tips on this.
- Schedule in Breaks. Don't forget to take care of you! You need a bit of rest and recharge through out the day. Write a tea break into your planner or schedule time to play with stickers and paper in your planner.
- Tell someone and be accountable. By letting someone know of your plans, they can help make sure that you do it by checking in with your progress and reminding you of deadlines.
- Have someone give you a deadline. If it's a task or chore that doesn't have a built in deadline, have someone create a realistic one for you and then hold you to it and if you're late you can owe them a coffee or something. If you don't have someone to do this, try the Flight app who send a donation on your behalf to a charity you hate if you fail.
- Simplify! The simpler something is, the easier it is to do it and to keep at it.
- Declutter everyday. Or most days ;) By doing it on a regular basis, you will form a habit of decluttering and it keeps your house, purse, desk and mind clear and working like well oiled machines.
- Have regular braindumps, then organise the items into task lists. This keeps your brain clear and stops it thinking the same thought ('I have to do , abc, xyz plus 4 million other things!'). Think of it as decluttering your brain.
- Learn from your mistakes. We all make them and failures actually help us learn and move forward.
- Don't write things on scraps of paper and backs of envelopes. Once it's out of your head, you'll probably stop thinking about it and if you lose that scrap of paper, it's gone! Plus, it's more recopying, just put it into your planner in the first place!
- Don't fight your Planner. If it isn't working well for you, it's probably not the best planner for you. Tweak things, change things around or get a completely different planner system, whatever it takes to get one that suits your needs.
- Change your rings. If you find yourself somewhere you can't write and something pops into your head (why doesn this always happen in the shower, while driving or just as you're falling asleep?), switch one of your rings to a different finger. If you habitually wear the same rings on the same fingers, finding one on the opposite hand (after your shower, when you get home or after you wake up the next morning), it will feel odd and prompt you to remember that thought that popped into your head.
- Have fun! Find systems that don't feel like such a chore, making them pretty really helps me. If that works for you, great! Make things pretty! If not, if it feels more like a distraction than anything else, find what does work for you and do that.
All goodies used in this dashboard are from my April Hip Kit Club kits.
Happy Planning!