If you’re like most people, you probably have a rough idea of where everything is and what you’ll do each day, but you’re not super organized. You occasionally have days where you forget something important, and finding items can take a bit longer than you’d like. You’ll be much more productive and efficient when you get your life organized, and the best way to start is on the small scale. As you do so, you can gradually move up to large-scale changes. Here are four tips for the early stages of organizing your life.
Make More Plans
The most effective way to stay on target every day and get all your goals accomplished is to plan. For the best results, you should make a list of the things you want to do every month, week and day. You start by figuring out your monthly goals, separate them by week, and then make more precise daily plans that cover what you’re going to do that day and when.
Organizational tools, such as planners, are a great way to do this. You can put all your plans on paper or set them up digitally, whichever you prefer.
Adopt a Minimalist Approach
One of the simplest ways to get yourself organized is to get rid of the clutter, especially since most people have tons of things they don’t need. When you eliminate anything that isn’t essential, you make it much easier to find important items, as you don’t need to dig through junk to do so.
You could start this by opting for a minimalist wallet instead of one that’s jammed full of cash, credit cards, business cards and other assorted items that you really don’t need to carry around with you every day. From there, you can work on reducing the clutter around your workspace, both at home and at the office.
Prioritize and Take Tasks One at a Time
The concept of multitasking is a myth. People can only work on one task at a time, and what usually happens when you try to work on multiple tasks at once is that you end up making little progress on any of them. What’s even worse is that taking on multiple tasks simultaneously can leave you feeling overwhelmed and stressed out.
Figure out what your highest-priority tasks are when you’re planning your day. That way, you can focus on what’s most important first, complete it, and then move on to the next item on the list. You’ll be much more productive handling things individually.
Don’t Collect Items
Adopting a minimalist approach and getting rid of your clutter is great, but it won’t do you much good if you collect more useless items after. Force yourself to avoid keeping or buying items unless you’ll really benefit from them. For example, it’s easy to get tempted when items are on sale, but you’re not coming out ahead if you buy something only because it’s discounted. You’re just spending money on something that won’t be of use to you.
Before you keep anything, consider how you’re going to use it and if you actually need it. Another good trick to use is selling, donating or throwing out one item every time you get something new, which will keep extra clutter from piling up.
None of these tips will require any drastic life changes from you, but they can make a big difference in how well you organize your life. If you put them into practice, you’ll build good habits that will lead to those large-scale changes.
