Welcome to this post on how to organize your life!
When you think of organizing, the phrases that probably comes to your mind first is organizing your drawers, cleaning your closet, and making your room look ‘nice.’ However, life is much more than making sure everything looks right. Even if your closet was perfectly organized with different boxes for different items, your life is still the same. Even if your drawers were organized by the colors of your clothing, your life is still the same. And, even if there was not even one spec of dirt on the floor of your room, guess what?! Your life is still the same.
What if it wasn’t about your closet, but your mindset? What if it wasn’t about your drawer, but your goals? And, what if wasn’t your room, but your whole life in general? Imagine how much you would improve by and how much more happiness you would receive. Your mindset, attitude, and efficiency would improve significantly. All this by organizing your life. Think about it like this: Your room may look super pretty and neat, however there may still be plenty of unnoticeable spots full of dirt. For humans, the dirt is like our negativity and pessissism. It’s time to not only look good, but feel good on the inside. It may not be as easy as cleaning your room, but the result would be 1000x better.
No matter how neat your room may be, that doesn’t reflect upon you and your life. Your closet may be cleaned by sorting all the items out, but you can’t do that with life. You can’t get rid of memories just by throwing it out. Your feelings cannot be sorted out into boxes. And, mindset cannot be cleaned with a vacuum. In order to organize your life, it takes more of a mental effort than a physical effort. You have to reflect upon yourself, think about what you want to do better, and how you are going to get to that.
Lucky for you, this blog is all about how to organize your life. This blog will list tips and things you should do to help your life be more organized, more efficient, and full of more happiness. It is not just for people who need help getting their life together, but for anyone who wants to improve their life by adopting new habits and learning more tips on how to live a more structured life. In order to actually start these habits and implement these tricks into your daily routines, you must be mentally prepared and ready to get going. So, without further ado, read on about how to organize your life!
1. Build a routine
How many of you know what you have to do in the next hour? Do you have to finish an assignment, eat lunch, get ready to go out? If you’re like most teenagers, you don’t. However, if you are determined to organize your life, building a routine is one of the primary things you should do.
By building a routine, you know exactly what you have to do, including how many minutes a certain task will take. You can determine what time you want to have a meal, how many tasks you want to complete, and waste no time. If this doesn’t mean that you’re organizing your life, what does?
With a routine, you don’t have to waste time to find motivation or inspiration from something, you know what you have to do and do it. With a routine, you get rid of distractions and are more productive. Not even a DM can stop you from sticking to a routine.
2. Plan ahead
Life has unpredictable twists and turns. That doesn’t mean a little planning doesn’t go a long way. A task manager, like Todoist, and a calendar are the tools you need to think and plan in advance and organize your life.
Set aside time to map out your days and plan your weeks. When you know which day your work presentation is due, you can work backwards and add to-dos to your task manager to get it done. If you capture when your kid’s parent-teacher conferences are in your calendar, you can rest easier knowing that things aren’t slipping through the cracks.
Here are a few tips for planning:
– Plan and schedule in the small things – they add up! (e.g. laundry, cleaning, etc)
– Dedicate an hour a week to planning your week (e.g. friday afternoon, monday morning)
– Overestimate how long a task will take you
– Try time blocking your day
https://blog.doist.com/organize-your-life/
By planning ahead, you can get time for the things that really matter in life, like taking time out for yourself, spending time with friends and family, as well as more!
3. Keep a journal
We all know that keeping a journal is crucial to organize your plans and events. But, with this, you can also organize your life. If you’re anything like me, you have a bunch of thoughts flowing in your head, a bunch of tasks left around, and a bunch of plans that I don’t remember. By keeping a journal, you can tackle all of these things and more. I’ve started writing my weekly plans and to-do lists for the past month, and I feel a lot more organized. I don’t have to stress about what I have to do, and I know my plans for the rest of the day and week. By keeping a journal, I’ve seen a lot of improvement in my daily life, and I’m sure you will too!
4. Find balance
“In our attempt to do it all and organize our lives perfectly, balance is often a casualty. Instead of getting to bed, you stay up coding deep into the night. Rather than meeting with friends, you study all weekend for an upcoming midterm.
While this strategy can work in the short-term, the long-term impacts eventually rear their ugly heads: stress, burnout, and lethargy. Instead, prioritize long-term sustainability with balance and self-care.
Here are a few strategies to consider:
- Avoid overextending yourself and spending too much time on work
- Prioritize physical activity for its mood-boosting effects
- Try meditation, journalling, or cultivating a gratitude practice
- Spend time with friends and family
- Unwind alone with a good movie or book
- Ensure you’re getting enough sleep and avoid all-nighters at all costs
By constantly recharging your batteries, you’ll be able to show up in work and life for yourself and others who depend on you.” (https://blog.doist.com/organize-your-life/)
5. Establish goals and priorities
Sleeping, eating, working, learning. Life can get so hectic at times because of all the events we have going around us. Parties, late-night study sessions, hanging out with friends, writing and reading. With so many things going at once, we forget what our main goals and priorities are. Having goals and priorities can help make life a little bit simpler.
By setting goals, you have a purpose and an aim you want to work towards. Your life is not all over the place, it’s heading on one direction- success. By having goals you want to achieve, you are organizing your life by having a result to work towards to and not doing random things throughout.
Along with this, prioritizing is very crucial. Some days, we can get a lot of work we have to complete, but it is tiring to complete all of it. By prioritizing, you know what tasks are most important and what tasks can be completed later. In total, by prioritizing and setting goals, you have an aim you can propel yourself towards and efficiently spend your time and energy on your work.
6. Measure your progress
“Whether your goals are big or small, it’s important to measure your progress. There’s a lot of power in knowing what’s working and what’s not. You can allocate more time in your life for activities that are helping you reach your goals. You can cut out the things that are failing to make an impact for you. These practices will help you measure your progress:
- Have a regular weekly review where you reflect on the passing week and prune your to-do list down to only the essentials
- Try out the quantified self method and measure your goals from steps to sleep
- Implement an Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) format for your goals – at work or in life
- Track your time being productive or distracted online with RescueTime“
https://blog.doist.com/organize-your-life/
7. Manage your time
Time management is very crucial for organizing your life, as it helps you get things done, not waste time, and focus. Often time, we have a lot on our plate and we wish we could just finish it all with a magic button. In reality, there is no magic button… but there is time management. Time managment is our magic to help us complete our tasks. Manage your time by batching your tasks, setting deadlines, limiting distractions, and prioritizing! With this, you’ll be able to see an evident advance in your work and at the end, you’ll be less stressed and happier!
Check out this article on time management for teens to learn how to manage your time efficiently!
8. Learn to say no
No. A simple word to say, but the mind goes through a lot of thoughts before letting this word be heard by another. We usually think “no” as a negative word, one that spreads more sadness and has no benefits. However, “no” is actually one simple way to help get your life together.
No, you cannot go out after midnight. No, you should not have caffeine late in the day. And no, you should not go to a party the day before a test. That “no” could have saved you from a car accident, a restless night, and a bad grade on the test. In order to organize your life, you must take control of it. And, to take control of it, you must stop yourself from doing actions that may harm your future.
Not only this, but by saying “no,” you can also stop yourself from being burned out. Say you had a lot of tasks on your to-do list, too many to be all crossed out in one day, but you decided to do it anyway. You would be overextended and would spread yourself too thin. By saying “no,” you can pick the things you really want to do and learn to be fine with it.
9. Let it all go
The piles in your office, those long to-do lists of things you say you would do but have yet to do. Why start your year off bogged down with last year’s stuff?
Of course, there are things that you will need to accomplish that weren’t finished last year, but Klosky suggests that you give yourself the freedom to start fresh this year.
“Think of new goals, new expectations and new ways to achieve them,” he says.
If you don’t have one already, buy a paper shredder and start shredding the piles around you that are just taking up space. Scan the files that are truly needed.
“If you are realistic and hard on yourself, the ratio of what to shred to what to scan will be 10 to one,” Klosky says.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-organize-your-life-2017-1
10. Work hard
Good results do not come from laziness and procrastination. How can you reach the top of the mountain if you don’t climb? How can you reach the end of the race if you don’t pass the starting point? In order to organize your life, you must take action. The closet won’t clean itself up if don’t sort everything up.
Now that you know everything you need to do to organize your life, start on it and work hard. That’s the only way you’ll be able to see results. It may not be apparent as soon as you start it, but slowly and steadily you will be able to see your progress!
The Takeaway
At first, it may seem hard to get started on organizing your life. However, once you start, it will seem a lot easier. Just like how you don’t want to clean your closet, once you start, you will keep going and finish the task. All you have to do is take one step, and in no time, you will be at the top of the stairs!
As a recap, the points listed in this article on how to organize your life includes:
- Build a routine
- Plan ahead
- Keep a journal
- Find balance
- Establish goals and priorities
- Measure your progress
- Manage your time
- Learn to say no
- Let it all go
- Work hard
For more advice, I highly recommend checking out the book: How to Simplify Your Life in 30 Days: A 30-day interactive journal that will change your life forever. Also, for a quick video, check out this video on “How to Be More Organized & Productive | 10 Habits for Life Organization.”
Life is life and will not always go as planned. It’s okay if things get messy and do not go according to how you want it to go. But remember, it all starts with you. What are you willing to do to improve your life? What sacrifices are you willing to make? And, how badly do you want to get your life together? Let us know your answers below! Not only this, but feel free to contact us anytime on our resources page.
Implement these habits into your daily routine one by one, and before you know it, you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world. Let us know below what tips you liked best and helped you the most. Good luck on your journey in life, and I hope that you end up more organized in the future! Remember, be patient, work hard, and stay humble!