Stop Leaving Life to Chance
After you sort out your doubts and decide to make the necessary changes, your next step is to work toward organizing your life. Getting organized means different things to different people. Sometimes it means finding a place for things. Alternately, the process can involve digging out of wall-to-wall hoarding, pitching everything in sight, and then realizing later you needed and should have kept some of it.
Like everything else, organization begins in the headspace. If your thoughts are organized, your life will be organized. Organization is about creating harmony and balance in your life. It means aligning your actions with your purpose.
What if your whole life is disorganized? Well then, you go around in circles. You can also think of it like riding bumper cars. You have to be hyper-vigilant—watching and trying to avoid collisions while making sure everything doesn’t spin out of control when you turn your head.
Already feeling out of control? You have two choices:
1.Be organized and prepared.
2.Respond to life as it unfolds.
I’ve done it both ways. Guess which is easier?
How can YOU begin organizing your life?
After organizing your headspace, the next step is organizing your environment. Even if it’s a corner of a room, define a space that is yours alone and build from there.
Here are a few hints.
Organizing Your Workspace
For me, being organized begins with having an orderly workspace. Everything has its place, and I know where stuff is when I need it. This is really important because as a “momtrepreneur,” an organized workspace is the foundation for getting it done. All of it!
My workspace and home are organized in a way that makes life comfortable and easy for me. I’m not compulsive, but I attribute much of my success to staying organized.
I know that everything trickles down from the top, so when my own life is balanced, my family’s lives are more balanced, too.
Okay, tell me if you can relate. Does life sometimes feel like a juggling act? Me too. If I were not organized, everything would probably fall apart. I would be living in CHAOS—unable to manage my time or my tasks.
FILE INSTEAD OF PILE
We all know people with big piles on their desk. They say, “Don’t worry. I know where everything is. I can find it when I need it.”
Yeah? Maybe….
If you’re a piler, you might think your organized mess is efficient, and you might know what papers are in which piles, but try to imagine what it would be like if you developed a filing system. What would it be like to know exactly where to look for what you need? You’d feel less anxious when you have to find something in a hurry, wouldn’t you? You only have to create a system you can follow, and it only takes a few extra minutes to put things away as soon as you’re finished with them.
Disorganization, on the other hand, has several drawbacks. It can be the source of invisible tension, affecting your mood even though you might not be fully aware that it is where the problem started.
Disorganization affects you emotionally. It can be super stressful! And again, that stress is there whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.
If you’re a piler, your life will be changed overnight by developing a filing system. Give it a try and see. From there, it just takes discipline as you create a new habit. Eventually it will be automatic.
List Makers Unite!
Okay, so there are average list makers and then there are serious LIST MAKERS. Average list makers write all of their tasks on one to-do list and work from it. Serious LIST MAKERS break tasks down and create categorized sub-lists. Sometimes they’re pages long.
Go with what works for you.
Be patient. I’m going to spend a little time on this subject because list making is a valuable aspect of being organized. Besides helping you stay on task, list making has other benefits. Let’s discuss some of them.
First of all, if you commit to a list, you won’t have to worry about forgetting things at the market or mailing letters so long as you list them with your daily tasks. Write it, do it, and cross it off. Bam!
By the way, it feels really good to cross off completed tasks. In fact, some list makers add completed tasks to their lists just so they can cross them off. There’s a reason for this. It’s both psychological and physiological.
The reason it feels so good to cross off completed tasks is because to some degree you’re after the natural high that follows.
You’ve heard of endorphins, right? They’re brain chemicals that are released internally and react with the opiate receptors in the brain. They act in pretty much the same way as morphine or codeine. Well, endorphins are released every time you cross completed tasks off your list. Jolt! Endorphins are powerful, so get ready. We will discuss them again later on in the book.
GET STARTED LISTING
As noted, you might prefer to write everything on a single master list. Or, depending on your responsibilities, it might work better for you to divide business and personal tasks between two separate lists:
1.A personal to-do list
2.A business tasks list
You might think this is going overboard, but some people find it easier to make separate lists for everything: shopping lists, domestic tasks lists, business tasks lists, and Honey-Do lists. (That last one is the one you give your spouse or kids to be sure repairs and other chores get done around the house.) If you choose the multi-list method, be sure to keep your lists together so you can stay organized.
If you’re not familiar with list making, do what comes easiest for now. You can always refine your system later.
The purpose of listing is to stay organized, not to feed your OCD, so be sure to create a system you feel comfortable with. Guidelines are simple. Just write in a stream of consciousness.
Write down all the tasks you need to complete in the order they occur to you. Remember to list projects, errands, and decisions you need to make.
Once you’ve written down every task you can think of, minor to massive, categorize tasks according to the system you created. This is easiest if done on your computer. Create a Word document, or if you are comfortable with Excel, create a spreadsheet. A timeline-style listing might work for you.
Long-Term Goals
List your dreams and aspirations—for the year and way down the road.
Monthly Goals
Monthly goals don’t necessarily come with a sense of urgency but may have to be completed during the month or repeated every month; paying bills, for instance.
Weekly Goals
What do you need to accomplish in a week’s time? Grocery shopping, appointments, weekly meetings….
Daily Goals
These are activities and tasks you need to complete every day. Exercise, take supplements, uh, call Mom.
You might want to have a category for your social gigs. Things like soccer games, recitals, and girls’ night out may involve reprioritizing in other areas.
Organizing Email
A ton of correspondence is done by email for most people these days. Depending on how active you are