Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:54 — 12.2MB)
Advantages of Personal Organization
What are the advantages of organization?
- Reduces anxiety and stress caused by not having control of things
- Increases your efficiency, enabling you to do more things in less time
- Frees up time to accomplish more things
- Creates healthy organization and filing habits that allow you to search for and find things much faster
- Generates responsibility
- Induces self-control and discipline
So what stops of from getting organized ?
- Procrastination, the act of leaving something to be done later when there is no consequence for not performing a task
- Mental tiredness
- Physical tiredness
- Lack of prioritization
- Lack of definition in tasks
- Problems with self-discipline
Tips to think about
- A place for Everything and Everything in its place
For everything that you own, designate a place for it.
Something doesn’t have a place? Make one. Then simply put things back where they belong when you’ve finished using them.
It’s simple and effective, but hard to do at first until you consistently form the habit.
IF you don’t like where it is MAKE a NEW HOME for it.
- Designate times
One of the best ways to keep your life organized is to create routines.
You probably have a morning routine on working days. What about lunchtimes, evenings and weekends?
Routines mean you don’t have to constantly make decisions about what to do and when to do it. For example, you could routinely check your personal emails at lunchtime.
You can have too much of a good thing though; use enough routine to make a difference, but not so much that you get bored.
- Start small
If you want to know how to organize your desk, home or office, you don’t have to conquer everything at once. Choose a small chunk (maybe the top of your desk, or a drawer?) and organize that.
Use the tip after this one to keep it organized, and practice that system until it becomes habit.
Once you’ve got on top of that you can expand your to something else.
- Put it away promptly and properly
Done using something? Most people will put it down somewhere nearby, with the intention of putting it away later. But disorganized places are full of these intentions.
Instead of letting things pile up, put them away immediately.
This principle applies for pretty much anything.
- Capture it
Information and requests come at you verbally, digitally or on paper.
Use the simplest, fewest and most accessible capture tools you can to act as your inboxes.
Have an in tray and dump everything on that, then choose a regular time to go through it. This works particularly well if you really want to organize paperwork.
- Keep filing simple
If your filing system is too complicated or inaccessible, chances are you won’t use it.
- Make sure it’s usable
If you’re still not sure how to get organized, ask yourself two questions:
Have I formed the habits I need to get and stay organized, and are my systems simple and accessible enough?
