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You are incredibly busy. Your week involves a perpetual balancing act between your life at home and your work/academic, maybe even fitness, goals. Some days it is simply difficult to keep everything straight. We all have absolutely found ourselves there.
Don’t allow yourself to feel defeated when tasks are left unmet during your chaotic week, or you begin to experience role conflict between the many hats you wear. Instead, incorporate these 5 tips to maintaining an organized life and help elevate your productivity.
6 Tips to an Organized Life
- Evaluate & triage
- Create lists
- Schedule tasks in time blocks
- Early prep for upcoming week
- Maintain a clean work/study space
- Use planners- both physical and cellphone applications
Staying Organized is Essential to Being Productive
Without a method to maintaining an organized schedule throughout your week, it can seem like you have far too much to do, or that it’s impossible get started. You may desperately believe that you need another one of YOU to divide and conquer these weekly tasks. But if you set aside the time to truly evaluate the level of importance of each task and triage them accordingly- following these 6 tips, you may be surprised at how much you can accomplish.
- Evaluate & Triage
On a Sunday, before your week begins, take a moment to note each task that you are required to accomplish. Everything from preparing meals for your family, dropping off/picking up your kids from school, deadlines at work, publishing a blog, heading to the gym, etc. Now, place each task in order of importance.
Perhaps you find that there are some tasks that are equal in its level of importance and difficult to discern from one another. However, the goal to this organization skill is to understand that there is likely a general hierarchal ranking to your task list.
Your focus for the week should follow this order of importance, when completing each task.
2. Create a List
Lists are a great method to finding a starting point. One of the struggles to balancing a busy schedule- having too much to do and not knowing where to begin.
Create a list, based upon what you have determined are most to least important for your work week. Start from the top of your list and work your way down.
3. Schedule Tasks in Time Blocks
This tip may be insightful to your ability to time manage.
It is important to realistically estimate how long each task takes and block out your schedule for that amount of time. For larger tasks, it may be best to break up the time block to multiple days during your week. This is essential for successfully organization/planning. If a task would normally take you 4 hours to complete, but you are attempting to assign 2 hours instead, know that you haven’t given yourself the appropriate time to do this task.
Additionally, you must ensure that you have a time block allocated for rest, or breaks. Be sure not to neglect your own self-care.
4. Early Prep for Upcoming Week
Take a moment to recognize what your upcoming week will require from you.
It is important to prepare for your week, before it even starts. Evaluate and triage tasks and create your lists early. You will find as the week gets busier; you may refer to your prepared list and follow it. This is going to help you stay on path. Rather than stir up panic as you attempt to manage or rearrange tasks as you actively juggle your schedule.
For example, planning out the meals for your family during the week. You can note what you plan to cook each night, and prep groceries- relieving you of the added stress of coming up with an impromptu meal after a busy day.
5. Maintain a Clean Work/Study Space
While some may be adamant that their messy workspace is an organized chaos that they are able to navigate, it is not done without added time taken, or frustration. Have you ever heard, ‘Yes, I’ve completed my work and it’s in that stack of files on my desk.’ Meanwhile you witness them shuffling through all of the files on their desk only to find it 15 minutes later.
Do not do this.
Consider an organizational system that keeps your workspace free of clutter, and able to retrieve needed items within seconds versus minutes. It will save time and allow you to be more productive.
6. Use Planners
Use a physical planner and planner application on your cellphone.
Planners are an effective tool to maintaining an organized life. Keep a handwritten plan of your week that you can quickly refer to. The ease of being able to look ahead of your week, and noting what tasks are due to be completed, will set you up for success.
Cellphone applications are very helpful tool, as your phone can be set to alert you to an upcoming deadline. Take advantage of this function.
Let’s Recap
Applying these 6 simple tips will assist you in organizing the amount of work that is required during your week.
Making simple adjustments like triaging tasks, creating lists accordingly, using planners, blocking out time for each task, will contribute to a reduction of stress and being overwhelmed by your busy schedule.
Ensure that you begin planning your week early and maintain a clean space for greater organization and productivity.