Summary: Organize your life better with these 8 simple techniques.
Whether it’s organizing your home or organizing your thoughts, cleaning out the clutter can lead to considerably less stress and more mental clarity. People who are more successful have a tendency to be more organized all around because they aren’t using mental energy sifting through messes and their ideas and priorities are clear. If you want a little help organizing both your mind and your home or office, start by trying out a few of these brilliant yet simple life organization hacks. More importantly, don’t just try them once, but turn them into a habit and you’ll find yourself a little more happy and productive.
- Write everything down. Whether you have a pad of paper or you use the notes app in your phone, write things down as you think of them. Whether it’s a list of things you need from the store, things you need to do, or things you want to look up, getting them out of your head and onto a piece of paper will both clear your mind and keep you from forgetting later on.
- Carry things from room to room. Have a dish, a piece of paper, or pair of sunglasses that are in one room but actually need to be taken to the other side of the house and you just never seem to take it there? Try moving it room to room. If you’re only going one room closer, pick up that mug and bring it with you, so that it’s just one step closer to the kitchen. It may seem inconsequential, but it gets things going.
- Set a timer for 5 minutes. Each day, pick a room in your house or apartment and set the timer for 5 or 10 minutes and start organizing it. When the time is up, you can stop organizing and putting things away. This will help neaten up your spaces that you’ve been avoiding for ages.
- Focus on one thing at a time. The opposite of multitasking is unitasking – doing just one task at a time rather than dividing your attention. While we live in a world of multitaskers, doing so can lead to unfinished tasks or not doing your best because you were distracted. Sometimes your best and fastest work can occur when you do one thing at a time.
- Clear the clutter off your desk. Actually take a few minutes to go through the piles of paper that are on your desk, throw away what’s not important, put away what you need to keep, and then organize what you need to deal with. Consider getting sorting trays for things that you need to keep visible, and a filing box for things that can be put away.
- Do your small tasks first. Whether it’s cleaning up around your house or digging into your to do list at work, get the short, 2-minute tasks finished first so you’re not worrying about them when you’re digging into your larger undertakings. However, be sure you’re not finding more small tasks to procrastinate, make a list and stick to it. Anything that comes up later can be put off until tomorrow.
- Have a junk drawer. This idea might seem like it is making things messier – everything should have its place, right? Well, sometimes you have little things that just don’t have a place, or there are items that you use so often you never put them back in their place. Having a junk drawer will keep these things off your counter top and eliminate clutter, while keeping them all in one easy-to-reach location. Just be sure to sift through and clean out the drawer every so often.
- Create a to do list at the end of the day. Do you ever get into work or start your day feeling overwhelmed? Or you can’t sleep because you’re thinking of everything that needs to be done? At the end of the day, assess what you need to do tomorrow and make a plan. That way you can sleep well and wake up already knowing what you will be doing for the day.