12 Ways to stay organized

Organisation is a great tool that is taught by businesses, professional organisers and the like. The reason for this is because of its effectiveness.

When getting down to the root of what being organised is, is that it is really an instrument for improving time-management and lifting morale.

When disorganisation and clutter becomes a normal obstacle that you have to put up with daily, it can affect your emotions. 

Frustration, stress and mild depression, can be triggered or made worse from total disorganisation.

All you need though, is to have the right guidelines and rules in place for beating this common horror.

1. De-clutter 

Clutter is one of the #1 reasons why it seems like an impossibility to become organized.

It's very easy to convince yourself that you need to keep a useless item, when in fact you wouldn't think about it twice if it were gone. 

Go through one area at a time, and completely remove all unnecessary clutter. You will need to be really strict with yourself, and will be glad because of it afterwards.

2. Make Decisions 

Not making decisions straight away, or not coming back to them, can result in clutter. For example: a t-shirt that should have been put away; a letter that should have been posted; documents that needed to be shredded. It all mounts up, leaving you in a very big hole to climb out of.

3. Plan 

Planning ahead is something that will take a few minutes or more (depending on the scale of the plan), but can save you hours later on. Having the foresight to be able to know what possible difficulties may arise and knowing how to handle them is brilliant for organization.

It could be in the form of a schedule, a planner, a list, a calendar, or of something similar.

4. Allocate items to places 

Now you have to decide which things go where. Put things where they are easily accessible, for example: Washing liquid/powder next to the washing machine; cooking pots and pans next to stove/oven; trainers and shoes by the door; stationary on your desk etc.

This may seem like common sense, but is not the habit for everyone.

Another thing I do, is to put items that I use often, all in one place.

The placement of your items is up to you.

5. Create systems 

Being organized doesn't just mean being tidy, it also means to catalogue and to categorise. So lay out a logical system (in different areas) that enables you to find and/or research something with ease.

For example: Organising books from the largest to smallest, or into alphabetical order; file documents into categories or names, or alphabetically like the books.

Start with the organisation of the most important things, and then work you way around until every area is completed. Your most important, could be files on your computer and your least important, could be your garden. For other people however, this could be completely the opposite.

6. Spare space 

Designate an area that has some spare space (a table for example), for items that you need to put away. This will mean that misplacement will decrease, as you're not forcing yourself to quickly find a spot to put something when you're busy. 

You can come back to it and sort it out when you have spare time. (Rule #12 is a good thing to use).

7. Layout 

Not all things are in your best interest to tuck away, so that you have to spend a couple of minutes just getting to it. 

Some things will need to be laid out (such as stationary on your desk). This is not an excuse however, to allow things to get messy. You can still be tidy and organized when things are laid out, they're purpose is for convenience only.

8. Get productive 

Improve your productivity, allowing you to get more done in a shorter amount of time. If you want to read more on this, then I encourage you to check out two previous posts of mine: 21 Ways to boost productivity and What is time-boxing.

9. Follow-through 

What's the point of having a schedule; planner or to-do list, if you're not going to follow through with them? Remove distractions and obstacles, and get yourself committed to completing your goals.

10. Be conscious of the time 

I talked about this in my last post (15 Steps to improve punctuality), encouraging the awareness of the time. 

Having a knowledge of the time will tell you if you're on schedule, or if you're wasting time. Try placing clocks in areas you are likely to acknowledge them and if you have more than one, set them all to the same time.

11. Replacement 

Once you're organized, a very easy but often a put off thing to do, is to place things back where you got them. Do not let yourself say "it's only one thing, it won't hurt". This attitude will send you back to square one. All these one-off's will mount up and you will be in a big hole for the second time. 

If you do have to leave something out, for you to put away later, then use rule #6.  

12. Maintenance 

One day every week, set aside a period of time in which you can re-establish your organisation. When people are organized, a habit that tends to develop, is letting themselves get back into old habits. I suppose old habits die hard.

This is why having a session every week will help you stay on top of it and not it on top of you. Deal with it while it's a small problem before it becomes an even bigger one.