Why You Shouldn’t Have 100 Habits To Stay Organized
Why would it be enough to adopt only 5 habits to stay organized?
What happened to the lists of tens of habits to stay on top of your lists and organized everything at your home, work, and personal life?
They are still there, and those lists are great. They will give you ideas of keeping yourself accountable, hinting you the little tricks highly organized people use daily, and motivating you to start.
To start…! But what about maintaining those good habits? How do you make them stick?
Habit development is often a mindset shift that needs to happen to lead to high performance and success in any area of your life.
Today I will introduce you to the 5 core habits I know will create that mindset shift. And they are so simple that you’d start them all today.
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- Why You Shouldn’t Have 100 Habits To Stay Organized
- Answering Some Questions on How To Be More Organized Person
- 5 Core Habits To Stay Organized
- 1. Read and Take Classes
- 2. Start With The Right Area Of Your Life
- 3. Don’t Skip a Day
- 4. Capture Your Thoughts as Much as Possible
- 5. Block Time For It
- Final Note or Quick Summary
- 5 Must-Have Core Habits To Stay Organized Despite Your Messiness
Answering Some Questions on How To Be More Organized Person
While many people believe that being organized is a habit, it is actually a way of life. A habit has a trigger point, a performance, and a reward. Being an organized person doesn’t have a beginning nor an end. It’s a lifestyle, and the reward is “on top of things”.
While many people believe that they need to create resolutions and start “on Monday,” it is much more about starting at all and not giving up if you fall off the wagon. Just jump on it again, and again, and again. Becoming an organized person is a matter of stubbornness and persistence in front of your disorganized self.
There are a few main things that happen once you become an organized person: you have better clarity on your life’s goals and challenges; you notice patterns of behavior; your mental health improves as now you don’t feel stressed or pressured by everything you “must” do but have no time for it, the levels of self-satisfaction increase drastically and that naturally makes you a happier person.
5 Core Habits To Stay Organized
Okay, now that we have all that aside, let’s actually talk about the five habits to stay organized.
1. Read and Take Classes
But not just any classes.
One of the ways I use to crawl towards becoming a highly organized person is by keeping my focus on the new resolution I have. Therefore, I suggest you do the same; it works!
You want to soak up as much information as you could on how to be organized in any area of your life: your desk, your fridge, your pantry, your wardrobe, your head.
Explore all of the time management systems that are out there, follow the YouTubers that know what they do, take classes on Skillshare (free 14-day trial if you click here).
Your goal is to make the topic of getting organized and getting your life together so close to you and your heart so that it slowly becomes part of you. When an idea or a lifestyle, value, or a goal is so well-known by you, it will stick around, and that’s what you want.
My favorite class on Skillshare on getting organized is this beginners guide.
2. Start With The Right Area Of Your Life
Don’t just start with the messiest place in your house. In fact, go for the area that doesn’t require almost any effort to get it organized.
Why?
If you have to dip your toe into the sea of organized drawers, pantries, and wardrobes, start with the drawer first. You want to enjoy that water, so you dip more than a toe later.
Obviously, I’m speaking metaphorically, but the idea is the same. Skip the messiest places; they can stay just as they are another week or so. Start small and slowly add more. Steady and slow is your way to go.
3. Don’t Skip a Day
Set up alarms and timers, use the two-minute rule (perform any task for two minutes before dropping it), the Pomodoro technique, the Eisenhower matrix… Do whatever it takes, but don’t skip a day.
The only way to stay consistent with being organized is to actually stay consistent with showing up for the areas that need organizing.
Highly organized people don’t have a specific time of the day they become organized. They initially implement little organizing techniques here and there into their days; they set up blocks of time and alarms until they don’t need them one day.
4. Capture Your Thoughts as Much as Possible
If you ever have the chance to read Getting Things Done by David Allen (I highly recommend you write it on your to-read list), you will notice that the base of his organizing system is the inbox, which is also called capturing your thoughts. (listen to the book for free here)
Capturing your thoughts is the process of writing down every single little idea that flies into your head at any point of the day, all of your tasks and to-dos, and every “Oh, I shouldn’t forget to…”
We are creative beings, and we always have something we think of, a problem that needs a solution, a business that needs research. Ideas enter our minds all the time – some of them good and others, not so good.
Your most valuable core habit to stay organized is to capture all those ideas, tasks, and lists you have in your mind and write them on a sheet of paper.
Free your mind, and you will see how easy it is to organize your life outside of your head. Yes, we are also very visual beings. And while many of the ideas become pictures in our minds, we still must have the initial spark written down.
I use this type of notebook that stays under my keyboard to capture any idea or valuable thought I have throughout my day.
What would you use?
5. Block Time For It
Okay, I said highly organized people don’t have a specific time of the day to become organized, but what they do is regularly block time out to keep the system going smoothly.
I usually organize every day the evening before, and then on Sunday, I take an hour to sit and go through all of my ongoing projects and lists to track the progress and plan the big goals for the next week.
Once I have all of that information scheduled, I can easily check if I can add more work.
Final Note or Quick Summary
Now you have all of the five core habits:
- Read and take classes – see 5 classes to take for free here.
- Start with the area of your life that needs just a little push, so you create momentum.
- Don’t skip a day – even if it’s just for a few minutes, work on creating an organized life you enjoy
- Capture your thoughts daily so you have your mind free of any worries – Consider reading Getting Things Done by David Allen (audio version to listen for free here)
- Block time for it – literally add it to your schedule to sit and organize your thoughts and plan.
Favorite Organizing Tools
Personalized Notebook Portfolio with Refillable Notepad | Etsy
Want to start getting more and more organized? Get the right tools for it. Having a dedicated organizer is important to keep you inspired and motivated.
The ultimate life planner printable bundle. Get 6 FREE | Etsy
Print it. Fill it. Organize it. As simple as that.
2021 Ultimate digital dated Life Planner Digital Planner for | Etsy
Maybe you are a digital person or want to reduce the waste of paper. This is your go-to option for a digital planner to get your life under control.
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5 Must-Have Core Habits To Stay Organized Despite Your Messiness
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
