Organisation is important. No, even more than that, organisation is crucial for performing well in whatever you want to do: studying, better work performance, writing a novel, leaving on a family trip. Chances are, you’ve already heard it from somebody else and you already think of it as a huge cliché, but all successful people out there get organised, and they owe a lot of their achievements to careful organisation and planning. By maintaining commitment and a healthy work ethic, recurrent self-discipline and effort and, last but not least, patience about getting results, successful people go out there and climb up the corporate ladder and get those diplomas – and they use organisation for all of that.
My point is, getting organised will help you feel in charge of your life, and achieve more with less stress and more confidence about your endeavours. And I can say that because well, I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum. During my last year of high school and first year of university, I didn’t have my shit together. I let life fly by me and was fine with just adapting to whatever was coming my way, rather than make an active effort to take charge and become aware of my responsibilities. I managed to get through just by sheer luck, yes, but I decided that wasn’t enough for me. One year later, things have changed dramatically, and although I wouldn’t rush to call myself ‘organised’, other people have done so and I guess they’re onto something.
In today’s post, I am going to elaborate on five things that have helped me get organised and successfully manage my life. What is amazing about these tips is that they are open to your own personal interpretation, and really, organisation is a thing you can tailor to your needs. There is no such thing as a universal system, and that’s an idea I will go back to several times throughout. Finally, just to get it out of the way before we start, you can start getting organised today. There is literally nothing stopping you from getting yourself together and changing your life. All you have to do is decide that this is what you want, and then act, and you’re halfway there.
1) First of all, you have to figure out your system.
Or the means of organisation that would work the best for you. Deciding on a format might take you a little while, as you might not know what you want just yet and you would need to explore several options before you decide. I know for a fact I have a long history of toying around with different organisation methods and it took me some time before I settled on what was good for me. Don’t sweat it, though; not only can it be a fun and creative process, but there are also so many different options out there for you to choose from. You might prefer digital organisation, and use your devices to keep track of what is going on in your life, or you might want to use an analog system, a preset planner or even a bullet journal. You might want to stick to using one single format, or even combine different ones depending on the aspects of your life that you want to keep a record of. The choice is yours and there is so much space for you to experiment, so use it!
I would love to talk more about different organisation methods in a future post, but until then, for the sake of the argument I will explain a bit about how I get organised. For almost a year and a half now, I am using the bullet journal system combined with some digital organisation (using my e-mail, my online drive and my Google Calendar), and sporadic digital and analog reminders. What that means is, I keep a record of everything that I am doing in terms of university, work, blog and other personal endeavours in my bullet journal, which I take with me everywhere I go and use as a canvas for mapping out what I do every single day. My assignments and revision planning goes on my online drive, and my appointments and one-time events go onto my Google Calendar. My laptop and smartphone are synchronised, so for all the things that I need to remember I get notifications on both. And of course, because I like keeping it classic, I use the odd post-it note to remind myself to buy milk. But this is just one example of how you can do it; as I said, the possibilities are endless.
Snippet from my first proper bullet journal: March 2017, I was using too many colours and didn't know how to make it as pretty as I wanted.
(source: personal archive)
2) Learn how to prioritise.
Prioritisation is one of the rather unhappy lessons you learn when you start to get organised. The sad truth is that you might think that you have time to do everything you want, but you don’t. Simple as that. There are twenty-four hours within a day, and no matter how much sleep you agree to sacrifice, you still won’t have enough time to balance school, two part-time jobs, a couple of extracurricular activities and clubs, friends, a relationship and your brand new hobby. It’s amazing that you want to make good and productive use of all your time, but things will most probably not go that way. You might try to juggle too many balls at the same time, or you might find some things particularly stressful, such as revision or applying for new jobs. You might give up rest and fun distractions for a while, but you cannot do it forever – and once you refuse yourself a break for a really long time, you might need to take even more time off in the end.
This is where prioritisation comes into question. Learning how to prioritise certain tasks and responsibilities over others will help you be prepared for deadlines way in advance, plan a healthy amount of free time within your daily routine, and ultimately balance different segments of your life. Prioritisation will also help you pick and choose what you are filling up your time with, and truly make up your mind about what is worth spending your time and energy on. It is important that you let go of the activities that you are not exactly interested in, and those you can’t see the use of. At last, prioritisation is about starting each day knowing what you want to achieve in its time frame and what should be taken care of first. This way, you won’t lose your objectives from sight, and also be more productive.
3) Improve your time management.
What organisation teaches you is that time is a precious resource. Unlike with money, you can never make up for lost time and if anything, you don’t feel the loss of time as distinctly as you do with the loss of money. Before you know it, a month can go by without you attempting any revision, workout session or new hobby, and most of the time you become aware of how much time you’ve wasted only after you lost it forever. A big part of organisation is developing this time awareness and using it in directing your time and energy towards more important, useful activities.
It’s important that you decide to be more conscious of how you use your time, in order to know how you can use it better in the future. Eliminate distractions and activities that don’t do much for you, and be careful about the breaks you take from doing work. Try to understand how much time you need to complete certain tasks, and organise your work according to your needs and pace. Once again, there is no one way to do it! Also going back to prioritisation, assign appropriate amounts of time to everything put down in your to-do list, so you can invest the most on the tasks that are urgent or important. Realistically, the end game is for you to stop wasting as much time as possible, but that’s another post for another time.
The first two years of my university degree in terms of organisation: four bullet journals and a standard academic planner.
(source: personal archive)
4) Maintain a balanced work ethic.
This is probably the one organisation bit that I still struggle a lot with, but that might be due to the fact that I am a person of extremes: I like choosing between either a black or a white, and I feel iffy about the idea of grey. My loss, because finding the middle ground between shameless procrastination and overworking yourself is what you should aim for once you decide to get organised. Productive time and free time must be balanced for you to obtain the best results and make the most out of your new lifestyle. It is difficult, but it’s also worth it, and most of all, it’s something that will take a bit of practice before you reach the ideal place that you’re looking for.
For a starter, make sure you keep work and breaks proportionate. For every set amount of time you spend working, take a set break and repeat – if only this was my bright idea but no, this is actually called the Pomodoro Technique. Keep a balance between the bits that you don’t really enjoy working on and easier, shorter tasks. Throughout your week, check if you work enough to tick off most of the items on your to-do list, but also if you get enough rest. Give yourself the chance to unwind, but don’t forget that you have started on the path of organisation to work better, too. I will repeat myself for as long as it’s necessary: do it your way. Find out what works for you and what you need to do well.
5) Be persistent.
You might start getting more organised today, but it will definitely not take you one day to achieve it. In fact, if you want to improve your organisation skills, you actually aim to implement new, positive habits in your life. Taking up a good habit is a long, tough process and so is getting organised: you might not go the right way for you the first time, you might mess up along the way, nonetheless, and you might experience the fierce desire to give up at multiple points throughout. And that is okay. In fact, the more you resist the urge to send it all to hell, the more likely you are to succeed, and things will get easier and easier moving forward. Long story short, it’s vital that you don’t give up.
Give yourself time to find your rhythm. Try not to feel down about the obstacles in your way, which will be many and hit home closer than you might expect. Accept that you are human and you make mistakes, and you can’t have your best day every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s worth waking up in the morning and trying, anyway. Be persistent and resilient, and just remember: it’s your thing to make the way you like it.
And with that, you are good to go on your brand new journey with organisation. Feel free to use it however you like and for a wide array of purposes, from preparing a school assignment, making plans for the summer or moving on to a new chapter of your life. Do yourself a favour by putting some order to your life and simplify the challenges that you face. And hopefully, let me know if this helped?
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Photo source: personal archive.