Getting organised and staying organised is one of the hardest things you can do, particularly if you’re not organised by nature.
Here’s 9 steps that will help you in the leadup to instituting a new organisational system, and to keep you on track after you’ve got yourself sorted.
1. Prioritize
Choose one or two areas that cause the most problems for you and work on them first. If you try to do everything at once you’ll get overwhelmed pretty quickly. This way you see results fairly quickly, but are less likely to feel you’ve taken on too much..
2. Clean the slate
Start with a clean slate, so sort everything into keep toss or donate piles. Then deal with the toss and donate piles immediately. It makes the keep pile much less overwhelming.
3. Do it your way
Pick a system that suits your style. If you’re super organized a very scheduled system will work for yo. If you thrive on chaos you might be better suited by having a big box for each month or quarter.
4. Remember the KISS principle
Keep It Simple Stupid. While it’s tempting to have a color-coordinated multi-level system – if you make it too hard to file or locate things it won’t work. Remember, you need to be able to use it quickly all year round.
5. Categorize
Decide on a few categories that make sense to you, then allocate a storage space for each category. A good idea is to document categories in their location as you go. So create a list stating what the category is, and where it’s kept (hardcopy files, online files etc)
6. Prepare
Create any new files you need, buy any new stationery you need etc. Make sure you’ve got everything ready before you need it because needing to go shopping is a great reason to procrastinate. If worst comes to the worst, order online as soon as you realise you’re missing something.
7. Diarise
Put aside a regular amount of time say 10 or 30 minutes per day / week / month or whatever suits your needs to do any catch-up work. If you file regularly, it’s really not so bad. When you need to do a years filing at once, it’s horrible.
8. Maintain
Small amounts of work done regularly will mean you don’t get overwhelmed again and it’s much easier to keep up with.
9. Relax and enjoy
Kick back relax and enjoy all the extra time you have when you don’t have to faff around looking for things all the time.
If you’d like some more ideas that will help you be more organised, check out my previous Hints & Tips posts
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Below is a video version of this post that I made several years ago
