Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 4: Organize your thoughts
• Method 2 of 4: Organize at home
• Method 3 of 4: Improve your workplace cleanup
• Method 4 of 4: Stay organized

A full-time job, family, friends, leisure activities and much more can create a demanding and disorganized life. Add disorder to the mixture and it may seem impossible to achieve anything in your life. Organizational skills are essential to manage your many responsibilities, but can often be difficult to learn. However, once you master it, you will be more efficient and have a greater competitive edge, leading to a happy and sustainable life.

To step

Method 1 of 4: Organize your thoughts

1. Make an action list. Write down everything you need to do today, and mark each thing off when you finish it. By writing down daily tasks, you don't have to stress about remembering to do them. Checking things off your list will likely make you feel productive. Put things you've already done on your list just to check them off.
   • Order your list from high priority to low priority. Assess the need and importance of each point to help you prioritize. Think to yourself “if I can only do one thing today, what will it be?”. That's your number one on the to-do list.
   • If possible, make an action list for the next day and refer to it before going to sleep. Doing this will wake you up with an action plan in mind.
2. Make a running list that you constantly replenish. If there is a book you want to read or a restaurant you want to try, make a running list that you always have with you. If you want to see a movie, you don't necessarily have to see it today, which is why you don't want it on your daily to-do list. Having a running action list will help you remember your “extra” actions.
   • You can create a running list in a notebook that you always have with you, or use an online program such as Dropbox so that it is always available.
3. Take notes when talking to people. Make notes of conversations you have with people. This is especially important for business conversations, but also important when interacting with friends and family. Taking notes will help you remember something important someone said, a task to complete that you didn't count on, or just serve as a friendly reminder of good times with the people you care about.
   • You don't always have to keep a notepad with you and accurately write down every word someone said. Just try to set aside some time to write down one or two important things about every conversation you have.
4. Use a planner. An annual planner can be immensely useful for gathering your thoughts. Use it to write down appointments, trips and other important things. Refer to it daily and write down things that will happen in the long run. For example, if you are planning a conference call for six months from now, write it on your calendar now so you won't forget it.
5. Get rid of clutter from your brain. Just like throwing away unused or unimportant things at home and in your office, you also need to get rid of unnecessary thoughts from your brain. Try to meditate to get rid of negative thoughts such as worry and stress.

Method 2 of 4: Organize at home

1. Get rid of unnecessary items. Tidying up is an essential first step in organizing your home. Empty drawers and remove unnecessary items, dispose of expired food items, throw away or donate clothes and shoes that you have not worn for over a year, properly dispose of expired medicines to the pharmacy, dispose of Remove or merge toiletries and any other items you don't really need.
2. Create folders for important things in your life. Create labeled folders for “Car Insurance”, “Vacation”, “Accounts”, “Budget” and any other important part of your life.
   • Try to color code your folders. Blue for Bills (gas, groceries, clothes), Red for Insurance (car, house, life), etc.
   • Place the folders on a tidy shelf.
3. Hang hooks and shelves on the walls. Use the often unused vertical space in your home. Buy hooks for hanging bicycles in your garage, and self-hanging (floating) shelves to create efficient and decorative tidying space.
4. Invest in clean-up bins. Just like cleaning up your office, you can buy bins and baskets to put all your stuff in. Put similar items in the same bin and form a system to tidy up your bins. Buy bins and baskets of various sizes to tidy everything in your home, including tools, make-up, stuffed animals, food, shoes and messes.

Method 3 of 4: Improve your workplace cleanup

1. Buy clean-up bins. Go to a store that sells tidy bins (IKEA, Leen Bakker, Blokker, Xenos, HEMA, etc.) and get at least ten. Buy bins of all different sizes to store pens, papers and larger items.
   • Buy bins, baskets, chests of drawers and other objects where you can put your things.
2. Buy a labeling machine. What's the benefit of tidying up all your stuff in handy storage bins if you don't have what's in each bin? Use a labeling machine to properly label each bin. For example, make a container labeled “Writing Supplies” to keep your pens, pencils, and markers, and another labeled “Tools” that contains scissors, staplers, staple removers, and hole punchers.
   • Label absolutely everything, including your files, drawers and cabinets.
3. Archive your information according to “how you will use it”. Rather than putting an item in a folder based on where you got it, you archive it based on how you will use it in the future. For example, if you have documentation for the hotel where you will be staying in New York on your business trip, file it in your “New York” folder, instead of your “Hotel” folder.
   • Use tabs. Make a "Hotel" map, but below it several "cities" tabs for the places you often go.
4. Create an outline or "Table of Contents" of your organized office. You may have cleaned up everything, but you no longer know where everything was cleaned up. Type a list of every box or bin you made and what's in it to quickly find something in the future.
   • This list will also help you put things back where they belong after you use them.
5. Make places on your desk for "to do" and "completed". Make two specific spots on your desk for things to do (papers to sign, reports to read, etc.) and a stack for things to finish. By making two separate places for this, you will not confuse yourself about what you did or did not do.
6. Get rid of things you don't need. As you put your things in the boxes and bins that you have obtained, you throw away things that you do not need. Get rid of things you haven't touched in a year and anything that's broken, and bring back extra supplies.
   • You can shred old papers and ask your colleagues if they are interested in something you are going to throw away.
   • If you're having a hard time throwing something away, try giving it away instead.
7. Clean up your computer. You can clean up tangible objects around you, but having a disorganized computer will limit your productivity and still leave you feeling disorganized. Create new folders and sub folders to put files in, organize your desktop so you can easily find certain items, remove duplicate files, give documents detailed titles, and remove unnecessary apps and documents.

Method 4 of 4: Stay organized

1. Spend 10 minutes a day on a quick cleanup. You've spent your time cleaning up and putting everything in its right place, so try to keep it that way. Set an alarm every night that indicates a 10-minute period during which you clear objects and ensure that your bins and baskets are still tidy.
2. If you're adding a new article to your life, throw out an old article. Before buying a new book, go through your bookshelf and remove one you haven't read or won't read. Donate it or throw it away so that your new book can take its place.
   • Take it a step further and delete two or three articles for each new article.
3. Always have a box “to donate” ready. Have a box where you can throw items that you can donate. When you find an item that you no longer want, put it directly in the donation box.
   • When you have an unwanted item that can't be donated, take it straight to the trash.
4. When you see an open drawer, close it. Don't wait until your ten-minute clean-up moment to stay tidy. If you see something where it doesn't belong, put it back right away. If you walk past a full trash can, empty it. When you see papers where they don't belong, clean them up. Make tidying up a habit to make it most effective.
   • Don't spend too many precious minutes of your day doing small cleanups. Don't bother closing an open drawer. If you get up to go to a meeting, and the open drawer is in your path, close it. If you interrupt your work to close a drawer, you will reduce your overall productivity by 25%!
5. Leverage technology to help you stay organized. There are literally thousands of apps you can use to keep yourself organized. There are many apps with to-do lists like Evernote, reminder apps like Beep Me, travel apps like TripIT and apps to help organize the importance of your tasks like Last Time.
   • Look for apps that sync across your devices so they can be accessed wherever you are.