Getting Organized

How many hours have you wasted looking for something you've misplaced, misfiled, or put down without thinking? How many times have you begun an especially busy day wondering what to do first? You can save hours a month, perhaps hours every week, just by taking a few basic steps to organize your life.

Organizing your possessions and your activities relieves you of the mind-numbing task of trying to remember where to find things—and you'll know what to do next. This simple effort will free up a lot of brainpower you can use to think, enjoy, speculate, and just have fun.

You have two realms to organize: your activities and your things.

Here's how you can organize your activities:

• Create to-do lists, grouping your day's activities by the priority you assign to them. Do the things that you identify as most important first.
• If you have a complex errand or activity, make a detailed checklist of the things you need to do. A grocery list is a prime example. If you're making a run to the shopping district, don't forget to note the dry-cleaning receipt and the library book that needs to be renewed. At work, jot down the main points you need to cover at a meeting.
• Create "tickler" files to remind you of things you have to check on or need to do something about in the future, including birthdays, anniversaries, and follow-ups.

Before you put these ideas into practice, it's a good idea to take a step back and consider the activities that you feel you must do. Is there a way to whittle down your to-do list? Especially if you feel overloaded, eliminate chores and obligations that aren't important, given your overall values and goals.

Here's how you can organize your things:

• One of the most useful places you'll discover when organizing things is a special place called "The Trash." Use it often.
• Make places for things, even if they're only piles in the corner. Use labels to keep track of what should be where.
• Never put something down until and unless you can put it where it "belongs." It's a new discipline, to be sure, but it's the single most important difference between a life of reasonable organization and chaos. Devote an hour per day at first (later this will require much less time) to putting things where they belong. That's right. Become your own mom. It's worth it.

Key Tips

Tip 1

Put certain things where they'll fall into your hands when you need them. Don't leave your keys on the bedroom dresser. They're easy to forget, and you might lock yourself out of your house. Instead, as soon as you let yourself in, put your keys right back in your pocket or handbag, which is where you can always look every time you need them. Similarly, keep your grocery list handy in the kitchen, where you can add a new item the very second you recognize the need for it.

Tip 2

Continually refine your filing methods. If you discover that you can't find a recipe because you filed it under "Delia Smith" rather than "leg of lamb," revise your system to eliminate this problem. Perhaps you'll want to make a copy and file the recipe in both places, or perhaps you'll recognize that you think of recipes in terms of main ingredients, not the author.

Tip 3

Create and use to-do lists, grouping your day's activities by the priority you assign to them. Do the most important things first. You must constantly update your list, resetting the priorities, as you complete activities. Be realistic about what can be accomplished in one day. Consider past experience, and make an honest calculation about how much time you have. Some activities are non-negotiable, such as sleeping, showering, eating, and travel time. You'll end the day feeling satisfied if you accurately estimate the time you have and schedule tasks accordingly.

Tip 4

Create and use a tickler file that will remind you to follow up on important but unscheduled matters.

Tip 5

Make a list before you go shopping. That way you won't find out that you didn't get vacuum-cleaner bags when you're back from the shop preparing to vacuum.

Specifics

Organizing Activities: Daily To-Do List

In addition to the above-mentioned tickler file, use a daily to-do list. This is a complete list of everything you have to do today. Divide the list of activities into four categories: things you must do, things you'd like to do, things you might do, and things you're thinking about but not ready to do. As you accomplish the "must-do" activities, adjust the priority of the remaining activities on your list:

• Don't forget checklists, which are more detailed than your to-do list, to remind you what to accomplish on a specific errand, trip to the store, telephone call, or meeting.
• Because to-do lists change so much, it can be helpful to use an app on your smartphone or other electronic tool. Index cards, which can be color-coded and shuffled by priority, also work well.
• Do only what's on your list. If you find yourself wanting to do something not on your list, put it on your list. This way you'll be organizing yourself more as you go.
• As soon as you've completed a task, cross it off your list, or tear up the card on which it's written. The satisfaction you'll get is immense—more than enough to help keep you organized despite all the pressures to backslide into disorganization.

Organizing Things

Once you have enough extra places—like filing cabinets, bookshelves, and storage boxes—to put things, you'll want to arrange the things you put there to make finding them again easier.

If you have extra cash and the time, get some nifty containers for some of the things you want to be able to find again. You'll be surprised how much more stuff per square unit of horizontal space you can pile into an appropriately sized box than onto a bare shelf or floor. To provide even more storage space, put up extra shelves near the ceiling, place boxes under the bed, add hooks to your fitted wardrobe walls, and add new bookshelves or furniture with cabinets.

You can organize things conventionally, putting them in alphabetical or chronological order, or even size order. Under this strategy, music goes alphabetically by title or artist, and Dr. Gaskill the dentist gets listed under G.

You can organize things more personally, according to how you naturally think of them. Under this strategy, you might group music by genre, or perhaps by year of recording, and Dr. Gaskill the dentist might get listed under D for Dentist or M for Medical. Because it reflects your natural way of thinking, using this second strategy can be more pleasing—but be careful. If your mind tends to be a little scattered, you might never think of Dr. Gaskill twice the same way, and after you've organized it you'll have a very hard time finding his information again.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I be sure that organizing myself will take less time than being as disorganized as I am now?

Take it on faith, for now. After you've tried it for a while, you should be able to feel the difference in how much more smoothly your life runs.

Or you might try an experiment using a stopwatch. Just start the watch every time you can't find what you're looking for on the first try, and keep it running until you locate the item or give up. Write down how much time you waste in this manner each day. Add in the time (plus the mileage, plus the money) you've wasted by forgetting to bring your receipt to the dry cleaner, missing the concert you purchased tickets for, throwing out all the now-rotten food you bought but didn't eat, and so forth.

My mind just isn't disciplined enough to organize. What should I do?

Start very small. Organize just one aspect of your life, such as your night table or your underwear drawer. After a while, you'll so much enjoy this organized haven amidst all the chaos that you'll want to organize your sock drawer, too—and so on. Don't worry. You'll never be overorganized; however, you will gain the benefits of organizing your life, and you'll enjoy them, too.