I love organisation and I’ve always mentioned it as being one of my strongest skills. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed as our lives get busier and our responsibilities grow, so it’s important to keep on top of everything by ensuring you plan ahead to keep your mind at ease.
I’ve popped some simple tips below to help you get organised – a few of which I have only discovered recently and they have been instrumental as my time fills up with plans towards the Christmas period.
Organise your home
Moving house is one of the most stressful experiences you will experience in your life, so it is important to be organised. I took a few months to pack up our boxes and ensured each was labelled with what was inside and which room it was going to. There was a label on the top and on the side of the box so that if it was stacked the label could still be seen. I also created a moving day basket which I highly recommend! Inside I included bin bags, cleaning supplies, a sponge, scissors, parcel tape, coffee, tea and biscuits to keep us going!
The one thing I have ensured in the new house is to ensure we have a place for everything! I have even planned what to put in certain bookshelves, cupboards etc. as we grow our furniture collection. Decluttering is a perfect way to ensure you have the space for everything you want to keep. I’ve been popping items on eBay (which in turn encourages me to have a walk to the post office!) and throwing anything not suitable for eBay or charity shops away.
Organise your work
To do lists are essential for keeping on track with work tasks and I have several types of to do lists.
On a Friday I will plan a weekly to do list for the following week, this will have a number of my priorities followed by any regular tasks and ongoing activities such as building strategies. After putting my weekly list together I will usually do a rough draft of a daily to do list – mapping out when in the week I will complete particular tasks.
Towards the end of each day I will put together my daily to do list. This will have already been mapped out from the week before but I will now have a clearer indication of what is happening each day.
Ensure you utilise your calendar and that you check it first thing every day to plan out your day ahead. Usually I will have completed my daily to do list the evening before, and so I am able to schedule my time around any meetings or other events. I keep to 30 minute intervals to ensure I get up and walk around every half an hour.
Working in communications, we get a large number of emails on a daily basis from both internal and external individuals. To ensure I stay on track I mark my emails by labelling. Often the emails contain tasks and so I label them by “To action” (In a lovely bright pink so they’re easy to spot!), “In Progress” if the task is underway or has been delegated and then finally “Awaiting Response” which means I have responded to the email or have sent a direct message and am awaiting a response.
Organise your time
Your time, and particularly having a good work-live balance, is so important! Following Covid-19 and the move to working remotely this has become even more so. We work in the same space that we relax and so that work-life balance is more important than ever.
I have got into a new routine of waking up at 6:30am every day which gives me 1 hour between 7 and 8 to be productive. I often use this time to study for my qualification or for household tasks. It’s very easy to get caught up scrolling through social media first thing in the morning, but by having a plan for that first hour of the day you can get at least one large chunk of your to do list ticked off for the day.
Something which I begun in 2020, was using the time between 5 and 6pm, the time which I would usually be commuting in, to exercise. This is something I’m keen to get back into so you can all hold me to that!
Organise your life
As many of us spend the time between Christmas and New Year, eating our leftovers, watching TV or movies and having absolutely no idea of the day of the week, so a few years ago I decided to make a change. I decided to get a head start on my new years resolutions.
I would go to a nearby cafe and I would write two lists, the first is my list of achievements, however big or small, that have happened over the last year. They might not necessarily even be achievements – often they were just memories of the year, moments with family and friends, life changes, whether they were positive or negative. It felt important to document the key moments which have become particularly notable in 2020/2021.
After writing my list of achievements, I focus on what I want to achieve over the next year and get planning. I look at key aspects of my life including health, fitness, financial, professional development, personal etc. I think about all the things I want to achieve, from how many books I want to read, to how much money I want to save, to what training will help me to upskill (this also in turn helps with thinking about work objectives, so useful timing if you have your objective setting in January).
How do you stay organised? Share your tips with us in the comments below!
Rebecca Thi 