An organized life gives you wisdom and power

Start from wherever you are, and with whatever you’ve got

Having an organized life is being in control. It isn’t about getting rid of everything you own or trying to become a different person. It’s about living the way you want to live—only better.

It’s easy to think about getting organized, but sometimes it’s hard to actually be organized. Really organized people aren’t born organized, they have to cultivate healthy habits, which then help them to stay organized.

So, even if you think you are a very disorganized person, you can learn to be organized. From planning things, jotting things down, to ditching the unnecessary and organizing things that matter, you can become an organized person as long as you’re willing to learn and practice.

You might not be able to feel 100 percent organized every minute of every day, but by forming good organizational habits and establishing a solid daily routine, you can definitely feel more organized most of the time.

Here are a few essential habits on how to organize your life:

Write things down

We all know someone that remembers every birthday and sends cards for every holiday. It’s not magic, and they don’t use memorization. Trying to remember things won’t help you to stay organized. You should try writing things down. You’ll only complicate your life by trying to contain important dates and reminders in your head. Write down everything: shopping lists for groceries, holiday gifts, home decor, and important dates like meetings and birthdays.

Make schedules and deadlines

Organized people don’t waste time. They recognize that keeping things organized goes hand-in-hand with staying productive. They make and keep schedules for the day, week, and month. They make deadlines and set goals. And most importantly, they and stick to them!

What will being organized do for you?

Enhances your reputation.
Elevates your style.
Improves your grades at school.
Increases the probability of promotions at work.
Provides a good example to those who work for you.
Provides an outstanding example to your children.
Increases your productivity generally.
Saves you time.
Saves your energy.
Saves you money.
Protects your credit.
Helps you make money.
Reduces time spent looking for things.
Reduces stress.
Eliminates duplicate purchases.
Eliminates missed payments & late fees.
Eliminates damage to useful items.
Provides protection for valuable items.
Helps you to be punctual.
Helps you to be reliable.
Enhances your relationships.
Increases usable space.
Reduces obsolete, unusable, and unneeded items.
Makes work, leisure, and storage spaces attractive.
Makes workspaces more efficient.
Increases your self-esteem.
Increases your confidence.

Don’t procrastinate

The longer you wait to do something, the more difficult it will be to get it done. If you want your life to be less stressful and less demanding, then organize as soon as you can. Putting in the effort to get things done as soon as possible will lift the weight off of you from doing it later.

Give everything a home

It’s easy to get lost if you don’t have a home. Keeping your life organized means keeping your things in their proper places. Organized people keep order by storing things properly and by labeling storage spaces.

Make easy-to-access storage spaces for things you use all the time, and don’t let your storage spaces get cluttered. Be creative about finding places for things. In addition, as a BIG NO: never label a storage space as “miscellaneous!”

As an experiment, choose one place in your home that you can re-organize. If there are scattered items, then group them together. Once you’ve sorted everything, find or make a “home” for similar items, label the “homes,” and put them in the proper places.

Declutter regularly

Find time each week to organize. Highly organized people make sure they find time every week or more to organize their things. Stuff does not stay organized on its own; it needs to be reorganized continuously and consistently.

Keep only what you need

More stuff means more clutter. People who live organized lives only keep what they need and what they really-really want. Having fewer things also means that you enjoy those things more and feel better about using everything you own, rather than letting half of what you own collect dust. Have you ever felt like you don’t have the space to keep all the stuff you own? Instead of renting a storage unit or buying a larger home, get rid of some things.

Delegate responsibilities

A really organized life is not overfilled with responsibilities, meetings and deadlines. In fact, it has less because things that create stress have been slowly organized out. Go through your task list and find one task that you can remove from your list or give to someone else. Now feel the stress of having to do it fall away.