Organize Yourself

Keeping life organized often feels like a juggling act. Just as swiftly as you move to catch one ball – say finances, family commitments, or fun with friends – the next one is hurtling towards you. Unfortunately, some balls are bound to hit the ground: weeks failing to prioritize sleep, fast food instead of meal prep, and procrastinating with low-impact tasks instead of focusing on deep work.

Instead of throwing life’s tasks in the air in hopes you’ll somehow manage to catch them all, follow a framework to keep every area of your life in order.

The result is getting more done while feeling less stressed. Less juggling, more living. 

The Organize Your Life Framework

Rules can feel rigid and joyless: do this, not that. But in reality, following a set of guidelines in life can be freeing. When we have a predetermined set of ways we aim to act, we limit the analysis paralysis that comes with choice and the agony that flows from indecision. That’s not to say that life shouldn’t include some serendipity – we include “Experiment” as part of this framework so you can find the happy accidents in life without feeling like everything is spinning out of control. 

By following simple rules and applying them consistently, you’ll organize your life in a way that adds calm to your days and order to your weeks.

1. Develop habits and build a routine

We all have habits that have solidified in our lives over the years and routines that determine our actions without conscious thought. The question is whether these habits are intentional or simply the result of inertia. 

Build health everyday habits

Good habits set us up for long-term success and make us feel good. Bad habits rob us of our time, health, happiness, and money. Take a look at the habits in your life too see what’s working, what needs to go, and what new habits would help you reach your goals. 

Do you spend hours scrolling through Instagram each day?

Do your monthly bank statements have more takeout line items than you care to admit?

Could you be using your free time to get in more physical activity?

“Ultimately, your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.”

Once you have the habits you want in your life, assemble them in a daily routine that keeps you productive. When you have good habits and can string them together into a strong routine, you can rely less on fleeting motivation and leave minimal room for procrastination and distraction. 

2. Plan ahead

Life has unpredictable twists and turns. That doesn’t mean a little planning doesn’t go a long way. A task manager, like To doist, and a calendar are the tools you need to think and plan in advance and organize your life. 

Set aside time to map out your days and plan your weeks. When you know which day your work presentation is due, you can work backwards and add to-dos to your task manager to get it done. If you capture when your kid’s parent-teacher conferences are in your calendar, you can rest easier knowing that things aren’t slipping through the cracks. 

Here are a few tips for planning:

Plan and schedule in the small things – they add up! (e.g. laundry, cleaning, etc)

Dedicate an hour a week to planning your week (e.g. friday afternoon, monday morning)

Overestimate how long a task will take you

Try time blocking your day

Of course, the emphasis is on “well-planned”. By scheduling everything on your calendar and adding all your tasks to your to-list, you can work within the confines of your week to give focus to everything that’s important to you.

3. Embrace your natural inclinations

“The best book is the one you can’t put down. The best exercise is the one you enjoy doing every day. The best health food is the one you find tasty. The best work is the work you’d do for free.” – Naval Ravikant

Organizing your life and thoughtfully crafting your habits and routines can quickly become a self-defeating exercise in aspirational living. 

“I should wake up at 5am everyday.”

“I should really switch to veganism.”

“I’m not going to watch any more movies.”

The only problems? You’re a night owl who does your best work at 12AM, you love a good steak, and a good film is how you unwind. To organize your life, opt for habits that fit with your natural inclinations. Be realistic about yourself and embrace what you can conceivably commit to for the long haul. 

Here are a few different areas where you can lean into your natural state:

If you dislike ironing, buy only clothing in wrinkle resistant materials

If you hate going to the gym, join a recreational sports team

If you don’t enjoy reading, listen to podcasts and watch documentaries

By opting for the path of least resistance you can save yourself the time of trying to embrace what you hate and simply opt for what you enjoy. 

4. Consistency over perfection

For many of us, an “all-or-nothing” attitude can be a source of self-sabotage. When we fail to meet the unrealistic expectations we set for ourselves, we throw in the towel altogether. By understanding the impact of incremental progress and the power of compounding effort, we can be more realistic and get more out of life.

The first step is creating realistic plans that fit into our lives: 

Organize Your Life Opt out of unrealistic plans that set you up for failure

Opt out of unrealistic plans that set you up for failure

Unrealistic plans set us up for a spiral of shame and regret when we ultimately fall short of our goal. Make consistency a part of your life and get used to imperfection. By opting for continuous effort towards a realistic aim we create more room for everything we want to do in life. 

5. Find balance

In our attempt to do it all and organize our lives perfectly, balance is often a casualty. Instead of getting to bed, you stay up coding deep into the night. Rather than meeting with friends, you study all weekend for an upcoming midterm. 

While this strategy can work in the short-term, the long-term impacts eventually rear their ugly heads: stress, burnout, and lethargy. Instead, prioritize long-term sustainability with balance and self-care.

Here are a few strategies to consider:

Avoid overextending yourself and spending too much time on work

Prioritize physical activity for its mood-boosting effects

Try meditation, journalling, or cultivating a gratitude practice

Spend time with friends and family

Unwind alone with a good movie or book

Ensure you’re getting enough sleep and avoid all-nighters at all costs

Besides the day-to-day pauses to breathe, make time for longer breaks too. At minimum, try to take week-long breaks from work at least 1-2 times per year. By constantly recharging your batteries, you’ll be able to show up in work and life for yourself and others who depend on you.

6. Prioritize appropriately

“You can do anything, but not everything” – David Allen

One way to make juggling all of life’s demands easier is to intentionally let some balls drop. To make time for what’s important to you, get comfortable with saying, “no”. 

Prioritization is a key tool in the arsenal to organize your life. Doing it all is impossible; prioritizing what’s crucial is within reach. By declining what doesn’t serve your highest goals, you can give your laser focus to what matters.

Productivity Tip: Ensure you’re not confusing importance for urgency. Learn how to avoid the urgency trap with the Eisenhower Matrix productivity method.

Here’s an idea of what to prioritize and what to deprioritize:

Choose the right things to prioritize in life

Know your most important task each day and prioritize it accordingly. By having a strong sense of what’s important and what isn’t, you can make more efficient decisions about where to give your time and energy.

7. Declutter and simplify

It’s hard to feel organized when your mind is in shambles and your office space and house are too. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to make space –physically, digitally, and mentally.

Some of the chaos we feel in our lives is the result of too much stuff, too much to do, too much to think about. Consider this when aiming to organize your life: less is more. 

8. Measure your progress

Whether your goals are big or small, it’s important to measure your progress. There’s a lot of power in knowing what’s working and what’s not. You can allocate more time in your life for activities that are helping you reach your goals. You can cut out the things that are failing to make an impact for you. 

These practices will help you measure your progress:

Have a regular weekly review where you reflect on the passing week and prune your to-do list down to only the essentials

Try out the quantified self method and measure your goals from steps to sleep

9. Automate or outsource

Habits automate for your decision-making. Technology can automate your repetitive tasks. Organize your life by setting up automations that remove active effort and free up your time and energy. 

Think about the areas in your life where you spend time doing manual work that an app or website could do instead. Alternately, consider where outsourcing to someone else could save you time.

There are likely a few tasks in work and life that could use a hands-off approach:

Personal finance (e.g. paying bills, investments, etc.)

Work (e.g. sending emails, coordinating projects, booking, etc.)

Home (e.g. grocery shopping, meal prep, furniture assembly, etc.)

10. Experiment

The last item in the Organize Your Life Framework is one of the most exciting: trying new things and seeking out novel experiences! Just because you’re organized doesn’t mean you can’t make room for messy spontaneity. 

Sometimes things aren’t working out. Other times they’ve gone stale. These are the best times to introduce novelty to our lives and shake ourselves from a routine that just isn’t working anymore. 

There’s any number of ways to escape ruts and grow in the process:

A constant eye on experimentation will bring excitement to life and break you out of periods of plateau.

Applying the Framework

Now that you know the ten aspects of the Organize Your Life framework, you can apply it to any number of areas in your life. By having some specific guidelines, you can approach each area with more confidence and less stress. 

Work

It’s likely you spend the majority of your waking-hours at work. Work represents what most people are actually organizing their lives around. There’s endless conversations on how to organize the time we’re not working – early mornings, during lunch breaks, and after hours into the evening. Less attention is paid to how people should organize their workdays and make the most out of 8 hours you’re likely spending at a desk.