How to Stay Organized

Being organized comes with several perks. But sometimes, it may not be so easy to stay organized, especially when you have a busy schedule. However, even a busy schedule is not an excuse to be disorganized. So, you need to know how to stay organized in every aspect of your life despite how busy you are.

This article will discuss everything you need to know about being organized and how to stay that way.

All you have to do is read it to the end and then practice all the tips that would be shared.

Why You Need to Stay Organized – How to Stay Organized

There are so many reasons to stay organized.

Knowing these reasons will help strengthen your resolve to become more organized both in your work and home life.

Here are some major advantages of staying organized. 

Increased Productivity

When you are organized, you will always have everything in place and on the ready.

This will in turn help you get things done faster and more efficiently.

You won’t spend valuable time looking for this or that because you know exactly where they are.

You also won’t spend time trying to figure out what you have to do because you have everything planned and figured out.

Helps You Save and Make Money

There are so many ways being organized can help you save money.

For instance, it reduces the chances of you buying things more than once because you can’t find the one you already have.

As someone running a business, it can also help you save money.

How? It’s simple. 

You tend to complete your tasks in record time when you are organized. 

This will give you more time to do other tasks. 

When you complete more tasks, you get to make more money too. 

Boosts Your Self-Confidence – How to Stay Organized

Staying organized can go a long way in boosting your confidence.

You will no longer battle with meeting deadlines, you’d complete more tasks, you’d stop being late, and you generally become more efficient at all you do.

With time, you will start to believe in your abilities and skills.

If you had a little voice in your head constantly telling you negative things and bringing you down, the little voice will keep reducing until you stop hearing it.

Instead of thinking “There’s no way I can get this done”, you’ll start thinking “I can do this”.

You will feel on top of the world knowing that there’s nothing you can’t achieve once you put your mind to it.

Reduces Stress – How to Stay Organized

Being in a disorganized environment can be very overwhelming.

Similarly, having your thoughts thrown all over the place can leave you confused and stressed out.

Putting things in order and organizing your thoughts, actions, and environment will make you feel in control of things going on within and around you.

You will feel at peace knowing that everything is as it should be.

Makes It Easy for You to Adapt to Unforeseen Situations – How to Stay Organized

When something new and unexpected happens, disorganized people will become even more disorganized.

This is because everything around them will be screaming chaos.

But when you had everything in order, if something new and unexpected happens, you will be better equipped to handle the situation.

Because you already have a working system, you can easily figure out what to do with the new situation.

For instance, let’s say you get an emergency call from home and you need to leave work for some days.

If you are organized, you can easily hand over everything to the next person and attend to your emergency.

Improves Creativity

When your environment is organized, and your mind is settled, you’d experience a heightened sense of clarity.

With clarity comes creativity.

Once your mind is clear, there’d be nothing blocking your mind from coming up with brilliant ideas.

Tips On How to Stay Organized

Now that you know all the benefits you can gain from being organized, you most probably are eager to learn how to stay organized.

Well, below are some effective tips you can practice to stay organized.

1. Put Things Away After Use – How to Stay Organized 

To stay organized, you need to learn how to put things back in their place once you finish using them.

You may spend a lot of time organizing your space but it won’t stay organized if you do not put things back where they belong.

So, ensure you do not throw things around your space after organizing it.

Most times, people fail to keep things back in their place because they find it too tedious to do.

But the truth is, most times, it won’t take more than 5 minutes to put things back in their place.

Therefore, instead of thinking that you are too tired to organize things after using them, convince your mind that you can do it.

If you keep piling up things without organizing them, you would start seeing it as a difficult task and keep on piling them up.

By the time you want to organize everything, it most likely would have become more difficult to get it done.

2. Have a Daily To-Do List

Every night or early every morning, make it a habit to create a to-do list for the day.

This way, you will know your priorities for the day and how to handle them to ensure you get everything done.

You’d also be more focused and not let things distract you from completing your tasks.

There are different ways to make a list for your day.

You just have to look for the one that suits you better and then use it to keep your day organized.

However, there are some things you can do to make your list more effective.

For example, you do not necessarily need to write down all the things you need to get done.

Doing this may make it harder for you to stay committed to completing the tasks. 

Instead, you can write out the bigger and most difficult tasks and then just have the little and easier tasks in your head.

Also, ensure you prioritize when making your list.

The important and hard tasks should come before the simple and less important ones.

You may find it better to make your list for the week and then break it down to daily tasks.

If you do this, then make sure you label them appropriately.

For instance, “things I need to do today”, “things I need to do this week”, and so on.

Doing this will help you prioritize better.

3. Learn to Manage Your Time – How to Stay Organized

“Time is money” and you should treat it as such.

You should budget your time the same way you budget your money.

Know the time you have and figure out how much you can spend on important things.

You may feel like the hours in a day are not enough for you to do everything you need to do. 

But once you figure out how to spend your time wisely, you’d see that you have enough time.

Do not waste your time doing irrelevant things.

If you have something more important to do, check what you spend time doing and then remove irrelevant things from your list so you can do important things.

Read this article to learn more about time management. 

4. Use Drawers – How to Stay Organized

Boxes and drawers are there to help you maintain orderliness in your office space and homes.

Do not make them useless; learn to use them. 

Instead of putting all your paperwork on your table, use the drawers.

Also, when using the drawers, make sure you organize things inside them properly.

For instance, you may still waste your precious time looking for items if you put your office stationaries in the same drawer where you have files and documents.

Therefore, ensure you keep things in an orderly manner.

Stationaries can go in one drawer, documents in another, loose items in another, and so on.

5. Write Your Thoughts – How to Stay Organized

You most likely are wondering, “what does writing down my thoughts have to do with staying organized?”

Well, while this won’t help you physically put things in order, it will help you put your thoughts in order.

Keeping your mind organized is as important as keeping your physical space organized.

Whenever a thought comes to your mind, make it a habit to write it out.

A journal or notepad (could be physical or digital) can help you do this.

It is easier to feel disorganized and confused when your thoughts are all over the place.

But when you write your thoughts, you get to slow down and organize your thoughts.

6. Learn to Declutter – How to Stay Organized

If you keep on bringing in new things into your space without taking out the old irrelevant ones, it will only be a matter of time before your space becomes chaotic.

This is why you need to develop the habit of decluttering.

You can do this every week or month; depending on what suits you.

Take your time and go through your things.

Keep the ones that are still important and then put out those you don’t use or need anymore.

In the office setting, most of the things you remove during this process may be papers and other disposable things.

But when you declutter at home, you may have useful items that you just don’t use anymore.

In this case, you can give them out rather than throw them away.

7. Have an Organization Break

When you are busy with work, it may be difficult to pause the flow of work to keep things tidy and organized.

In this case, you can stay organized by taking a 5- or 10-minute break to organize things.  

Put things where they should be.

Evaluate your to-do list and make sure you have not skipped any task for the day.

When you are sure that everything is the way it should be, you can then go back to work. 

8. Keep an Up-to-date Planner

One of the best ways to stay organized is to keep a planner. 

You may have even kept one when you decided to become organized.

But now you do not even know where the planner is, talk more of using it to stay organized.

This should not be so; to stay organized, you need to make sure your planner stays up-to-date.

When you write down your plans for the future, you would be able to manage your time and make sure you do everything you set out to do.

If you do not keep an up-to-date planner, you may not realize when you have a busy schedule ahead until the time comes.

At this point, you would be struggling to get everything done and you won’t do them in an organized manner.

So, always check your planner and update it when you need to.

You don’t have to use a physical planner.

 Your computer or phone can work too; you just need to find a time-scheduling app.

9. Learn How to Say No – How to Stay Organized

Stay organized by reducing the responsibilities you take on.

You may find it hard to stay organized when there’s too much for you to do. 

Yes, it is great to help others, but it should not be to your detriment.

If something will make you feel burdened or stressed out, then it is okay to say no to it.

You do not have to feel obligated to say yes to everything people ask of you.

You should also not feel bad or guilty when you turn people down.

Taking on more than you can handle will leave you feeling less in control and disorganized.

So, when next someone asks for your help, first of all, check your schedule to see if you can take on an additional task.

If you can, fine, accept to help.

But if you can’t, say no without feeling bad about it.

10. Set Deadlines – How to Stay Organized

Having a deadline can help you keep yourself in check so that you do not leave things unattended.

Create accountability that will make you do things when you have to do them.

Setting deadlines will help you stick to the plans you make so that you do not pile them up and disorganize all your plans.

Visit here to read more on the importance of having deadlines in business. 

11. Tell People Around You – How to Stay Organized

Another way to create accountability so that you can stick to your plans is to tell those around you about your plans.

When you tell people your plans, you will always have a reason to get the task done. 

This is because you won’t want to disappoint the people you have told your plans to.

Note that the purpose of telling people your plans is not to make you feel pressurized.

Rather it is to make sure that you see the need to stay organized and do your tasks the way you ought to.

12. Learn to Delegate

One thing you have to know is that you can’t possibly do everything by yourself.

When you have too many tasks at hand, you most likely will become overwhelmed and this may cause you to become disorganized.

Therefore, to stay organized, you need to know how to delegate.

Do not be shy or afraid to seek help when you need it.

At work, delegate duties to your employees.

Make sure that everyone contributes to the overall success of the business by completing helpful tasks that would take the business a step closer to its goals and vision.

13. Reward Yourself for Staying Organized or Completing a Task

You need to motivate yourself to always stay organized.

A great way to achieve this is by rewarding yourself whenever you do a good job of staying organized.

The reward could be anything you know will make you feel great about staying on track and also motivate you to keep staying organized.

It could be a favorite snack or even a few minutes break where you get to do anything you enjoy doing.

Whatever you choose to reward yourself with does not matter.

As far as it gives you a chance to appreciate yourself, then it’s great.

You can even write down your rewards when you are making your to-do list.

For instance, you can write out two tasks and under them write “reward: a 10 mins power nap”.

14. Do Not Lose Track of Important Things – How to Stay Organized

The last thing you want to do is forget what is important and what isn’t.

If you lose track of important things then you won’t be able to prioritize and get things done when they should be done.

You need to constantly remind yourself of your goals and priorities.

Keep your long-term goals in sight.

Reevaluate them from time to time and make sure you are taking steps to reach them.

Your daily goals should be steps to meet your long-term goals.

Stay inspired and do things to motivate yourself so that you won’t get distracted along the way.

15. Avoid Perfectionism – How to Stay Organized

Perhaps you are a perfectionist that often spends more time than necessary on a task, trying to make sure it is perfect before moving on to the next.

If this is the case, then this may be why you can’t stay organized.

When you spend too much time on one task, you won’t have enough time to work on your other tasks for the day.

So, avoid perfectionism; complete your tasks well, but do not try to do the task perfectly.

You can learn more about how to avoid perfectionism by reading this article. 

Conclusion on How to Stay Organized

If you are finding it difficult to stay organized, then the tips shared in this article should help you overcome this issue.

All you need to do is make a conscious effort to do them at all times.