Office Closets

How do I become more organised?? (Easy points - no knowledge required, just self experience)?

I am really unorganised and I want to become more organised. I try to have a diary and write everything I need to do or bring in it, but I always forget to use it and I just go back to my unorganised self. What techniques do you use to stay organise? Anything could help me! Thanks!

Public Comments

1. Do stuff on time and on schedule. When something needs to be done, do it, otherwise it will pile up and be harder to manage.
2. Benjamin Franklin was the "king of organization". I use a blackberry, but you can use handwritten lists. I loved Franklin Covey system and I took time management classes at the executive level when I worked in Corporate America. Now that I have kids I need to be organized for them too! You may want to try that too. First you need to set time each morning to organize and plan your day and your life. You need to set aside your goals (long term objectives) vs. short term objectives and then tasks. So a long-term objective may be to graduate college, a short term objective would be research colleges that you are interested in, and a task might be to go to library to get a SAT practice book. You need to break up your "to do" list into tasks like doing laundry v.larger objectives and that add up to a goal. You need to plot your course forward. I took a 3 year plan and my objective was to get promoted to CFO and then I listed all the things that I needed to do to get there. It took me 5 years and I changed companies- but I got there. The trick is to distinguish between your goals and your tasks. You are forcing yourself to keep on a plan so that you will also meet your goals as well as be organized in terms of daily events. Write the tasks you need to do and rate them in importance, put due dates on them and track them as you complete them. You carry each task forward until it is resolved, then you cross it off. If a task brings up another task, then close out finished task and note note tasks. In the beginning you will need to set aside time during the day to catch up. Always physically record your progress, whether it is in a special notebook or a planner, or a blackberry. The most important idea is for you to manage your time so that it works for you and assists you in meeting not only your immediate goals, but your intermediate and long term goals as well. Benjamin Franklin felt that success was a factor of organization and planning....
3. what is the stuff that you always carry with you and refer to like every 5 minute or so? for me, its my handphone. so i always store memo and alarms for important things that i have to do or bring. plus, it's easier cause when you receive a reminder or maybe an announcement to, lets say, submit in an application, you dont need to scramble to find pen and paper to write those stuffs with. just whip up the very useful hand phone and store the info in. =) but very long time ago before i got this handphone, i used to write down my notes in a small book where i can easily carry around in my bag's side pocket. sure, you may forget to use it sometimes, but make it a habit and you'll get used to taking it out now and then just to read it.
4. You obviously feel you are too lax and need to discipline yourself more. You need a taste of neat freakishness. First step: You need to find "a place for everything and everything in it's place". Do you have piles of stuff? Do you not know where else to put it? That stack of papers needs to be organized into labeled files and put onto a bookshelf or in a file cabinet or tossed out if not really needed. The clothes need to be hung up or washed. This is the step where you get rid of that book you are never going to read it again, that shirt that doesn't go with anything, and all the stuff you can call clutter and unnecessary. This will create more places to put the things you wanna keep. Second step: Make Rules for yourself. You will pick up after yourself right after you make a mess. You will keep notes of things you need to do during the day and make a rough schedule for when you will do all the things seeing if you can fit it all in today. Make a rule not to procrastinate it. Keep track of your day's itinerary in a little day to day calendar book and make it a rule to always have it on you. Third step: If you tend to procrastinate, make a list of all the things you have been putting off and think you should do. Draw a circle next to the ones you have put of the longest and a star next to the ones that need most to be taken care of. Go first with the tasks that have both the star and the circle, then the star, then the circle, then the rest. Fourth step: Remember to do things and when to do them. If you're forgetful, remind yourself to do something with a watch alarm or better, a reminder in your phone that will actually tell you what it is you're supposed to do. Don't forget your pocketbook calendar. Blackberries are excellent tools but I do fine without one. Fifth step: Attitude: being clean is fun. If you think it, if you believe it, you'll experience it. Take enjoyment in crossing off your to do list, checking off your appointments etc. as you finish them, cleaning the furniture and your apt/room/house, enjoyment in seeing things clean and organized. Your things existing in a space are like pieces to a puzzle that you create yourself. Finding where each piece fits, looks best, and is most efficient, is the game of neat-freakishness, so play around with it. If all else fails, ask yourself "What would Monica Gellar do?".