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Remember those New Year’s Resolutions you created back here?  Maybe you’re well on your way, haven’t even started, or already failed.  No matter where you are here are tips on keeping organized so you can meet those goals.  Plus, today is Chinese New Year so no matter where you are or whether you get red envelopes, you can start off fresh again!

First off, why organize your life?  Happiness of course!  It sucks spending time looking for misplaced things, feeling frazzled, disorganized and lost (been there!) or looking bad when you’re late or forgot an appointment.  Instead, there’s nothing like the feeling of being on top of it all, reaching your goals, and spending time on the things in life that truly make you alive and fulfilled.  What are the things you really enjoy that being organized would make time for?  Keep that in mind while we go through the (kind of dry) mechanics of how to. Now onward!

Big Picture.  Yearly.

via Pink Circus Shop

Grab that list of goals or New Years Resolutions you’ve made.  If you haven’t made any go here since the point of being organized is getting what you want in life.  Then add all your big dates like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, work or school deadlines etc.   Use a paper or electronic planner.

Plan Next Week This Week

What you’ll accomplish in a year is pretty big so break it down into a workable size called weekly planning.  Choose some time Sunday or Monday morning to plan the upcoming week.  Look at your calendar and what you already have scheduled.  If there’s any preparation to do for any of those appointments, schedule time to do that.  For example, (this example seems silly but I swear it helps) if I have an event like a gig or somewhere I want to make sure I look cute, I schedule time to plan (or shop or make) my outfit so when event time comes it’s a snap.  Scheduling prep time also works for homework assignments, meetings or projects.

Then look at your goals or New Year’s Resolutions list and areas of life you want to make a difference in this week.  List what you want to work on, actions to take to fulfill on them, a measure for that goal, a reward (optional but fun to do), then schedule it all in your planner.  It’s easier than it sounds.

Here’s a page outta my book, literally.

Get creative with actions that will fulfill what you’re looking to accomplish and your rewards.  Rewards can be something small and fun to help motivate you to reach your measure.  For big tasks or projects  you can give yourself big rewards like a weekend out or a splurge buy. Mine are usually small and easy so they don’t involve a lot of time or money but they’re still something I look forward to.

via A Beautiful Mess

For big areas that you could write 100’s of to do’s for, keep a giant list in your phone or notebook of all your ideas toward that goal.  For example, I have a huge list of blog topics to write on but I don’t list those every time in my weekly planning.  Just pick a realistic number of priority actions from that giant list to tackle that week.

Photo Credit

Also make sure you’ve scheduled time for yourself, friends, family, fun, and other areas of life that are important to you in case they aren’t already covered in your above goals.  This step is really important to keep balanced and happy.  Once you have your weekly planning list, “time activate” (aka schedule it in your planner) the time and tasks to work on them this week.

Daily Planning

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If you’ve taken the time to plan your week, you’ll just need 5 minutes at the beginning and end of the day for daily planning.  It seems like extra work but trust me you’ll save more time, stress and be more productive this way.  Whenever I don’t review my to do list at the end of the day, I just end up stressing and spending more time in the morning.  Plus, I heard (don’t know how true it is but it’s worth a shot) when you look at your to do list the night before you work out solutions in your sleep.

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In the morning, take 5 minutes to look over what you have scheduled that day.  It should be filled with appointments and also the actions you added from your weekly planning.  Add anything else you can think of, then prioritize your list by what’s most important to do first, second, etc.  Even if you don’t finish your list, you would have done the most important things first.

Before you go to sleep, take 5 minutes to take a look at your day and move anything you didn’t finish to the next day or a later time you can do it.  Look at the rest of the week and see what else needs to be moved or changed.  Be ok with what you ended up accomplishing today and give yourself a fresh start tomorrow.   Make sure you have those rewards scheduled in too!

Now that you’re organized and accomplished, might as well do it in style.  Click the pictures of planners throughout this post and below for the link:

A Kitty Shaped Hello Kitty Planner?! Yes, please!

Kitties Gossiping

Be A Man

 

I Do Love The Portability and Ease of a Phone Calendar