Simple Organization Tips for a Stress-Free Life

Organisation is the process of arranging your surroundings, your time, and your tasks in such a manner that it reduces any confusion and saves energy. Organisation does not necessarily mean having an organized house, nor does it imply a fixed schedule or system. It means creating simple systems that will enable you to find things that you require, finish things that you start, and reduce energy consumption while making decisions. An organized atmosphere makes you able to focus on the things that matter.

Start Small: Declutter One Space at a Time

It’s rarely a good idea to spend an entire weekend tackling all the things that need to get done around the house or at work. It’s daunting and most people quit halfway. It’s better to select one area and complete it before moving on to the next.

Pick something easy, such as a kitchen drawer, a desk, or the email inbox. After this is completed, you receive a small success. That victory propels them forward in preparation for their next mission.

Here are a couple of good beginnings:

• A junk drawer or bathroom cabinet
• Your vehicle’s glove box
• There’s one shelf in your closet
• The apps that are installed on the home screen of your phone.

Little bits of completed work are more of an accumulation than large bits of unfinished work.

Build Simple Daily Routines

Routines eliminate decision making repeatedly. If you have a routine and it’s the same for both the morning and the evening, you don’t waste as much brain power on deciding what to do next.

You don’t have to come up with a complicated plan. It is not necessary to develop an extended and repetitive drill. For instance, doing a few things the night before (such as organizing clothes) or 5 minutes after dinner (cleaning the kitchen) prevents small tasks from becoming a big hassle.

It is not a perfect goal, it is a consistent goal. The absence of one or two days is normal. It doesn’t matter how easy it is to get back into the routine.

Use a Planner or Digital Calendar

If you’re trying to remember all of your tasks, appointments, and deadlines in your head, that’s causing unnecessary stress. If you write things down it takes up space in your brain and it’s less likely that you will forget something important.

Choose a system and use it for the rest of the session. The typical experience of switching between five apps and a notebook is more often than not a recipe for confusion. Sometimes it’s better to have a plain and simple weekly view with all the tasks and appointments displayed at a single glance instead of a more complex setup with too many categories.

If you aren’t sure how you want to begin, try to write down three priorities per day. This helps to keep the list realistic and achievable.

Organize Your Digital Life Too

Most of the focus is on physical clutter, but digital clutter can cause as much stress. A cluttered inbox, a desktop with a host of random files or dozens of unused apps can leave you feeling disorganized even if you’re organized at home.

Take time weekly to declutter the Internet or online space. Remove unwanted files, unsubscribe from unwanted emails and sort files into clearly labeled folders. This is a habit that will make locating things in a timely fashion a lot easier should it become necessary.

Create a Home for Everything

There’s one of the easiest rules of organization: each item must have a designated place to be stored. If they don’t have a designated place, they get scattered and clutter accumulates without you realizing.

It is true for anything physical, such as keys, mail, chargers, and anything digital — and even periodic tasks. When your keys always hang on one hook you don’t spend time searching for it. When bills are always in the same folder, you will never have to worry about missing a payment.

This is one habit that addresses a big part of the disorganization in daily life: Giving Things A Place.

Practice the Ten-Minute Reset

Put away objects in a period of 10 minutes at the end of the day. This could be doing the dishes, tidying up the desk or sorting through loose papers.

This little fail-safe will stop minor spills from turning into major issues. It also equates to having a clear space the following day, and therefore having an easy start to the day and feeling calm from the get-go.

The investment of 10 minutes is not too much, but the return is great each morning when you step into an organized space.

Final Thought 

Being organized isn’t necessarily a perfect solution or a formula that someone else has developed. In essence, it is about establishing minor, manageable habits that bring less friction to your everyday life and more control over your time and space.

Begin in one area, create basic routines and put things in their place. The little changes add up over time to a lower, more manageable level of stress and a more calm and comfortable life.