As unfinished tasks pile high, you feel swamped. You see your life as complicated by needless delays. You feel out of control. You desperately want to end feeling stressed in this way. You seize upon a solution. You tell yourself, "I'll get better organized." Now the challenge begins.
A basic purpose of getting better organized is to simplify your life and to feel less pressured. You can get further when you ground your efforts to a value that you find worthy of strengthening. This gives you a higher purpose and added incentive to self-improve.
You can simplify your life by operating responsibly, such as persisting with bringing priority tasks to successful conclusions. This value competes with your procrastination urges and can lead to less stress and more worthy accomplishments,
You say you want to stop procrastinating on organizing and following through? Use my flip technique. Instead of putting your attention onto overcoming procrastination, emphasize exercising a value for operating responsibility to simplify your life.
I'll give seven simplification tips for strengthening responsibility by organizing your priorities and 17 for simplifying your life and saving time so you can do more of what you chose.
Organizing Priorities
A priority is something that is important and pressing to do. You can have multiple priorities where one doesn't interfere with the others. You want to maintain a romantic relationship with your mate. You can do this with a deadline for an automobile inspection pending. You can schedule time to meet a work deadline and stick with your weight-loss plan. However, as practically everyone knows, some priorities get shelved and come back to haunt you. Here are seven responsibility building tips to get rid of this type haunting:
- Rank your priorities from one to five. Concentrate on the most important one first.
- Be mindful of important deadlines and time and pace what you do to meet them.
- When working on especially important projects where you have a tight deadline, find a place where you are less likely to feel frustrated by interruptions. However, expect some. Deal with them as they arise.
- Routinely review your priorities and time estimations for addressing them. Modify your goals and plans as new circumstances warrant a change in direction or pace.
- Get a jump on tomorrow. Get some of tomorrow's work completed today. It is easier to continue with what you started than to start from scratch.
- For achieving results that are important for you to accomplish, monitor your progress daily to keep yourself on target with your plans.
- Avoid overscheduling yourself. You're less likely to feel overloaded and overwhelmed.
Organizing to Save Time
Here are 17 time-saving tips:
- Create a workable electronic or mechanical filing system, and use it to stay on track.
- Make use of mechanical organizers such as "in" and "out" boxes, card files, and schedule books.
- Tackle new work at the first possible moment. If you do it when you think of it, or at the first possible opportunity, you'll have one less hassle later.
- Manage unexpected events as soon as you are able.
- Unless you have no other reasonable choice, avoid trying to catch up with what you put off with one magnificent effort. Brief flurries of activities do little to change the procrastination patterns that lead to the flurry. Chip away at the pile, but emphasize corrective actions against procrastination.
- When the mail arrives, immediately rid yourself of obvious junk mail. When you spend time shuffling through junk mail, you're procrastinating on doing something else.
- When a short phone call can substitute for a letter, use the phone.
- If you have a large personal library, organize the books in your library alphabetically or by subject matter so you can find the ones you want quickly.
- Set specific times aside to do predictable, recurring chores. Delegate them when you can.
- Keep important phone numbers where you have easy access to them, and keep your phone list up-to-date.
- Cut down on clutter: old clothing, broken rakes, last year's magazines, etc. True, you could get rid of something that you wish you kept. Some junk may become valuable antiques someday. However, most clutter is not worth saving.
- Take your laptop on trips. Use it to keep up and to get ahead.
- Plan vacations well in advance. You are likely to get your preferred accommodations and can avoid starting your vacation with any uncomfortable last-minute stress.
- Order merchandize from electronic malls.
- When shopping, plan it out. Don't go to the same place twice in the same day, when once will do.
- Purchase gifts during routine shopping trips.
- If you frustrate yourself by misplacing items like your keys, cell phone, or important papers, get into the habit of putting these items in predictable places.
When it comes to getting and staying organized, you'll discover that you'll expand your universe further by doing than by contemplating.
I hear and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand. Chinese proverb
Here is a brand new automated slide presentation where I guide you through the paces of conquering procrastination. Hear and see part 1:
http://goo.gl/cwg44.
For how to get organized part 1, click on:
https://my.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201112/how-get-and-stay-organized-part-1
For how to get organized part 2, click on:
https://my.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-and-sensibility/201112/how-get-and-stay-organized-part-2
For information on using time productively that you'd ordinarily use procrastinating, click on
End Procrastination Now! for additional guidance.
Dr. Bill Knaus
