We’re 15 days into Growth from A to Z and today is O – Organization. Organization spans a few different categories. There’s organization of “stuff” (physical objects), organization of time, and organization of processes.
Organizing “Stuff”
If you’re looking to organize your belongings, my top recommendation by a long shot is Julie Morgenstern’s Organizing from the Inside Out. She addresses both the practical difficulties of organization and the psychological barriers to getting organized. This is a highly practical book, with a simple-to-follow “formula” or framework you can walk through with each organizing project.
This is actually one of top picks among all homemaking-related books, and when it comes to organization of physical items, I don’t believe I can improve on it at all, so I’ll just encourage you to read it if you haven’t. (Your library probably has it.)
Organizing Time
When it comes to organizing time (or, rather, our use of it), things get a little trickier, because personal preferences come more strongly into play. Do you prefer rigid schedules (a la Managers of Their Homes) or looser routines? Keeping your calendar on the computer or on paper? A calendar that uses a layout of days or of weeks?
I really like the Getting Things Done (GTD) method because it brings some key concepts together better than any other single source I’ve seen. But it isn’t without its shortcomings, and it isn’t a total solution. It’s a general method of using a personal planning system (like a day planner) but it isn’t tied to a particular personal planning system. There are many, many options, from spiral-bound day planners to ring-bound system to index cards to bullet journals — and that’s without even getting into digital options! It’s important to choose whatever works best for you.
At the bare minimum, you’ll want to have a calendar, a to-do list, and some way to “contain” them — in whatever form those three things might take. If you’ve ever struggled over how to keep a to-do list that works well, The To-Do List Formula is a Kindle book that does a really good job breaking down the elements that make a good to-do list work. (You might not agree with every detail, but if you don’t, you’ll know why. He does seem to have a couple misunderstandings about GTD, though — most notably the function of “next actions.”) In fact, the elements of GTD that were most eye-opening for me are among the elements he highlights as critical.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free ProductivityTo-Do List Formula: A Stress-Free Guide To Creating To-Do Lists That Work!Beyond Bullets: Creative Journaling Ideas to Customize Your Personal Productivity System
Organizing Processes
The most often-overlooked organizational need is organizing processes, creating systems for the flow of activities that happen in your life. How does the mail come into your home and then get processed? How do you ensure that everything in the house gets cleaned sooner or later? How do you stay on top of the usage and repurchase of various products? These things are processes.
I have an entire organizing series here on the blog. It doesn’t really cover “stuff” organization, but it addresses much within the other two categories, and the bulk of it is these processes. It has its own table of contents, so rather than repeat that here, I’ll just let you hop over there and you can easily see which posts you want to read.
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