How to organize yourself?
When you have got many things going on in your life at the same time, you become confused and scattered. You don’t know which task to do first. You get lost in that thinking moment.
I like to use this question when I am in that state: What is important to me here? What matters most? You have to prioritize. You may ask: But isn’t this going to make me look selfish, like I am focusing on myself only? Well the life you are living and leading with all its ups and downs are yours and not for anyone else. If you prioritize everyone also, you would of course become confused and overly stretched. The time would never be enough for you because you try to accommodate everyone. Its all about balance and nothing is personal here.
So what are the typical areas you may think of when you organize yourself? Well for a person like me, they are the family life, the career life and the business life at the moment. Its like most of the tasks at work are hanging there until you come back from your travelling.
Since you clarified the areas that have high priority to you now, you may organize yourself by first blocking the time slots necessary to complete your activities throughout your days. For example, you may block a time slot from 5 am to 7 am for your morning routine, 8 am to 2 pm for your daily work, 4 pm to 6 pm for your business work and 6 pm to 9 pm for your family. This time blocking habit really shows you how your time is being spent and what can be done throughout the day.
Second remember to use leverage whenever and wherever you can. What we mean by leverage? It means letting other people help you with their experience and knowledge too. This can be hard for someone struggling with a perfectionist mindset. But when you try to do everything yourself, you get burned out end of the day. It becomes tricky to balance your life and live peacefully.
Some of the tasks where you can use leverage to your advantage are: hiring a part time to help you around the home (cleaning and arranging), allowing the extended family to support you with kids when you are at work, and using other professionals in the business field to help you with the related tasks.
Third, track your daily activities. Check which tasks were completed and which weren’t and why. Tracking your daily tasks doesn’t mean to judge or blame you. But rather it shows you your days and time and how you used them. It is like a reminder to tell you the tasks you finished and the tasks that are pending. Remember the difference between the important and the urgent. Sometimes when sudden situations pop in your way, you think it is urgent and you delay your important tasks. Not all sudden situations are urgent. Maybe they look urgent to you because someone else is unknowingly pushing you to do it.
The important is the task that matter to you the most but doesn’t look urgent from the outside. However the effect of not doing the important task will happen in the long run. That’s why it is important. And we, human species, are used to the short term effect. That’s why we run behind the small short-term urgent tasks and forget or neglect the important long-term tasks.
Finally, remember organizing yourself and your life doesn’t mean to stress yourself out and think obsessively about it. It means to give yourself the space and time to do your activities in a reasonable manner. It means to open up mental and emotional doors for you when you go out there and check off the to-do list boxes in your daily calendar.