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How to get Organized

Organizing your life starts by organizing yourself. It's a very customizable process to help ensure you are operating at your full potential. Most would not take into consideration just how much more productive a well organized person is compared to someone who is unorganized.By organizing your work space, your living area, your car, your work shed, your bedroom and any other location that you spend time will pay off in the long run by a huge margin. Especially in today’s fast pace world where at times you hardly even have time to eat.

Lets start by customizing a location to the activities that are performed in that location in an efficient way. First you need to just pay close attention to what it is your doing in each location. A lot of the time you will find there is an easier, faster, more economical way of doing things by just moving items around a bit. This is also understood as Ergonomics, or tailoring the work environment or any environment for that matter to reduce discomfort and improve efficiency. Of course not all locations are meant for productivity and efficiency for example: effectively storing belongings, files or personal items. You should always try and get rid of items you seldom use or at least store them in areas that are un-obtrusive.

Here are some ways to help manage excess "Stuff"

• Build more storage areas in unused space
• Rent a storage unit
• Purchase storage bins
• Purchase space saver bags
• Build/store upward, hey works for skyscrapers
• Think creatively about how you can reorganize to make more space

As Americans or other westernized cultures, we tend to accumulate lots of stuff. You can also try to cut down on this habit and begin a diet to rid yourself of excess stuff. Throwing things away, donating unused items to charity, giving unused items to friends and relatives, selling items on Ebay, Craigslist or yard sales arel all methods to rid yourself of unused junk. But the best way is try not to accumulate it in the first place or get rid of the old to make room for the new.

Here are some good places you can get rid of the excess "Stuff".

• Sell Excess items Ebay
• List items on Craigslist (free service)
• List items in your local Newspaper classifieds
• List them on Myspace classifieds
• Donate to a Charity foundation - (Charity Finder)
• Give items to friends & Relatives
• Have a gargesale (hey, gives you something to)

Another way to organize and decrease clutter at the same time is by creating a system of organization. For example, simply making use of the phrase “A place for Everything and Everything In its Place”. Designate or design a place for everything, however before you do, make sure it is a simple and natural location by paying attention to how you use a particular space. For example, place a basket near your door with items that need to be mailed. The proximity to the door makes it easy for you to remember and grab items on your way out and the ease of use makes it an enduring system. This system would be considered efficient, easy to follow and keeps your mail from spreading all over your house. So bottom line is simply pay attention to what it is your doing at each location and tailor it to that task, while at the same time limiting the amount stuff you accumulate and keeping it stored and organized properly.

Organizing your Thoughts

(“Keep The Big Picture In Mind”)

After organizing yourself, let’s now examine organizing your thoughts. Today we live in the information age, and a goal should be to ensure we can manage, filter, prioritize and organize the tons of information we take in daily and apply it to accomplish our goals effectively and efficiently. Organizing your thoughts can be difficult for someone with a set way of thinking, but as always it first begins with simply being aware of how you take in information, the simple action of being aware of something prompts action to improve or correct it.

Let’s first begin by taking things to two extremes to help find the middle ground. What if you did not organize absolutely anything? You would lose enormous amounts of time trying to find everything! This is comparable to being scatter brained and lacking focus. The next extreme would be to over-organize. This would be equivalent of mentally over analyzing or being consumed in the details you “could not see the forest for the trees” or become sidetracked by insignificant information.

Some people may have this dilemma more than others. For those who never break the habit eventually our brain, being the adaptive piece of work it is, will try to compensate and accommodate this type of thinking to get the job done. Which is why a person with papers scattered all over his desk can somehow still manage to get work done. However you should take control and instead force yourself to correct the problem. It begins with simply being able to compartmentalize and categorize. You must remaining focused and understand where those compartments or categories should be placed in a hierarchy dictated by goals, priorities and efficiency. Categorizing anything will almost always help improve efficiency and sound thinking. This image below depicts a simple thought process diagram to solve a problem.

I have noticed effective managers can quickly screen and filter information they do not require or is irrelevant to focus in on information that will make a difference in accomplishing their goal. By having a System of Thought allows them to remain focused, efficient and effective in their decision making and information intake. Due to time constraints, large information intake, objectives that always need to be met and a constant focus on efficiency managers develop a more organized thought system than those they manage.

Details at times can be overwhelming, some people have so many tasks or things to complete that at any given time their brain may be getting bombarded with insignificant details mixed with important details, vague data and unclear instructions. So how can you begin a thought process that can filter information quickly and efficiently to make good decisions and think clearly.

First By taking a top down approach and focusing on the big picture or the ultimate goal along with prioritizing incoming information will normally always help clarify your thoughts. Then after this process take a bottom up approach, this will help iron out the scattered thoughts and ensure you don’t miss important details in most situations. Also pay attention if you are thinking from a Linear, Relational, Holistic or Brainstorming perspective. Depending on the goal you may need to adjust your frame of thinking between one of these methods. Lastly, always ask yourself, how can I accomplish this? Why is this information Important? Or why is this an important objective? By asking yourself these types of question it prompts you to begin thinking of solutions to your particular issue at hand and encourages critical and strategic thinking.

Organizing your Goals

Goals, who needs them anyway! We hear it over and over again we need goals. But why, isn't life more enjoyable just "living in the moments", "enjoying the unexpected". While a completely carefree life sounds fun, and while true, it can be fun just up and doing things on the spur of the moment, applying this same view long term is in fact not very fun at all.

Goals act as the anchor or place of reference to gauge your location and progress with regards to your ambitions on the journey of life. Without goals your life will simply drift in the ocean without direction and the location you will most likely end up at will be somewhere you don’t want to be. By simply writing down your goals ambitions and aspirations will help to begin making a plan to get there. After all, there would be no point in making a road map when you don't know where you want to go yet. It could be as simple as a list in order by priority and a time frame in what you would like to accomplish.

Most people do have ambition, and want to feel a sense of purpose in life. What most people lack is the ability to make a plan that will get them there and the motivation to take action. This is where you must take the time and learn of all the possible ways to accomplish your goals and learning and improving them constantly as you go along until you reach them. Ambition without passion is useless, make sure you goals are in line with your passion otherwise it will be a long hard and unhappy journey to accomplish them. And as they say, the importance is not only the destination it’s the journey.

In order to find your motivation you should think long and hard about what it is that really makes you happy and what drives you and who you are. Your motivation is like the fuel in your ship, if there isn’t enough of it to make through the wind, rain and storms life will throw your way, you will never reach your destination and if you do you will have had to make lots of sacrifices that will make the accomplishment less meaningful. Make sure the source of your motivation is an enduring one, and make sure the passion is there as well, otherwise unhappiness will find its way in your life quite quickly.