Getting Organized

Are you one of those people who think getting organized means to arrange a party and having fun? Well, it’s good that you have a lively spirit but no, getting organized means to get yourself and your surroundings in order. These are the following steps you need to review, in order to get yourself better organized.

Documentation Confidentiality
Firstly, get yourself a personal shredder. Get a cross-cut type shredder if possible, as it is more secure. It is more common that you either just squash the unwanted document or tear it to bits and throw in your bin. Unfortunately, you are compromising your personal information as you just do not know where your paper waste will end up.

File Your Documents
Learn to keep a proper filing method. Take time to sort out the documents and keep your files properly labelled. I have created a template using Microsoft Word to generate labels suitable for a 50mm plastic file that have convenient label slots. Clearly printed file labels makes it easy to arrange and later find your files too.

Within the file, I have either 5-part or 10-part separators that are labelled to indicate the related sub-document section. Using this method, I know where my documents are placed. Whether you are filing documents at your office or at home, proper filing procedure is essential. Having a Thermal Label Printer also helps you to print labels for your storage boxes, file-separators and more.

Digital Documentation and Security
As I am also a very much paperless person, all documents that I have digitized, are stored in three different hard disk drives. One being original, and two other hard disks, being my redundant backups. Similarly, in my computer, I have primary directories and subdirectories created so that I can find my files easily. Avoid saving all your files in DOCUMENTS directory and using the SEARCH function to locate a specific document when you need it. By doing so, it becomes really messy and disorganized.

Organize by Planning
Be kind to yourself! You cannot just do all organizing activities at the same time. Learn to effectively manage your time and tasks. When you write down a list of the tasks you need to accomplish, by giving a timeline to complete; you will successfully accomplish your goals. Take steps and learn to plan well. It is very rewarding.

Goal Setting
No football or soccer scoring here. Your goals are something you aim to achieve and you need to be specific about it by defining the details of your goal and timeline to accomplish it. The next part is the tasks you write down in detail, that you need to follow through, in order to obtain the outcome of your goal. To be successful in accomplishing your goals, you need to have firm determination, persistence and also patience, as time is your essence. So, manage your time well.

Deadlines and Priorities
Without deadlines, you will be just floating around taking your own sweet time to firstly procrastinate. Don’t do this! When writing your goals, you are also creating the tasks related to each goal. Both are followed through with the target timeline to accomplish. What you need is the sequence to identify by the urgency, priority, due date and a chart to keep your progress.

Many versions of time management options are available in a portable Time Planner, application or just manually creating it in your notebook. If you write it down, you will most probably get it done. If you say that you have thought about what you need to do next weekend and nothing is noted in writing with a timeline to accomplish, high possibility of you not doing anything is very obvious.

Discipline
In my blog, ‘The Mystery of Time Management‘, I have mentioned that discipline is the root factor which refrains you from procrastinating and manage your time better. In fact, with discipline, you will have the ability to be persistent in your determination. They are all intertwined. You just need to look clearly within yourself, your flaws and make better of yourself.