Organize Your Thoughts, Organize Your Life

Jul 19, 2021



Writing things down, putting them in your phone, having accountability meetings, pondering, brainstorming, the list goes on and on for ways to keep you on track for your daily activities and goals. It can feel like a whirl wind if you are not careful and gasps for air like you are trying to keep a float.

Sounds about right? Well a piece advice given to me that helps me measure when things get chaotic is this. "The Outside is a reflection of the Inside." 








Think about it. So for me, when my environment is not clear and organized then I know that there are too many things floating around in the mind and its time to pull in and get back on track.

One thing, if you are like me, then most likely there are many of things to manage in your daily life. Outside of personal, you may have categories for your work environment and then family and/or volunteer.

Whatever it may be, establishing a workflow that is conducive for you is needed to successfully achieve your goals. The thing is not to pile in everything in a day. Here are some tips that I have found beneficial to be successful with organizing my thoughts and executing things.

 

  1. Identify the number of aspects in your life and make a listing for each one. 
  • I have found creating a spreadsheet is beneficial with listing these categories across. 
  1. Accept things. 
  •  Some activities will be required daily as well as others may be a one time project.
  •  There are some things that you cannot change.
  1. Understand you need rest and exercise to be successful and alert with accomplishing your tasks. 
  • With a good night rest and even a nap, you will find greater results by giving the body what it needs. 
  • The exercise, stimulates blood flow and oxygen to your brain, so even 10 minutes a day will give you a boost through your day. 
  • So make time for each of these! :)
  1. List the days you are committed to work. 
  • For the spreadsheet, I list this vertically down. While the categories are listed across (horizontally).

Putting all these together, you are now ready to start writing things down to get things done. Then from there, add to my calendar if needed. The key thing here is to pace yourself. It is easy to get excited that you are getting somewhere, when starting this task or any like it with writing task and projects out. This somewhere is just getting out of the forest though, so bring it down a few notches and look at what needs to get done to set a feasible pace. 

 

A pace is needed to keep a balance in your life. Remember you are still human and needing family time, you time, exercise, meditation, fun, child raising, career building, home maintaining, bills & finance management, future goals and retirement are all things that should be on your list to get tied in somewhere (unless kids are not on the bucket list). 

 

Here is a sample layout of how you may categorize things and list out the days:

 

FOCUS BLOCK                                                               Week of: ___________

                      Career      Administrative       Personal        Entrepreneur         Study/Learning           Kids/Goals

 

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

 

 

I wanted to speak about pacing yourself first. By pacing yourself, you understand that not everything has to be listed out on the first sheet. Create mini check off's your list to build your positive energy and feel closer to success. The more positive energy you have, the more positive things you will attract into your life on these things that you are focused on.

 

This is key to success. Always maintain a positive attitude.

 

Keep your list maintainable and small, achievable. This prevents things from rolling over into the next week. Yes, the next week, I left Sunday off as a day to complete the tasks for that week. With knowing where you are going and putting things out, you allow yourself some flexibility to think clear by taking the clouds or rambled thoughts and to do's out of your head.

 

You allow creativity to step in and be a better you. 

 

Quick Tips: 

  • establish deadlines
  • if you have a project either break it out in small parts over a course of time or knock the one big project and a bunch of smaller tasks for the day or week. 
  • do the big one first. if you need a break then knock out a task (could be a workout --walk maybe? phone call? -- you get the picture)

It is never to late to start organizing or restructuring to meet your new goals. Life has a way of changing and we have to be flexible in whatever ways to best move with the flow. If you fail a couple of times with this or any thing on your list, Go back to point number 2, restrategize, determine your resources and pull forward again.

 

Remember, failure is a part of success. Just stay focused and balanced as you go through your day, your week, month or year. At the end of the day, you only have today so make your thoughts your best.