How to Develop Organization Skills
If it sometimes feels as if everyone you know is getting more done during the course of a day than you are, it's not that they've discovered a secret twenty-fifth hour and just aren't telling you about it. The more likely reality is that prioritizing your wants and needs is a skill you've never quite mastered. Fear not! By following a few simple rules, it's only a matter of time before friends and coworkers start asking whether you've cloned yourself in order to accomplish so much between sunrise and sunset.
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Instructions
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Make a list of what you NEED to do versus what you WANT to do. Your list of needs, for instance, will be all the things that have to be performed in the course of a job, in staying on top of bills, in taking care of your family, and in maintaining your household. Your list of wants will be the things that give you pleasure, such as spending time with your family, pursuing a hobby, and taking vacations.
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Identify how much time it realistically takes you to accomplish each of the items on your needs list. To research this, you may need to keep a log for one to three weeks and assess how much time you are spending on each item. What often astonishes people is how much time is frittered away on phone calls, emails, surfing the Internet, and engaging in activities that have absolutely nothing to do with accomplishing one's goals.
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Get in the habit of creating a "To Do" list for yourself every morning. This can either be something as simple as jotting down a list of tasks on your calendar, or setting up an Excel spreadsheet and allocating a specified amount of time to each of the things on your list.
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Estimate how long it will take you to get each of the items on your needs list done. Assuming that you are operating on an eight- to ten-hour cycle, determine how much time you have left over to attend to the items that you really want to do. Translated: the fun stuff.
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Adjust your schedule. If, for example, you have eight hours filled up with things you have to do as a matter of necessity and survival, consider whether getting up an hour earlier or going to bed an hour later would allow you to enjoy some of the activities that you want to do. Let's say, for instance, that you've always wanted to write a novel or get in better shape. If building an extra hour into your day to devote to these pursuits --- and, most importantly, not be interrupted --- would move you closer to your goal, wouldn't it be worth it?
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Assess your long-range goals. For a lot of people, this is daunting, because they feel they have to have an extraordinary amount of time available to them to even get started. Consider this: The average length of a novel is 320 pages. If you were to diligently write only one page a day for 365 days, you'd easily have a completed manuscript at the end of a year. If you break your tasks down into bite-size pieces, they become much more manageable.
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Exercise discipline. The example in Step 6 of writing a novel only works if you're willing to commit to the goal. If, for instance, you have a spurt of genius some afternoon and write six pages instead of just one, that doesn't mean you can then goof off for almost a week. Tomorrow, you still need to be back at your computer and writing that one page a day you committed to.
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Learn to delegate. Sometimes people insist on doing everything themselves because they are afraid that they could be exposed as being expendable to the organization. The more that you can delegate to others --- and, in turn, allow them to grow --- the more time you can free for yourself.
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Tell other people about your quest to get better organized. There's just something about saying your goals out loud that makes them easier to stick with.
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Hold monthly meetings with yourself. If you were a corporation, you'd certainly want to know what was going on, and you'd expect ongoing status reports. Take yourself --- and your goals --- seriously.
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Reward yourself. Maybe it's only a cookie, or maybe it's a weekend getaway. Whatever the prize, you need to constantly and consistently nurture yourself and give praise when goals are met.
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Tips & Warnings
Keep your goals realistic. You're only human, after all. Psychologists have determined that it takes 21 straight days to either embrace a new habit or to break an addictive one. If, for instance, you want to de-clutter your office to get better organized, all you have to do is set aside a certain amount of time every day for 21 days straight to clean up your work space. By Day 22, it will then be impossible NOT to think about being better organized and efficient.
Never compare yourself to someone else. This can either make you feel smug or depressed. The only person you're in this race against is yourself.
