New Year’s Resolution #5: Get Organized

A lot of us are disorganized. Our desks, if we’re not careful, can eventually look like miniature versions of hoarder houses.

None of us are born organized. We have to work at it a bit and cultivate some organizational habits.

Organize your mind

Start with getting enough sleep. There’s little chance you’ll be able to get yourself better organized if you’re groping through your day in a haze of brain fog.

One-third of Americans are sleep-deprived and another third are extremely sleep-deprived. So fix that first.

According to WebMD, sleep deprivation leads to decreased performance and alertness, memory and cognitive impairment, stress and occupation injuries. And that’s just in the short term. Long term sleep deprivation can give you a heart attack or a stroke.

Organize your work space

If you’re in a disorganized physical environment, your mind will be unfocused and scattered. Nothing should be on your desk except the things you use every day (or at least on most days) and whatever it is you’re working on at the moment.

If you don’t have anywhere to put all your stuff, get yourself some new cabinets, shelves or paperwork pockets that hang off the side of your desk.

Change your work space

Changing your physical work place once in a while can have the psychological equivalent of clearing everything off your desk. It helps you concentrate on whatever it is you’re working on.

If you work in an office, try working from home once in a while if you can to minimize distractions from your co-workers. If you work from home, try working in a café or a library occasionally.

You might be amazed how much more you can accomplish if you go to a specific place for a specified period of time to do one thing and one thing only.

Organize information

Put all your sources of electronic information in one place on your computer, either on a browser toolbar, a bookmark page, or a file or page you create yourself with links to everything you need to check regularly.

If you have more than one email address, make sure one is your primary address and that all emails from your secondary address or addresses are forwarded to your primary one.

Organize your projects

Write down every single one of your deadlines in one place. You should put them on your calendar, of course, but chances are you have all kinds of other things cluttering up your also, from meetings and lunch dates to doctor’s appointments and days off. You can easily blow a deadline if it’s wedged between six other items on the same date.

Throw things away

Go through your email once a day or once a week and purge everything you don’t need. Likewise with the paperwork on your desk and in your drawers.

You will accumulate a horrendous mass of paperwork if you never get rid of it, and you can waste boat loads of time looking for something if you’re not sure which huge stack it’s buried in.

Don’t think of tossing and recycling as a chore. Think of it as liberation.