7 Things Organized People Do That You Probably Don’t

In today’s world, most jobs have multiple responsibilities. With us being surrounded by a plethora of distractions, being organized can be a godsend skill. Being organized is one of the few universal qualities that are important to have in any employee in any field. On that note, let’s look at some of the core habits of organized people!

Organized workstations can drastically improve productivity. More importantly, staying organized reduces stress and anxiety.

Organized people aren’t born organized, they develop healthy habits over time that help them stay organized. If you are looking to improve your organization game, some of these habits can be easy to incorporate into your daily life.

1. Write Things Down

We all know that one co-worker who never misses attending a meeting, sending a daily report, deadlines, or doing even the smallest of tasks. This isn’t magical; they don’t memorize and remember to do these tasks. The actual reason behind this perfection is in fact as simple as written reminders.

You should in fact write down EVERY TASK that you need complete, no matter how small. You can only create more chaos and anxiety by trying to remember dates and tasks.

Organized people write down everything from shopping lists, birthdays, tasks, important dates and anything else you can think of that takes up brain space.

I was not always an organized person at all when it came to my job. Constantly used to be the person saying “oops my bad. I forgot! will do that now”. Now, I always have one to-do list by my side at all times during work.

I write down even the smallest of tasks: send an email to Lisa, refresh the dashboard, follow up on task XYZ from yesterday, etc. This simple habit has drastically changed my work performance.

And of course, all these tips also translate to becoming a type-A person.

2. Break Down the Big Tasks

To-do lists are great, but only if they contain manageable list items. Instead of putting down one big item on the to-do list, you should instead break it down into multiple steps and put them as different items on the list.

One reason is that when you have items on the list that take a long time, it takes a while before you can cross them off the list. We all know that crossing off items from the to-do list gives a sense of pride and motivation to complete even more items.

Additionally, it is easier to get started on tasks that are quicker compared to tasks that take longer to complete.

For example, if you have to write your resume after being off the job market for a while, your broken down list could look like this:

• Update the format of the resume
• add your latest job details
• review the existing resume content and make updates
• make multiple versions of resumes targetted for different job titles

3. DO NOT Multitask

This is a bit controversial, but organized people actually avoid multitasking when focusing on essential tasks. Multi-tasking can also be chaotic, and organized people are anything but that.

I used to love bragging about how well I multi-task but never asked myself the quality of work I end up with when I multitask.

I used to tell myself I am keeping myself entertained while I work by listening to ‘Friends‘ play in the background. In reality, I was in denial of the fact that I was reading everything three times just to understand the text because of how distracted I would be at times.

Multitasking sounds good in theory but oftentimes results in a single task taking twice as long to complete with poor quality. Multi-tasking oftentimes results in mental chaos and increased anxiety. As you can imagine, chaos doesn’t sit well with those who love organization.

In addition to becoming organized, click here if you are looking for tips on waking up early every day.

4. Place for Everything

Ever wonder why some people’s homes always look organized? You might be surprised to know that those people aren’t constantly cleaning and organizing.

The secret behind their organization is that everything in their house has a place, and nothing new comes in the house if there is no dedicated space for it.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t have one or two junk drawers, however, the majority of the items in your room or home should have their designated places.

Coming home to a clean and organzied space can give you the kind of happiness and comfort that compares to nothing else after a long day of work.

You should take out 5 minutes a day to take a power-stroll through the house and put away anything that is misplaced to its proper space.

Five minutes a day is much easier than spending an entire sunday every couple of months to organize your space (and let’s be honest, it will probably not stay that way if ended up being bad enough to require an entire sunday to organize anyways).

It’s the small habits that you can keep up with every day that add up to the big changes that glow your life up.

This also applies to digital items. Everything you download on your computer should go into a folder or a subfolder.

I used to always save everything directly on my desktop, and my desktop used to look so cluttered. I used to spend a couple of hours every couple of months cleaning it up. Now, I have 12-15 main folders on my desktop, and everything I download or save has to go in the subfolders under these main folders.

5. No Unnecessary Clutter

Organized people consider anything that doesn’t have a place or purpose to be ‘clutter’. Organized people don’t hoard things that they don’t use, not even for a rainy day.

Now, I will say, it is one of the hardest things to develop this mindset. You should have a rule for yourself: anything I haven’t used for X many years goes in the trash.

Personally, it is hard for me to let go of things so I only get rid of things if they don’t have emotional value and haven’t been used for at least a year. If you don’t have any unnecessary clutter, you are already halfway there to making your space look organized.

If you take a look around your home right now, you will immediately start seeing things that you don’t actually need or use. Here is a list of 25 items that you need to get rid of right now.

I’d be lying if I say that I stick to my rule 100% of the times. This is one aspect of staying organized that I am still struggling with and string to improve on. It’s hard though!! I still have multiple boxes full of stuff that never gets used. No shame in not being perfect 🙂

6. Do Not Shop Blindly

Organized people never end up buying things because they think they MIGHT use later in the future. That means:

• No exotic ingredients that you “will” one day incorporate into a recipe
• No buying dresses you don’t have an occasion for but look amazing on you
• No to the yoga mat that you think you will start using if you buy it

Organized people have an ongoing list of personal items they need, items they wish they had, and a list of groceries and household items they need for the week.

If they end up going to a store on a random day, they always have an ongoing grocery list, thus avoiding impulse buys. Whenever they see a sale, they simply check if they can buy any things from their list, thus avoiding purchasing items merely because they are on sale.

I personally follow this rule religiously. This helps impulse buys and actually feel good about checking off items from my lists during a sale.

7. Keep It Realistic

Having an organization system is great, however, it stops being great the moment it requires more effort to keep up than the productivity it provides.

If your organization system is so rigorous that keeping it updated takes a good chunk of time, then it is not actually doing you any good.

You should start with the simplest organization method. You should then only add more rules to it if you aren’t satisfied with the results the system provides.

Bullet journals are good examples of this. I once started bullet journaling and started tracking my food intakes, water intakes, mood, productivity, etc. It turned out that making the graphs to track these and updating them every day became stressful and time consuming. Simply having a couple of blocks in the journal for me to update daily with no obligation was all I actually needed.

8. Don’t Delay What You Can Do Now

Making lists of to-do items is great, but not so great if you don’t follow it. We all have items on our to-do lists that just aren’t that appealing and things that we just aren’t motivated to do.

Well, those items aren’t going to suddenly become appealing at a later time. At a later time, you will want to delay it to an even later time. Organized people do things NOW and get it over with.

Even now, this is one of the hardest rules for me to incorporate into my daily life. I set aside 1 hour every week to complete to-do lists items that have been pending for a while. I usually promise myself a treat/reward after this this focused hour of task completion.

Another trick you can practice is to at least start an unappealing task with no obligation to complete the task now. You will be surprised how much motivation comes from just simply starting it without the pressure of finishing.

Bonus!!

Use technology to your advantage! There are countless technologies resources to help you keep up with your organization goals. Let me know in the comments below if you want to know the best resources out there. Or, let me know what your favorites that you already use. I think it would require a post of its own!!