How to organize your life in 10 steps

Build your system

1. Introduce good habits into your routine

Habits determine our actions. We do these actions by inertia, even if they are not useful. Think about what you are used to doing.

Good habits	Bad habits
Sleep for 8 hours	Sleep for 5 hours
Read before bed for an hour	Spend the whole evening on TV shows and social networks
Prepare food for future use on Sunday	Eat fast food regularly
Take time to socialize with loved ones	Isolate yourself from communication
Establish a boundary between work and the rest of life	Work until burnout

Analyze which of these activities are beneficial, which ones are best to give up, and which habits to develop to move towards your goals. To reinforce a new habit, be clear about why you need it. This will make it easier to stick to it.

Then create a daily routine based on them. For example, do exercises in the morning to be in good shape. A couple of hours before bedtime, do not look at the phone to sleep better. On weekends, be sure to find time for communication with loved ones or hobbies to recharge with positive emotions. It all depends on your needs. The main thing is that with such a schedule it is easier to overcome lack of motivation, laziness and unnecessary distractions.

2. Plan

Life is, of course, unpredictable, but a little planning doesn't hurt. With its help, you will organize your affairs and save yourself from unnecessary worries. To do this, you need a calendar and any task manager.

Take time to schedule your daily and weekly activities and add them to your calendar. Let's say you need to give a presentation in a few days. You marked it on your calendar. Now calculate what needs to be done in the remaining time and write down the steps in the task manager. He will remind you of them when needed.

Here are some more helpful tips:

List small things like laundry and cleaning, otherwise they will snowball.
Set aside an hour to plan for the coming week. For example, Friday night or Monday morning.
Allow more time for tasks. We usually feel like we can get it done quickly, and this often results in overlaps.
Don't try to fit as much of everything into your calendar as possible. Remember, the point is not to be constantly busy, but to live a stress-free life.

3. Consider your inclinations

Make sure that the organization of life and habits does not turn into violence against yourself. “I have to get up at five in the morning every day”, “I have to switch to vegetarianism”, “I will not watch any more movies” - this is very difficult to adhere to if you are the owl who works best around midnight and cannot live without a good steak and movies help you to relax. Be realistic and consider your inclinations.

This will come in handy in all areas. For example:

Hate ironing - buy things made of non-wrinkling materials.
If you don't like going to the gym, try team sports.
Don't enjoy reading - listen to educational podcasts or watch documentaries.

This will save you time and effort that would have to be spent forcing yourself to do things that you hate.

4. Strive for regularity, not ideal

We often overestimate expectations on an all-or-nothing basis. And without justifying them, we completely abandon what we started. To prevent this from happening again, remind yourself of the benefits of gradual progress. It is better to constantly do something and develop little by little than to do nothing for fear of not reaching the ideal. The first step to doing this is making realistic plans that fit into your life. For example:

Realistic plans	Unrealistic plans
Exercise three times a week	Exercise every day
Watch TV shows no more than five hours a week	Stop watching TV shows
Eat outside the home a maximum of once a week	Never eat in a cafe
Save 30% of your income	Save 80% of your income
Walk with children in the park three times a week	Walk with children in the park every day

Unrealistic plans inevitably lead to disappointment and shame that nothing is working out. Therefore, strive for gradual progress and realistic goals.

5. Look for balance

It is the balance that suffers when we strive to redo everything. For example, instead of going to bed, we sit up at work. Instead of unwinding, we spend the whole weekend preparing for the exam. This makes sense in the short term, but if you continue like this, there will be negative consequences: stress, burnout, apathy. Try to think about stability in the long term.

Don't wear yourself out by staying late at work all the time.
Don't neglect physical activity. It is good for both health and mood.
Try meditating, journaling, or developing a sense of gratitude.
Connect with family and friends.
Spend time with yourself.
Get enough sleep.

Take a few breaks throughout the day to just breathe out and relax, and don't forget to take a vacation. Take a break from work at least a couple of times a year. This kind of recharge will help you feel better and be more efficient in all areas.

6. Prioritize

To find time for what is important, you need to say no to something else. Think about what is most important to you. After that, it will be easier to structure the day. For example:

Priority	Unimportant
What brings you closer to the goal	What distracts from goals
Everything in your "genius zone" (the sphere of talents and skills)	Everything that can be delegated
What makes you happy	What makes you upset or doesn't care
High priority tasks	Low priority tasks
Growth and learning opportunities	Opportunities you've already encountered

7. Get rid of excess and simplify processes

Disorder in life is often associated with too many things, deeds and thoughts. Therefore, when organizing it, remember: less is more.

1. Clear physical space:

Sort your clothes regularly and dispose of unnecessary ones. For more simplicity, go for a capsule wardrobe.
Clean your work area to avoid distractions.
Reduce the amount of things in your home. What you no longer use, sell, donate to charity or recycling.

2. Clear the digital space:

Check your calendar regularly and skip non-important events.
Tidy up the task manager: archive what you have done, delete what you changed your mind about.
Clean up your computer desktop and don't clutter it up.

3. Clear the mental space:

Write down important ideas and thoughts to keep them out of your head.
Do not put off difficult conversations so as not to become isolated in resentment and discontent.
When you are nervous or overwhelmed by thoughts, meditate or go for a walk.

8. Track your progress

This will show you what works and what doesn't. You will be able to spend more time on things that help you move towards your goals, and get rid of things that do not bring results. Here are some approaches:

Weekly revision. Evaluate the past week and your progress, remove everything unnecessary from the list of tasks.
System (Objectives and Key Results, or OKR). It helps to formulate concretely any goals and monitor their implementation.

9. Automate tasks

Habits automate decision making, and technology can automate repetitive tasks. This will save you time and effort.

Think about what repetitive tasks you have that an app, site, or device could do for you. For example:

Personal finance: paying bills, recurring payments, investments.
Job: mailing letters.
Home: cleaning the floor with a robotic vacuum cleaner.

10. Experiment

Being organized does not negate spontaneity and does not mean that you need to give up everything new. It happens that something stops working or you just get bored. This is the perfect time to shake things up and experiment. For example:

Look for new projects (or new jobs).
Try a new workout or sport.
Find a new hobby.
Meet new people.
Try a new method of productivity.

Experiments will add color to life and help break out of periods of stagnation.

Apply this system of rules to different areas of life

Work

1. Get rid of the excess. When the desk is littered with papers and coffee cups, it can be harder to concentrate. When there is a mess in the mail and task manager, it is not clear what to do next. To prevent this from happening, regularly leave time for cleaning:

Before leaving, remove all unnecessary from the table, close unnecessary tabs and programs on the computer. Then you will start the next day with a clean slate.
Set aside several slots of time in which you will sort your mail.
At the end of your day, take 10 minutes to write your to-do list for tomorrow. This way you will know exactly what to do in the morning.

2. Don't forget about deep work. Too often we fall into the trap of urgent matters that leave us no time for serious, focused activity. But it is she who helps to move towards the goal. Set aside a few hours of in-depth work on the most important tasks, and then calmly do other things.

3. Strive to strike a balance between work and personal goals. Even if you love what you do and want to improve in the profession, you still need rest so that burnout does not occur:

Leave work on time, stay only in urgent cases.
On weekends, disconnect from work tasks and spend time with loved ones.
After work, try not to reply to messages from colleagues and do not look into work chats.
Be sure to take a vacation several times a year.

House

1. Establish a routine of good habits. For example:

Make your bed as soon as you get up.
In the evening, wash all dishes so that they do not remain in the sink until the next day.
Put every item back in place after use.
Do a big cleaning once a month.

For recurring events, use a task manager or calendar. Set up reminders for household chores to be done every day, week, month, and more.

2. Get rid of unnecessary things. Check the food in the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets regularly. Use the soon-to-be-expired ones first and discard the spoiled ones. Give away clothes, gadgets, dishes, books, and children's toys that you no longer use.

Health and sports

1. Make health your priority. Do not give up training and proper nutrition when you have a lot of things to do and worry. Physical activity and wholesome food will make you feel better and happier in the long run.

Set aside a few hours on weekends to prepare healthy meals for the week. Schedule your workouts and treat them as important meetings with yourself that cannot be canceled.

2. Consider your inclinations. Do not force yourself to blindly follow the rules of a fashionable diet or training system, listen to your body. Surely there are healthy foods and exercises that will bring you pleasure, not suffering. So look for your own approach. For example:

If you don't like working out in the gym, try hiking. This will keep you moving and enjoying the fresh air at the same time.
Don't force yourself to eat tasteless diet food; look for healthy and tasty alternatives to your favorite foods.
If you can't work out in the morning, add short stretches of physical activity throughout the day.

3. Don't strive for perfection. Try to eat the 80/20 rule. Eat healthy 80% of the time, and the remaining 20% eat something tasty but not really healthy. When exercising, don't always try to do your best and exercise every day. Give yourself some rest. For example:

Monday - strength training, 60 minutes.
Tuesday - run, 45 minutes.
Wednesday - rest.
Thursday - yoga, 60 minutes.
Friday - rest.
Saturday - walking tour, 2 hours.
Sunday - rest.

4. Set goals and track your progress towards them. This will help keep you motivated. For example, keep a workout diary, wear a fitness bracelet, record personal bests.

Finance

1. Start budgeting for the month. Subtract recurring expenses and the amount to pay off debts from income, leave some for unforeseen expenses and savings. Use apps so you don't forget anything and always know your financial situation. Review your budget regularly to make sure you are meeting it and make adjustments if necessary.

2. Set aside an amount every month. It can go to a reserve fund or for a specific financial purpose. Even if you can save a little at a time, the number will continue to grow gradually.

3. Set financial goals. For example, for a month, a year, or five years. Let them be specific, for example, to cut expenses on entertainment by 10% or save 100 thousand rubles in a year. Track your progress towards your goal and adjust course if necessary.

4. Automate processes. Let the application transfer funds to a savings account and automatically pay utility bills. You will save yourself from delays and unnecessary worries.

Relationship

1. Set aside time to plan your leisure time together. The older we get, the more things to do and fewer free hours left for spontaneous gatherings. So plan meetings with people who are important to you, and do not wait for an opportunity:

Take responsibility for arranging a meeting and clarifying all the details to make the process easier for others.
Agree with your partner to go on dates regularly and put them on your calendar.
Sign up for the local events newsletter so you always have options for where to go.
Before leaving after the meeting, agree on a time and place for the next time.

How to simplify planning:

Consider the eating habits of other people (perhaps someone is allergic to a certain food, and someone does not eat meat).
Suggest several options for the date and time.
When you have chosen a place, write down the exact address and parking information.
If you want to get together with a large company, create a separate chat in the messenger for discussions.
Choose places suitable for children if a friend cannot leave the child at home.

2. Try to arrange meetings with loved ones on a regular basis so that they do not begin with the phrase "We have not seen each other for a hundred years."

Reimagine the interaction format. Instead of long dinners, for which it is difficult to find time, try to include communication in your daily routine: doing small things together, going to workouts, cooking, watching movies at home.

If you and your friends are far from each other, make video calls or phone calls. This is more like live communication than just chatting in instant messengers, and will strengthen the relationship more.

And remember, organization is not about adhering to a schedule. Just follow the 10 rules described. Build your life around them so that it becomes calmer and more fulfilling.