3 Ways to Organise Your Life That You Never Thought Of
Different ways to get your life in order.
For years, people have been looking for ways to get their lives in order. Celebrities like Marie Kondo have shot to fame with her out-of-the-box way to sort the clutter within your home.
However, it is not just household clutter which makes your life unorganised.
Most people don’t realise there are other steps to take to make your entire life organised outside of decluttering your home. Here are some steps you can take that you may not have thought of.
Organise your Phone.
I never thought that my phone would be a source of unrest in my life.
Folders.
While I had some folders on my phone, they weren’t sorted properly, but I knew where everything was.
It was only when I read a Medium post about the benefits of organising your phone did I try it out.
It took roughly 2 hours for me to organise every single app that was on my phone, putting every app into separate folders.
As you can see, the only apps that I have out of the folders are the ones I use on a daily basis. I sorted them by verb (phone, watch, work etc.) putting a space between each letter made the aesthetic better, which I enjoyed.
Delete apps that you never use, or have not used in months.
Doing this made my life instantly better. I felt like I had a control on my screentime, knowing if I went into a certain folder I would be doing work, or going on social media.
Notifications.
Another way to ensure you have control over your phone is by turning all of your notifications off.
I couldn’t bring myself to turn all of them off, leaving essentials like Whatsapp, Messenger, Calendar and the like, but I turned off everything else.
Doing this makes you less dependant on looking at your notifications. They won’t pop up on your home screen, distracting you from what you are doing. If you want to check the notifications you have to make a conscious decision to open the app.
This will help you immensely if you are easily distracted. It also will help your social media addiction a lot, believe me.
Computer.
Much like organising your phone, getting control of your computer/laptop is one of the best ways to organise your life.
Hard Drive.
Sorting each document into detailed folders will both help you find things easier, and also it will allow you to sort out what you want to keep on your hard drive.
Going through your Downloads folder is the best way to do this. I found multiple university documents which should have been filed which I had thought I lost in there, along with song files or pictures which I hadn’t touched in years.
Not only does it free up space on your hard drive, but it will also make you think about what is essential. If you use your computer mainly for work, then organise folders with work documents and put everything else in a folder named ‘Other’. If you use your computer mainly for play, then visa versa.
Bookmarks.
If you’re like me, then your bookmarks will be the main source of chaos on both your computer and your phone.
Because I go through websites quickly, I often shove a bookmark on them to save whatever I want to go back to.
This has caused my bookmarks folder to become the most cluttered thing I’ve seen in my life so far.
It is so easy to allow yourself to fill your bookmarks up without taking much consideration to its organisation. In turn, like me, you will find your bookmark folder getting abandoned.
Sorting your bookmarks, especially if you always have your bookmark bar available on your browser, is a quick way to bring some efficiency into your daily routine.
Using my bookmarks bar, for example, the first couple of folders are ones that I need to access quickly, which will allow a dropdown so I do not need to go into my bookmarks fully to access them. The next websites are ones that I also need to access quickly on a daily basis. This means my timetable for my university courses, my university online portal, Google Drive (in which I do all of my school work and writing) and my two main email addresses.
When my browser is open, I have organised my bookmarks so that the bar at the top shows each of these so I can access them almost instantly.
Desk.
While many intelligent minds, including Einstein, have condemned a clean desk, it’s important to keep in mind that organisation doesn’t necessarily mean empty.
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign? — Albert Einstein
It is easier to focus when your surroundings are clear, however, it is impossible to keep a clean desk when you are doing something.
I know that to be true when I do my university work, and, after a few hours, I look down at my desk and can hardly see it with the number of notebooks and sticky notes that are lying around.
The way you need to approach this organisation is knowing where the notebooks are to be placed after you have finished working.
On my own desk, I have a medium-sized plastic drawer that I can pull out of the raised platform on my desk. Here, I will shove the things I no longer need to look at. It is not organised, but it is out of my mind when I put things in there.
Out of sight, out of mind, as it were.
The only advice I can give to desk organisation is to just try not to let your desk be overwhelmed. Always keep a conscious mind about where you are placing things within your office space, and it should be manageable.
Organisation.
In these trying times, it is always good to keep an organised mindset. If you take measures to keep your life in order, the rest of the world will calm its chaos.
It will give you an opportunity to get control on your life, even if most of it is spent inside at the moment.
I hope these tips will help you in some way, even if it just to give you food for thought.
Stay safe.
