Everything I’ve Learnt From Being a Mess

Here’s the method I’ve developed for putting my life in order

Being a mess is not easy. I’ve always had trouble keeping stuff in my head and organizing in general. I was the typical guy who forgot they had an exam that day or that left everything for the last minute because I didn’t know where to start. However, over the years, I have tried various methods and, bit by bit, I can say I have overcome my messy nature (at least most of it, anyway). Here is how I did it:

Routines: over and over and over again

First of all, comes establishing routines. Routines help the brain accomodating to the tasks you have to do and reduce the risk of forgetting something. The most difficult part of a routine is to start it; your body is not accustomed to it and you’ll probably forget to do it the first days. My answer to that is simple: use alarms.

My phone is full of alarms for everything important I have to do. One of the routines I established while I was preparing for my exams was the order I studied the subjects. I prepared a schedule of the subjects I had to study and set alarms for the beginning and the end of each subject. I even set an alarm from when to when to exercise, and another one for my leisure time. This way I made sure I didn’t forget anything or that I didn’t spend too much time on one task and couldn’t complete the others.

Setting routines helps you being more efficient and avoiding the feeling of having wasted the day. Routines, however, I found they come with a big disadvantage: it’s difficult to skip them. Let’s be honest, a routine can’t be kept 24/7; things happen and you’ll have to adjust to them, making modifications to your routines. I had forgotten appointments because I was too immersed in my daily habits, and, if that’s the case, what’s the point of having a routine, anyway? Whenever I have something that modifies my routine I write it down. Several times. In several places. Don’t forget to set alarms for these events, too.

Before jumping to the next section, I want to emphasize the importance of scheduling stuff. My dad always says: «You can spend 30 minutes planning and an hour working; or you can spend 10 minutes planning and 3 hours working», I honestly prefer the first option. For this reason, before starting a task — let’s say, an essay — , take some time planning how you’re going to do it, set deadlines («I have to have this part finished by Monday»), and give yourself a margin for error. This way you’ll avoid leaving things for the last minute. The way I like to do it is with an Excel sheet; just make a calendar and set deadlines apart from the one your teacher/boss gave you and set the final deadline at least 3 days before the official one. Apart from this, make a weekly schedule and assign time to each task (e.g.: Mondays from 10:00 to 11:00 am I have to study Photoshop, from 11:00 to 12:00 I will study Google Analytics, etc.). It’s also useful to print it and post it in several places around your home. Do the same thing with a calendar.

So, things to keep in mind from this section:

1. Use alarms to establish routines.
2. Write things down several times, in several places.
3. Take some time for planning things out.

Organisation: how to keep things in their place

I don’t have to tell you how important organising is in order to achieve your goals and, of course, you don’t have to tell me how difficult is to organise when you are, well, disorganized. As with everything, organization comes with practice: you are not getting any better until you start doing it and the more you do it, the better you’ll become at it. However, I’m not going to leave you there — what a sh*tty article it would be, then — . Here are the tools I use to organize myself and minimize the risk of forgetting anything:

Use your phone’s Notes app, or download one. This one is very basic, but it took me a while to use it properly. I started using Google keep, but now personally I prefer Samsung notes, the choice is yours. Try several of them and stick with the one that suits you the most. One good thing about Google Keep, for instance, is the ability to pin notes, so you’ll always have them at the top when you open the app. Use colours to differentiate the notes: I use yellow for important stuff, green for leisure (e.g.: links to articles I want to read later), and white for the rest. Get used to checking your notes app regularly, keep it up to date, and erase those notes that you don’t need anymore. It’s also a good idea to use tags in order to keep everything organised. I have, for instance, a tag for cooking recipes, a tag for games that I want to keep an eye on, and a tag with the map of the underground and the bus schedule of my city.

Another tool, complementary to the notes app is the calendar, do not only use it regularly but make it a widget and dedicate a screen on your phone only to the calendar. That way you can see all the important events of the month with a glimpse. Besides having a calendar on your phone, it’s a good idea to have a physical one as well, so you can, again, write things down in two places. This way you’ll minimise the risk of forgetting whatever it is you wrote down.

The third tool I want to show you is the kanban. It’s a very simple tool, but very effective when it comes to task completion. It consists of three columns: To Do, Doing, and Done. You start by sticking post-its to the first column, each post-it with a task you have to do. Then you choose whatever task you want to do and move it to the “Doing” column. I recommend you not to have more than three tasks in this column at the same time. When you finish a task, move it to the “Done”* column and keep going until you have moved all of the sticky notes from the first column to the last.

An example of a kanban

Usually, if you have a big project going on, you want to divide it into several post-its. What you can do in this case is to use different colours for different projects, so you can keep a visual coherence in the kanban. This tool helps you focusing on a few tasks at a time instead of starting a lot of them and then getting lost in doing so. In order to make a kanban, you can use the Trello app, your computer’s sticky notes app or, if you prefer to do it manually, I would recommend using either a DIN A3 or three DIN A4 sheets, so it’s big enough for all your projects.

*Side note: I just want to note the importance of the “Done” column. You may think that after completing a task you should just toss the post-it in question and start another task. Don’t. The “Done” column, although it may seem useless, serves a double purpose: first, it allows you to keep track of everything you’ve done, so you can make sure you haven’t forgotten anything; and, second, having a visual reminder of your accomplishments helps your morale and will encourage you to keep going, as you watch the “Done” column slowly being filled.

Finally, I want to share one last tool that doesn’t have much to do with reminding stuff but with coming up with ideas for a project and keeping them written down. I’m talking about mind maps.

An example of a mind map

A mind map is a visual representation of all the parts of a project, drawn in an intuitive way. You basically write down the main goal or topic in the middle and then branch out several sub-topics that complement the main one. Mind maps will help you observe the project as a whole, see what’s missing and avoid having to keep everything in your mind. Here is some advice on how to do it:

1. Keep it simple: write down words or small sentences. Keep in mind that this is just a diagram to help you get a bigger picture.
2. Use a divergence-convergence technique: This is like brainstorming on your own: write on a piece of paper every idea that comes to mind, as stupid as it sounds. This is the divergence phase: there are no wrong ideas and even silly ones can help you to come up with something good. Once you have enough ideas, you start the convergence phase: figure out how you can put everything together and rule out those ideas that don’t fit with the rest. Keep in mind that the convergence phase starts after the divergence phase, don’t dismiss ideas from the beginning.
3. Do as many mind maps as you need to: when doing a mind map, people try to do it nice and good looking and that usually leads to frustration when you have to remove something or add extra content. For this very reason, first do a content mind map, where you write down the ideas regardless of how it looks, and after that, you can make a nice looking one. If when doing the nice one you have to add something, do it. Keep in mind that content goes before shape so, again, don’t be afraid to cross out, add or draw whatever you need to, as many times as you need to.

So, things to keep in mind from this section:

1. Use a notes app.
2. Use a calendar app and a physical calendar.
3. Use a kanban.
4. Use mind maps.

Commitment: take your time, but don’t give up

None of this will be of any use if you don’t commit to it. This is the most important part: being mentally prepared to make a change and try your best to make it happen. Of course, this isn’t easy, and the most likely thing to happen is that you will either give up after some time, fail or forget about it. This is completely normal. The key element here is not to be constant — which you should try to — , but to be persistent. Let me explain myself: going to the gym every week is not easy, specially when starting. What’s most likely to happen is that, eventually, something happens and you miss a day or two, and then a week, and then a month. At that moment you have two options: quit or start going again. Choose the latter. It doesn’t matter how many times you skip it, it’s never too late to retake it and, with time, the intermittence will begin to diminish until you develop a habit. This is the same mentality you need to have with this, or with anything else, for that matter. So, even if you are not constant, be persistent. Don’t be afraid to retake it as many times as you need to.

Everything I told you above will help you being persistent: the alarm clocks, the routines, the notes, the kanban… However, these are no lifehacks. If you are looking for an easy way, I’m afraid there isn’t one. Just take your time and don’t give up when things don’t go smooth. As I’ve said before, expect to have difficulties at the beginning but, with time, and only with time, you will develop a habit.

So, things to keep in mind from this section:

1. Commit to it.
2. Be persistent even if you are not constant.
3. This takes time, don’t expect to change overnight.

I hope this article helps you and, of course, feel free to adjust the techniques to yourself so you feel more comfortable.