How I Stay Organized & Plan My Time Effectively

Organization and planning are things that I have only come to embrace in my life during my years in university. See, I was a mess before. I may have used my memory to remember everything but I NEVER, EVER wrote in planners. I remember being in middle school and my grade 8 teacher would check our planners every Thursday. If it wasn't filled out by us and signed by our parents, we would receive consequences. I was the type of student, at the time, who scribbled in stuff late Wednesday night, had my mom sign it and present it to my teacher the next day.

While my 13-year-old self saw that as tedious and time consuming, my 24-year-old self thanks herself for trying to instil something in my life that would become a vital part in it over 10 years later.

Now, I am an organization freak. The desk I am writing from is coordinated to the T. Notebooks and pens to my right, other stationary to my write in a beautifully sectioned off caddy. My iMac there in case I need to hop on and do some work. I have two planners - one is a day planner and one is a weekly planner. I use my weekly planner to plan out my week as an overview while my day planner is used to for specific details. I try not to get upset if I don't follow my schedule 100% but I do try to stay on track. I use sticky notes and notepads. Also, Google Calendar has become the apple of my eye (no joke!). Now if people want to meet up for coffee, they can see my calendar and see when I am free between classes, meetings and other stuff that consumes my time. Now, I can safely say that my life has greatly improved after I stopped being stubborn and dived into the world of organization.

I KEEP IT SIMPLE

While I am one who loves colour, when it comes to my planner, black and white is how I roll. However, if something important needs to be written, I write it in red. I find too many colours distracting when trying to retrieve important dates and information and by having a simple and clean planner, I am able to see what I need to do easier.

GIVING MYSELF SPACE

I like to give myself time to let things naturally happen. While I like to stay on schedule, I feel it's really important for me to give myself some leeway as a buffer. So for example something that would most likely take 1 hour to do, I give myself 1 hour 15 minutes or 1 hour 30 minutes just so I don't need to rush from one task to another.

I SET SHORT AND LONG TERM GOALS REGULARLY

I am an avid fan of goal-setting. Whether it be for my personal brand, my business, faith or even my career aspirations, I love goal-setting while keeping the present in mind. Something I talked about here before is destination addiction and that is something that can happen when you’re focusing on the future and not at your present. It is great to strive for a better future but if you are not aware of your present and you don’t set realistic goals, you’ll set yourself up for failure. That being said, I find to always exceed my capabilities slightly so I see growth within myself.

I SET PRIORITY LISTS ON A QUARTERLY BASIS

I have a list of different areas in my life that I prioritize. I rank them from 1-5 (or beyond). I set these priority lists so I can have a scope of what I should strive for. It’s super important to help you stay on track

So everyone, tell me how you stay organized. I would love to hear some different ways to perhaps refine my own habits as well. To everyone going back to school and work today, I hope it goes well and that 2019 brings you a year of clarity, success and refinement.