Being Organized

Business Insider recently wrote http://www.businessinsider.com/6-things-organized-people-do-every-day-2014-8 about the things organized people do every day. 

The article contains 6 useful organizational tips, citing research findings to back up the suggestions.   This list, however, can actually be reduced to two main concepts.  We can become better organized by doing the following:

1)   Practicing Mindfulness of the present moment. 

We can start by engaging in one activity at a time, the opposite of multitasking.  If we are in a conversation, we pay full attention to the conversation.  If we are writing, we concentrate on writing.  We stay in the present and delegate our time right now to fully engaging in the activity in front of us.  When other thoughts come into our heads such as thoughts about the future (e.g., “I’m going to another meeting after this”) or the past (“I messed up the last speech I gave”) we gently redirect our thoughts to the task at hand, even if we deem it not as “important” as our other tasks.  If we have other “noise” in our heads, we write it down and save it for later.  We set up reminders to streamline our day so that we can be fully present in each moment.  This act of mindful attention has the benefit of making us more engaged, less pressured, and more effective.

2)    Challenging our Perfectionism. 

We stop when our work on a task is good enough.  We stop trying to be the best at everything.  By letting go of our perfectionism, we paradoxically end up being more productive and enhancing our work on what really matters to us  We pay more attention to what we value and clarify what is really worth striving for.

Ultimately, if we find ourselves struggling with organization, we need to make a change.  Instead of just letting daily tasks pile up, we might try to take a different stance toward our work.  

Liza Guequierre, Ph.D.