Organization :Simplify Your Way Out Of Clutter

To improve efficiency you have to be organized. 

You can lose a lot of time due to disorganization. The longer it takes to find what you need ends up wasting your most valuable resource – Time.

Remove the clutter and with it you remove the obligations that may come with owning those items. Having stuff that isn’t getting regular use is wasting the money originally spent on it and the money you are spending in housing things and taking up valuable space in your home.

You may not even realize the mental and emotional strain that you are putting on yourself by having so much stuff.

As always, start simple. You may not be able to do an entire home purge. So, keep it simple and go for one room or area of your home. 

#1-Remove everything. Clear out the space you are trying to organize.

#2-Everything goes in 3 piles

• Absolutely need! You regularly touch this item. It has a clear use and need to be in your life. 
• Bye Bye – This pile is the stuff you know for sure you don’t need any longer. You haven’t touched in in the last 6 months. And touching it, to move it from one place to another doesn’t count. 
• Not sure– You aren’t sure you can part with this. You think you need it, you use it occasionally.

#3-Take the items you know you need and begin organizing them to go back into their space.

• Put like items together. 
• Put those items you use most in the closest and most convenient spot. 
• Use bins to keep items together
• Label where appropriate – don’t rely on memory. This takes up valuable mental real estate and increases the chances that you don’t stick with your organizational system. And then ever drawer or closet becomes a junk drawer.
• Put things back as you go. 

 #4-Donate the Bye Bye pile or get a few of your dollars back by using a site like Letgo.com or Mecari.com

#5-The Not Sure pile, that is simple. 

If there was room after putting everything from your Absolutely Need pile then you can consider keeping it. If it has a home, you aren’t sure you can’t part with it and you do use it, then let it survive this purge cycle. Otherwise, if there is no space, then it should move into the Bye Bye pile. 

Rinse and repeat until you have each area of you home organized and clutter free.

You will begin to feel yourself relax, just with these simple steps as you reduce what is weighing you down. 

Similar to how we need to organize our physical spaces to be more productive and to reduce stress, our digital world need maintenance as well.

This is not just about stuff. Declutter your digital life. We all spend a lot of time on our computers, laptops and definitely our phones.

If you are not one of those who are naturally skilled in organization and meticulous in your day to day life – then if you are anything like me, your electronic world starts to look like a junk drawer.

Your desktop can get littered with files and with thousands of apps at our fingertips, we can get buried in a hodgepodge of icons scattered across our phone screens.

Find an organizational system that works for you.

Phone

• Alphabetical is the simplest.
• Sort into folders by use is great. But be careful and ensure that these titles are clear. The default Utilities and Productivity is meaningless and will make it more difficult to keep up with as you add new apps.
• Themed rows or pages is another good way to go.
• How often you use an app is also a natural way to organize your apps. Keeping those you use least often on later pages.

Don’t forget to check out the usage statistics for your apps. Undoubtable there will be some that you just don’t use. Consider removing these as they are wasting space, energy, and valuable real-estate on your screen.

Desktop/Laptop

• Get rid of duplicate files
• Create 3-5 main folders and then sub folders within those
• Do not keep files on your desktop. Put those 3-5 main folder links on your desktop.
• Erase your download folder
• Photos – this is an area you will need organize and probably deserves it’s own article on just photo management. Using a cloud service is a good way to go – it will reduce the footprint on your computer, is easier to organize, and is a good backup in case you have a system issue.

Same as with your phone. If you know you haven’t used a program in 6 months to a year, you can probably delete it.

You spend a lot of time in your electronic world, so it is best to put a little effort into getting organized.

It doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Take it in bite sized bits and make those adjustments. Each time you have to manually search for something on your phone or computer this is wasted time and effort. Time is precious and you never get it back. No reason to waste it because of disorganization.

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For more self-development and the full library of leadership and development topics, check out my blog Unchained Motivation