In this week of our Get Organized Challenge, we’re going to continue to reinforce the habits of our first two weeks (keep putting your digital stuff in buckets!) … but also start to organize our physical stuff.
It’s important to note: you don’t have to organize all your physical things! This is just a way to get started.
Please continue do block off 10 minutes a day … and spend it on the following areas:
- Assess your physical stuff
- Start making homes for everything
- Set up a regular review
- Put things in their buckets regularly
- Continue your previous habits
Let’s look at each area briefly.
Assess Your Physical Stuff
For this, don’t try to do all the physical stuff in your life. You’re not trying to organize your entire house, office, garage, etc. Just pick one area that would be useful to get organized, and start there.
A good place to start is your work space — what’s on top of your desk? What’s nearby? Look through your drawers. Make a list of the types of things you have that need to be organized.
Later, you might do this for other areas of your office and/or home. You can do this in small chunks, and it can continue into the next month or two as needed.
Start Making Homes for Everything
Again, do this in chunks. Have a bunch of bills? Make a bills folder, and review it once a week. Have a bunch of photos? Make a folder for photos to digitize, and scan them once a month (or send them to a service to be digitized).
Basically, you want to think about the most common things that come into your life, and pick a bucket for each one. You might make a list of what you’re organizing, and what buckets they go in.
Set Up a Regular Review
Set up a time for each thing — clear your desk at the end of each day, process mail at a certain time, pay bills once a week, process your inbox once a day, etc. Write it out on your list.
Put Things in Their Buckets Regularly
Set reminders for when you’re supposed to put things in their buckets … for example, a reminder for clearing off your desk and processing your paper inbox each day, a weekly mail sorting and bill paying session, etc.
Continue Previous Habits
Spend time reviewing and processing your information, as in previous weeks. It’s important that you stay on top of these, so that they start to become real habits. If you slip up, add some accountability by asking people on your accountability team (join one if you haven’t yet) to hold you accountable — set up consequences if you don’t do it.