How to Stay Organized

Work, school, family, friends, gym time, personal time – AH! How do you keep it all together?! Having trouble staying organized? It happens to the best of us. These are our little tips and tricks for staying organized even in the busiest of times.

Use a planner.

I know I know, we aren’t in middle school anymore. But hop back on this bandwagon, kiddos, because I swear having a planner will boost your productivity. While some people opt to use their smartphone calendar for this purpose, I dislike not being able to see events written out over a week or month. Smartphone calendars require you to click on each individual day to see what you’ve got on your schedule, making it incredibly hard to see the big picture. With a physical planner, not only can you map out your work day, but you can toss social events into your agenda so that you can accurately plan out your work/life balance! Agendas don’t have to be dorky – I use this super chic planner by ban.do to keep myself organized.

Plan ahead.

You’re now the proud owner of an agenda – time to use it! The key to staying organized is planning ahead for both work and personal life. It’s really easy to let your to-do list pile up and suddenly you’re crashing and burning as the deadlines approach. By looking forward and planning ahead for the major events to come you’ll be able to tackle your to-do list in a timely, (and most importantly) low-stress manner.

Set alarms.

We all use alarms to force ourselves out of bed every morning, but prepare for next level genius here: use alarms to remind you of things you have to do throughout the day. *insert gasp here* Okay so this isn’t really a new theory, but wow is it helpful. I have alarms to wake up in the morning, to remember to pay my rent, or even to call my family! I imagine my alarm almost like a mini version of me standing on my shoulder politely whispering in my ear that I need to remember to do something. Oh, gosh, thanks for the reminder!

iphone-alarms

Know your limits.

It’s impossible to stay organized if you’re over extending yourself – know your limits! Know how much work and how many social events you can take on, and know when to say no! Unfortunately this may mean passing on drinks with friends if you have a big deadline at work or a midterm at school.

Oh, and don’t forget to schedule a little time for yourself.

How do you stay organized?

xoxo Blonde