What Are You the Most and Least Organized About in Your Life?
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Are you very organized in one area of your life and a bit of a mess in another? Even if you generally consider yourself an organized person, that doesn't necessarily mean that your laundry room is pristine or that you know what you're having for dinner on Friday. For example, maybe you've arranged your file cabinets and desk drawers at work so efficiently that you can immediately find anything you want, while your desk at home is covered with books, receipts, and random scribbled notes.
Personally, I'm great at keeping my emails organized (uh, once I actually get them OUT of my inboxes, but let's not talk about that), as well as the various files on my computer and my photo backups in Google Photos. By that I mean I have a ton of folders and subfolders (which, incidentally, has kind of made me feel old ever since reading this story from The Verge). My underwear/sock drawer has always been neatly laid out with these great Container Store organizers, and my (many) craft supplies are all organized in drawers by type of item. In Goodreads, in addition to the default “Read” and “Want to Read” shelves, I keep shelves for e-books that I've downloaded samples of, free e-books that I haven't read yet, and purchased e-books that I haven't read yet.
On the other hand, I don't meal plan (ever), I have random post-it notes all over the place (and occasionally lose important ones), and for me, “laundry day” does not denote a particular day of the week but instead means “the day I realize that I've almost run out of clean underwear.” I've been driving around with a couple boxes of donations for Goodwill for at least a month, and I always leave packing for a trip until the last minute and end up staying up late the night before I travel. I keep forgetting to switch my investment account and bank account statements to e-statements, which means I currently have a big pile of them sitting on my desk. And so on…
(Meanwhile, Kat has written before about her love of lists and tracking information like her health stats, as well as her generally good organization with client files… but she's also written about her incredibly messy office and bedroom.)
Since it's the rare person that stays organized in every area of their life, here are some of our past posts that can help you organize the parts of your life that do need it:
- Three Different Ways to Clean Your Closet
- How to Store Jewelry
- How to Get Started with Digital Photo Books
- The Best Lists To Keep (That Might Seem Obsessive But Are Actually Super Useful)
- Where to Recycle, Donate, and Sell Your Work Clothes
- How to Organize Kids’ Clothes [CorporetteMoms]
- How to Use Your iPhone to Store School Paperwork [CorporetteMoms]
Also, here are some of our suggestions for apps that can really help with organization:
- Remember the Milk (for keeping track of to-dos)
- SaneBox (for taming your email)
- Pocket (for keeping track of articles you want to read/save)
- Key Ring (for storing bar codes of store loyalty cards)
- CalenMob (for integrating your calendar apps)
So do tell, readers: In which areas of your life are you the most organized, and in which areas are you … not? How has this changed over the years? What would you really like to get organized about?
Stay tuned for some of our favorite products for organizing your desk!
Stock photo via Stencil.
Least organized – food. I don’t meal plan, I sometimes get groceries, I sometimes eat out, it has become way less of a priority as it started feeling like a chore.
Become less organized – money/budget. when I made less, I was strict. Now that I have a cushion, I tend to be more flexible.
More organized – work tasks. If I write it on my to-do list, I am way less stressed than wondering what I’m forgetting.
Ladies, I’m planning a trip to London in September. The last time I was there was 10+ years ago. Should I engage a travel agent to help with travel plans, or is this something I can do on my own considering it has been a while since I was there last. The only must-dos is a trip to Liverpool. TIA!
I am hilariously scatty about travel, which drives my husband mad as he likes to research ahead of time / map out routes. “What time is your flight? What hotel are you staying at? Do you know where your conference is?” I just shrug, figure everything is in my calendar, and I have a phone (I am however constantly anxious about my old phone’s battery life because I know I’ll be screwed if it dies). I check in en route to the airport because you get a better free seat that way (they allocate the good seats last because they want people to pay for them). I want to get to the airport early enough to peak into the bookshop and get a cup of tea and a cookie at Pret, and then board with no waiting.
I think it’s because I fly 2x a week, so it never feels like a big deal. But I am either going to show up on the wrong day or miss a flight because I’ve misjudged timing and he will feel vindicated.
I’m very organised with goals and work tasks, with a monthly, weekly, and daily to do list.
Tying that all out, I’m basically that chaotic neutral meme right? It looks chaotic but there is an underlying system I’m using.
Treat yourself to a new phone! Long-lasting battery is surprisingly life changing.
I am far too cheap (and destructive). But I did buy myself one of those giant battery packs and it helps my charging anxiety!
I have a to do list for work and I make a grocery list. That’s about it. My life doesn’t require much organization to be pleasant. I’m rich compared to the majority of the world and don’t really need to budget (I max out retirement options and routinely save so I am plenty secure), have job security, no kids or spouse, and I fix things when they break (I recognize probably not the most financially savvy approach, but I don’t care) or take care of them when they arise (e.g., I get a bill, I pay it).
I also organize no inboxes, personal or professional. It’s a time suck that has yet to bring me any benefit and I find what I need when I need it by searching.
I don’t budget either. We contribute a lot to retirement, which is taken out of our paychecks before we see any money. We have it set up to hit our contribution limits in November so our December paychecks are quite a bit larger and we use that extra money to make our annual 529 contribution for our child. Other than that, we put everything on a credit card and aim to keep the monthly credit card balance commensurate with our combined post-tax, post-retirement savings paychecks. Some months we’re over, some months we’re under, but it usually keeps a pretty steady balance in our cash emergency fund that we use to pay the credit card bills. That said, my husband is going to be going without a paycheck for 3 months this summer and I probably should have budgeted for that. We’re going to draw down our cash emergency fund more than we probably should.
Most organized: work email (I practice inbox zero religiously)
Least organized: personal email (I don’t care)
Everything that’s mine-only is immaculately organized: my home office, my car, my computer files and RAID backups. Anything accessible by the tornado of emotional hoarding I call “husband” is a complete disaster, and I have let those spots go to the wolves. I’ll have a tidy home when I’m a widow.
Organized about:
* Work paperwork / leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in case I’m hit by a bus and someone needs to pick up after me. (This actually paid off a few months ago — I had a family funeral to go to unexpectedly and it took just a few clicks to send over everything my backup needed.)
* Bills. I pay online through my bank, and I can set a payment date for whenever, so I pay the bill when it arrives in the mail (I need the hard copy – if it’s an electronic bill I’ll never remember to do it). I have a list of bills and their approximate due dates in my to-do list app, so if I somehow haven’t checked off a bill for the month, I know to go looking for it in the mail stack. Hard copies of bills get filed for a year then chucked. (No, I probably won’t need them even in that year. But this is better than I used to be.)
* Laundry, washing. I have a sorter for cold/warm/hot things, and when it’s nearly full, that’s a load.
Not organized about:
* Taxes. Every single year I have to track down the tax ID number for that one childcare provider, or look up whether XYZ is deductible. But I file on time, so I guess that’s enough?
* Laundry, putting away. Lots of laundry baskets full of clean clothes. It’s kind of a nightmare.
* My house in general. Husband has ADD-induced chore blindness, I’m a clutter bug. Also kind of a nightmare.
* Email. So many unread newsletters that I can’t bear to delete because “it’s important information!”
More organized: travel planning, taxes, financial stuff in general (although it’s mostly on autopay), personal email (keeping inbox zero and unsubscribing from unwanted distribution lists)
Less organized: work stuff (especially post-Covid)
Least organized: Laundry. I never put it away, it’s so bad.
Treat yourself to a new phone! Long-lasting battery is surprisingly life changing.