How to Be More Organized: Take Control and Change Your Life

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In this post, you’ll learn how to be more organized in every area of your life and leave with action tips so you can begin right away.

Ever feel like you’re running in circles just trying to keep up with everyday life? Like your to-do list keeps growing while your free time is slowing disappearing? You’re definitely not alone. Between work, kid’s schedules, managing a household, and trying to remember if you paid the bills, it’s all just a lot.

Life already feels like a non-stop merry-go-round, and when you’re not organized on top of it? That’s when overwhelm really starts to take over. Days start to blur together, tasks pile up, and it starts to feel like there’s never enough time to catch your breath. That’s why learning how to be more organized isn’t just helpful, it’s essential for creating a life that is intentional and manageable.

But here’s the good news, once you really make getting organized a priority, like really commit to it, everything starts to shift for the better. You begin to feel more at peace, grounded, and more in control of your time and energy. Life truly becomes lighter. And instead of drowning in quicksand to keep up, you finally feel like you can breathe again.

Ready to finally get organized? I’m diving into simple, practical ways to help you learn how to be more organized in every area of your life. So, you can feel less stressed and more in control of your life.

Areas of Your Life to Get Organized

In life, there are several key areas where we tend to be either organized or disorganized. You might have certain aspects under control, while other areas feel chaotic or neglected. Sometimes it’s not just one or two areas we need to get organized, and we need to do a life audit to take a deep look at every area. When you tend to these areas and get more organized, life feels more balanced and you feel more in control.

1. 🧠 Organize Your Mind: Clear Mental Clutter to Regain Focus

One of the biggest reasons we feel disorganized in life is because of our minds. A cluttered, racing mind, can leave you feeling scattered, anxious, and burned out. When your thoughts are disorganized, it becomes almost impossible to stay focused. On top of that, negative self talk, like telling yourself you’ll never be an organized person, can prevent you from making positive changes.

Learning how to be organized involves organizing your thoughts and creating mental clarity toward organizing every other part of your life. Here are some ways to get your thoughts more organized and create mental peace:

💭Thought Audit

You probably have heard this quote, “we are the product of our thoughts.” And it’s very true, your mindset shapes your actions. Start by doing a thought audit and remove any thoughts that are holding you back. These thoughts are any limiting thoughts that impact your motivation, behavior, and confidence.

For example, telling yourself “I’ll never be organized” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Replacing negative thoughts with supportive thoughts can change everything.

Reframing your thoughts is a powerful way to improve focus, reduce stress, and stay motivated. If you want to be more organized, it starts with believing that you can.

📔Journal

Your mind is constantly juggling thoughts, worries, ideas, and to-dos. Journaling gives you a chance to brain dump everything on to paper. This frees up mental space so you can think much clearer and helps you prioritize what really matters in life. You can use your journal to track thoughts, habits, plan routines, and reflect on what’s working. Over time, it can become a tool that reduces stress and helps you focus on what really matters.

📝GOALS

What are you trying to achieve in life? Do you have your goals written down? Without something to work toward, life can start to feel dull or directionless. That’s why it’s so important to get clear on your goals, whether they’re big or small.

The key is to write them down. In fact, research by Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University of California, found that people who wrote down their goals were 42% more likely to achieve them.

Your goals can be as simple as eating healthier or as more ambitious as starting your own business. One of my current goals is to start my own business, and I’ve written it down on my phone along with the exact steps I need to take to get there. Having it written out keeps me focused, motivated, and moving forward. If I didn’t have it written down, I could forget what I’m working for or forget the steps to get there.

🕒 2. Time Management: A Key to Staying Organized

Your time is precious, especially when you’re balancing kids and a demanding career. Mastering time management is essential if you’re learning how to be more organized at home, work, and everywhere in between. Here are some strategies to help you use your time more efficiently:

📅 Use a Digital Calendar or Paper Planner

One of the best time organization techniques is to use a calendar. Whether it’s a digital calendar (like Goggle calendar) or a traditional paper planner. Calendars help you plan ahead, keep track of appointments, schedule important events, and manage daily to-dos. You can also schedule workouts, personal time, your self-care routine, and fun activities.

I used to not make it a priority to use a calendar and thought I could remember it all. This just led to more stress for me. Trust me, you would rather not rely on memory alone. When you organize your time effectively, you reduce stress, stay on top of your schedule, and free up mental space to focus on what truly matters.

✅ Make a To-Do List to Stay Focused and Productive

Creating a daily to-do list is one of the simplest and most effective organization habits you can start. A to-do list can help you stay focused and help you reduce procrastination. When you write down everything you need to complete, you’re less likely to forget important tasks or be overwhelmed by life’s responsibilities.

Personally, when I don’t have a to-do list, I feel scattered and unsure of where to begin. My day feels unpredictable, and I end up feeling unproductive. That’s why I rely on a simple daily checklist to prioritize what matters the most. I actually use the notes section of my phone for my daily and weekly to-do’s that way if I’m out, I can just add to the list. If you really want to get organized, this is one of those strategies that everyone recommends.

Prioritize EFFECTIVELY

Sometimes we can overwhelm ourselves with unrealistic long to-do lists that are jut not doable in a single day. I am a big culprit of this and I’m working now to change this. To make it even more effective, try breaking your list into three categories: “Must-Do,” “Should-Do,” and “Nice-to-Do.”

• Must do Category: includes your top 3 non-negotiable tasks you absolutely need to get done in the day.
• Should do Category: Tasks that are important but can wait until your priorities are complete.
• Nice to do Category: Bonus items that you would love to tackle if time would allow it, but they are not urgent.

This is a simple time management strategy, helps you stay organized without feeling defeated if you can’t get to everything on your list. You can always get to the items in the should do and nice to do categories another day. When you prioritize appropriately, you feel less frazzled and more calm.

🕰️Other Time-Saving Techniques

There are certain techniques that help you organize your time to the fullest potential. I personally use the time blocking technique to help me stay focused on tasks. These techniques include:

• Wake up Earlier: Staring your day earlier gives you quiet time to focus on self-care, set intentions, and get a head start on your goals. Research published by JAMA Psychiatry and cited by Harvard Health found that waking up just one hour earlier than usual, without cutting back on sleep, may help lower the risk of depression.
• Time Blocking: is a time management strategy that breaks your available time each day into specific blocks of time and reduces multitasking. As we all know, multitasking doesn’t work. According to Harvard Business Review, in a study 100 productivity hacks, timeboxing or time blocking was the most useful.
• Pomodoro Technique: Pick one task to focus on, set a timer for 25 minutes, and work on that task without any distractions until the timer goes off. Then you take a 5-minute break to reset. After doing this 2-4 more times (called “pomodoros”), then you take a longer break for 15–30 minutes.
• Eat the Frog Technique: Popularized by productivity expert Brian Tracy, this method encourages you to identify the most challenging or dreaded task on your to-do list and tackle it first thing. By focusing on this task until it’s complete, you build momentum that makes it easier to move on to the rest of your day’s activities with confidence and energy.
• Prep the Night Before: Preparing the night before a workday or an event can alleviate stress the next morning. Take a few minutes the night before to set out your children’s outfits, tidy up the kitchen, and place essentials by the door. This set the tone for a calmer, organized day.

📱Manage Time Wasters Or Distractions

Where are you not maximizing your time to the fullest potential? Identifying your biggest time wasters is key to improving productivity and getting more organized. In my opinion, the top time killers include:

1. Procrastination
2. Phone calls
3. Mindless scrolling on social media
4. Constantly checking email
5. Overuse of hand held devices
6. Over-cleaning your home
7. Playing video games for hours

Take an honest look at your time-wasting habits and figure out where you’re wasting the most time. Once you identify the patterns, you can use your time more efficiently and remove anything that’s not serving you.

Outsource AND AUTOMATE: TO FREE UP TIME

Sometimes you need to admit to yourself you can’t do it all, and that’s totally okay. You can outsource help for cleaning, lawn care, child care, or even hire a virtual assistant to manage daily tasks. In essence, you’re buying back your time so you can focus on the things that truly matter.

Automation is all about using technology to handle everyday tasks so you can free up time. I personally hate going grocery shopping, so I do my shopping online and have someone shop for me. It also saves me time because I don’t have to go to the grocery store. When you take things off your plate, you’ll have more energy and mental space for the things you want to do in life. Here are some ways you can automate:

• Setting up automatic bill payments
• Recurring calendar reminders
• Grocery deliveries
• Recurring vitamin and medication deliveries

Schedule Time FOR Self Care to Find Balance

Self-care is essential for finding balance in our busy lives. In an attempt to get everything checked off on our to-do lists, it’s easy to neglect our needs. By stretching ourselves too thin, overworking, or constantly listening to other people’s problems, it can leave us stressed and burnt out.

Instead, try to find balance where you prioritize your well-being. This might mean, having a healthier work-life balance, getting a massage, taking time for your favorite hobby, or spending time with loved ones. You have to fill up your cup before you give to others. Be sure to schedule your self-care time on your calendar. Trust me, it’s not selfish!

🥗3. HEALTH: Your Foundation for an Organized Life

I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, “Your health is your wealth” and it couldn’t be more true. When it comes to organizing your life, prioritizing your health should be at the top of the list. Yet, it’s often the first thing we neglect when life gets busy. But staying healthy gives you the energy and clarity you need to stay organized in every other part of your life. Here are a few simple ways to start organizing your health:

BUILD HEALTHY Habits and Routines

Daily routines are powerful because they add structure and predictability to our lives. By establishing consistent habits like, morning or evening rituals, dedicated planning time, or meal prepping, you eliminate the need to make decisions on the spot. This saves your mental energy from being bogged down and gives you more time in your day. A good way to track your routines and habits is to add them to your calendar. We are the product of our habits, so make sure you’re implementing healthy and positive habits.

📅 Plan Your Meals Monthly + Meal Prep to Save Time

For a long time, I used to plan my meals weekly, and honesty it was time-consuming. Switching to monthly meal planning was a game changer. Instead of coming up with new meals every week, I now rotate 10–20 simple and healthy meals we love, and write them on our family calendar.

I set aside a couple of hours on the weekend to meal prep for the week ahead, which saves me so much time during the week. Meal prepping is a great organization technique to free up more time for yourself after a long day of work. It’s also effective for saving money and a great way to make sure you eat healthy.

💪Prioritize WORKOUTS

We all know that regular exercise is good for our health, but because it’s often difficult to find the time to do it, we often neglect it. Whether you’re juggling work, kids, or both, it’s easy to push working out to the bottom of the to-do list.

You don’t need to workout seven days a week. Only 3–4 workouts per week are enough to boost your energy and improve your mood. Choose workouts you actually enjoy and don’t hate, whether that is walking, strength training, yoga, or dancing like a wild person in your living room.

PRO TIP: Schedule your workouts on your calendar with time blocking.

Other Areas of Health You May Want to Organize

• Sleep: Make sure you’re getting enough sleep. Aim for the recommended 7–9 hours per night to support your overall well-being.
• Annual Doctor Appointments: Schedule your annual doctor visits to stay on top of your health.
• Water intake: Monitor how much water you intake

🏠4. Organizing Your Home: Your Sanctuary

Your home should be a place of comfort and peace, rather than a source of chaos and stress. If your living space is disorganized, it can impact your mood, productivity, and even your mental health. An organized home helps you feel more in control and can improve mental clarity. It also lays the foundation for better daily routines, improved time management, and less day-to-day anxiety. Here are several ways to get organized at home:

DECLUTTER Your Home

It’s difficult to feel truly organized in life when your home is filled with stuff and nothing is in order. A cluttered space, typically leads to a cluttered mind. In fact, a study from Princeton University, found that our physical environment has a direct impact on our ability to concentrate and manage stress. When you have a cluttered home, you tend to have a cluttered mind.

If you’re feeling constantly overwhelmed at home, it may be time to create a more peaceful environment. Check out my post on the best clutter-free home tips to help you simplify, tidy up, and create a home that feels calm and manageable.

Tidy as You Go

The best way to keep an organized house is to clean up as you go. Instead of letting messes pile up and turn into hours of cleaning, take time in your day to tidy up. Finished cooking dinner? Clean up the kitchen right away. Laundry sitting in a basket? Don’t walk past it, fold and put it away. Kids toys all over the place? Pick them up before bedtime. If you want an organized home and life, this is a must.

Give Everything a Home and Label if Needed

Make sure everything in your home has a designated space. When items have a logical home, it’s easier to put things away and find them when you need them. Without a clear home, things pile up quickly and can create visual clutter. If it helps, add labels to bins, drawers, or containers so it’s easy for everyone in your house to keep things where they belong.

🧹Create Realistic Cleaning Schedule

You don’t have to vacuum every day or clean to have an organized and neat home. The key is to create a cleaning routine that’s realistic and sustainable. Aim to do light cleaning once a week, vacuuming, wiping down surfaces, and tidying up each room. Then schedule a monthly deep clean to tackle bigger tasks like sheets, appliances, and closets. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time to keep your home neat. Make sure you get your kids involved with a cleaning chart.

Home Inventory Checklist

A home inventory checklist is a simple yet useful tool if you’re looking for how to be more organized at home and stay on top of your household essentials. I recently created one for my own home, and it’s been so helpful. By keeping track of what I’m running low on and what needs to be restocked, I never forget anything at the store. I also have been able to avoid by duplicates, which not only saves money, but it clears up space too. I highly recommend adding a home inventory checklist to your routine.

Have a System for Paperwork

Yes, even in this digital age, paperwork is still very much a thing. That’s why it’s important to have a system at home to manage it all. I use a filling cabinet in our home office to store all our essential documents. You can even go paperless and look into storing your documents digitally.

If you have kids, trust me, you will accumulate a lot of paperwork over the years. On simple habit that helps, is to tackle mail as you receive it. I sort my mail immediately, toss what I don’t need, and file anything important. If I didn’t have a system, papers would be cluttered all over my house.

💰5. GET YOUR FINANCES IN ORDER

Organizing your finances is another one of the most important areas in life to get in order. If you don’t know where all your money is going or a plan for you or your families future, now is the time to change that. Taking control of your finances can reduce stress and help you feel more secure. Here are some simple, effective ways to start organizing your finances and setting yourself up for long-term success:

SET A BUDGET AND TRACK YOUR SPENDING

Managing your money, starts with setting a budget and tracking your spending. It’s so easy to overspend on random things that we think we need at the moment. Once you set a budget and stick to it, you become more intentional with your spending. You tend to purchase items you need and products that add value to your life.

My husband and I use YNAB (You Need a Budget) to track our spending, and it’s been incredibly helpful. Whether you prefer using an app, an Excel spreadsheet, or even just simple pen and paper, the key is to find something that works for you and stick to it.

Pay off Any Debts

Debt is so stressful and avoidable. Unfortunately, many of Americans are dealing with it. If you’re in debt, the second thing you should do is make it a priority to pay down any debts. Incorporate debt payments into your budgeting system to improve your financial health. If your debt feels overwhelming, consider finding ways to increase your income to help pay it off faster. If you’re not great with credit cards, refrain from using them.

CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR Retirement Account

Another key part of organizing your finances and your life is planning for your future. Contributing to a retirement account, like a 401 (k), IRA, or another plan, helps you build a long-term savings without having to think about it each month. The best part is, you can set automatic contributions through your bank. If you want to retire one day, this is an important step towards financial freedom.

6.Organize your Work life

Staying organized at work not only boosts productivity but helps improve focus and alleviate stress. A well-organized workspace and digital system can make your days smoother and more efficient. Here are a few ways to get started:

Have A System for Completing Tasks

At work, it’s common to have multiple tasks thrown at you at once. Without a clear system in place, this could be very overwhelming. That’s why having a reliable method to manage and prioritize your tasks is essential. Here are some ways to help you complete tasks:

• Use the Eisenhower Matrix: Separate tasks into four categories: 1. Urgent and important, 2. important but urgent, 3. urgent but not important 4. Not urgent or important
• Batch Similar Tasks Together: Group similar tasks together, like responding to emails, filing documents, automating social media posts, or making calls. This reduces the mental energy spent on switching between tasks.
• Time Blocking: Blocking specific blocks of time to certain work tasks without multitasking.
• Break Larger Projects into Smaller Steps: Break large projects into smaller steps so it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Keep your Work Space Clean and Orderly

Keeping a clean and orderly work space sets the tone for a focused and productive day. Take a few minutes at the beginning or end of each work day to clean up your space.

Have a System for your emails

Let’s face it, email overload is real. Between spam, company newsletters, coworker emails or team emails, your inbox can fill up fast. Create folders within your email that say to do, waiting on response, professional development, or any other labels that pertain to your work (you can even color code the folders). Set aside certain times of the day to check your email, delete mail, save emails to labeled folders, and respond.

Have a filing system in place

Just like with physical paperwork at home, having a system for digital and paper documents at work is key. You can store client files, reports, and reference materials in clearly labeled folders on your computer or in your filing cabinets. Regular declutter and throw out or shred old documents.

Don’t Work HardER, Learn to Work Smarter

Society has made us believe that success is about doing more. But real success comes from working smarter, not harder. Instead of burning yourself out at work, focus on strategies that help you use your time and energy wisely. Use tools like digital calendars, task managers (like Trello, Asana, or Todoist), or time-blocking techniques to structure your workday. Working smarter means prioritizing, planning, and protecting your focus.

Conclusion

Keeping up with everything in life sometimes feels impossible. I definitely know that feeling! Learning how to be more organized is the key to making life feel more manageable and less stressful. When you build structure, routines, and habits that support your organization, you simplify daily tasks and improve your quality of life.

Remember organization is not about perfection. Don’t get stuck in that thinking! It’s about creating systems that work for you, so you free up your time and mental space so you can focus on what truly matters in your life. Start small and be patient with yourself, and don’t give up. Over time, you feel more in control, productive, and at peace everyday. If you want to learn more about organization, check out my related posts below.

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