How to Organise Your Life So You Feel Less Stressed
Not everyone is great being organised. In part, being good at organisation comes naturally. But it’s also a skill that we can develop over time. When our surroundings are tidy and daily tasks are planned out and scheduled, it can help us feel less stressed and go about our days with more ease. When our surroundings are untidy, it can increase our stress levels and clutter our minds.
When life feels stressful, one of the ways to find relief and feel in control again is to go through your home or office and organise things. When everything has a place and returns to that place each time, it can help you feel lighter and more settled. It can help you be more productive as you’re not always looking for misplaced items. While organizing takes time initially, it can create more time since you are not wasting it looking for things.
Let go of what you no longer need
Many of us like to hold onto things - whether for sentimental reasons or because we think we may need them in the future. Most of the time, we won’t need these items so they takes up valuable space.
Go through the items in your surroundings and question how long it has been since you used the pieces you are holding onto. What is the likelihood that you will need them in the future? If it’s low, then let it go.
This process can take time, but as you go along you will feel lighter. Work on one room or area at a time and break it up over a few weeks.
“A place for everything and everything in its place.”
Find a space and create systems for the remaining items
The next step is to organise what remains. Keep similar items together and create systems to help it stay that way.
Have a folder or drawer dedicated to holding your paperwork. Have a tray where paperwork goes through the week and schedule half an hour a week for filing to keep things in order.
Develop a system of saving items on your computer into clearly named files rather than straight to the desktop. Set up bookmarks on your browser to save internet pages rather than having fifty open at a time. Delete or file emails straight away once you have read them.
Go through your wardrobe and let go of items that you haven’t worn in years, or at least put them in a case higher up in your wardrobe. I rotate my wardrobe through the seasons. For example, we’re in summer now, so I place my winter clothes in a zipped case higher up in my wardrobe. When it cools, I rotate my summer clothes with the winter pieces. Doing this gives remaining items more space to breathe and makes deciding what to wear easier throughout the week.
Organise periodically
Make it a practice to go through your space and organise periodically. Whether you do it quarterly or biannually, a regular declutter will help you keep in check and prevent things from piling up again. It will remind you that you don’t need as much as you think you do and to be more thoughtful when making future purchases.
Preparing for a busy week
Spending a little time at the end of the week to take note of upcoming commitments and appointments for the following week will help remind you of what your week looks like. It will also encourage you to prepare ahead of time.
If you have a busy day, preparing meals or washing or dry-cleaning ahead of time will reduce the number of things to worry about on those days. It will also help you see if you have double booked, giving you time to reschedule appointments if need be.
Family commitments
Keeping up with the daily demands of a family can also create stress. Once children start doing homework and extracurricular activities, it can add more tasks to family life. Running them back and forth to lessons and training, early morning sessions, and balancing work can be a lot to manage. The mornings can be stressful if unprepared.
Spending time on a weekend to prepare food can help. Making a double batch of dinner can provide a meal on an evening when time is limited. Packing part of the lunchboxes the night before will free up a little time in the morning.
Keeping a calendar on the fridge with school commitments and appointments allows the whole family to see what is on during the week. Going through the week with your partner before the week begins to discuss who will do which pickup and drop off will also reduce tension.
Life is busy. It can be hard to keep up with it all. Taking time to organise our surroundings and schedules will help us better manage our week ahead. When we are organised, we feel in control and less stressed. And we are also more likely to find time to do the things we love.
