Making this Disorganised Girl, Organised (Sort Of)

Real talk: I am not a particularly well-organised person. Which is an absolute disaster for someone who is so busy all the time. Being absolutely on top of my to-do list (and in fact, actually having a to-do list) doesn't really come all that naturally to me.

And while it may look to the outside world that I'm completely organised, with my pretty stationary and constant calm demeanour over my workload, I'm actually much better at pretending to have my shit together than at actually having my shit together. So when someone approaches me to add one more thing to my to-do list, or asks me to take on one more commitment, I'll smile sweetly and say of course, but in reality, I'm giving them an incredibly shaky and reluctant thumbs-up while I'm drowning in everything I need to get done.

Perhaps a large part of my issue is being unable to say no, but that's a topic for another post, I think.

After having a pretty big break down a couple of months ago about how I just can't do this, I made a resolution to myself to pull myself together, and put a plan in place to help myself keep on top of things. While I wasn't expecting miracles, or to have a complete overhaul in my organisation levels, I've found that implementing a few little changes has much such a difference in my productivity and made me feel so much more together.

For anyone feeling the same, I thought I would share with you how I got this disorganised girl, organised (sort of).

Bullet Journalling

I've been using a bullet journal on and off for about a year or so now, but since I've started using it properly it's made such a difference to my organisation levels. I started one purely because I couldn't ever find a diary that had everything that I needed, so I decided to make my own! Keeping everything in one place: dates to remember, to-do lists, tasks, birthdays, budgeting is SO much easier. I even put in a cleaning tracker so I can keep on top of housework better, as well as pages to brainstorm blog post ideas, and gratitude pages so that I can reflect on and record things that have made me happy to look back on! It's also really lovely to have another creative outlet, I'm not the most artistic in the world but I enjoy it nonetheless!

Timetabling My Week
It sounds so obvious, but it isn't something I have ever done that much before! Because I work such long hours, free time is rare and when I do have some spare time, I find that I have so much that I could be doing, I just procrastinate until it's time to be somewhere again.

When I say timetabling, I really do mean it in the simplest sense. I've simply allocated a broad task for each evening during the week, assuming that I will have a couple of hours to sit down and get stuff done between getting home from work and in between cooking dinner, watching some TV and going to bed. For example, I have set aside Tuesdays and Sundays as 'writing days', where I aim to focus on writing posts and nothing else. Wednesdays and Thursdays are for admin, and Saturdays are generally for taking photos and tying up any loose ends from the week before. Any specific tasks under those broad headings are up to me, but I find I'm so much more focussed now that I at least have that baseline for my week. And if I have something else going on so I can't do any work at all, that's okay! Because generally, I'm now ahead enough that I can take a break and not feel guilty, which is pretty unheard of for me!


Not Leaving Everything Until the Last Minute!
Okay, this one is still very much a work in progress. Maybe I'll always be a last-minute kinda gal and I need to make my peace with that. But I really am finding that if I plan ahead and stay focussed, the last-minute rush around just before a deadline is less of a frequent occurrence. Fingers crossed I can keep it up, eh?!


How do you like to keep yourself organised? Are you a super-organised person or are you like me, a work in progress? Let me know in the comments!

Love,
Sian xo