How to be organised when you’re a mess of a person

I am so unorganised.

That was the entire post for 7 months. And do you know why? Because I am unorganised: I tend to be late to things, I’m not great at scheduling 2 blog posts a week, and I’m not good at buying birthday presents more than a day before (sorry mum).

My issue is that I like to be impulsive, and the planning or deciding or saving up just take too long. I’m about the buying or the going or the jumping off.

I am one of those people that gets an idea in my head, for example: “I’m going to be a blogger” and then as soon as the motivation dies down, so does the dream. 27 episodes of friends later, and most likely at 3am, a wave of inspiration will come to me: “I’m going to write a blog about how I’m an unorganised mess, maybe that will motivate me to be organised.” And then I’ll forget about it when a new idea comes into my head, e.g. “I’m going to go travelling.” So the post is laid to rest in the drafts folder of my WordPress account with 33 other random ideas (sorry 2017 travel blogs xxxx).

It’s little impulses like this which make it difficult to organise any long term plans in my life. And although these impulses make my life interesting, it can also be a bit of a nuisance. So here is my guide on how to be organised (It is definitely more for myself than for you readers).

1. How do you learn?

It sounds like a weird question, but think back to school… What suited you best when you were revising for exams? Big colourful mind-maps? Reading things over and over, and keeping them in your head?

It’s the same in adult life really… Personally I have always been a visual learner, and I try to use this now when planning things; for example using big A3 sheets of paper and colourful pens for my travel plans, my goals for the month/year. Sometimes I then stick these big posters to my wall if I really need to be more organised. This was especially useful at uni when I was doing about 900 things at a time, and couldn’t afford to forget a single one.

If you’re one of those people that can just read something and remember to do, it then you probably don’t need help with this… you can skip this stage.

2. Remember why you are doing these things

I live a fairly busy life, so sometimes it’s too easy to be like, “you know what, I’m tired, I deserve to sleep in until 2pm again today.” But in reality I should be thinking, “Amber hun, you need to go to the gym, you won’t get another chance until next Thursday – not good for your bikini body.”

I find this one probably the most difficult, which is obvious in the fact that I pay £30 a month and haven’t been to the gym since July last year… I wish I was joking.

The best way to combat spiralling into a 10 hour Netflix binge is to set reminders on my phone, as this is the digital age. I often simply forget why I should do important things like finish off my blog post in the spare hour I have… Or meal prep for work etc., if I didn’t set reminders and alarms to do these things (“bleep bleep ~ make a packed lunch for work, you don’t have £3 for a meal deal ~ bleep bleep”). Alternatively you could remind yourself with post it notes with like these on your laptop, on your fridge, on the takeaway menu drawer (“put the menu down, you’ll gain half a stone just from looking at that Chinese menu and there’s salad in the fridge”).

3. Listen to motivating music

I was listening to the Vaccines Combat Sports album on the way home from work the other day and it put me on such a high, I was like “you know what? I AM gonna go to the gym when I get home! AND I’m gonna write a blog post… AND I’m gonna promote some social media stuff…” I didn’t actually go to the gym, but I did the other stuff… Plus it’s the thought that counts right?

Some music will just get you in the mood to like do stuff and if that works for you then happy days all round.

4. Sack off social media (temporarily)

Stop being so lazy. Get your a$$$$ out of bed and off Twitter.

I bloody love social media, I think it’s a great tool etc. etc. However 5 mins on Twitter can easily turn into an hour. And then 2 hours. And then you’re deep into some weird dimensions of the internet watching Korean anime porn or those videos where they pop massive spots. The point is, social media and the internet in general is great, but it can also ruin your life. When I had a lot of uni work, and needed to focus, I would turn off my phone and use StayFocused to reduce my social media time on my laptop- it’s a google chrome attachment where you limit the time you can spend on websites of your choice. Limits those ‘5 minute breaks’ to 5 actual minutes. Honestly so handy.

5. Make a list and tick things off

It’s so boring but I am the list queen, so I had to put it. I think my love of lists comes from the fact that I (as mentioned previously) can be very forgetful and need something to remind myself to get my shit together.

Rachel: “Who are you saying ‘check’ to?”
Monica: “Myself… you know for remembering to pack the thing”

Yeah I am Monica in this scenario. It is very satisfying to check things off. Especially when ALL of your ‘to-do’s have a line through them… It’s that feeling of WOW look at all these things I’ve done- I’ve finally got my life together!

 

So those are my 5 points to be more organised. Only took me 7 months to finish. Hope this post helps you in some kind of way! And TBH I hope this will motivate me too. Maybe in the future I’ll be one of those people who gets up, writes a blog posts at 6am with a chamomile tea, before dropping the kids off at school (I’m literally describing my hyper-organised mum here).

Thank you for reading!!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo