For the majority of us, our bodies tense up, our minds run into chaos, and that sinking feeling over overwhelm starts to creep in.
Before you make yourself feel like a total mess, we want to let you into a little secret: highly organised people aren’t in fact the boring creatures you thought they were… they’ve just created habits that help them stay on top of their game, even when the tough gets tough!
From forward planning and writing things down, to getting rid of unnecessary clutter and systemising your routine, read on for Lou Hammer from One Day P.A’s top 10 essential habits that will help you live a more organised life.
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Write it down
It sounds simple, and that’s because it is. Whether you’re a digital list guru or a pen and paper die-hard fan, drafting up a to-do list is definitely a habit you want to cling to.
Amongst its many benefits, writing a list helps to get things out your mind and allow space for clearer direction and clutter-free thinking — how good does that sound?!
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Set deadlines
There’s nothing like a looming deadline to initiate imminent action!
Note to self: Whilst it may seem idealistic to set fast-turnaround deadlines, more often than not you’ll set yourself up to fail. My advice is to aim for realistic timeframes that you know you can achieve despite life’s hurdles.
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A home for everything and everything in its home
It’s very difficult to locate belongings when there’s no designated place for them to live. Highly organised people are creatures of habit, and like to store belongings in one easy-to-access place (bonus points if it’s clearly labeled).
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Manage your clutter
Did you know clutter affects mental wellbeing, and can increase feelings of stress and anxiety?
By regularly decluttering your space, you can easily keep tabs on what you own, what you use, and what’s not so important now in your daily routine. Choosing to de-clutter regularly helps to ensure that the task never becomes monumental and stressful.
Clutter tip: For every new item coming into your home you should consider removing an old one.
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Delegate responsibility
No one likes the feeling of overwhelm, yet it is one of the most common emotions to experience when we take on too much with too little time.
Before you say ‘yes’ to every job and responsibility, have a look at the tasks on your to-do list and see what you can delegate to others — around the house you may want to delegate something to a family member, while at work it may be to a colleague.
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Plan your week ahead
It should come as no surprise that organised people love forward planning — trust me, this is a habit that you will be grateful for adopting.
I like to allocate a chunk of time every Sunday to sit down and review my calendar for the week ahead — this helps to ensure my work and family schedule’s are comfortably aligned without any foreseen hiccups.
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Meal Planning
Separate to planning my week is meal planning. Some people love the idea of meal planning, many are suckers for getting too stuck into the details.
I on the other hand like to keep it as simple as writing down the ingredients for 5-7 meals that I want to cook during the week, heading to the shops with the list in hand, loading up the fridge with all the ingredients, and committing to those dishes for the week ahead.
Of course, you can choose what day you’d like to cook each meal (you can even plan for breakfast and lunch, too if you want), but by following this simple philosophy you’ll remove the ‘what to have for dinner’ decision from your mind each day — hello clarity!
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Set yourself a routine
It’s no secret that most children thrive on routine, but did you know that adults do, too? Knowing exactly what you’re doing each and every day is nothing short of liberating, so why not set yourself a morning and evening routine and see if it works for you?
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Avoid Procrastination
Procrastination is the No.1 roadblock stopping you from living an organised life.
The easiest way to turn procrastination on its head is to allocate your most challenging tasks to your most efficient hour — I call it my “power hour”, and for me it’s either 5am or 10pm.
Whatever your hour of power is, schedule the task you keep putting off for then and feel the relief wash over you when you can finally tick it off!
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Prioritise your to-do list
Last but certainly not least, it’s time to ask yourself what the most important task is on your to-do list? Once you know, charge forwards and knock that task over first, before moving onto the next… and the following one after that. Before you know it you’ll be on a run, and have most of your to-do list ticked off!
A big thank you to Lou Hammer from One Day P.A for sharing her top 10 tips for living a more organised life! Head on over to visit Lou at
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