How Staying Organized Helps Me Be Successful

IMG_3927I know some people who just thrive in a whirling dervish of chaos.

I am not one of those people.

I spent the last month in Milwaukee really upset that I hadn’t brought my 2019 calendar with me because I was trying to book and organize things and suddenly felt really overwhelmed that I couldn’t just see the plans laid out in front of me.

When I get disorganized, I get hit by some pretty intense paralysis and panic. The panic also then makes me do nonsense things like read the Effin’ Birds Twitter feed for two hours or reorganize a single drawer in my room for three hours.

It’s one thing to have a long work day or a lot of very set-time things required of you, but I feel it’s an entirely different feeling when you know you need to accomplish a lot but the timelines are vague.

That’s super overwhelming to me.

I also find in this digital age that as much as there are things that help with the organization, the overabundance of options also kind of hinders it.

I mean I’ve got a calendar and a planner and notes and the Notes app on my phone and the calendar on my computer that Gmail magically sends stuff to – it’s not always a cohesive system.

And once I looked up what bullet journals were and I literally felt my brain explode in panic and beauty over how pretty they were but, like, what a crazy ridiculous amount of work making one is.

Or maybe I just don’t understand bullet journals? I mean, they’re gorgeous, but who has that much time to doodle all that crap into them every week?

I find myself with a command center of organization these days. I want my calendar, planner and phone with my Notes apps on it nearby and my miscellaneous collection of Post-Its.

I also find that for optimum organization on overwhelming days, I need to stop and take a few minutes to make a list of things I have to achieve and things I want to achieve that day.

I’m also amazed at how much calmer having these things written down makes me. Last month there was a dark day my brain just started fritzing on. I needed to do a few pieces of paperwork for the show, book some stuff for the Europe trip with my cousin, book some stuff for the New Orleans trip with my BFF, confirm working dates in May at the local performing arts center and sort out some stuff with my blog.

I literally curled up in a ball on my bed until I forced myself to get up and just write down my to do list and prioritize what had to be done that day and what just needed to be done soon.

Once the list was written, I accomplished every single thing on it that day.

What do you do to stay organized these days? Can you function in the chaos? Can you explain bullet journals to me?

One thought on “How Staying Organized Helps Me Be Successful

  1. My husband and I use the Timetree App. It’s the only thing I use for a schedule/planner now! We can both update it and color-code, too. I LOVE IT.

    Bullet-journaling is whatever you want to make it. I couldn’t use it the way some people do, but there are some great take-aways I use now! (Okay, I guess I have a separate paper planner for work, but I only use it AT work, so it doesn’t really count for me.) In that planner, if something on my list doesn’t get completed, I just move it to the next week.

    Modern Mrs. Darcy has a great post on bullet journaling for beginners. I kind of forgot about it. I guess I technically abandoned my bullet journal. Maybe I should revisit. Since I’m a list maker, what I liked most about it was a running to-do-list or having separate lists for separate things… https://modernmrsdarcy.com/year-bullet-journal/
    Carrie @ Season It Already! recently posted…Happy New Year!My Profile

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