Contemplate a resolution that will make your life more organized. Being organized helps you be more effective at work, live a healthier life, and keep your mental health in check. The following tips can help you bring order to your life as you embrace your New Year’s resolution to get more organized:
1. Track Your Finances
Not too many years ago, people used to balance their checkbooks and track their spending on paper. Today, everything is digitized, which makes it a lot easier and faster to monitor your financial transactions. However, such electronic convenience also makes it far easier to spend - with the result that your finances can get a bit out of control.Your debit card keeps track of your individual transactions, but you need to be aware of your total spending on a monthly basis. Sit down at least once a month to analyze your overall spending. How much are you spending on food, gas, and entertainment? Do the numbers surprise you, and do you need to decrease your spending in certain areas?
Next, develop a monthly budget that aligns with your spending goals. You can use your tracking tools to measure your progress. You’ll be able to adjust your spending and saving to align with your financial objectives.
2. Use Your Calendar
You almost certainly own an electronic device, and it probably comes with a built-in digital calendar. Use it! You can get so much value out of your daily life by simply organizing your time a little better.You can add every daily obligation to your calendar. Due dates for school, deadlines for work, schedules for children, even your exercise regimen. Each event can be shared with others or set with reminders so that you never forget anything important. Organizational tools within your calendar app like color-coding makes it so everything stays neatly arranged, even when a lot of information is included.
If you’re not a fan of the default calendar on your personal device, check out the app store. There are plenty of calendar and scheduling apps available for free. Try a few out to identify the app that fits your needs and preferences best.
3. Try Meal Planning
One thing you could be scheduling is your weekly meals. Meal planning can be beneficial in a number of ways. Primarily, it can get you to stop dining out as frequently, which saves money and helps you eat healthier.Each week, perhaps on a Saturday, list out your meals for each day of the week. Then purchase the necessary food items and do as much preparation as you can in advance. If you do most of your meal prep and cooking over the weekend, your meals throughout the week will take minimal effort.
Organizing your meals will help you feel so much better physically as you put effort into eating the right foods. If you need a helping hand in the kitchen, you can look at meal kit delivery services. There are several healthy options that can get you started in the right direction.
4. Put Your House in Order
Perhaps the most difficult place to keep organized is your home. This is especially true if you have roommates, children, or a messy partner. Putting some organizational measures in place for the new year can help you keep your house in order as much as possible.Try to designate a place for various belongings. Place a shoe tray, key rack, and mail organizer by the door. Get your clothes off of the floor and into a laundry hamper. A concentrated effort to put everything in its rightful place will keep your home tidy even during a busy week.
5. Embrace Change
Learning how to organize means making lots of changes. In order to be successful, you’re going to have to embrace change, even if it’s uncomfortable at first. After a while, you will get adjusted to new routines and behaviors, but in the beginning it might be difficult.Embracing change means also being willing to change your approach from time to time. Let’s say one of your organizational goals for 2023 is to clean up your computer desktop and keep your files in order. Your plan was to start using Google Drive, but you find yourself just as disorganized as before. In this case, you need to be flexible and fine-tune your approach. Perhaps an online tutorial or how-to video will provide the guidance you need to achieve your goal.
The default of human nature is to set difficult things aside. Life is initially easier this way, but responsibilities deferred can pile up into a major problem. Applying some of these organization tips heading into the new year can save you future headaches and help you accomplish so much more.