How to Stay Organized

Once you feel you are relatively organized you probably want to know how to stay organized.

Knowing how to get organized is a change process. You set up systems that take you from one state – ‘disorganized’, to another – ‘organized’.

Staying organized is all about habits. If you habitually put your keys in the same place every time you come home, you’ll know where they are. Next time you need them, you can locate them

Learning how to stay organized means you can have, be or do things easily. You apply minimum thought and time to achieve the results you want.

How to be organized

• Use your systems. Got a good thing going with your current paperwork filng? Do you always know where your cell phone is? Whatever system or habit you built, use it. Stick to it, tweak it if you want, and return to it when you slip up.

• Stay balanced. Stephen Covey proposes the ‘P/PC’ balance in ’The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. It refers to Production and Production Capability. Take care of your production capability (your systems and habits), and you’ll produce consistently good results.

• Stay aware. Habits slip unless maintained. Once you’re organized, support your awareness to keep up the good work. Visual reminders are effective. Sharing your success with others is even better.

An example...

We support our awareness by writing it in our diaries. We tell others via our website and marketing.

Some weeks, our system goes down and we don’t meet up. We always return, sooner or later, to our Monday night ‘production meetings'.

If Monday became a difficult day to meet we could always ‘tweak’ it and meet on another day.

Think about the systems you use. What works, what could be better, and what should you re-ignite?

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