Four basic organisational skills to master if you want a less chaotic life
If you’re anything like me, you’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work that you need to get done each week just to keep the proverbial wheels from falling off. In my case, work involves not just my 9–5 job as a management consultant, but never-ending housework, supporting my best friend to plan her wedding as her maid-of-honour, writing on Medium, and doing the occasional favour for friends and family whilst also trying to get myself to the gym a few times a week, eat healthy meals and sleep enough.
I feel anxious and exhausted looking at this list of things I have to juggle and realise I haven’t been using some of the most effective organisational strategies I know of that help me to manage multiple priorities and roles in my life. These strategies really help to calm the chaotic nature of a busy life and instead, help you to plan and prioritise so you’re on time, prepared and showing up as your best calm and in-control self.
1. Plan your fortnight
Pick an electronic calendar that you like and will use. For me, it’s Apple Calendar that syncs between my laptop, iPad and phone. For my husband, this is Google Calendar. Sync all of your individual accounts to this calendar (e.g. for me, it’s my work calendar, my gmail account that I use for my personal non-work events and a joint calendar that I use with my husband). This helps to see all of your events in the one place, regardless of which calendar account was used to plan it.
It still surprises me how many people do not use electronic calendars to plan out their time. Paper diaries are also ok, but this ends up being an additional item you have to carry around with you, proceed with this if analogue is more your jam.
As soon as an event that you need to be at is mentioned, and I mean the minute it comes up in conversation, add the event to your calendar and invite whoever else needs to be there. You may surprise people by doing this, but they’ll thank you for taking away something they would have had to remember to do.
It’s ok if you don’t have all the information as well. For example, if I discuss catching up with a friend for dinner in 2 weeks, we’ll agree on a date and time and I’ll set this event up in my calendar and invite my friend. I’ll set the location as “TBC” (To Be Confirmed) and will go ahead and make a dinner reservation closer to the date.
Add in all of your housework into your calendar. Yes I know, this sounds excessive, but, if you can remove the need to remember when to do the laundry, water your plants, prep your meals etc out of your head, you can free up your memory for far more important things in your life. For me, this involves scheduling time for each of my chores (e.g. laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep) on specific days of the week. Setting up recurring events will help you minimise the planning load here if you have a steady enough routine to allow for this.
The final events to add into your calendar are the things you do for yourself. This includes when you’ll exercise, meditate, get a facial or whatever else you like to do on a regular basis to feel your best. This helps you to prioritise these things rather than spending your time on other less-rewarding activities.
Review your calendar every week and plan for the next fortnight. I like to do this on Sunday evenings after dinner so that I can start Monday feeling calm and in control of my week. This involves reviewing every event over the next fortnight, thinking about what I might need to do to prepare (e.g. buy a gift if I’m attending a birthday party) and scheduling this preparation into my diary. Using the birthday party example, if the party is coming up on next Saturday night, I’ll find time after work on a weeknight to buy a gift and I’ll schedule an hour into my calendar to do this. Scheduling in this way allows me to know how much time I need to do things throughout the week, and how much time is left over for me for other things like watching my favourite Netflix shows or catching up on some reading.
The Sunday review time is also booked into my calendar, so there’s no way I’ll double book myself in this time and forget to do it. It’s important to note that your calendar does not have to be rigid also and it can help you flex your time as well. If something unexpected comes up and I can no longer buy the birthday gift on Friday evening, I take a look in my calendar and schedule this for the next available time because I have a clear view of what is happening and when.
I also review my calendar before I go to bed each night (I know, exposure to blue light before bed isn’t the best thing in the world, but the anxiety of not being prepared for the next day would keep me up much longer than 2 minutes of blue light will) and each morning when I wake up. This is a way to remind myself of what’s coming up for the day and week and has saved me more than once when my memory hasn’t served me during particularly busy times.
2. Plan what you’ll wear for the week
This is particularly helpful if you have to leave the house to work every day. This used to be the case for me pre-COVID when we were expected to work from an office five-days per week. Personally, I find the time and stress required to work out what to wear and iron/steam clothes each morning unnecessarily time-consuming. So instead, I batch this task into a Sunday afternoon. I’ll take a look at my well-planned calendar (see #1 above) and work out where I need to be each day. I’ll cross-reference this against the weather and work out how warm/cold I’ll be and use this to plan and prepare at least five outfits. If I’m going out during the next weekend, I’ll plan those outfits too. I allow an hour to do this and it involes selecting what I’ll wear on each day, ironing or steaming as necessary and hanging up each outfit on a clothing rail in my bedroom.
This way, I get up each morning with one less decision to make, ironed clothes and feeling far more put together than if I pulled something random out of my wardrobe at 6 am whilst I’m still half asleep.
3. Plan and prep your meals
I’ll admit, this is my least favourite thing to do, and I’ve recruited my husband into doing most of this, however, pays dividends in terms of time, cost and reduced stress on weekdays and nights when the last thing I want/have time to do is cook.
My husband and I have a joint google account and weuse this calendar (still synced to all of our devices so we’re seeing all our events in one place) for meal planning. We will plan out our breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks for the entire week including weekends and we create our grocery list strictly based on this plan. This has helped us to not only reduce time working out what we’ll cook each night but also lots of money by limiting impulsive spending in the chocolate aisle (it’s me, I’m the culprit here).
Once we have our grocery list, we’ll order our groceries online at our local supermarket and pick a time to ‘click and collect’. Once we do this, you guessed it, we schedule this in our calendar. This approach has saved us from doing my least favourite chore which is wandering up and down grocery store aisles looking for food. I would rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than do that painful task and am more than happy to spend the time at home at my computer filling in the order instead.
Once we’ve done this, we’ll work out together when on the weekend we’ll do our meal prep for the week and we’ll schedule 2–3 hours to do this. The day and time for this changes week to week for us depending on social and family commitments we might have on the weekends. This is totally fine by us as long as we make the time to do the prep.
4. Review and improve
Regular reviews and improvements are necessary to ensure you’re making the best of your time. For me, I take the time each month to work out how much time I spend with friends, family, writing on Medium, doing housework etc. and I reflect on what I can change to improve the next month.
If I feel as though I haven’t spent as much time as I’d like to with my family or friends in one month, I’ll make sure to schedule more time with them in the following months. If I find that I’ve struggled to get myself to the gym as planned during the month, I’ll consider why this might be and try changing the days and times of the day that I go and once I’ve done this, I’ll reflect on how this worked for me).
The key here is not to mindlessly follow your calendar like a robot but to use it to maximise how much time you spend doing the things you want to do that bring you happiness, and less time doing the things that don’t bring you joy. For example, if cleaning your home takes 5 hours each week and doesn’t bring you any joy, you could consider outsourcing this and thereby freeing up time in your week for something else.
Overall, the key to managing multiple priorities without feeling like you’re drowning is to plan it all out somewhere outside of your own head. For me, I can’t live without my calendar as it helps me to shift the load from inside my head to my screen instead that I refer back to multiple times a day to keep me focused and on track.
Are there any other organisational hacks that you use every day/week to help you manage a busy life?
