Ever feel like your life is a mess of unread emails, piled-up papers and endless to-do lists?
I’ve been there, and know exactly how overwhelming this kind of disorganisation can be. It can get to the point where we actively avoid addressing any of it - usually just making things a whole lot worse!
Thankfully, I’ve been able to develop my own personal administration system that helps me in effectively organising my life and desk.
Today, we’ll tackle the digital and paper sides of your life with strategies I’ve found so valuable in decluttering and easing the mental load. This includes the process of picking 10 categories to help streamline your life.
We all know how stressful an unchecked inbox can be, so I give you a step-by-step guide to creating designated folders and effectively managing all those unread emails. We’ll also explore adding necessary actions to your to-do list and going on a ruthless ‘unsubscribe’ spree from newsletters or advertisements that no longer serve you.
We’ll then take a look at some ideas on how you can best store your hard copy documents and important information.
Finally, I love keeping my desk clear, and I share with you four key items I always have on hand to help me to keep it that way.
If this system feels like the right direction to get you organised, then I encourage you to just get stuck in. Remember, beginning with a work-in-progress is better than not starting at all!
I look forward to hearing what your categories are and how these simple actions have improved your space - so make sure you reach out when you’ve created yours!
Until next time, keep on striving to live your best, most balanced life.
I had a really interesting experience recently. I was asked to help someone with their email organization and was shown their email inbox, which had [00:01:00] over 6, 000 unread emails. My goodness, I was so excited to get stuck into sorting that out, but they were so overwhelmed with their inbox that they were actively avoiding looking at it.
So everything was compounding, the unread emails were growing, and it was just making the situation worse for them. They were finding that really stressful. So I introduced them to how I manage my personal administration. And these are the details I'm sharing with you today. This is the digital side, and then my desk and storage will be the paper side.
his may be health, school or [:
And and always one called general. And this is the catch all for anything that doesn't fit into all of your categories. So grab a pen and paper and pause the podcast. If you need to spend no more than two minutes and just write out of your categories, if you already have them, great.
Just check that they're still relevant. And no more than 10 and don't stress on getting them exactly right. Things change. So focus on what you need right now. They are the categories for you. Now we have your categories. Let's start with your emails, open your email account, and then on the left side, click on the inbox or at your email address, depending on the software you use a box should appear.
And this is where you're going to select new folder. This will then open up a box for you to type in your first category. Repeat this as many times as you need until you have all of your organisation categories showing as folders on the left side of your screen.
If you have a lot of folders [:
and dropping everything that's older into these files. No need to reorganise into new files. Remember, great search functions will be able to find this stuff.
then delete, et cetera, it's [:
So I unsubscribe.
We now take the categories we have created and apply them to our hard copy or paper world. Ideally. You should have a maximum of 10 boxes or files or folders or plastic sleeves and store them information in them through your categories. My important documents, passport, birth certificate, et cetera, they're in their own special folder.
And I love my document folder so much that I'm in the process of making them available for everyone. So stay tuned for that. Anything And that I don't need a hard copy of, I take a photo and I email it to myself. Or, for bigger documents, I use one of the free scanning apps on my phone, and it lets you scan one page at a time, and then you can email them to yourself.
y items. First up, my trusty [:
And I of course use this very closely with my digital calendar. Second, a bullet journal. Everything goes into this bullet journal and it's organized by dates, meeting notes, actions I need to do, thoughts I have. I store my finished ones in a tub in my cupboard and I keep them in close reach because I tend to need to reference historical things a lot.
But again, if you know what a bullet journal is, you know how easy it is to find all the information within it. Three, a monthly planner where I record my financial things, basically what I spend. So I can see where my dollars are going fourth, my plastic sleeve with paperwork. I need to do, I prefer it empty, but today it's not paper can build up quickly.
et stuck in the simpler, the [:
I look forward to hearing what your categories are and how putting these simple actions into place have improved your space until next time, live your best balanced life.
