“Preparation is victory.”
These words of my wise husband have become a family motto that plays like a broken record in my head. But they couldn’t be truer. I can tell a significant difference in the weeks that I have spent time to plan ahead and prepare versus the ones that have me feeling disorganized and disheveled when I leave the house on Monday morning.
I am not the “fly by the seat of your pants” kind of girl. At least, I don’t like to be. Unfortunately, I have a little Monica Geller in me. If I don’t have a clean and organized space, I simply cannot work. Truth be told, it is killing me not to tidy up the living room right now instead of writing this post! #neatfreak
Something that experience has taught me is that you are are as successful as your habits make you. Will power can only take us so far. But when something becomes a habit, it can transform us by taking the mind battle game out of the equation. If you set certain habits in place and do them consistently, you will set yourself up for an organized and smooth sailing week.
We all fall into different traps. I know my weaknesses that prevent me from accomplishing my “to do” list or make me feel frantic in the morning. There a few habits that I have adopted that allow my week to run a little more smoothly. We will all have days when we are off and overwhelmed. But if you set some of these systems in place, you will feel less stressed on a daily basis.
1. Become a Donator
The first tip in living a more organized life is to have less stuff. The cold reality is if you have less, you spend less time cleaning. Designate a closet or area of your home that you place things to be donated. Whenever you come across an item you rarely use or don’t like, put it in that place. One a month, make a vow to drive your items to a donation center. I recently read, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and it inspired me to get ride of so much stuff!
2. Make Sundays Your Prep Day
If you work a typical week, then I suggest making Sunday your designated day to get organized for the week ahead. If you work a nontraditional job, you can choose another day that works best for your schedule. Take the time to set out your outfit for the next day, pack your lunch, tidy up the house, and do the laundry. Make sure you don’t want until late in the day to do these tasks so you aren’t too tired to get them done.
3. Designate a Day for Meal Prep and Grocery Shopping
Every Saturday I meal prep and do my shopping for the week ahead. Some weeks I end up going on Sunday, but I definitely suggest choosing a different day. You’ll be busy preparing as we discussed above and plus the shops are usually super busy on Sundays. Pick a day that works for you. I keep a calendar on my fridge of meals that we like and eat on a regular basis. I don’t stick to this schedule, but I do reference it when planning my meals for the week.
Meal planning and shopping in the same day will prevent you from forgetting as many items on your trip to the store. And if you haven’t tried grocery pick up yet, I highly suggest it! You can order all of your food items online (Walmart, Smiths, Kroger, Wemans) and pick it up! I don’t do it every week, but it makes my life so much easier when I do.
4. Keep Ongoing Checklists on Your Phone
Do you ever feel like you have a million different tasks running through your head, but they aren’t necessarily immediate “to dos?” I felt like I was constantly like, “oh I want to paint that,” or “I need to buy this gift for this event.” My head was overwhelmed with information overload. To organize all my random thoughts and tasks, I downloaded the app Google Keep. It is basically a place to keep a bunch of different color coded sticky notes with check lists. I have a grocery list, random buy list, and outstanding task list. You can organize it any way you want.
5. Get a Clothing Rack
This is something I have been wanting to do for a while. So I will be taking my own advice on this one. But if you are someone who destroys her closet in the morning trying to find what to wear to work in the morning, I suggest investing in one. You can plan out all of your outfits in advance (on Sunday as stated above). This will cut serious time wasting during the morning rush!
6. Look at Your Planner Every Morning
Right when I get to work, I look at my planner first thing. Ideally I would like to do this before I even leave the house. But making a habit of checking your schedule each morning will save you from those dreaded, “Oh I totally forgot!” moments. If you do it right after you wake up while you are drinking your coffee, you might even be able to make last minute stops on your way to work in case you need anything you didn’t anticipate for the day ahead.
How do you set yourself up for a successful and smooth sailing week. Help a sister out and share your ideas below in the comment section! Thanks for reading.