Take Back Control in Your Life with These Top Organization Tips

Regardless of what we’re often told, stress can be a great thing. It can help you get work done, give you that last final push to make it before a deadline, and it can even help you do better work than normal. Chronic stress, on the other hand, can be incredibly detrimental to your health. From strained muscles to grinding teeth, to even an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases like a heart attack or stroke. Chronic stress makes it hard to work, hard to calm down, and can send you straight to the path of a mental breakdown.

This chronic stress is not rare, either. Many people feel stressed at work, particularly if their company expects them to continue working from home. The only way you can effectively beat stress is to get on top of it so that you can create a clearly defined line between work and home. You should be able to relax at home, and you cannot do that if it is somewhere where you work, constantly messy, or otherwise uncomfortable. This is why you can take back control of your life simply by organizing it.

From your schedule to your home, here are the top organization tips that every woman needs to implement:

Start by Creating Boundaries

Setting the right expectations is your first step because, without it, you won’t have the time to organize anything else. An easy way to do this is to set up an automatic email response to emails sent to you after work hours. A simple thank you note telling the sender that you have received their email and will get back to it between your working hours is a great start. The same applies to giving deadlines to your boss. While one task might not take long and should be complete by the end of the day, you might have several tasks of more importance in the way. If your manager does not understand that you have no obligation to work free overtime, then it is time to look for another job. Burning yourself out for little appreciation is not healthy nor will it help you towards your goals.

Clear Out Your Home

Now that you have a bit more breathing room at home, it’s time to organize it. We cause more harm than we think by overloading our homes with material items. It is especially true if you find your home is always disorganized or worse, dirty. You need to have a neat, clean, and comfortable home for your mental and physical health. To achieve this, start by taking a weekend to de-clutter your home.

The concept of minimalism that we should all adopt is not in white walls and utilitarian décor, but in only keeping items we truly value. Everything else is just taking up space and causing us stress. When you are de-cluttering, keep this rule of minimalism in mind. Go through all of your items, from your clothes to your kitchen tools, and put back only the things you truly love and use often. Everything else should go, either by being sold, upcycled, recycled, or donated. If there is an item that cannot find another use through any of those options, throw it out. Once you have de-cluttered, start placing greater emphasis on everything that you buy. Ask yourself if you truly need it, if you already have something similar, and then wait. If you still need it and want it in a week or longer, then you can safely buy it. The goal here is to simply stop buying things you don’t actually care about just because it has a good price.

Clean Up Your Home

The next step to organizing your home is to undertake deep-cleaning. Not doing so can be very harmful to your health and these health concerns can spread without you knowing it. If you spilled a cup of orange juice on your carpet and cleaned it up by dabbing it away, for instance, you have done nothing except create a breeding ground for mold. In order to properly clean spills of carpets, you will need a power tool like the Bissell carpet cleaner. No one wants a mouldy, smelly carpet! If you have any pets, you’ll know that if they have an accident on your carpet, it can be very difficult to clean. Pawgearlab has reviewed dozens of pet carpet cleaners so it might be worth buying some if you’re regularly having to clean up after them.

Deep clean your home and touch it up so that it is sparkling, and work on keeping it that clean and organized. After de-cluttering, you will probably be amazed at how spacious your home can be, and it is in this environment that you can relax and breathe easy.

Organize Your Schedule

Making lists can stress you out, whether it is in your head or on paper. In fact, making lists does nothing except help you procrastinate. Instead, write down every single event you need to attend on your calendar. Use digital calendars that are connected to the cloud so that you can have your schedule with you wherever you go. Seeing all you need to do can help you manage your time better. Cut back on what you simply cannot do and spread things out as much as you can.

Work in Bursts

The last way to organize to combat stress and take back control in your life is to organize your working time in blocks. 90 minutes is the ideal time that you would remain productive, after which you should take a break, refuel, and start another 90-minute block on a different task. Splitting up your tasks and doing them in these time blocks can help you stay motivated. Working too long on one thing can cause mental fatigue, meaning you do less productive work than if you switched to something else.

Organization is the only way you will be able to stay on track, be productive, and de-stress. To do this, you will need to make your home organized and clean so that you can relax at home rather than stress out about the mess you still have to clean up. Be smarter at work about how you work, and you can be more productive at every task, meaning you can get more done with less effort. Combined you will be able to balance your life better so that you can complete goals and enjoy all that life has to offer.

Thanks to Fatima