Organization is one of my favourite topics. Being a Virgo with a VERY Type A personality, it’s safe to say, organizational skills are in my blood. I never forget anyone’s birthday, I always work from a to-do list and I’m good at getting shit done. That might sounds really boasty but it’s one of my best traits, which is why today I want to share all my tips on how to get organized. Like, seriously organized.

how to get organized

Before we start, I’m not saying that being super military organized is ALWAYS the best way. It just doesn’t work for some people and that’s okay. If you manage quite alright without a do-to list, a diary and with a messy work space then you crack on.

This post is mainly for the people who WANT to know how to get organized but need that little extra love and guidance to do so. I’m here, I got your back baby.

Being organized can enable you to be more productive, have better time management, be more inspired and self motivated and generally experience less stress and burn-out in your every day life. At least, it does for me. And of all the compliments I’ve ever received on or about my blog, my organizational skills has always been at the top of the list.

I always say that being organized will help you in the long run. Do the organization now and your future self will thank you for it later. 

So in this post I’ve complied a list of 22 easy hacks that you can introduce into your life to help you get organized:

how to get organized

How To Get Organized With Your Blog:

Schedule posts in advance: My number one hack and something I will always recommend to bloggers. Scheduling posts in advance doesn’t only help you get organized but also helps you plan seasonal content and flesh out your content calendar for the coming months!

Schedule your tweets and social promos: I couldn’t recommend this highly enough. One of the first things I do in the morning is schedule my tweets for the day. This takes a huge weight off your shoulders, especially when you can’t keep popping onto Twitter during the day to share your posts. Don’t forget, the shelf life of a tweet is just 18 minutes – you need to promote regularly!

Use a planner to track your posts: It doesn’t have to be a fancy planner. My “planner” is a super simple spreadsheet. It’s nothing fancy but it certainly does the job. I track my blog posts, tweets, newsletters, pins and more!

Stay on top of your emails: You know those people that tweet a screen shot of their phone and it says “227 unread emails?” That LITERALLY makes me break out in a sweat. Blogging often requires a lot of emails – stay on top of them. As well as scheduling tweets, reply to emails is the first thing I do every morning.

Track expenses and incomes: If you make an income through your blog, you should be registered as self employed and doing this anyway. So for legal reasons, this is super important too. But find a system that works for you where you can note down all your in-comings and outgoings.

how to get organized

How To Organized Your Devices:

Delete regularly: I love the delete button. It’s my favourite button. You don’t need 27 almost identical images on your iPhone of you and your best friend on a night out 3 years ago. Delete accordingly. And don’t forget about de-cluttering your Facebook friends too!

Categorize your folders: This is especially helpful when you’re a blogger or work on a computer a lot. Images, files and documents easily build up. So make them more manageable by naming, grouping and categorizing your folders.

Group together your apps: I don’t personally do this but I know a lot of people that do and I can see why it’s helpful and how it enables you to stay more organized by grouping together games, productivity, social media etc.

Back things up: Back up your work or anything you’re keen to keep so in the case of something happening to your devices, you can still access those files and folders.

How To Get Organized In Your Every Day:

To-do lists galore: Ah the to-do list. My favourite thing in the world. Do I complete everything on my to-do list every day? Nope. But it helps me get my brain in order, get everything written down so I know I won’t forget anything.

Categorize your to-do lists: And this is another thing I like to do, categorizing my to-do lists into “work/blogging”, “personal” and “general/chores”. It helps me keep my tasks separate and helps me prioritize. Which brings me nicely onto my next point…

Prioritize: There will absolutely be days where you’re more organized and productive than others. Welcome to the human race. This is where it helps to prioritize and focus on the really important task instead of the ones that can wait.

Tidy up after yourself: I can’t live in mess. And I always feel less productive and less organized if I’m sitting in a room that looks like the night after Glastonbury. If you’re finding your organization lacking, perhaps take a look at your surroundings?

Write things down: Unlike to-do lists which are more structured, I also recommending writing things down. Some people prefer digitally, some prefer traditionally. But if anything comes up in the day – work or a chore you need to do – that you’re likely to forget, just write the damn thing down!

Download apps to help you: I don’t use any apps because the system I use now works well for me. But I know a lot of other bloggers that swear by organization apps. Trello, EverNote and Wanderlist are some I’ve heard mentioned many times before.

Keep a diary and/or a calendar: Physically writing things down definitely helps cement it into your mind, I find. So I love keeping a diary and a calendar and writing things down multiple times.

Stop procrastinating: Procrastination is the death of organization. Or something like that. I’m not massively productive every single day of my life – I don’t think anyone is. But I rarely ever procrastinate. Which massively helps with staying organized. But I think this is more of a mindset shift than anything.

How To Get Organized In Your Room / Home / Space:

Stop hoarding: Do you NEED another tea cup? Fridge magnet? Ornament? Probably not. I know we all have different things we find sentimental but if you don’t really need all the clutter around you and you find it often off putting and distracting you from your tasks, it might be time to think about stopping.

De-clutter regularly: And whether you hoard particular items or not, clutter ALWAYS builds up. Whether you like it or not. So try and de-clutter your space regularly for optimum productivity. Tidy space = tidy mind. The end of the year is always a good time to have a de-clutter as well.

Don’t neglect the awkward places: And when it DOES come the time to de-clutter, try not to ignore those hard to reach or awkward places that you know are full of crap but just dread to look in.

Organize your house by task: If possible, position things where you’re more likely to be using them. Laundry near the washing machine, clothes pegs near the front door, linens in the laundry room. Obviously subject to what space you have available.

Have a routine: Again, a lot of the pointers in this section will depend on your home and living situation but if you’re in a position to do so, have a routine for your laundry, drying, cleaning and try and stick to that routine as strictly as possible.

Label things: This is particularly useful for places like the food cupboard, the shed or perhaps a crafts drawer. And that’s to label boxes that things are in. Decanting items and storing them in neat boxes doesn’t only allow your home to be neater but also quicker to get to things when they’re clearly labelled.

how to get organized

There’s a lot of tips to take on board here so if you’re feeling overwhelmed, perhaps start with one section and go from there! Or make a list of your top priorities from this list and introduce them slowly and steadily into your life.

Organization is for everyone, regardless of your job, profession and responsibilities and there’s always something small you can do to make your life a little easier with the aid of organization!

I hope these tips help you going forward! If you have any to add, please leave them in the comments!

108 Comments

  1. Great advice Jenny. Now that I’ve left my job I need to get my house sorted again – it’s gone to pot since I had no time to do anything other than work, cry and sleep. I’m looking forward to jumping back into the blogging world but I’m nervous too!

  2. Being a student and a blogger, to-do lists are an absolute life saver for me. This post was so helpful for me as I’m really struggling to stay organised at the moment, which just stresses me out even more. :/ I will definitely be using some of these great tips to help me become more organised from now on! 🙂

    Soph – https://girlvsworldblog.com x

  3. I always make a list as well. Maybe not a to do list for every day, but I find writing things down makes it easier to remember to do them as you mentioned. Also, I tend to forget to do certain things so writing them down helps me to remember doing a certain task.

  4. I’m both good at organisation and equally as good as procrastinating and distracting myself.
    I’m getting better but if there are things I need to do but don’t want too, I tend to do anything but tend to that area.
    Such a useful post and I love to do lists.

    https://littlemissmelanie.com/

  5. I pride myself on being organised – I am super organised at work and with blogging but less so with my actual life. These are great tips to help me!
    Rosie
    loverosiee.co.uk

  6. This post makes me so happy 😊 organising stuff makes me feel so much more settled and together! I’m the same as you in that I class my organisation skills to be my best but most annoying trait! 😂 I absolutely love lists and writing things down, getting my new diary is one of my highlights of the year because I love filling it all out. I’ve also picked up some tips from this too, so thank you for sharing! Xx

  7. I seriously need to get more organised especially with my blog, I do have a job alongside blogging though which makes things pretty difficult. That and the fact that scheduling tweets is one of the blogging jobs I absolutely hate! It’s definitely a goal to get more organised with my blog though!

    Lauren | http://www.laurenyloves.co.uk

  8. I love this post! Organization is a huge part of my life and, like you, I like to get things done in a timely manner and not half-assed. I use timers to keep me focused, and I write down EVERYthing I need to do, in multiple notebooks haha.

  9. This couldn’t have come at a better time! I consider myself generally quite organised but omg I’ve been back for my final year of uni ersity for 2 weeks and I am overwhelmed! Blog and tweet scheduling in advance is something I 100% need to do more of otherwise I worry I might end up neglecting my blog if the work gets too much 🤦‍♀️ thanks for sharing!!

    Evie x | http://www.eviejayne.co.uk

  10. i follow most iof the rules… buts its nice to read them all at same place. as far as organising apps are concerned, i have tried a few but pen and paper works the best

  11. This post gave me all kinds of feelings. I think of myself as a mid level organiser. I have a system for tracking things, my blog planner is always organised and my files on my computer could not be more organised. But I still like to have a bit of fluidity in my day-to-day so I’m not super organised in that sense. And when I first saw the title I was quite intimidated by the number 22. Then I started reading and realised I do about 75% of these things. Now I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about myself. I am a low-key hoarder when it comes to certain things though…x

    Sophie
    http://www.glowsteady.co.uk

  12. I love the system I have now (which is why I have yet to utilise my Trello account haha), but having a physical planner (that’s pretty bc that’s important) with colours for different kinds of tasks is sooo helpful to me! Just writing out a few basic, daily things to get down because marking them off is so satisfying. I’m definitely someone who groups my apps together, and that’s been so helpful for me. And, yes the delete button is SUPREME!! Love these tips, super super helpful xxx

  13. This post is coming at the perfect time haha! I’ve been feeling so unorganised lately, just a bit all over the place. These are all really helpful. Especially procrastination has been a big one for me the last couple of weeks… Fingers crossed I can break that habit 😉

  14. These are great and helpful tips! I’ve been also focusing on self-care and organization nowadays and it has def made my life so much better. Thanks for sharing these with us 🙂

  15. I’m a Virgo to and I definitely have to keep organised! And I actually quite enjoy it at times. My blog is actually pretty organised but I should start scheduling my tweets and posts to make my life easier. When I’m decluttering I try to do one room and then one section at a time and that really helps. Great post! X

  16. I enjoy reading posts like these, as I love organising, tidying and sorting. These are great tips and so many simple things to help you feel more organised. I regularly answer and delete emails and started to get really good at having posts and tweets scheduled. Thank you for sharing the other helpful tips! Xx

  17. I’m super organised in certain aspects of my life and so unorganised in others so I will be bookmarking this to remind myself of everything I need to sort – great post!

    Jess xx

  18. Me, I am not a Virgo, being a Cancer, but I love to keep things tidy, almost to the idea that it becomes a compulsion to sweep things up and tidy them away.

    That being said, my nature also contradicts itself as I love chaos, and appreciate the people who have organized their chaos to themselves. The outside eye often does not see that!

    I love these tips to stay organized; there is nothing I like better then being able to find something at a moment’s notice.

  19. Organisation is one of my favourite topics too! This is such a detailed post and I love it because I thought I was quite organised but there were a things I could brush up on! I’m already great at deleting emails and decluttering my space and my stuff but it’s more the scheduling that I could do more with! Keep these coming! They’re my favourite of yours! Monica from thewongblog.com

  20. These are really helpful tips. I used to be a very disorganized person and that was reflected in my home and every aspect of my life. But, I have been able to shift into being more organized by making small changes here and there over the year. I already do a lot of these, but I can see a few areas where I can still work on my organization skills.

  21. I’d love this post even more if it had been 22 BANGING ways to be organized 😉

    I love these tips, I am pretty organised most of the time and getting more and more by the day.

    Especially in terms of my blog. I have started scheduling everything and it seems to be really paying off, my stats are really picking up.

    I am terribly unorganised at home though. And its become a bit overwhelming. The main living areas are cool, no clutter, tidy bar the kids toys (which I am pretending to be totally cool about!) but it is our bedroom which is doubling as the attic storage while the roof work and soon to be attic conversion are completed.
    The issue we have is that we now need to clear the bedrooms so that they can work on the damaged ceilings. With no other storage space we are going to have to massively scale back or pay ridiculous storage prices.

    I think these tips are going to help me a lot.

    Banging post!

  22. There are sooooooo many helpful tips in here, Jenny. I know I can always rely on you, you are my Organisation Queen!

    Scheduling my tweets and social promos is something I’m dreadful at. I only really do it when I’ve written a new post, otherwise my Twitter is like tumbleweed. I need to try and get on top of that.

    And decluttering is always a work in progress. Usually Flora’s crap, which leaves me no time for my own, haha.

    Love this post, you’ve nailed so many must dos, thank you! Xx

    Lisa | http://www.lisasnotebook.com

  23. Thank you so much for writing this post! I’m the worst when it comes to organization. I just find is so overwhelming and then end up just being chaotic. I’m definitely taking some of your tips into consideration. 💗

  24. I totally admire how organised you are and how everything runs like clockwork on your blog and twitter, it’s something I really want to implement too! Some really helpful tips here for people looking to get organised in any areas. I love a good to do list – it’s so satisfying crossing things off!

  25. These are such great tips! Some I do but I am also very guilty of procrastinating. I bought a new Happy Planner in July with the idea to plan everything out in it. It’s now October and I have not even wrote in it at all!

    Sarah 🌺 || Boxnip || Latest Post

  26. I’m a sucked for to-do lists. I have sticky notes all in my planner on what I need to get done that day on top of whatever is written in the planner!

    The hoarding thing…good god my boyfriend is borderline one. He will keep things for absolutely NO reason. I finally donated a mountain of his clothing by just telling him I put it in storage. He hasn’t worn those pieces in over 5 years if ever! Some still had tacks on it!!! It’s cringe worthy.

  27. Thank you for these tips! I find that having a to-do list really helps me stay on track and keeping my room tidy helps me focus so much more 🙂

    – Charlotte / myownblogofthoughts.blogspot.com

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