What Do I Do To Keep Organized?

How do I keep my life organized? That's a question I ask myself all the time. It all comes from my upbringing. My parents (aka, my mother) taught me to always keep a list/checklist to keep myself focused.

As most of my readers know, I was homeschooled my whole life. This means that my mother was my teacher for about 95-98% of my schooling. Because she was my teacher, and the fact that I come from a large family, she made a weekly checklist for each of us so we would know what was expected of us when it came time for school.

In my senior year of high school, she trusted me enough to create my own checklist of things to get done for school. That's when I started my current checklist of things to get done. How do I do it? Let me tell you.

I take a yellow legal pad and go day-by-day for a week, listing what I have to do each day. When in school, I would start with Monday. I'd put the date after the day of the week and then put down what I needed to accomplish for each subject that day. Then, I'd move to Tuesday, eventually making my way through the week through Friday. Usually, my Saturdays and Sundays were extremely free and therefore didn't need to be written out. I'd also put in my work schedule for the week. While in high school, I babysat every Wednesday night and every other Thursday morning. I'd also babysit randomly for people from church, so it was always a good idea to keep a record of what I needed to get done each week so I didn't over book myself.

When I went to college, this became an invaluable habit/skill. Since I had anywhere from four to six classes (some with a lab) that happened at different times on different days, it was good to have a pre-set system for keeping up with what was due when. Unlike high school, college was a bit more strenuous. So, to help myself see the bigger picture for each semester, I bought a monthly planner for each year I was in college and wrote down the assignments for each class on each day that they were due. Each class was written in a different colored pen to help with how much was needed to be done for each day. This is where I got the information to fill out my yellow legal pad checklist. Also, I worked anywhere from 2 to 5 part time jobs during college. So, knowing when I was working a particular job, on top of what homework I needed to get done, meant that I NEEDED to keep a detailed checklist to stay sane.

Now, after being out of school for several years, I don't use the same checklist system that I did. Yes, I'll make checklists if I need it, but since I don't have so many variables in my day-to-day life like I did when in school, I can just use a calendar on the fridge or on my phone to know when I have the rare day that's different.