How To Get Your Life Together
Do you often moan to yourself or others that you need to get your life together? You feel like you’re in a constant state of overwhelm, you feel disorganised, turning up late for meetings or missing deadlines and important personal dates?
Your family have long since given up on the idea that you’ll be ready on time and you often seem to run out of milk!
Added to that, the laundry has taken on a life of its own and there are piles of paperwork stuffed in draws that have yet to be opened!
And that wouldn’t be so bad if you felt on top of things at work, but your disorganised ways have also flooded into your workspace and you have unfinished projects and looming deadlines that are threatening to push you over the edge!
Argh!! Stop the merrygoround! I want to get off!
Why Did It Get Like This?
Knowing why your life has got into a bit of a mess can help you address getting it back on track.
Is this a one-off thing? In other words are you usually quite organised and on top of things but life has dealt you a bit of a blow and you’re struggling to get back on your feet?
Or, are you a serially disorganised person?!
For the former situation, emphasis needs to be placed on re-discovering your temporarily forgotten good habits, coupled with taking care of yourself so that you don’t backslide on any gains you make.
If, however, you tend to be disorganised but want to change your ways, then it’s time to really push at those unhelpful habits and replace them with more useful, productive activities.
Try This Approach
Where ever you find yourself and whatever the reasons for that, it’s very important to get an overview of where you are right now.
One of the biggest problems with being overwhelmed and trying to get your life together is not being able to see how big the problem actually is. When this is the case, our natural tendency is to think that things are far worse than they actually are!
So, before you run yourself ragged worrying about the jumble of thoughts in your head, do yourself a favour and get them out on paper.
Paper and Pen
So here’s the first step: grab yourself a drink, get a pen and paper and start writing…and keep writing! Write absolutely everything down that comes into your head. Don’t worry about sorting them out or assessing their validity, just get it all out of your head!
Done? I bet that feels better already!
Categories
Now, look at your list and get a feel for the areas or categories that are showing up. Is it your finances, keeping your home clean, childcare activities, preparing for work meetings, etc. When you work to get your life together, you’ll find it easier if you concentrate on one area at a time.
The Important Question
Using your list, what area of your life is really calling at you to sort it out? Don’t overthink this or assess on the basis or others’ demands, just go with your gut feeling.
Boom! This should be the first area that you tackle!
Take a fresh piece of paper and transfer all the tasks on your ‘Master List’ (that’s what it is now!) related to this category to your ‘Going to Sort It Out Now List’!
The Importance of Knowing Yourself
Look, none of these practical steps are going to work for you unless you get to know yourself first. By that I mean you need to understand what makes you tick, and more importantly, what makes you procrastinate!
And really, it’s the procrastination thing that’s the problem here!
Here’s a tip for you: when you look at your ‘Going To Sort It Out Now List’, item by item, what feelings to they raise in you? Do you feel scared, bored, overwhelmed, excited, motivated, angry, resentful, anxious etc. These are the feelings that are holding you back.
Try writing the emotion next to the task, it often helps to see it objectively and breaks the inertia that has up until now stopped you doing the task.
Don’t Rely On Your Memory
If you’ve reached this point, then I’m assuming that you’ve gone to the trouble of at least writing down all the tasks that are cluttering up your head.
If you haven’t, why not?
Your memory is not a good place to store your tasks. They will be jumbled and un-related, some will be meaningless, some will be more important than others and some will be super-urgent but very scary!
Your mind can’t sort this on its own, it needs to be out on paper so that you’ve got a chance of actually sorting and sifting to something that is sensible and doable.
Give your memory a break – go back and write out those tasks!
Time To Make A Start
Once you’ve got your ‘Going To Sort It Out Now List’, choose a task and get started. At this stage is really doesn’t matter which task you do as you just need to get going and build some momentum.
Once you’ve completed the task cross it out and choose the next task.
It sounds simple, and it is. But it’s also simple to fall back into your old ways, so stay ahead of your unhelpful thoughts that will try to drag you away from your plans.
Don’t Lose The Ground You’ve Captured
As you start working through your ‘Going To Sort It Out Now List’, you’ll begin to see things improving. This is great and will give you the motivation to plough on through the rest of your list.
But, it’ll also create a tension within you.
As you build confidence in your ability to follow through on the things you said you were going to do, your mind will start teasing and tempting you with the tasks still waiting on your ‘Master List’ and you’ll begin to feel drawn towards making a start on another area of your life.
This is for two reasons:
1. Shiny Object Syndrome
Who doesn’t like doing, getting or trying something new? It’s human nature to want to dip a toe in the water now and then. You already know that some of the tasks on your ‘Master List’ will be easy for you, and you just want to get to them!
2. There’s A Race Going On In Your Head
When you first sat down with your (master) list I suggested you use your gut feeling to choose where to start, but that same process has now gotten going all of its own accord!
That’s because the current area you’re working on has improved beyond the areas still waiting for attention! So, naturally, the things that are waiting are tugging at your gut as now being more urgent because they’re no longer in the ‘worst’ state.
It’s a Catch-22!
But, be wary! Turning your back on your current gains to run off and do something else will mean you will lose the ground you’ve gained. Now is the time to put a structure in place to make working on them part of your day-to-day routines.
Conclusion
Just like everything else, it takes effort to get your life together. There’s no other way around it than to put the work in! Want happy finances = get and maintain your budget; want great relationships = know what you want, create boundaries, give love; want a beautiful home environment = keep it clean and running smoothly with effective systems!
We all trip up now and then and when that happens, things tend to get a bit, or maybe a lot messy! So the more methodical you can be in your approach to getting your life together, the easier it’ll be to keep things on track when the curve ball arrives.
And when it does, remember to always, always start with your Master List brain dump! Good luck!
What to do next…
> Read another post – The Quote Series: Procrastination
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[…] The important thing about this list is that I was creating a framework for intentional living. You can see from the list that nothing is astonishing, but at a time when, because of the pandemic, I had lost a lot of my personal drive, I needed something that would give me direction again. […]