Increase your Impact and Make Life Easier with a Personal Organization System
With some simple systems, tracking, and practices, you can free yourself up from the 80% of work that takes up most of your time and creates the least results, so that you can focus on the 20% of your work that creates the greatest impact! Freeing up your mind to do what it does best-- like being creative & dreaming big-- creates a profound impact on your well-being and the well-being of those around you.
Over the years I have developed some simple organization and tracking systems that keep me grounded and help me focus on the 20% that gets me 80% of my results. Creating organization systems to keep track of appointments, tasks, to-dos, ideas, and thoughts throughout the day, in addition to visions and dreams for my life, has helped me get grounded, and create more space for the things that really matter while spending less time on things that aren’t a priority.
Read on to learn more about how to get organized, track your moods and cycles, and free up your time and energy to focus on what really matters.
[*Shame Cycle Disclaimer*:
I’m writing to share some hard-earned life hacks, not to contribute to a cycle of shame filled with “shoulds” and “musts” and “I’m not enoughs.” I really do relate to that, and there are times in my life where I just know I’m not in a position to take on new systems or routines. That's ok and it's important to trust where you are today. ]
The Daily Planner
It all starts with a daily planner. This could be on your phone, with gmail calendar, tasks/reminders, or an actual paper planner. I have an actual paper planner called The Day Designer. The layout is great for me because it leaves room for hourly bookings (As a therapist I schedule on the hour and it’s important for me to have a planner that has a line for each hour), and leaves a whole lot of space for my Daily “to-dos”. It also provides a section for “Today’s Top 3” to help you prioritize the top 3 must-dos of the longer Daily “to- do” list. For me, writing everything in pencil in my Day Designer really helps me to solidify and remember my appointments, plans, and due dates, while giving me flexibility to erase anything and make changes.
Each week I have a little planning ritual where I open up my planner for the following week, and add in all my appointments, reminders, and plans for that week. This helps me get organized and grounds me into my week.
For Taking Notes
For ideas, thoughts, and notes that come up during the day, it’s so helpful to have one place where you can record them all. You can use an app on your phone, or even a regular old notebook. I currently have 299 notes in the Apple Notes App, and they all have different categories and topics (excessive, I know). If I can’t find the exact note I need, I type a keyword into the search box, and then it pulls up that note. I also make Apple Notes private by locking specific notes and requiring a password to open that note. I have an assistant and two therapists that work in my practice, so if something pops in my head that I want to make sure to talk to them about, I immediately write that down in these notes so that I don't forget to bring it up with them in our weekly meetings.
I use Evernote as a system for recording ideas and thoughts as they come up. Evernote offers the ability to create tags and categories, which can make it make more easily searchable than the Apple Notes. I tend to keep my business ideas in Evernote, which allows me to screenshot things that inspired an idea for a business offering or blog post, or an order or ticket confirmation. This is super handy, especially if you don’t have a printer or are in a situation where you aren’t near one.
I also use Moleskin Notebooks and regular old college ruled spiral notebooks to jot down thoughts and ideas so that I don’t always have to take notes on my phone.
The “Idea File”
In whatever note-taking system you use, create an “Idea File” to house all of your beautiful, ingenious, creative ideas that pop in your head throughout the day. (Thanks to Kate Nothrup for this one-- I will talk more about her in a few paragraphs). I keep mine in Evernote. I have tons of thoughts and topics that come into my head everyday, and this Idea File serves as a giant brain dump container so that I’m not forgetting these important thoughts as they pop in my head. Examples of Idea File notes are themes or topics coming up in therapy sessions such as: boundaries, healthy relationships, ideas for blog topics, further research, book titles, niching down or ideal client notes, questions raised or insights gained during therapy sessions, or ideas for future offerings. In fact, the idea to write this blog post about organizational systems started as a note in my Idea File!
For The Birds Eye View/Strategic Planning
Housing all of your precious ingenious thoughts in high level a way that is strategic and inspiring is a game-changer, so I recommend creating a system for organizing your larger visions on a weekly, monthly, seasonal, and annual basis. There are different ways of doing this and apps and notebooks and planners that offer different approaches. My personal favorite is The Do Less Planner that helps me zoom out of the specifics of my day-to-day, and create planning rituals that help me broaden my view and create a bigger vision for myself and my business.
In her book Do Less, author and business coach Kate Northrup lays out a full system for women to tune into their bodies and accomplish more while doing less. The concept is that a woman’s body works in monthly and seasonal cycles, whereas our culture’s operating system is based on a linear model of time that is more suited to how men work. Learning to honor where I am in my cycle in the month, by responding to my energy levels and scheduling my life accordingly, has been an absolute game-changer in my life (and incredibly de-shaming). After reading Do Less, I of course bought Kate’s Do Less Planner. ) The Do Less Planner offers Yearly, Seasonal, Monthly, Weekly, and Daily planners and trackers.
My favorite sheet of the Do Less Planner is the Seasonal Planner. This is where you can consolidate all of the information from all of your planners including birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, events, vacations, “think days,” your menstrual cycle (if this applies), the lunar phases, date nights, money dates, and “Things that MUST happen this season: other priorities that have historically been crowded out by other people but that you're committed to keeping front and center this next session (like working on your book, healing your finances, going to dance class, etc.).”
Completing the Seasonal Planner at the start of every season has been the thing that has finally helped me to be a Person That Remembers People’s Birthdays, which I was never before and always aspired to be. Tracking my cycle along with the moon/lunar phases has also been really amazing to see when my cycle is aligned with the new moon/full moon, and how that affects my energy levels. It also helps me plan around my cycle.
Mood & Cycle Tracking
Tracking your moods and cycles can enhance your ability to plan and schedule, and this practice can help you to really maximize your impact with the least amount of effort.
Cycle Tracking
If you are a woman who has a menstrual cycle (and if you are a man who is with a woman who does), it is so eye-opening to start tracking your mood and other physical symptoms with the different phases of your cycle. For example, I learned through tracking that on days 25-30 of my cycle I generally do not feel like socializing and I need lots of rest and naps. So when it’s right there on the calendar I can know to keep that week or weekend lightly scheduled, with plenty of time for rest. For tracking my cycle I use Flo and I absolutely love it.
Tracking Moods
If you are a person who does does not have a menstrual cycle, or if you are dealing with anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues, I highly recommend tracking your mood using a Mood Tracker app like iMood Journal or Dailio. Developing an awareness of your moods and any patterns or cycles that exist is so so important to learning more about yourself and how to manage your mental health.
Lunar Tracking
Tracking moon cycles is not for everyone, but I have loved making connections between my energy levels and the full moon or new moon. I have always loved astrology with a sort of “Take what you like, leave what you don’t” mentality, but there is something to the fact that our bodies respond to the moon cycles. There are many different moon tracking apps available- I use an app called iLuna.
During my Seasonal Planning ritual, I write all of the dates of my cycles and lunar phases into my Day Designer planner, so it’s all there in one place. This really helps seal the deal on making those connections between your energy levels, cycle, moon, and moon phase--and anything else you are inspired to track!
In Closing
I hope that this has been helpful and inspires you to start tracking moods and adopting a new organizational system today. I know it can be overwhelming, but it pays off so much to create systems for tracking and organizing so that you can increase your impact. These sorts of practices are so grounding, and when we are grounded and rooted, we are able to rise up to our most creative, liberated, free versions of ourselves! By freeing yourself from the 80% of work that takes up most of your time and creates the least results, you enable yourself to focus on the 20% of your work that creates the greatest impact on the happiness and well being of you and your loved ones. And that is our mission here at Root to Rise- to help you create a relationship and a life that you love.
I’d love to hear from you: What’s your best system for tracking and staying organized? What are some organizational or tracking systems that aren’t mentioned here, and how have they worked for you? If you have any challenges or questions, I’d love to hear from you. Comment on the blog!
If you are interested in what systems we use at RTR to organize our business-stay tuned for a future post about this!
If you’re feeling like life is too overwhelming to even think about organizing right now, that can be a sign that it’s a good time to start therapy. We can help! Give us a call.
Warmly,
Becky White, LMFT
