Make Space Intentional

All your things are in the room you want them in but now where do they go? The best way to get organized and stay organized is to make your space intentional. Start to think about what you will be doing in the room you are in and how things need to function for your benefit. For example, if you are putting your home office together to suit your needs, make sure your furniture pieces can store everything you need. Before you start putting things in drawers think about what you interact with most frequently and store those items in the easiest to reach places. If you notice that you leave the same thing out on our desk, like a pen, get a fun pen holder or cup to put it in so you can keep it on your desk where you prefer.

If you notice an area is cluttered, consider removing all related items and getting a new shelf or furniture piece specifically for those items. For example, if the area around your printer is cluttered or you find your printer is buried, find a small two drawer shelf that is the right size to put your printer on top. You can designate the top drawer to loose papers you aren't ready to toss and the bottom drawer to the copy paper and ink. In doing this, you've made your printing process more simple and made the space for it intentional.

Schedule by Intention

Everyone has a busy schedule and sometimes the day slips by without us knowing where our time went. This results in minimal progress simply because we may be caught up in day-to-day habits without stopping to consider what is best for the long term. Is what you’re doing today going to amount to something in 1 year? Or will it be lost? A small step each day in the direction we want to go in will get us there in a balanced and sustainable way.

A standard schedule does not work for everyone because life gets in the way and things get pushed back repeatedly until we simply forget about them. Scheduling intentions allows flexibility without the guilt if those things are not accomplished in the way we hoped. Simply block out a time that you are going to dedicate to your goal. Even if you only accomplish something small during that time, you still took a step in the right direction. There are many small steps behind every big result.

Establish your intentions by setting daily minimums to alleviate the feeling that we did not accomplish enough at the end of the day or that the day slipped by. Break down all the different areas of your life. Now, what do you have to do in order to maintain each of them? For example, you may need to do 3 chores a day to maintain your home, send 1 text to a friend and 1 text to a family member to let them know you’re thinking of them, and study/ network/research for 1 hour to keep up with school or career development, and 30 minutes for physical fitness. This is just a basic example of how to delegate intention to maintain all the aspects of your life. What time you check off these daily minimums can adjust to your changing schedule, but at the end of the day, you’ll know all areas of your life are on track and heading in the right direction. Ask yourself where you want to be in a year and set time aside to grow that area. Don’t worry about your scheduled obligations! They will always be there but your time will not. You must have presence in where you are going or you will stay exactly where you are. In a year, you will be able to see how 30 minutes a day has added up and what it has amounted to.