Many creative and successful people also happen to be disorganized. Studies do show that being organized can help you become more successful, but you can still accomplish a lot even though you are disorganized.
This can be a problem sometimes because if you can’t unleash your creativity in a way that helps you achieve your goals, all the creativity in the world won’t help you become successful in life. But, if you can harness goal setting, even though you’re disorganized, you can start getting much more done anyway.
Make a List of Your Ideas
Disorganized people often have many, many ideas. You need to get them all out of your system. Keep an ongoing list of ideas so that if you get one, you can just put it on the list, and let it go until it’s time to deal with it. This will keep you from going from one thing to the next without thought.
Prioritize the List
Put the list in order of priority. You can even separate it into now and later or now and next. The important thing is to put the list in order of importance based on what you need to do first or what you want to see happen in your life.
Set SMART Goals
Learn everything you can about setting SMART goals, from the University of California. This process of setting goals will help you naturally prioritize your lists as well as set up the next steps for your goals so that you really reach them.
Set Up Steps for Success
Using your SMART goals, you’ll want to create steps for each goal that you plan to achieve. The process of goal setting ensures that you have specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely – so that you can set a due date – goals that make sense for you to reach.
Make Another List (or three)
You really need several lists, one for each part of your life. For some of you, you may want to separate these lists up into mind, body, spirit, or you may have home life, business life, personal life, social life, and so forth. What you’re going to do is put three top things you must do each day to achieve your goals in these areas of life, which will translate into 10 to 12 must-do daily tasks that will ensure you reach all the goals you set in every aspect of your life.
Schedule Everything
Don’t just make lists, always put the step-by-step actions you need to take into the calendar on the date and time you want to do them. That way, you only need to look at your calendar and then go do what it says without even having any willpower or organization needed.
Consistency is Key
Remember that no matter what you want to accomplish in life, doing it every day, a little at a time is going to be more successful than any other method you can think of. Doing something small each day toward the goal is the sure-fire method of cusses that you need when you’re not organized.
One Thing at a Time
One reason some people are disorganized is that they are trying to do something no human can do – multitask. Multitasking is a killer of time and organization that you can let go of. Focus on and schedule only one thing at a time so that you really focus on it and do it right.
When you’re really disorganized, it will take practice getting used to setting up your goals this way with steps for success scheduled in your calendar. Essential to this idea is your list of basic things you need to do in each area of your life on a regular basis to be successful. You can do this; you just need to get started.
