Get Organized By Focusing on These 4 Core Areas

When getting organized seems overwhelming, remember that, in life, there are 4 core areas that you should focus on.

1. Time
2. Space
3. Information
4. People

By compartmentalizing all the things that you need to do you can stop running around and trying to do everything at once.

Because I am a professional organizer and productivity consultant, you may thing that I have it all together. But that is far from the truth. Getting organized, for me, is also a work in process, and it is hard work at that. Which is why helping others deal find clarity has become a passion of mine. I truly believe that organization the key to success.

Every person is given the same 24 hours in each day and yet some people accomplish so much and others so little. In his book How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, Arnold Bennett asks us to treat each precious minute as currency. Think about it, if time was actually money, would you spend it the way you are spending it now?

What I want to help you do, is spend your minutes with purpose.

To do this, you NEED to be organized. Too often I see people, myself included, miss great opportunities in life because of disorganization.

How many times have you missed some of the following because you weren’t organized enough?

• spending time with your family,
• meeting an important deadline,
• paying a bill on time,
• finding a special photo or object

Throughout my life I have gone through phases of being on top of my game with everything in order and being at rock bottom in total chaos.

Let me tell you, the top of the game is a much better place to be.

If you, too, feel that you are always a step behind trying to play catch up – I hope you will follow along with me.

Why These 4 Focus Areas?

No matter who you are and what you are dealing with, your life can be divided into 4 main compartments – time, space, information, and people.

If you think of them as separate areas, it is easier to allocate your time accordingly and, most importantly, stay on track.

Have you ever gone to do a quick tidy up of your kitchen and found yourself going down rabbit holes of dealing with the mail on the countertop or helping kids with homework?

When you allow these areas to blend together, nothing really gets done as efficiently as it could.

So, I like to use these four areas to bring myself back on track. When I am doing a task, it is easy for me to realize when I am crossing over into a different compartment and bring myself back.

Organize Your Time

The first area to master is your time – I always start here with my clients.

Using a time blocking technique, we start with the big picture of a month (or longer) and set some organizing goals for each of the remaining 3 areas.

We are accustomed to setting goals for things like work or exercise so it may strange to set goals for something as mundane as organizing but it is important.

You can apply something like the SMART Goals framework to your household and family projects as well.

Once you have the big picture of all the things that you want to organize you can break it down further into weekly and daily action items so you can get things done.

For more in depth guidance on organizing your time visit my Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity here.

Organize Your Space

If your mother has ever said “A place for everything and everything in it’s place?” raise your hand.

There is a deep truth to that statement.

Too often we become disorganized because we have too many things that are – shall we say – homeless. The logic is simple, if every single thing you own has a “home” you can easily put it away. Physical clutter really does add a lot of noise to life.

When you are bombarded with stuff – all you see are things to do. “Oh – I should put that away.” or “That is a project that I need to start (or finish).” etc.

How can we expect to relax as we sit smack in the middle of our to-do list every evening?

Getting rid of visual clutter gives your mind a chance to relax and focus on more important tasks and goals.

Organizing your space can also save you time. Finding what you want when you need it is a basic principle of organization. What this means is that you won’t waste precious minutes (or hours) looking for that one thing. This is time that you can spend accomplishing something else that is far more rewarding.

Explore my Beginner’s Guide to Organizing here for actionable ideas that you can use to organize your space.

Organize Your Information

Having all the information that we need at our fingertips is a double edged sword. We can find the answers to so many of our daily problems instantaneously. The downside is that all that data clogs up our computers, phones, and home offices.

Information overload and digital clutter are real problems and big projects.

Those piles of physical paper have simply moved onto our computers and cloud drives and keeping track of it all has become a monumental task.

This is why I include information as it’s own organizing compartment that you need to allocate time in your schedule to deal with.

If you are sitting down to pay bills or catch up on correspondence, you can easily get derailed from the task by deciding to clean out your downloads folder or your email inbox.

The point that I make here is that you to be efficient you need to stay on task and create a new project with a separate timeline for managing your information.

Organize Your People

Just when you think you have everything under control – that one (or two or five) special person/people in your life can throw a monkey wrench into your plans.

You have family obligations and social obligations that also demand your attention and time every single day.

If you aren’t aware of the time needed for all of your space and information projects, it is easy to give your hours to others and then fall behind.

It is also important to schedule or anticipate the time that you need to devote to other people to foster the important relationships in your life.

Often we give our time to the people that scream the loudest instead of the people we love the most.

I have seen it said that “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.” Keep this in mind always.

By compartmentalizing your life into these four areas, you can work to organize the time you devote to your important people. You can set boundaries and let them know what time you have available. I know it sounds formal, but you can even make an “appointment” with family to do routine things.

For example, if you help your children with homework every night, let them when you are available so you can respect their time and they yours.

Are You Ready to Get Organized?

Dividing life into four core areas that need to be organized – time, space, information, and people, can help improve your personal productivity.

I hope this visualization has been useful and that you have found some inspiration and clarity for your own organizing journey.