When you first start to organize things, you might feel overwhelmed at the sight of all the things that you have collected and may wonder how it ever got to this stage. Try not to feel guilty or worry too much about it. You are now taking positive steps to clear all the clutter and getting organized. From this point forward, spend your time and energy in focusing on the future and not repenting about the past.

As you move forward, start your campaign by creating a master plan that contains a list of all that you want organized or done in the house. Before starting into specifics take a quick tour through the house and start noting down the jobs to be done in your notebook. These could range from cleaning bathroom drawers, sorting out toys, clearing newspapers, thinning your clothes closet and so on. This will remain your master list of short-term and long-term goals.

Keep a bag of supplies handy as you go around sorting and organizing. This bag should typically contain the following:

• different sized Ziploc bags
• a tote bag
• garbage bags
• timer
• labels
• notebook
• pen
• post-its
• empty boxes
• and a large bin with handles.

Being overwhelmed and getting organized go hand in hand – these feelings are perfectly normal to have and as each day passes those feelings will come under control especially as you start to see progress and accomplish specific goals you have set out for yourself.

We are now moving on to another important aspect of our lives – Organized Living and Getting Fit! Is it true the two really go together, the question is how? Well here is the thing, just as we could get our relationships on track using organizational methods, we can use the same techniques to ensure our physical health and well-being. There are many things beyond our control when it comes to health and fitness. By staying organized and disciplined, we can make sure that our health is our top priority.

The question still hasn’t really been answered -

How Can Organized Living help with Getting Fit?

If you are organized and disciplined enough you will be able to take all the necessary steps on which your physical health depends. As an example, it is considered very important that a person exercises on a regular basis and stays stress-free. Being organized will allow you to manage your time more effectively, which in turn will avoid stress and give you the proper time for your workouts.

In order to get organized the first thing you need to do is understand what your fitness goals are going to be. First things first, why not start by weighing yourself – you need to indentify if you are overweight and if so by how many pounds. Next what would you like to see as your ideal weight, to help you with this there are charts which can help you determine your ideal, healthy weight. A good idea is to consult your doctor and continue to go in for regular checkups.

Next take a look at your eating habits and sleep patterns – are you waking up in the morning feeling like you barely had a rest, lacking energy – obviously you are not resting well. Look at the amount of exercise you are now getting and is you can, consult a fitness expert to help you understand what you need to do to attain your fitness goals.

A few posts back we talked about having a business planner and a personal planner, now is a good time to pull out the personal planner and write down your specific fitness goals and what steps are necessary for your success in achieving your fitness goals. Here is a list of a few ideas of what to include in your planner:

• Include all exercise details in your planner
• Include appointments with your fitness expert and doctors in your planner.
• If applicable, try to attend special weight-loss workshops or meetings.
• Use your planner to take notes of what you eat at home and what you eat outside ie: restaurants, fast-food etc – Recording what you eat helps you to avoid high-calorie and low-nutrition food items.
• Share your goals with family and friends who are positive and supportive of your life changes. These are the people who are supportive and encouraging to you every step of the way. Knowing you are accountable to other people helps to keep you motivated as fear of failure is now being publicly broadcasted.

Periodically it is important to look at your progress you have made and what goals you have achieved, do this at regular and specific intervals as this will keep consistency in your plan. You should set short-term goals, mid-range goals and long-term goals – it is important to reward yourself each time you reach these goals. A reward should always be something meaningful so you will keep motivated throughout your progress thus increasing your chances of success in reaching all of your goals.

Getting fit is a serious commitment and should never be taken lightly or done on a bet, be serious about your lifestyle changes and do so as you strive for organized living. Being organized thus helps us to manage our time and our energies in a more efficient manner helping you to take control of your life. In the next few posts, we will provide you with not just a handful but over 60 organizational tips that will help you get your life back on track.

So far, we have talked about organized living at different levels and so far we are hoping this has made complete sense to you. When we make a statement that organizing your life will help you at many different levels, you may be a bit skeptical. After all how can organizing your life help with your relationships? Allow us to expand on this subject in the following:

You may find it easy to look at an item and decide whether you need it or not. Besides taking care of the physical stuff, you will also need to analyze another important aspect of your life – your relationships.

What happens if you don’t take the time to prioritize your relationships?

Chances are they will take up a lot of your time and energy causing you to spend some time looking at various relationships, identifying which ones are the most important to you. You will also be forced to determine what you are willing to do to build and grow your relationships.

When you start looking at relationships, you need to always start with yourself. Are you surprised by that statement?

Don’t be. The most important person in your life is “you” and the way you feel about yourself. This will go a long way in determining the kind of relationship you will have with others. If your self-esteem and self-confidence are high, you will have healthy relationships with your family, friends, co-workers and your partner. To feel secure and confident you must do all that can in those relationships.

The next step is to take a look at the different people in your life – some are your family members, some are your friends and some may be casual acquaintances. Identify those relationships that matter most to you and then work hard on them. It is not going to be easy but unless you learn to focus on those people that matter to you, chances are your relationships will not grow. As a matter of fact, more often than not, people who are the closest to you are the ones you tend to take for granted. They don’t make any demands on your time or your feelings and as a result, end up being ignored.

One of things we continue to hear is how wonderful modern technology is and how it has made it possible for us to stay in touch and connect with each other at all times. Even though we are able to keep in touch with friends and family whenever we want to, it does not mean that we are actually connecting. You don’t need technology to connect to people you love.

Organized living takes on much more than physical objects, it takes on the emotional side as well so why not make it a point to start devoting some time and effort to make those who are closest to you understand that you do appreciate
their love and support. See you in the next post where we talk about “Getting Organized to Get Fit.”

In Part 1 we gave you three organizing tips to help with your home storage solutions, which was to help you turn your home office into the most profitable, productive area in your home. Here in Part 2 we will be giving you the remaining 4 tips to help you in your quest to be successful from your home office, irregardless of where you have your empire situated in the house:

• Tip 4 – When working from home, it is extremely easy to get things mixed up between personal and business tasks. It is very important you keep personal tasks and business tasks separate and concentrate on finishing your tasks within the office. When working from home it is so easy to get distracted from your personal interests and from family members. There will be times when you may think – “It is just one call from a good friend and after the call I will get right back to work.” Trust us this never works as once you get sucked away from work you don’t usually find it an easy path to return to. Regardless of how easy or trivial a task may sound, stick to your office work during the hours you have established for yourself. Only after you are done your work tasks should you move on to household chores or other personal tasks.

• Tip 5 – Keep separate planners/organizers for your work. The use of a business planner in place of having small pieces of paper or post-its stuck all over the place will keep you more organized and allow you to use more of your time for the matters of the business. (Matters which make money not cost money) Use your business planner to also schedule your business meetings and appointments. Never use or let another family member use your office planner or your office bulletin board for anything other than putting up information related to your work.

• Tip 6 – Backup your computer on a regular basis without fail. No doubt you use your computer for communicating via email, for planning and organizing your business finances as well as your tax matters. As a result it is crucial that you learn to back up your files on a regular basis. Ensure you set a backup schedule to a specific day and time, discipline yourself to take backups or use special backup software that can do the task for you automatically.

• Tip 7 – Do you use a laptop computer separate from your desktop computer?If so make sure you store all information in one place if you can. You may want to consider sending all the backup files to your laptop or maybe even consider getting an external harddrive with lots of disk space. If you are using personal organizing software, you may want to store it in one central place. Whichever option you decide to use to store your information both personal and business, make sure the information stays updated on all devices whether it be a laptop, Blackberry, desktop, external harddrive.

Once again we have given you some very important and solution based tips. Tips that will help you to get your home-office organized and running at peak performance. Keep in mind we can give you all the tips in the world but you need to understand it all starts with you and what actions you are willing to take from these organizing tips for your home storage solutions. In our next post we are going to be talking about how organizing helps with your life – until then have fun with organizing your home.