My Chaotically Organized Life
What I watched: You're Not Lazy: How to Live a Chaotically Organised Life by Elizabeth Filips. Posted July 19, 2022.
After watching the video I immediately thought “This is me!” I'm by no means lazy, but I have also never been able to craft a highly organized life structure per the abundance of advice doled out by what seems like just about every productivity or goal achievement book, video, or article.
My life is indeed chaotically organized and, much like Elizabeth Filips, it appears to have worked for me for 68 years and it's doubtful I'll change my stripes at this point. And I don't want to change.
(By the way, Filips’s channel is definitely worthwhile and I encourage you to consider subscribing. Her videos are excellent and often thought provoking and useful.)
Sure, continual self-improvement is good and something for which I strive, but I don't have detailed long-range plans, lots of solid habits, a regular work schedule, or anything that sticks to any sort of ongoing rigid life structure.
One of the ways I deal with this preferred mode of living while also doing lots of the things I want to do is to follow a simple personal process that seems to keep me on track.
I write everything down. Everything. As Daniel J. Levitin mentions in his book, The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload (the book I’m currently reading), it's a time-tested truth that our brains function better if we can offload to an external repository the ideas, tasks, and information that cross our mental path each day. I use Evernote, but there is an argument to be made for paper and pen too. Either way, I suggest you always write stuff down.
I do a morning and evening review of all the ways my life is chaotically organized. Every morning I:
Review every communication input and scheduling mechanism in my life (emails, texts, calendars, voice mails, and so on).
Review and update my "list" which is a single notes file into which I dump anything and everything that comes my way throughout a day. That might be a random idea, to do task, notes from a meeting, someone's contact information, an interesting website or book to read later... everything.
Prioritize, shuffle, delete, or move to an archive repository everything on the list. When my list is extremely long I often only do a full review of my entire list once a week. That always brings the most important items to the top of the prioritized list and keeps those things at the top during my daily reviews.
This daily process takes me a few minutes. The weekly process can take up to an hour (but it's worth every second).
At the start, end, and throughout my day, I use a mental cue of a few words that help me decide what I might do next. I lightly ponder long-term plans but the focus is on what I’m going to do today and especially what I'm going to do next. The words are Body, Mind, Service, People, Stuff.
Every single aspect of my life falls somehow into those five word buckets of life experience and allow me to quickly make sure my entire overall life is mulled over and nothing falls through the cracks.
Then I decide what I'm doing next. Do that. Finish that or pause it. Quickly repeat the Body, Mind, Service, People, Stuff self-reflection, decide on the next thing. Do that. Finish that or pause it. Repeat. All day long. And yes, sometimes the next thing I want to do is take a nap or go for a walk. My life is not a series of constantly "productive" moments and I hope it never is.
I reference my list during the day when necessary, but I’ve noticed that by abiding by my process I naturally tend to know what’s important that day and what I need to or want to do next without constantly checking the list.
I do another shorter review at night before going to bed (for just a few minutes), update my notes, and that sets me up better for the next day so I can fall asleep not worrying about missing anything important to act on the next day.
That may sound incredibly organized, but it's not really. It's a very fluid, flexible, and an "in the now" way of proceeding through my day. It works for me. Maybe some version of it would work for you.
That said, please never adopt someone else’s “system” for life wholeheartedly, at least not for the long term. We are all unique. How we think and function is unique. Our goals, desires, and needs are unique. So why should our process necessarily be an exact replication of someone else’s. It’s best to pick and choose what works for you and ignore what doesn’t. Keep doing that. Forever. Trust me, you’ll never craft the perfect process for yourself because the perfect process doesn’t exist. So hone and adjust your process as you see fit at anytime.
Organizing is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy the journey.
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