of life a seven-figure annual income affords. Instead, I found myself a slave to my email, social media messages, and phone calls—and I’m not talking just nine to five. I’m saying around the clock and even on weekends.
Low-level anxiety had become my way of life. Anytime my phone beeped, alerting me to a message, it flared like a flame in a sparkler factory. I couldn’t let messages wait without an answer. This was partly because of my desire to please people and partly because answering my messages relieved my anxiety.
I used to blame others for messaging me at all hours of the day and night until I realized it was my accessibility that had given them permission in the first place. I’ve since learned to set boundaries.
I stepped to the front of the line by respecting those boundaries myself. I set specific times for checking and responding to messages, and I let everyone in my life know what those boundaries were.
Guess what? I don’t blame anybody anymore. I am the boss of me, and managing my life is my job. I am responsible for taking control. Just like you are.
Is there an area of your life where you need to set boundaries? Are there any self-respecting adjustments in order? Think about what you would change and how you would change it.
Sometimes change (even positive change) brings on anxious feelings. Those anxious feelings are generated by anxious thoughts. The good news is you can change your thoughts any time you want.
What would your life look like if you took control? Well, guess what? It may not feel like it now, but you are already in control.
The thirty-one ways that follow offer a framework for making positive changes in your life. Some will be familiar, and other ideas will be new. You don’t have to tackle them all at once. One step at a time will take you where you want to go.
Stop Leaving Life to Chance
After you sort out your doubts and decide to make the necessary changes, your next step is to work toward organizing your life. Getting organized means different things to different people. Sometimes it means finding a place for things. Alternately, the process can involve digging out of wall-to-wall hoarding, pitching everything in sight, and then realizing later you needed and should have kept some of it.
Like everything else, organization begins in the headspace. If your thoughts are organized, your life will be organized. Organization is about creating harmony and balance in your life. It means aligning your actions with your purpose.
What if your whole life is disorganized? Well then, you go around in circles. You can also think of it like riding bumper cars. You have to be hyper-vigilant—watching and trying to avoid collisions while making sure everything doesn’t spin out of control when you turn your head.
Already feeling out of control? You have two choices:
1.Be organized and prepared.
2.Respond to life as it unfolds.
I’ve done it both ways. Guess which is easier?
How can YOU begin organizing your life?
After organizing your headspace, the next step is organizing your environment. Even if it’s a corner of a room, define a space that is yours alone and build from there.
Here are a few hints.
Organizing Your Workspace
For me, being organized begins with having an orderly workspace. Everything has its place, and I know where stuff is when I need it. This is really important because as a “momtrepreneur,” an organized workspace is the foundation for getting it done. All of it!
My workspace and home are organized in a way that makes life comfortable and easy for me. I’m not compulsive, but I attribute much of my success to staying organized.
I know that everything trickles down from the top, so when my own life is balanced, my family’s lives are more balanced, too.
Okay, tell me if you can relate. Does life sometimes feel like a juggling act? Me too. If I were not organized, everything would probably fall apart. I would be living in CHAOS—unable to manage my time or my tasks.
FILE INSTEAD OF PILE
We all know people with big piles on their desk. They say, “Don’t worry. I know where everything is. I can find it when I need it.”
Yeah? Maybe….
If you’re a piler, you might think your organized mess is efficient, and you might know what papers are in which piles, but try to imagine what it would be like if you developed a filing system. What would it be like to know exactly where to look for what you need? You’d feel less anxious when you have to find something in a hurry, wouldn’t you? You only have to create a system you can follow, and it only takes a few extra minutes to put things away as soon as you’re finished with them.
Disorganization, on the other hand, has several drawbacks. It can be the source of invisible tension, affecting your mood even though you might not be fully aware that it is where the problem started.
Disorganization affects you emotionally. It can be super stressful! And again, that stress is there whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.
If you’re a piler, your life will be changed overnight by developing a filing system. Give it a try and see. From there, it just takes discipline as you create a new habit. Eventually it will be automatic.
List Makers Unite!
Okay, so there are average list makers and then there are serious LIST MAKERS. Average list makers write all of their tasks on one to-do list and work from it. Serious LIST MAKERS break tasks down and create categorized sub-lists. Sometimes they’re pages long.
Go with what works for you.
Be patient. I’m going to spend a little time on this subject because list making is a valuable aspect of being organized. Besides helping you stay on task, list making has other benefits. Let’s discuss some of them.
First of all, if you commit to a list, you won’t have to worry about forgetting things at the market or mailing letters so long as you list them with your daily tasks. Write it, do it, and cross it off. Bam!
By the way, it feels really good to cross off completed tasks. In fact, some list makers add completed tasks to their lists just so they can cross them off. There’s a reason for this. It’s both psychological and physiological.
The reason it feels so good to cross off completed tasks is because to some degree you’re after the natural high that follows.
You’ve heard of endorphins, right? They’re brain chemicals that are released internally and react with the opiate receptors in the brain. They act in pretty much
