Organising the messy mind

'Just stop procrastinating and do it!' Ever heard this dreaded phrase before? Every time someone says it to me I want to bang my head against the wall. Well thank you, that tells me exactly how to solve the situation. Not.

This guide will actually tell you how to sort out the messiest of messes, from 'what to do' to 'how to do it'.

Pre-step 1: Mental spring cleaning

This is so important that it has to be its own step. Before anything else, you need to clear your mind. Keeping everything in your head will cause unnecessary stress at the worst of times. So, grab a sheet of paper, and just write everything. Big and small, a task or just a thought. From the 'hey that could be cool' to 'this is an emergency; I need this done by tomorrow'. This might take time, but ultimately, you'll be saving time by not having your mind filled with worries. Intrusive thoughts like 'what am I forgetting?' can be avoided if everything is here.

This may result in a very overwhelming sheet of paper, with arrows flying everywhere to connect different tasks, but it's there and, when in doubt, this is where you can go.

Step 1: Prioritising the clutter

Is your laundry more important, or the proposal your boss is expecting this week? You should probably write down the latter and tackle it first. This is the bare bones of organisation, and the first thing to do.

There's a plethora of ways you could write these tasks down, from fancy Instagram ready bullet journaling, to jotting things down on your notes app. My prioritising looks like this:

The circles indicate their importance and it's reflected in their mock deadlines that we'll see in the next step. The dates I have in red are the real deal. This is essential to keeping me on track and making sure I don't miss out on major deadlines. Ones without deadlines aren't important, so it's fine if I delegate them to a Thursday night, or sleepy Sunday morning. More importantly, it's fine to push something to 'later' if it's not important enough.

It doesn't make you lazy or unproductive, instead it will help you focus and accomplish what you need done first. Letting a task go for the time being will free up the mental RAM you need to do actually complete what you want to do first.

What if everything is important? You're not prioritising then. Ask yourself questions about each task to figure out the importance of each; is it a source of revenue? What impact does not doing the task have on me and my life? What impact does it have on other people's lives? This can be your starting point, and by the end of your interrogation, you should have an idea of what task is the most important, and which ones you can push to later.

And, I get that letting go of a task can be painful. As someone with anxiety, I understand how quickly everything can become too much, and all of them feel so necessary. But they're not. If this is an issue, you have to keep this in mind; not everything is life and death. It's okay and healthy to leave something to a later deadline. Some things are best left to the paper you now have, and pushed out of your mind to a later date.

Step 2: Set Mock Deadlines

So at this point, you should know what is essential to complete first, and it probably has a red scary deadline attached to it. But, that deadline is not the one you should be working towards. Ever. Because, we've all been there, watching the date get closer and closer, convinced that we have enough time to just get it done. We never do, and the end result is shoddy at best, and incomplete at worse.

To avoid that disaster, you should have a second deadline, one that fits in with your schedule and has you working and thinking of it at a steady pace. You have work on weekdays? Set the deadline to a Sunday afternoon. You have to go to the doctor's the day an assignment is due? Set your mock deadline a few days beforehand.

Treat it like the real deal, and whenever you do fail to meet that deadline, you'll still be able to complete your task before it's really due.

I generally set my deadlines a few days before. If any major disaster or freak accident happens a couple days before it's due, I'll still have my shiny complete work to hand in with a smile.

But what about the tasks without deadlines? I'm glad you asked, this is where they get to have their own, reasonable due date. Avoid putting it on a high stress day, and make sure you give yourself enough time to do both the important and unimportant tasks, and you're good to go! And more on the idea of time later.

Step 3: Break down the tasks

Now you have your tasks, and deadlines, and that's wonderful! But, one of my tasks is just 'finish portfolio', something huge and daunting, not at all reflected by those two words and its distant due date. The time it will take me to do that compared to my laundry is immense, and I need to take that into account.

This is where more advanced planning comes in, to roughly calculate how long each sub-task will take. This isn't needed for most tasks, as you can do them in one sitting. But for those that need the extra mile, I'll use this article and my portfolio as examples:

My article is self explanatory. I have to write it, and that will roughly take an evening. I need daylight to take my photos, as well as an hour-ish to prepare them, and proofreading is fairly simple, and I can get that done whenever.

What this means is that, I have to reserve a morning to take my pictures, and a calm evening to write it. This gets into weekly and daily planning, which isn't the subject, but knowing a general timeslot for each task is important as well.

This doesn't mean you have to get fancy! In school, I flat out wrote tasks and times on my wrist, and it worked great! This isn't a method I still do, but for those who just need the information somewhere, your wrist or a post it note works fine!

Step 4: Romanticize Romanticize Romanticize!

This is the fun part, where you really tell yourself, what would make me want to do this? Just sitting down and doing something isn't appealing, so you have to make it appealing.

This is where cheap candles and faux cleaning come into play. When I sit down to write an assignment (or post like this), I make sure to have a vanilla scented candle lit, and to have a pretty looking list ready to look at. It sounds like a waste of time, but tricking your brain into wanting to do something is one of the best methods to being productive. Just the dopamine rush of finishing something won't cut it for me, so I have to make me want to do it.

And I can guarantee you that their desk doesn't always look like that neat, and neither does mine! It's normal to not always have a picture perfect desk, but clearing it and making it look nice and functional to you is kay when convincing yourself to tackle your work.

So play some lofi to feel like the protagonist of your own show, move the main clutter out of your vision to give you crystal clear concentration. If it's not important, you don't have to deal with every little mess now (but if you want to I highly suggest it!), so let yourself rejoice in a table cloth you barely use, or a fancy teacup you keep for special occasions!

When your done setting the scene, taking in the novel-like décor, you're ready to begin.

Step 5: Take pride in your accomplishments

You're now sat down (or standing) in front of your work, and you've made yourself the happiest pumpkin at the thought of it. There's hot chocolate to your left and your handy task list to your right. You've cleared the physical clutter and mental clutter. Now, starting isn't that scary anymore. Instead of 'write a speech', you have 'brainstorm main ideas of the speech', and you'll have something down by the time you've finished your cup.

Congratulations!

I mean it, the hardest part is done. Your brain is primed and ready, you're ready. The quiet music is ready to ease you into the task, and when that playlist ends, you can finish with a smile.

You're done now, and it's time to treat yourself! Not only does it feel great to have a bubble bath after a long day of work, or watch a new film you don't have time for, doing so will create a positive connotations to your work. When you associate working with a happier room, and fun afterward, it's easier to start doing it.

While getting here isn't easy, and it's not done in a day, when you get here, treat it like the achievement it is.

That's it! Now fly off into the night and fight the wall of tasks you've been ignoring. I know I have my fair share~