When life gets hectic, the last thing you need is a messy home, office, or brain. Keeping things in your life organized is the first step in living a truly happy life. Getting rid of that stress is a main ingredient to living a lifestyle with more TIME.

1. Write Everything Down.

It’s not fair to you to rely on your memory for everything. Take some time to develop a habit of writing everything down. Writing stuff on lists and calendars will ultimately increase your productivity by narrowing your focus. 

2. Practice Mise En Place (Putting In Place)

Getting into a routine of putting stuff back to where it belongs is a surefire way to decrease stress and increase focus. Imagine all of the time you spend cleaning and organizing. What if you could work that time into substantially smaller segments throughout the day?

3. Develop a Money Management Plan

Another large part of stress and time management is money. After all, money IS time. Take some time and develop a plan for your budget and allocate funds where they need to go. Whether this means making a spreadsheet or downloading an app, find a way to get your money in order. The stress afterwards will be minimal.

4. Unsubscribe

Take a few minutes (or hours) to unsubscribe to unwanted emails, magazines, or other subscriptions. All of the time that you take separating it out from the important stuff is more time you could take to deal with the important stuff. Most emails have a simple link to unsubscribe at the bottom and a lot of mailers have a number you can call. Do it!

5. Make a Weekend List

Another great way to organize your life is to take all of the fun things you want to do and put them on a weekend list. Rather than putting work aside during the week so you can do something fun, get the work done so that, when you do indulge, it’s truly an indulgence.