How to organize your life in one week

You might be done feeling messed up and feeling like you have no control over your life. What you need to do and that you know is to organize your life. But you’ve been procrastinating it forever.

As we grow up, we all mess it up. It’s not something only you feel you have done.

We all wish we could have an undo button and get things back to how it was when we were kids- simple and sweet or how things were in the past when things weren’t as messed up as they are now.

But unfortunately, there is no undo button.

But what we do have is a re-do button and a re-start button and we can press it anytime we want.

Today itself you can press this re-start button and begin to organize the mess that your life has turned into.

Don’t wait for another day when you ‘feel like it’.

That feeling is an illusion. You decide first and then the feeling comes.

In this post, I show you a step-by-step daily plan for 7 days so that you can get started with organizing your life and also feel its positive effect.

Organizing your life in one week might seem like a hack, but it’s not.

In one week many things are possible.

You can leave your country and start a new life in a new one.

You can go for a trip and even come back

You can get started by eating healthy and feeling lighter.

You can start to feel more aligned and purposeful in just one week of changing your habits intentionally.

But the thing that most of us don’t know when organizing our lives is that we don’t know where to start.

So let me share where you must start to organize your life.

Where do I start to organize my life?

There is no hard and fast rule regarding where or which area you must start to organize your life.

Our life is composed of many parts- relationships, work, finances, home etc, but most importantly, our life is made up of time.

When we are not respectful of how we spend our time, our entire life starts to go haywire, so the best way to start organizing your life would be to organize your time and the best way to organize your time would be to organize your week.

Because a week consists of days and days in turn consists of hours.

Also, simply follow this 7-day plan to organize your life in one week.

How to organize your life in one week

If you only follow this 7-day challenge to organize your life and do exactly as each day suggests, you will get ahead with many things and see it’s change and feel.

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Day 1: Organize your week

First of all, for day one of organizing your life in one week, as I said, organize your week.

My week starts on a Monday and the first thing I do at the start of every week is to set up my weekly planner.

I don’t add a whole lot of things to my weekly planner. I write down my 1-3 most important tasks for each day of the week.

I use a physical planner that I keep on my desk where I can see easily, but you can also use a digital one and print it.

When setting your weekly planner, just add one most important thing you would want to get done for each day.

Ask yourself, “What is the one thing that if you get it done, you’ll go to bed satisfied?”

But right now, since you’re just at the beginning of organizing your life and life is still pretty unorganised and you don’t know what to do, for this week, simply follow this weekly plan to get organised.

P.S How to set weekly goals and crush it

Day 2: Organize your space

For Day 2, organize your living space. Organize the space where you spend most of your time.

Then pick 1-3 areas to organize in your living space by considering how much time you have in hand.

Organizing should always start with decluttering. You declutter first, and then you organize the things that are left.

When you declutter your living space- it can be to declutter your bedroom- pick 1-3 areas such as your desk, your closet, your bedside table, your bed, and your drawer.

If you’re someone who has a lot of things in your bedroom from old newspapers, books on the shelves that have been catching dirt for ages, and all kinds of files and things piled up that you don’t need, then you have to declutter hard and clean hard.

But allow yourself to go slow. Don’t be overwhelmed. Just pick one area if it’s too much for you.

Clear out the clutter as much as you can. It blocks not only physical space but also your mental space and it blocks good fortune from arriving in your life.

Your space should make you feel calm and energised, not stressed and low.

Pick up every item and ask yourself, “Do you really need it or you’re just thinking you might need it sometime in the future?”

If you have not used that item in the past 1 month or so, the chances are that you won’t need it in future.

Give it away.

Clean the floors.

For today your goal is simply to keep your space clean, tidy and organised.

After you finish your decluttering and organisation session, take a warm bath.

Go to bed today in a clean and spacious surrounding.

P.S Some inspiration for you

Day 3: Organise your goals

When I ask people what their goals are, so many of them are blank and many of them have just vague goals- like earning a lot of money, being rich, being happy, being successful and so on.

Yes, they are goals too, but they are major goals and they don’t tell you what you need to for it.

Your goals need to be specific and actionable that you can do on the day to day basis.

So today let’s organize your goals. Here is how.

P.S. You will have to write this down. So get a pen and a diary.

Start with your major life goals. What is it that you would like to do in this lifetime?

Don’t be too rational about it. Let go of all your rational thinking, keep aside your doubts, fears and concerns and simply write down- what is it that you would like to do and be in this lifetime.

These major life goals can be vague too. It doesn’t matter. You can write down that you want to be a singer, a writer, a dancer or an established entrepreneur. You want to be able to do a lot of charity and travel to places all around the world. It doesn’t matter how outright impossible or dangerous it feels.

Just write down whatever it is that excites you.

Next, write down your next 5 year goals.

What do you want to see yourself doing in the next 5 years? Do you want to stay the same or do you want to see a different version of yourself and your life?

In 5 years your entire life can shift, but for many of us, because we don’t set any clear goals, 5 years passed by in an instant and we are still doing the same things and we see hardly anything change in our life.

So don’t underestimate 5 years and don’t underestimate setting your 5 year goals.

It is what will help you move forward.

Next, break down your five-year goals into what you would want to focus on each year in the next 5 years.

Then, you will know what will be your one-year goal.

Even one-year goals are vague and major.

Ask yourself, what is it that you’d like to focus on and what is your major goal for this year? Don’t keep more than 3.

Then set quarterly goals after that.

From quarterly goals, the goals start to become much more actionable.

I do this process at the start of the year so I know exactly what I need to work on each quarter.

Then, based on the quarterly goals, I set my monthly goals and based on my monthly goals, my weekly goals which are just a bunch of actions that I need to take each week.

P.S. In this post, I’ve shared more on how to set goals the right way.

Day 4: Organize your work

Today, organize your work life.

If things are messed up and you don’t have a clear plan of action, if your work files and your things are disorganised, then organize them today.

Start first with organizing your work desk, then your work files on your desk, your work files on your computer, your mail and phone calls.

Set time batches.

Keep separate folders for all and set a plan for what you want to work on this week following a weekly planner and setting up your calendar.

It’s okay if you can’t get it all done. Do as much as you can.

Here is how to organize your work.

Day 5: Organize your finances

If your finances are in a mess, and you feel frustrated over it, today give yourself time to organize your finances.

First, just write down your income from all sources. How much do you exactly earn in a month?

Then make a list of the things you need to give your money to each month without fail.

This can be a mortgage, rent, loans, bills, automatic savings etc. Set a reminder to pay it at the start of every month. Keep this your payday routine.

I also recommend you keep 10% every month from your income only for investment purposes.

This money can be used for investing in your learning by taking some courses or investing in your business or any idea later on.

Keep this 10% no matter what.

How much is remaining after you give money for these essentials?

From there keep aside 30% for household expenditures, 30% for fun money, 10% for traveling, 10% for emergency fund, 5% for donations and the rest of it, leave it as it is.

This is something I do for myself. If not 30% or 20% exactly, you can set aside a particular amount for yourself, your house expenses, your travelling plans etc.

This will keep your financial life organised and you won’t even be sad when parting with money, because that’s what the money is designated for!

Then you can keep a weekly budget for yourself, and your house expenses based on the monthly budget you have.

Day 6: Organize your kitchen

For Day 6, organize your kitchen.

Organize your shelves and cabinets.

Keep similar items together, for example- keep cooking utensils that you use every day together, keep baking items together, and keep the spices and herbs that you use every day together.

And keep those things that you use every day close by.

Have designated shelves for specific items that are similar to each other.

Use storage boxes and containers. If you feel you need some, make a list of the items you need storage containers and boxes for.

Here are some other tips to organize your kitchen.

Day 7: Organize your daily routine

Lastly, for day 7, begin with organizing your daily routine.

How are you spending your days? How are you spending your time?

As I said in the beginning, the best way to organise your life and get your life together is to get your timings together and get your routine together.

Set a reasonable morning routine for yourself and an evening routine for yourself.

Decide what would you like to do in the morning before going to work.

Do you want to spend the rest of your working life rushing every day and not giving any time to yourself for your self-care and nourishment?

Do you always want to wake up feeling tired and feeling like you have no direction and just cutting off days to pass the time?

Or do you want to wake up feeling excited to work on your goals and dreams?

Don’t you want to wake up smoothly being thankful and do things first for yourself and then for everybody else?

We have so much built-up anger and frustration inside us because we have neglected ourselves.

It’s not because of what someone said or did that you end up becoming easily angry, annoyed and worried.

It’s because you haven’t given time to yourself.

So give time to yourself and schedule a daily routine for yourself- in the morning before work in the evening after coming back home and before you go to bed.

Today, just set that daily routine and set out to organize your time and then stick it out in front of your wall or table where you can see your timetable easily.

Here are some other posts to help you:

Other tips to help you organize your life in a week

1. Make lists

Get into the habit of making lists to organize your life. Here are 12 lists to make to get organized.

2. Write it down

To keep your life organized, write things down. It takes two minutes to write down and put it on paper.

If someone asks you to do something, and you say later, and if you’re not doing it right away, then you need to put it down on paper or set a reminder for it.

There have been so many times that I was told to do something, but then I completely forgot about it because I thought I would remember and I need not write it down.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Slowly I’m getting into the habit of writing things down and I’ve come to learn that it’s better to do it right away if that task is going to take less than 3 minutes to do it.

This keeps me organized and I have fewer things pending on the to-do list.

3. Keep things where they belong

Keep things where they belong right away. The scissors should be in their place, the cellotape should be in its place so that when you need it, you find it right away.

Putting things right where they belong takes less than 2 minutes. So there’s no need to get lazy about it.

Make it a rule in your life: if it takes less than 3 minutes, do it immediately.

4. Declutter regularly

Declutter regularly, at least once a month or once every quarter.

5. Buy less stuff

Buy only the stuff that you need and are going to use at your home and life, otherwise, you know it will just end up being cluttered.

If you have less stuff, you also have less stuff to declutter and less stuff to organize and that means less work and more time, more space and more joy.

6. Keep storage boxes

Use storage boxes and containers to your aid where you need them to make things organised and to keep similar things together.

Beware that you don’t buy storage boxes just because you want to and end up piling up storage boxes making them cluttered again.

7. Do things at the designated time

To save your life from being a mess again and get things piling up again, on both life, work and everything else, do the things you planned to do in the designated time.

It saves so much time and you stop yourself from tasks spilling into other tasks.

Do things at their own time and you will never be behind.

8. Follow a weekly planner

Continue to follow a weekly planner where you plan your dates and what one thing you want to get done each day of the week.

Here is how to set weekly goals and crush them.

9. Do the most important thing first thing in the morning.

It’s better to get your most important thing done for the day early in the morning so that in the evening, you can do anything you want- you can relax, you can read, you can learn or do anything.

This will help you work on your goals so much better.

10. Do less

Aim to do less in your day. Don’t get tempted to do it all. Have just 3 agenda days and schedule them in your daily routine.

When you do this, your life will feel much more balanced and you will have time for work, play and rest and you won’t have to feel guilty at all.

Final thoughts on how to organize your life in one week

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Organizing your life is not a one-time event, but once it’s organized from a mess and all the disorganization, the hard will be mostly over and over time, it will only be about maintaining it for a long enough time.

There will of course be times when you will feel like you messed it up again, but it’s okay.

You can re-start again and get organized again.

Practice good habits, spend your time wisely and use every 30 minutes for doing something fruitful that you will thank yourself for.

Have fun organizing your life and also, stop saying that your life is such a mess.

What you keep repeating to yourself and others matters. Start saying that you are now getting your life together and from now on, life will be easier and smoother for you and make your actions aligned with your new way of thinking.

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Hello, I'm Vishaka!

How to organize your life in one week

Organizing your life in one week might seem like a hack, but it’s not.

Where do I start to organize my life?