how I keep my life in order (kind of)

YES the title of the feature image is ironic. Oh, don’t act so shocked. My life is about as chaotic as it gets right now, so I really have no business writing about my organisational system like some kind of expert… BUT I AM DOING IT ANYWAY. *evil laugh*

If you can’t tell already, this post is a little different from my usual content. I have been reading a ton of blogs centered around organisational tips, bullet journalling, various to-do lists, goals,… just a bunch of motivational shit, basically. Content like that always inspires me to work on my own lists and goals, so I thought I would try my hand at this myself, you know, maybe even motivate myself along the way (because I have so much to do uuuggghh).

It took me a long time to find an organisational system that worked for me. I tried a bunch of different things to get my life in order but none of that seemed to work quite the way I wanted it to. My problem: I needed a simple way to tie in my blogging responsibilities with my other tasks for school etc. I finally settled on the classic to-do list – but with a twist.

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How my system works

Laptop

Let’s start with the thing I am typing away on right now; my laptop. My laptop is always with me whenever I have to do work, I just enjoy working on it I guess. It’s always been like that. When I was in primary school, I taught myself how to use Word, Powerpoint and Excel just for the fun of it. I opened an imaginary shop with two friends of mine and together we would categorise items in Excel, print out sheets for receipts,… yup, that was our idea of fun.

Now that I actually have real stuff to do on this thing, it’s hard sometimes to create an overview of all of my unfinished or unstarted projects. I picked up this simple trick from a medical student whose YouTube videos on studying and organisation I sometimes watch: creating a To-Do folder on your desktop. Everything you need to work on goes in there. I have separate sub folders in that folder, such as “print out”, “assignments”, “blog”, “photos”. It’s a simple yet effective way to list all of my digital tasks in one place. Once I’m done with a task, I will remove it from the to-do folder and save it to a different one.

The Notes on my laptop, as well as my phone, also get a lot of use. I use them quite a lot for jotting down some quick blog post ideas or ideas for other creative projects. Sometimes I also write a little list of tasks on there.

Websites/Apps

A site I use to document and organise my bookish interests is Goodreads. I cannot praise about this site enough – it’s practical for keeping track of books you want to read, have read and for discovering new books in general. I joined in 2015 and fell in love instantly. I created two separate book categories – “owned to-read” and “favourites”. I also previously had a folder full of books people had borrowed from me. If you have a Goodreads account or are planning on creating one, add me! (and give me some book recommendations sometime)

I use a business calendar app on my phone, which syncs with the regular calendar on my phone/laptop as well. Normally I will use this calendar for blog-related planning. I like it because it colour-codes everything by itself, from holidays to birthdays, to appointments and other random entries. It also features a to-do list and reminds you of your daily tasks via notifications on your phone.

Another calendar app on my phone is one specifically designed for students. You can keep track of your tasks and assignments, your grades, your classes, uni-related events, exams,… It even has its own section for giving back library books – I mostly use it for keeping track of the books I borrowed from family and friends.

The WordPress app is a great way for me to check in on your blogs on the go. Sometimes I’ll do it in the morning while drinking some tea, other times I’ll do it in public transportation, breaks or (when I’m really bored) in class. What I like about it is that I can save your posts into one big list and read through them later without having to scroll all the way back down again.

Journal

As some of you might know, I journal a lot. Now I don’t want to fully call it bullet-journaling because I don’t look at my journal as something I have to do continuously. It’s more of a “when I feel like it” kind of thing. Sometimes I will get crazy inspired and write pages and pages full of stories, experiences, quotes I like, goals I have, etc. Other times I can’t be bothered to do anything; and I have come to realise that that’s okay. So what if I don’t feel like writing in my journal for a whole week?!

What I do track in my journal are my yearly goals, my monthly to-do lists and my blog posts. I like to plan them out in there, so instead I will work out a schedule for the month and plan around that. I write down the dates I want to post something and will start looking through my notes for ideas and inspiration. I try to vary it quite a lot, so instead of posting five music posts in a row, I will try to space them out a little. My journal is the perfect place to do that in. This year I have been working on a lot of collaborations with you guys, so I will also use my journal to plan those out and keep collab ideas on hand at all times. At the end of each month I usually write a small paragraph, citing my experiences in the blogosphere of the month and how I feel about it.

When all else fails…

…I’ll use the old-fashioned way – a piece of paper and a pen.

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✍ What do you use to keep your life organised? I’d love to hear about your own tactic! ✍