Introduction: How to Get Organized and Improve Your Lifestyle!

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In this Instructable, ill show you how to get organized!

Step 1: Realize How Unorganized You Are!

The first step to getting organized is, well, to realize how unorganized you are! If your like me, not a neat freak or far from it, then this is the hardest step. Actually, my mom made me get organized because she said "this place looks like a pig-pen!". You may have other motivations, but the end goal is still the same. Take a look at your stuff... If it looks like the pictures or anything similar, YOU NEED TO GET ORGANIZED!!!!

Step 2: Figure Out What You Need to Do to Change It

For me, I had to:
Get a new desk+drawers
Get rid of a bunch of junk
Get extra materials
Set goals

You may have to do all or none of the above, choose things that fit your needs!

Step 3: New Desk!

For me, i badly needed a new desk, so i took a trip to Ikea! Where else?
I picked up some drawers and a table top, witch all fit together nicely. After "cleaning" of my old desk and taking it out to the dump, i put together my new one!

Step 4: Get Rid of a Bunch of Junk!

Well, the name says it all. You need to be brutal in what you throw away! Most of my stuff could be recycled (old papers, plastic). Note to all packrats like me: if you have to think twice about it, THROW IT AWAY!!!! Stuff really piles up and you don't want your new drawers looking like your old ones now do we?

In order to maintain this cleanlenss, i desided to tape my chords together so they dont get tangled like in the pic!

Step 5: Get Extra Materials

I was allays out of pencils and things like that, so i decided to stock up! You should try to get a nice cup or something to put them all in, not just scattered all about your new drawers!

Step 6: Set Goals

I was always forgetting my projects and thins like that, so I decided to use a generic system of reminding my self, post-it notes!!!! Once I'm done with the set goals, i like to put a big check across them! It feels so good!

Step 7: Done!

If your me (witch I hope your not, cuz then I'm not me!!!), your done!! But of course if your you, then you may be done soon or was done way before the last step! Congrats on your new, improved lifestyle!

Step 8: Other Usful Info From Phil B

Thanks to Phil B for all this goodness!

"Personal information management software will help anyone who wants to be better organized. An excellent free program is Mozilla's Sunbird. You can enter advance dates on a calendar with notations on each so you have all of the details you need without trying to remember. You can also enter memo items so you no longer need to remember where you put something, but you can do a global search to find your note. Set it so it opens when you boot your computer. Scan ahead each day about ten days to see what is coming and be thinking about it. Your mind will work in the background to make coming tasks easier. There is an old story about Charles Schwab and Ivy Lee. Schwab hired Lee to study the operation at Bethlehem Steel in about 1916 in order to make it more efficient. Schwab agreed to pay Lee whatever he thought Lee's advice was worth. Lee's recommendation was that each manager at the end of the day wrote on a piece of paper the six things he wanted to accomplish the next day. He would put them in order from most important to least important and do the most important first. If he did not accomplish all six things, that was fine. He had done the most important things. Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000. In today's dollars that is over $500,000. Do some thinking each month about what you want to accomplish in life. Break that down into goals. Filter these things by realizing some are fond wishes and not really important to your life. Recognize that 80 percent of what you really need to do comes from 20 percent of your efforts. Work at eliminating things from your life that are not really that important, even if others think they are or push them onto you. When you are procrastinating, try to break down what you must do but do not want to do into smaller pieces. Attack these smaller pieces. Soon the whole job will seem more manageable and you will have it done. Take some time each day to read and grow in your knowledge and skills. Also have a dozen file folder or manilla envelopes in a drawer or on a shelf. Number them 1 through 12. I use these as temporary safe storage for all sorts of things, including offers over which I suffer indecision.
Let us say an offer comes in the mail for a seminar you might like to attend. One option is to let it lay on top of your desk until you decide, but chances are it will get buried and you will forget. Put the offer into one of your folders. I find I usually know within three weeks if I am really interested or not. Make an entry on Sunbird three weeks from now that says, "Make decision." Attach a memo to that entry that says, "seminar registration--folder #2." Sunbird will automatically remind you to act on the seminar registration. The memo tells you exactly where you placed the relevant materials.
You can also use this when an important renewal arrives in the mail. Maybe you do not have the money to pay for it now, but you will have it in two weeks. The renewal is due in three weeks. Place the paperwork into any folder. Make a note on Sunbird two weeks from today. Sunbird will remind you automatically and will tell you where you put the paperwork.
If your paperwork came as an e-mail, move that e-mail to a special electronic folder in your Inbox and make a note in Sunbird, or print the e-mail and put a copy in your manilla folders.
You can also keep records on important conversations by means of this process. Later when someone goes back on what he promised, you will have detailed notes you can read back to him. Eventually that will save you hundreds of dollars."

-Phil B