Daily Habits That Make Me Feel More Organized and Calm
5 Simple Daily Habits That Help Me Feel More Organized and Calm
Let’s talk about some daily habits that make me feel more organized and calm.
I love the feeling of being organized.
I like knowing what I need to do, where things are, and what is coming up.
And I’m all about a reasonably clean house and a plan for my day.
Unfortunately, I also live with other people.
And those people have schedules and laundry and appointments and school papers and things they need from me. There are meals to figure out, errands to run, emails to answer, and approximately 37 small things that seem to appear out of nowhere on any given day.
All of that throws a little bit of a wrench in the organized and calm vibe I’m aiming for.
Life doesn’t stay organized just because I would really appreciate it if it did. Rude, I know, but reality nonetheless.
Over the years, I’ve realized that feeling organized and calm has less to do with having everything perfectly under control and more to do with a handful of little things I do regularly.
None of these habits are revolutionary.
I’m not about to blow your mind with some elaborate morning routine you just have to try. I’m not waking up at 5 a.m. to meditate before I roll my sleeves up and organize my refrigerator.
These are just some simple things that help everyday life feel a little less chaotic.
And honestly, that’s all I’m looking for these days.
I spent too much time searching for big ideas that would somehow make everything easier. Those ideas were shiny but that shine is bound to wear off if I can’t keep up with that way of living.
It turns out the little things I do consistently tend to help out a whole lot more.
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Here Are 5 Simple Daily Habits That Make Me Feel More Organized and Calm
1) I Write Things Down
I have learned that if I need to remember something, I need to write it down.
I don’t care how confident I am that of course I’ll remember that later. There is a very good chance I will not.
Writing things down gets all of those little reminders out of my head.
I used to have this habit of pushing my brain past full capacity. I think I thought that remembering was something I should be able to do and do well on top of everything else.
And I do remember so many things. But if a notebook and pen make it more manageable, then I’m going with that.
I have also found that keeping everything in my brain can make everything seem like a big deal. It amplifies a feeling of urgency, which is something that already tries to take over from time to time.
There’s something calming about knowing I don’t have to keep mentally cycling through everything all day.
Don’t forget this. You need to do that. What was that other thing?
When it’s written down, my brain can stop being on high alert and move on.
It’s important to note that I don’t expect myself to do everything I write down that day. A list is helpful when it’s a tool.
It becomes significantly less helpful when I turn it into documentation that I’m falling short. (This to-do list notepad is perfect for documenting the must-do tasks of the day.)
I’m over trying to play hide-and-seek with thoughts that pop into my head. Writing things down is a simple way to get things out of my head and somewhere I know I can find them again.
2) I Prep in Small Ways
I am a huge fan of doing small things now that I know will make my life easier later.
And when I say prep, I’m not talking about spending Sunday afternoon preparing every detail of my life for the week ahead.
Some days, I do spend a few minutes daydreaming about that exact scenario. But in my daydream I am alone and it is quiet. My actual life is not quite like that.
Most of the time, my prep looks like things that take me a few minutes.
I’ll put something by the door that needs to leave the house with us. I’ll get things ready for the morning. I like to look at what’s coming up the next day and see if there’s anything I can take care of ahead of time.
It can be as simple as setting something out where I know I’ll see it. It’s crazy how much autopilot can take over at times, and sometimes I need to make things painfully obvious for myself.
Five minutes when I’m not rushed can save me from ten minutes of running around irritated later. I can go from calm to sixty like no one’s business.
I really appreciate it when Past Me thinks ahead.
But I also am not trying to spend my entire life preparing for the next part of it. I’m not trying to anticipate every possible need my family could have between now and Wednesday.
Been there, done that. And let’s just say the vibe that created was nowhere near organized and calm. It’s almost like going too hard with something can end up creating the exact feeling you’re trying to avoid.
Now, I try my best to just look for the obvious opportunities.
If there’s something small I can do now that I know will make life easier, I do it and move on. (Or avoid it and crash out later…as my 12-year-old would say. I’m multifaceted.)
3) I Have a Simple Daily Cleaning Routine
I feel calmer when my house is somewhat clean.
Not spotless. Not ready for a magazine photoshoot. Just leaning more toward tidy and put together.
I’ve also learned that it’s much easier for me to keep things that way when I do a little bit every day instead of waiting until everything feels like a disaster.
And let’s be real, disaster is still the first word that comes to mind when I look around quite often. Especially after my tween has had friends over or my 5-year-old has been playing quietly by herself for 20 minutes.
Having a simple cleaning routine that I run through has been a default that has served me well. I go through the basic things that always make a difference in how my house looks and feels.
It takes about 20 minutes. That’s not enough time to deep clean my entire house.
Good. I don’t want to deep clean my entire house every day.
That said, I do try to get things back to a baseline that feels manageable.
I spent a lot of time thinking that I could find a way to keep my home in pristine condition at all times. And maybe I could, but what was that going to cost me?
Having a simple routine gives me a stopping point. Because the house will always throw something else my way if I give it the chance. It’s very kind and generous that way.
I am constantly pushing back on the idea that everything needs to be done and reminding myself that sometimes good enough really is good enough.
4) I Use Timers
Timers are such simple tools, and I use them all the time.
Sometimes I’ll set one for 10 or 20 minutes and tell myself that’s how long I’m going to work on something.
If I left it up to my brain to put a stopping point in place, I might keep going indefinitely.
Timers also stop me from turning a small task into an entire event. I can get carried away without much effort at all. I’m like a leaf in the wind…going and going and going.
A timer gives whatever I’m doing a boundary. Of course, when it goes off I can keep going. But I can also move on or just stop.
It’s almost silly that something so small feels like it gives me permission in big ways.
It also keeps me from bouncing from one thing to another…which is one of my many unwanted talents.
I use the timer on my phone, but we also have a visual timer in our house that I originally started using with my youngest. Turns out, apparently I also benefit from physically seeing how much time I have left.
All of that said, I’m not putting pressure on timers to solve my entire life.
They’re just something that stops the loop when I’m in the zone and reminds me that I don’t have to keep going simply because there’s more I could do.
5) I Try to Finish One Thing at a Time
We just touched on this a little in relation to timers, but more needed to be said.
This might be the habit I have to remind myself of the most.
When I have a lot to do, there’s a temptation to start doing all of it at once.
I’ll start one thing, notice something else, go deal with that, remember something completely unrelated, and suddenly I’ve started eight things and finished absolutely none of them.
Being in the middle of everything at the same time does not in any way make me feel organized and calm. It does quite the opposite.
Life is messy and has a million moving parts. So doing this perfectly is not in the cards. But when I can, I try to finish what I’m doing before moving on. Or at least wait for the almighty timer to give me permission.
Unload the dishwasher. Put the laundry away. Spend a few minutes answering or deleting emails. Finish what I’m working on.
Again, this doesn’t work perfectly. I don’t live alone in a cabin in the woods where the only interruptions I get are the birds making noises.
So if I take perfection off the table and just aim to slow down enough to finish one thing, I tend to get much more accomplished.
More importantly, I don’t feel like my brain is trying to follow eight different tabs at once.
Final Thoughts…
I used to think being organized meant finding the right system that would finally make everything run smoothly. It’s like I was trying to crack the code to being a functioning human being.
Now I think it’s much simpler than that.
Life isn’t going to stay perfectly organized. Plans change. People need things. Messes happen.
Things I cleaned this morning will need to be cleaned again tonight. The clean kitchen I achieve when my kids are at school does not resemble the kitchen staring at me at 7:30 at night. So unfair.
And I wish I could navigate through life with the mindset that it’s all okay and nothing is that big of a deal. I do at times, but it never sticks for very long.
These little habits just give me something to come back to. Not in massive or groundbreaking ways.
They do, however, impact my life in ways that feel good.
I’m not out here trying to tip the scales to completely organized and calm at all times. But if writing things down, doing a little prep, cleaning for 20 minutes, setting a timer, and finishing one thing before starting another can make life feel a little less chaotic, I’m taking the win.
That’s enough for me because it kind of has to be.
Which of these daily habits that make me feel more organized and calm did you relate to?
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