Looks like I completely screwed up my grades this semester, due solely to the fact that I’m disorganized. This is nothing new, I’m aware of the problem, but I can’t seem to do a thing about it. All I had to do was make one phone call one week ago. I didn’t, and now I’m suffering the consequences.
This shit pisses me off. But I don’t have Clue #1 to figuring out what I need to do about it. Does ANYONE have any suggestions on where to start? A book, a website, a technique, a new pair of shoes, a new sexual position, new diet, etc.?
This is something I’m interested in as well. Can a disorganized person become organized? Preferably without putting in any real effort … just employing some mundo-bizzaro time-management trick?
Did you not make the phone call becuase you forgot or becuase you procrastinated to long?
If it’s the first I recommend you get a pocket planner of some kind, and a white board that you can write important appointments on, with lots of exclimation points.
If it’s the second I don’t think the problem is organization, but procrastination, which is totally different. I don’t have an answer for that one, but if you get one let me know because I have the same problem.
I disagree that disorganization is a part of being lazy.
I would argue that apparent laziness is often due to some other cause, in fact.
Anyway, if you’re not organized by nature, as I am not, it’s worth buying into one of those scam daily planner dealies - where you get the special notebook, and the only paper that fits their weirdo notebook rings is paper they make.
I hate them but they’re the only thing that’s worked for me.
I’m in the process of doing this now. When I have Something Important to do, well… my cell phone has a built-in day-timer, with an alarm function. That’s saved me many times. I’ve also found that eating more regularly helps me be more alert, which in turn helps me be more organized.
Being less messy has helped me more than anything. I bought a hanging file folder thing for under my desk. As soon as I get class papers home, they go in there. That took a few weeks to get used to, but works wonderfully. Also, if it’s a one-time Important Thing to do, as soon as I find out about it, I call an organized friend, and ask them to remind me. That’s worked pretty well too.
As far as procrastination, I’ve found that setting up reminders of “You should start doing this task at this time,” helps a fair bit. Munch, your school also might offer free time-management and/or organizational skills classes (mine does, I know). If they do, I recommend them.
This probably doesn’t help, but I don’t even know what “cross-tabulation” is.
OTOH, I keep an ever-increasing amount of info in my organiser, and it gives me alarms when I need to do stuff. This has helped a lot, especially at work. Oddly, this year I started working out and also being tidier. I never though of those as being connected in that way though.
My problem is that I have enough things to remember that I should keep a calender/planner, but not enough that I keep up with it. I go a couple of days with nothing scheduled, and I break the habit of using it before I’ve really made it a habit!
I agree with merge ,being organized takes some effort. I used to keep important papers on the damned floor, No folders nuthin’ . Semi important papers in this pile,important here,etc. My GF gave me poop about it all the time. I am not to “cross tabuation” yet but I am much improved,no papers on the floor theyre in folders and labeled. I also got a day-runner and make daily entry’s and enter things I have to do.Baby steps man…
OK, if you’re willing to try it, I can tell you how to get organized.
There’s a website called FlyLady. It’s full of tips. Sign up for the emails.
You’ll get several emails every day. Your allowed to delete any email you like without reading it.
Her system sounds crazy, but it works.
Over time, you’ll build a “control journal.” This is where you write down what you need to do. Every day you’ll get an email reminding you to check your control journal.
Over time the emails brainwash you. They call it “FlyWashing.” It’s made a big difference for me. I’m a big procrastinator. But the brainwashing prompts me to go ahead and get things done.
“Fly” by the way stands for “Finally loving yourself.” Here’s the link:
I also disagree that being organized means being lazy. I just consider myself to be too impatient to spend time keeping things organized. For example, I used to keep my CDs in alphabetical order, but after my collection became too large to keep up with such a system I decided hell with it. Now my CDs are in no particular order.
I am planning to re-organize some things and start anew, not because it’s a proposed New Year’s resolution or anything like that. My water heater broke and flooded my living room about a month ago, so they had to take the carpet out. Having to haul everything out of my house so they can put the new carpet in and then having to put it all back, will give me an opportunity to go through all the things I have and cast out what I don’t need and then organize what’s left.
I used to be a HUGE procrastinator and slob–everything was in miscellaneous piles that then got stuffed into odd and inconvenient locations whenever I felt it necessary to “clean up”
It’s possible to use the Palm Desktop software on your PC or Mac for free without actually owning a Palm thingy. It has an integrated calendar, to-do list, memos, and address book. You can also print stuff out. I use the Mac version of Palm Desktop pretty frequently on my computer and it has a lot of functions that I like–you can color code stuff according to category (school, personal, etc), schedule repeating events, etc.
I used to use those little paper books where the address part, to-do section, date book, etc were all bound into one cover, but I got tired of copying things like addresses over into a new book each year. They did have the advantage of being cheap, though. So then I went the opposite direction and got a Palm Pilot two years ago, which I love. I guess prices there have gone down a lot in the last two years, however.
The whiteboard suggestion is also a great one, or just a big calendar. My calendar this year is one of those where there’s no room to write on the date parts and I’m not doing that again this year.
Now, if I could just get more organized financially…I’m doing pretty well keeping track of the other stuff, but I never get around to entering everything into Quicken…
I find that with certain things it really does take less time to keep up with a system (once you get in the habit, of course). I’m completely anal about keeping my CDs alphabetized and my books organized by subject and then author. So then when I go to find something, I know right where to look.
The whole financial thing saves time when it works, too–all the paperwork for each month goes in a folder, and then theoretically all payments, etc are in Quicken–so when I’m looking for that receipt or whatever, I should be able to find it quickly without getting frantic.
… just employing some mundo-bizzaro time-management trick?
