Trying to be organized

Posted Aug 16, 2023

TL;DR, it’s hard AF and I’m bad at it

I’m a person who likes to do things and plan things and list things and remember things. I’m also a person who forgets things and spaces out tasks after a direct reminder and puts things in illogical places so that I’m sure I will remember and (predictably) loses things. Naively, probably, I do still think I could become a person who remembers things and knows where things are and attends things and accomplishes things, if only I had the Perfect Organization Tool(s)™.

What do I want an organization system to do?

I want it to be able to:

I’ve long believed that, if I could come up with a system like this, I would be Supremely Organized™ and prevent myself from forgetting/losing important things. Unfortunately, this optimal organizational setup has proven quite elusive. Here are some of the things I’ve tried and my experiences with those methods.

Sticky notes everywhere all the time

I’m a person who can very easily forget things that I don’t have a visual reminder of — “out of sight, out of mind”, as they say. I think this is an ADHD-like tendency1, and while I’m not formally diagnosed I do suspect I have it; although that’s a topic for another day, it does inform a lot of the ways I’ve tried to organize myself. In any case, I tried writing lists of tasks/reminders on sticky notes and putting them in the places they would become actionable, e.g. sticking my work to-do list to the screen of my computer, or a grocery list to the handle of the fridge.

Pros:

Cons:

Structured daily planner

I am such a sucker for a beautiful, gilded, patterned planner2. Hard cover and spiral binding and a little piece of elastic to hold a pen? Yes, please! I’ve tried variations of this method several times, hoping that the neatly lined and categorized pages with dates and sometimes even time breakdowns would help me to manage my time.

Pros:

Cons:

Unstructured daily planner

Based on the last item in the “cons” list for structured planners, not wanting to waste pages, I’ve also tried to use blank notebooks and create my own version of a planner. Typically I try to come up with a general outline for how I want to depict the days. Usually this is as simple as the day of week and date, underlined, then checkboxes for each task, but on a few occasions I’ve tried to write out the hours of the day and schedule my time that way, and leave some open space for tasks that aren’t tied to a specific time block.

Pros:

Cons:

Structured or unstructured online planner

I’ve tried creating online planners both with and without structure but honestly, any kind of planner that is based on a screen is just a no-go for me. I really like to write things down. Losing that aspect makes it way less fun and therefore I never last more than a few days with any screen-based method.

Bullet journal

This has been my most recent attempt at becoming an Organized Person™, and was what I was thinking about when I decided I felt like typing a bunch of characters about my weird brain into the internet void. Bullet journals (or BuJos, a shortening that I kinda hate tbh) are a mix between structured and unstructured planner. I won’t waste paper or space on days that I don’t have tasks or that I forget to write in the notebook, but it does require a bit more structure to be effective. I’m still testing this one out, so the pro/con list may not be fully fleshed out or I may change my opinion later.

Pros:

Cons:

So, I mean, yeah.

I have not yet achieved Peak Organization™ and am not likely to anytime soon. This has mostly just been a peek into my strange little goblin brain and all the unreasonably strong and specific opinions it hoards 🙃 And if you read this far…why?

Footnotes

  1. A little info on ADHD and its link to object permanence (ie, knowing something is still there when you don’t see it)

  2. Erin Condren, you can shut up and take my money.

  3. Like this

  4. Did writing this send me spiraling into the temporal black hole that is Pinterest bullet journal ideas? Maybe.

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personal