4 Must-Have Tips to Organize Your Mind and Boost Your Productivity
If you’re a time management and productivity nerd like me, the search for the best tips and advice is never-ending.
You’re convinced there must be a better way to get those have-to tasks out of the way faster, so you can spend more time on the want-tos in life.
I.e. you want to spend less time on the “bleck” and more time on the “yay”! A goal I’m, personally, happy to keep chasing.
My favorite productivity tip to do just that?
Organization.
In my last blog post, I talked all about organizing your digital world to help make your time behind the screen a little easier to navigate, removing all that wasted searching time.
Today, we’re going internal: organizing and decluttering your mind to enhance your focus and boost your productivity.
Tip #1: Track What Needs to Get Done
A surefire way to have an unorganized brain is to rely on it to figure out the puzzle of your day.
From keeping track of everything you need to get done, when you’ll get it done, and how exactly you’re going to make that happen...that’s an exhausting task. It’s distracting and pretty overwhelming.
Instead, you can use a couple of simple tools to save your brain some chaos while ensuring nothing slips through the cracks:
First, use a master to-do list to keep track of everything that’s on your plate. This becomes your single point of reference for everything you need to and want to get done. Big or small. It’s basically like building an external hard drive for your brain. All the data of your to-dos are captured and safely stored away, but ready to access at a moment’s notice.
Then, use your calendar to keep track of your plan of action. When you lay out your to-do list directly on your calendar, it’s a promise to yourself you’ll get it done. You know when. You know where. You know how.
Your calendar also clarifies priorities and forces you to be honest and realistic with yourself with what you can actually get done. This declutters your brain so you don’t have to figure it all out on the fly.
The powerful combination of your master to-do list and your calendar creates an organized path to productivity with minimal brain power required.
Tip #2: Capture Your Thoughts
A key to organizing your mind is to get in the habit of capturing your thoughts outside of your brain.
This can be done in the form of note-taking.
Good note-taking skills can make you more efficient, more effective, and more productive.
Good notes become a resource for your brain. This resource means you can spend more time being creative vs. wasting time searching for ideas or struggling to remember every little thing.
Notes can be in the form of temporary notes (such as your grocery list or to-do list for the day) or evergreen notes (such as notes you take when learning a new topic).
Both forms of notes help you stay organized so you can be more productive with the tactical things you need to get done every day in addition to supporting your bigger-picture thinking activities.
By following a few best practices for capturing your thoughts, you will be well on your way to an organized brain and boosted productivity:
Keep your notes in a digital format such as Google Drive, Confluence, OneDrive, or try note-taking specific apps like Evernote, OneNote, or Notion. These tools allow you to create and organize notes with ease, and you can access them from any device no matter where you are. Plus, features like tagging and search functions make it easy to find exactly what you need.
Structure your notes so they are easy to scan and reference later. Use bullet points, headings, highlighting, and bolding to make consuming your notes quick and easy.
Schedule time regularly to organize your notes. When inspiration strikes to jot down a note, don’t get too caught up in where to store that nugget of inspiration. Instead, just write down your thoughts. Then plan a recurring time to organize these thoughts into a logical storage system so they’re easy to track down when you need them.
Part of organizing your brain is decluttering all the bits and pieces that can more easily be stored somewhere else.
Tip #3: Process Your Thoughts
While good note-taking is a great way to organize and keep track of all the knowledge floating around in your brain, taking the time to organize the emotions of life can also help boost your productivity.
Daily journaling allows you to process your thoughts and emotions. You can release your worries and gain insights into how you tick.
Having this kind of insight gives you a filter to run your priorities through to ensure you’re living an intentional life that’s aligned with your goals and outcomes you’re hoping for. This can save you from wasting time on things that don’t truly matter to you.
Some easy journaling habits can help you stay in tune with an organized brain ready to take some positive action:
Practice regular “brain dumps” or stream-of-consciousness journaling. Spend 10-15 minutes writing whatever comes to mind without worrying about structure or grammar. This helps clear mental clutter and provides a clear view of tasks and concerns that you can focus on solving for.
Incorporate reflective journaling daily or weekly to analyze what’s going well in your life and identify areas for improvement. This habit can enhance self-awareness and personal growth and give you a boost in celebrating the small wins along your journey.
My daily journal is an excellent starting point for building a journaling habit that’s focused on organizing your brain and boosting your productivity. (You can grab yours here!)
Tip #4: Declutter Your Physical Space
The above is all focused on internal organizing, but sometimes your external world can have a negative impact on your mental load.
For example, a cluttered workspace can contribute to a cluttered mind. You may be so distracted by a stack of papers or miscellaneous gadgets that you find yourself constantly pulled away from the task at hand. A recipe for productivity disaster…
But, don’t worry, you don’t need to add one more domestic duty to your to-do list to keep you distraction-free. Keep it simple:
Schedule a regular weekly clean-up session to tidy up your workspace or dispose of unnecessary items. Don’t make this a big lift. I’m talking just 5 minutes. Or, better yet, blast your favorite song at max volume and declutter while you sing along. (Extra credit if you use the 10-minute version of Taylor Swift’s ‘All to Well’ as your song of choice #swiftie). When the song’s done, so is your quick cleaning burst!
Don’t forget your digital decluttering. Use the same method above to organize files or notes, delete unnecessary emails, or even clean up your browser bookmarks.
An organized environment reduces distractions to help you maintain a clearer mind, ready to crank through that to-do list in no time.
Why it Matters
Organizing your brain reduces mental clutter to improve your focus and boost your productivity.
To have the most success, it’s all about finding what works for you.
Start with one or two of these tips and gradually incorporate more into your routine. With consistent effort, you’ll find yourself feeling more organized, less stressed, and ready to tackle whatever comes your way!
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About Me
Hi, I’m Kara. I’m a former workaholic turned time-management expert. I help women stressed out in their 9-5 get more done, in less time, so they can get back in the driver’s seat and start living a life they love.
