If there’s anything I’ve learned from living all these years, is that it pays to be organized.  And to me, organized means lists.  Yep, as boring as they may sound, if I write things down, I know they will get done.  The other nice thing about having things written down, is that those things don’t bounce around in my head all the time distracting me from the work I need to get done every day.  It’s like your brain can relax a bit, and just do the task at hand.  Try it sometime, it works.  Sometimes, you just have to take a look at your home life, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and smile.  Running a home can just be nuts.  If you let the little every day things that come up get to you, you will spend your life being miserable.

One of the best things I have found for keeping myself sane is simply trying to be a little bit organized.  I have taken to making lists almost every day.  These are basically check lists which I do my best to complete before the day ends, but if something carries over to the next day, I realize that the world will not end.  Simply seeing what has been spinning around in my head goes a long way toward keeping my stress levels down to a manageable level.

If you are one of the many people who gets up every day with thoughts spinning through your head, you probably understand where I am coming from.  When you have yourself, your job, your family and other household needs popping up in your mind constantly, you often end the day with very little accomplished.  You move from task to task, starting each and then moving on before completing anything.  This leads to a very unproductive day and more spinning thoughts the next morning.

I now make checklists for just about everything.  Sometimes these lists are made to be completed by days end and other times they may be designed to carry over the course of a week.  Each time I check something off I feel as though I’ve made a little bit of progress.  I have a checklist for weekly chores, a checklist of things I must accomplish at work, and even a checklist of leisure activities.  I included this to make sure that I never lose sight of the importance of just relaxing once in a while.  My goal for the new year is to start a checklist for investing, but I haven’t even made that one up yet!  If you ask me, checklists made up of small steps are the way to have a more productive and organized life.