Do you have trouble staying or getting organized? I know I do and I come to grips with this short coming on my behalf. In an effort to finally cure myself of chronic disorganization I have put together a little list of things I can do to help get organized and stay organized. Maybe it will be of some use to you.



First thing I did was organize my time. I word at home and while this is a good thing I often lack the self discipline to stay organized in my approach to work. I usually get up everyday and 'work' all day long but because I didn't have a steady routine (which I really don't like) I would end up working on a whole bunch of different things at once and really not get anything meaningful done. This is an out of control spiral that needs to be put in check.

What I did was simply finally take some good advice and apply it. I made a step by step check list of all the things I should get done every day and stick to it. For instance in the early morning I do my reading and emails. Then I purchase a domain and transfer it to my hosting account. Then I upload a site or blog to it and create the first post. At that point I start building links to it first with directory submissions then article marketing. I follow that by a few high pr blog comments and some social bookmarking.

Then I gather all of my urls from all the tags and pages created when I submitted to article directories and social bookmarking sites and I ping them. I save the list of urls and links in a folder and I'm done. See, if I don't do it in this order I can get distracted and end up all over the place. Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering I am an internet marketer and that's how I work from home.

Another thing I've done is buy a daily planner. It's a little book you can use to keep track of appointments and what not. I have started using this and it does help me remember things and keeps me focused. I also find that by writing things down it helps me to commit to them a whole lot more. I don't know what the psychological reason is for this but it works.

I keep track of all my phone numbers and addresses this way as well as things I want to do. I keep one in my car and another one in my office at home.

Then I organized my computer desktop. I had files and folders all over the place. It didn't start out that way but ended up that way in a hurry. So I finally went through all of my stuff and created new folders in which to organize all of my information. Everything from passwords and logins to software and documents. I now have a nice clean and orderly desktop. It's amazing how easily information can get disorganized. That's google's job when you think about it. Organization, there is so much information online it is truly incredible. It is a search engines job to organize that information.

In the house I finally organized my bills. I used to just put them down wherever and sort of forget about them until the last moment. Not any more. That is no way to stay organized and when you have bills, you need to be organized! Otherwise you will be late all the time on your payments for no reason. This was shamefully happening to me all the time. I had to get it together and so I came up with a simple if unoriginal solution. I got a bill holder and labeled the different bill sections.

Now I see it there in my kitchen and it is a constant nagging reminder that I have bills to fill out and pay. Hey, it works.

Last but not least take a look behind your computer desk and tell me what you see. A bunch of cables, cords and wires right? What a mess that was for me. I have so many cables it looked more like a plate of spaghetti than a mess of tangled up cords. I went and purchased some cord covers or cable covers...what ever you want to call them. They keep your cords organized and it is a huge time saver when you have a problem with your computer or other equipment and you need to disconnect the cords.

I also play the guitar and have tons of cables laying on top of each other in the biggest mess you could imagine. I got cable organizers for those too...and I am a much happier guy.

So my advice is that if you are an unorganized kind of person like I was then do something about it. It really comes down to procrastination I think, at the very bottom of it all. Don't procrastinate and get organized.