Routine or No routine? Routine any day I say...well most days.

One of my favourite writers - Stephanie Dowrick, wrote a great piece in her Inner Life column in The Age Newspaper recently titled, "The bliss of a routine Life." Stephanie sums up things in such an eloquent but practical way - tying up all those loose ends about how our physical, mental and spiritual worlds can coexist together for the best results.

A lot of people confuse the goal to get organized with being anal and lacking in flexibility and spontaneity. I wholeheartedly disagree with this black and white assertion. The absolute majority of us who try to better Organize Our Lives, do so knowing our lives will never be perfect, nor do we want to be. We however know that making an effort to get organized, can make a huge difference to our satisfaction levels in our life / or our happiness quotient as others refer to it as.

Good organization and routines go hand in hand. In my view, just as much for most adults as it does for children. Stephanie's article mainly focused on the benefits of good routines for those with children, but I believe her ideas cover us all no matter what age. For those of you with children though, here is one few of my favourite quotes from Stephanie's article.

"It is incredibly helpful to parents, and soothing and stabilising for the child, to have predictable rhythms to most days' events." Dowrick goes on to say that although our modern busy lives seem to be at odds with this philosophy the two can go together. Albeit with a bit of pre-planning, organization and of course effort!

"It is understandable that parents should rate flexibility so highly. It's how we tend to live our adult lives, hurtling from one thing to another, multi-tasking madly and responding to what's most urgent, rather than what's most important...."

We can trick ourselves into thinking we are coping just fine with our incessantly busy lives but increasing stress levels; mental illness and stress related physical diseases tell us otherwise.

So it is in all our best interest, kids or no kids to take some time-out occasionally and to pre-plan your day, week etc and see if you can notice the difference in your happiness quotient at the same time.

The more satisfied you are with your life, the better able you are to want to get organized in the first place - as well as have the motivation to stay organized. It's all inter-related of course!

Happy Organizing.

Claire McFee Author
Organize Your Life Organizers

Hitting a Wall? Siimon Reynolds explains how to avoid failure in any life area

The Age Sunday Life Magazine had a great article titled "Hitting the Wall" about routine; motivation; good habits; bad habits etc from an extract of Advertising Guru Siimon Reynolds book "Why people fail?"

In the article Siimon Reynolds touches on how, once enthusiasm for a new project goal wanes after the initial stages of execution the often drudgerous next steps make the goal hard to achieve unless you get into the habit of visualising your end goal to keep you motivated.

Habits are what help you achieve where others fail says Reynolds. The article goes onto to illustrate 3 Areas you can apply Rituals to that Reynolds believes make the 'difference' between success and failure.

No 1 ANTI PROCRASTINATION RITUAL
Basically writing your goals down and prioritising what needs to be done to achieve those goals.
This includes a to do list and spending at least ten mins on each task, having started the most important immediately.

No 2 INDUSTRY MASTERY RITUAL
This is for people who want to become experts in the field.
To do this, Reynolds suggests Reading an Industry related book daily as well as lesser time reading magazines and related blogs
Quarterly: Have a coffee with an Industry Expert
Yearly: Attend 2 conferences

No3 SOCIAL -LIFE IMPROVEMENT RITUAL

Again...Make a list of people you want to connect with.
Set a weekly target: book people in!
Make one call or send one email per day to keep on top of you social goals


So whether it is professional related or Personal getting clear by setting goals, being conscious of making new habits / rituals can be applied to any area of life. Give it a go and watch your life area be transformed...after all on 3 small steps per day equates to 1,000 steps yearly to help reach success.

As my favourite quote goes "The weakest pen is better than the strongest memory", so as Reynolds suggest Get it down on paper!!!!

Happy Organizing,

Claire McFee Author
Organize Your Life Organizers