How I Stay Organized By Being Unorganized

by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

In addition to having a full time work at home position, I also do freelance writing, run several websites, and more almost full time as well. Plus, I’m a busy mom who has lots of little human people and fur kids to dole out attention and time to every day. This means that my days are extremely busy. I keep it all well-maintained and organized by being a bit unorganized – okay, I’m very unorganized most of the time.

My days are very unpredictable. I choose my own hours in the work at home position I hold. However, I choose them based on when the best times to work are according to the workload and other factors. When it comes to work, that particular position comes before any other tasks, so everything else has to be worked around that.

But doesn’t that require organization? Well, in a sense it does. But, not really. Let me explain. I don’t have time to sit and write out a bunch of elaborate plans. Work is always staring me in the face at every turn and much of it comes without advance notification. I have to be able to just jump into my work when it’s there.

“Normal” organizational strategies would take up the time I need to get all of my daily tasks done. So, how do I know what to prioritize? Everything has to be an almost instant decision-making process. I never know what’s going to happen at any given second in a day. I might have a client with a rush order, a technical issue to monitor at one website, countless reports at another, a sick kid, and a million other things.

Sitting down to create lists and plans would take away from the time needed to get these things handled. Therefore, I get everything done by making the quick executive decision on which things need to get done in each moment. This strategy has worked for years and always keeps me on top of everything.

Although there are days when I have more work than I can handle, most of the time, the best thing I can do is to not have a pre-written plan or order for tasks. This may sound like my days are crazy – and they are. However, they’d be even crazier if I had to write plans. They’d have to be changed so often that I’d have to spend even more time rewriting them all day long when I could be working on my daily tasks instead.

Staying organized by being what most would call unorganized has been working for me for years. However, everyone works differently. Therefore, if you try my strategy, keep in mind that it may or may not work for you. What’s your usual strategy? Is it similar or different from mine and how’s it working for you?

*Photo Credit: Lyn Lomasi

**I originally published this on Bubblews.com (no longer published there).

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