How to organize mental clutter

If you feel like you have a million things you want to do but you are unable to settle down to anything productive because you simply can’t clear your head for long enough to choose a direction, then you need take a look at the following tips for how to organize mental clutter.

Make a Detailed List
The first thing you need to do to organize mental clutter is to get everything down on paper. This simple step works wonders when it comes to getting organized. On your first attempt at writing everything down you should not worry too much about the order you put things on your list, or if the list appears to represent a logical group of items. The trick is to treat this exercise like a typical brainstorming session capturing everything and leaving nothing out.

Create Categories
When everything is down on paper you can start looking at your items and then group them into logical categories. You may end up with things you want to do around the house, trips you want to take or meetings you have been putting off for work.

Prioritize Within Categories
The next step is to prioritize all the items under their separate categories. After doing this you’ll start to see where you need to start because the things that are urgent will be placed at the top of your list.

Figure Out Your Time Constraints
Of course you don’t have unlimited time, which is part of the reason you may have found yourself in this predicament in the first place, so you need to budget time to get the urgent things done. Then you can move along the line until you have put a timeline on all your outstanding projects and goals.

Create a Schedule
You may be able to use this exercise as a starting point to create a schedule that you can use every week, or even every day. The recurring items can be put into a time slot so you will be better organized in the future.


Becky Esker is a certified professional organizer, national speaker, owner of Get Organized! L.L.C., and the forthcoming author of a new organizing book. Becky and her team provide hands-on services to those in the greater eastern Iowa area and also provide a wide array of products and service to businesses and individuals nationwide through their website. For more information access http://www.theorganizingchoice.com/, http://www.secondgoaroundauctions.com/; http://www.itssimplyserendipity.com/; and http://www.outstandingseminars.com/