In the second part of our series, I’m going to teach you a time-tested method of creating beautiful order in an otherwise chaotic world.

This method is so simple, absolutely anyone can start using it today.

What is this excellent time management tool?

The technique I’m talking about is list-making and its simplicity is actually the basis of its power as a time management tool. People who are already strapped for time need techniques that are easy to implement. Nothing is simpler and easier than building to-do lists!

Simple Guidelines for Maximum Results

 Below are some pro tips for building accomplishable and realistic to-do lists:

1. Create the Right To-Do Lists – There are three kinds of to-do lists that you can create depending on what you have to accomplish. Your main to-do list is contains all of the things that you have to accomplish in the short-term and long-term.

You can list as many things as you want in your main to-do list as this will be used as a resource for the two other lists I’m going to mention in a moment. The second to-do list is your day list.

The day list contains all the items that need to be given attention today.

All of the most urgent items in your main to-do list should be put in your day list, especially deadlines and stuff that you weren’t able to accomplish in the past.

The third and final list is the future list. The future list should contain the things you have to accomplish in the following weeks or months. If something needs to be accomplished 2 weeks from now, write it down in your future list so you won’t clutter your day list.

2. Prioritize Tasks with a Main To-Do List – Priority-setting is your primary goal in creating different lists.

Your main to-do list was designed to be a general list so you can assign items to their proper sub-lists. You will also be able to write down the time and date for each of the items before transferring them to your day list and future list.

It would also help if you marked certain tasks with E1 or E2. E1 means “super easy! – will not take more than 10 minutes” while E2 stands for “enjoyable task!”. You can create more notations if you want, if they will help you stay motivated in accomplishing your tasks.

3. Use the Future List Wisely – Writing a future list is a way to accommodate less urgent tasks so you won’t forget to do them. There are also some tasks that don’t have to be accomplished today. If you’re already budgeting your time, there’s no need to add more tasks in your day list.

However, I would warn against using this list for procrastination. Having a long future list doesn’t mean you’re getting organized or you’re managing your time well. It just means you have a list of tasks. It’s what you do after making your to-do lists that truly matter.

Where can you create your lists?

If you’re a little old-fashioned like me, you may prefer to physically write down your to-do items on a journal.

If you’re planning to write things down on paper, I suggest that you use a monthly planner as an extension of your future list to stay organized. It can be difficult to keep track of items on your future list if you can’t see the days or weeks that lead up to each deadline.

Now, I also know that not everyone likes keeping journals and notebooks around.

If you have a smart phone or tablet, you can download organization apps like Any.Do, Clear and other to-do list programs on iTunes or Google Play. There are also other app centers available on the Internet such as the Opera Mobile Market which you can explore.

A good to-do app should allow you to make an unlimited number of to-do items complete with sub-lists. You should also be able to add a time and date for each item that you need to complete.

Some apps allow task sharing through email and through an in-app messaging system, but these aren’t as essential as the first set of features I mentioned.

If you don’t want to download another app, check out your current calendar app to see if it has a list feature… and continue to pursue to be an expert in ‘Expert Time Management Simplified’.

Getting organized for the first time can be an extremely exciting (or frustrating) time because you’re faced with a gargantuan pile of tasks but you also foresee a most tantalizing reward: to finally be able to live and work in a space with little or no clutter.

Today, I am going to share with you some organizational tips straight from the experts, so you can begin hammering away on your own clutter issues at home or at work.

The Golden Rules of Getting Organized

1. Create a Detailed Clutter Map – This might sound depressing to some of you, but it’s the most important part of your blueprint for conquering clutter and finally ending the chronic stress caused by disorganization.

You have to create a detailed Clutter Map of the spaces that you want to organize and clean up so you will not become overwhelmed with all the things that you have to do.

Often, people just give up because they view all the clutter as this monolithic and immovable mass (like a mountain!)

While it is true that physical clutter can reach epic proportions, the only way that you can practicably tackle it is by performing a series of clean ups.

Getting organized is not an overnight endeavor. If you’ve seen TV shows that tackled extreme clutter, you may already have a clue as to how much work it actually takes to straighten out a cluttered space.

Even an army of a dozen men will require several days of continuous cleaning and clearing to straighten out two large rooms of an ordinary-sized house.

I am stating these facts not to discourage people from trying but to empower others to start as soon as possible if they want to see results quickly.

Now, it’s important that you set specific goals for yourself as you create a detailed Clutter Map. You need goals and milestones so have clear proof that you are progressing with your de-cluttering efforts.

2. Start Right Now – Starting right now sounds a bit crazy, but there is no better time to get organized than the present time.

As soon as you get up from your chair or bed, start clearing away at the clutter nearest you. If you don’t have a Clutter Map yet, that’s alright: you can make one after you spend a few minutes getting organized.

It doesn’t matter if you can only clear one table or cabinet at a time. The important thing is you’ve actually started something and you can immediately see the difference when you dip your toes into getting organized.

3. Get Serious About Clutter – In all my years of coaching people with stress-related problems, I’ve found that one of the most challenging hurdles is to start taking something new seriously.

I have met countless people who thought “stress management” was simply a fad or worse, a joke – as if millions of people weren’t suffering from toxic and chronic stress.

If you have a similar mindset about getting organized, let me be the first person to tell you that you’re going to have a hard time freeing yourself of clutter if you don’t take things seriously.

Surprisingly, the best attitude to motivate yourself to start de-cluttering your home or office is to get really angry at the disorganization of your living or working spaces.

If you start viewing clutter as the enemy or at the very least, an overstaying guest in your living space, you will begin to take clutter very seriously and you will no longer allow yourself to make more excuses not to clean up.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Dive Into Deep Clutter – Clearing clutter can become a frustrating and anxiety-causing enterprise when you begin seeing the extent of the disorganization that you have to tackle. I call this “fighting from the trenches”.

The effort needed to clear clutter and stay organized is literally a battle against present and future clutter. Here are some tips to stay strong even if you feel like you’re already sinking while cleaning up your living spaces:

• If you can’t think of a good use for something, choose any of these three: throw it away, sell it or donate it.
• People often make 2 piles when de-cluttering their home or office: a “keep” pile and a “throw away” pile. Check your “keep” pile to see if you can discard more stuff. Thin it out a few times to make sure you’re not hanging on to useless stuff.
• When you decide to throw away something, forget about it and move forward. If you keep reviewing your “throw away” pile you will only become emotionally and physically drained.
• Create a small support network so you can call someone if things get too intense or difficult.
• If you can’t throw away something because you might use it someday, put it in a box and write the date that is exactly three months from the day you placed the item in the box.
• If you didn’t even touch the item after 3 months, discard it!

We also learned that in order to seize control of clutter, we have to be willing to let go of our old beliefs and habits so we can make some real progress with getting organized.

How does chronic clutter and disorganization cause stress?

Below are some of the common reasons why chronic disorganization can also lead to chronic stress:

1. Stressed Mind – The more you see clutter, the more your mind reacts to it whether you like it or not.

You can ignore clutter as much as you want, but below your mind’s surface, your subconscious mind is working overtime to find solutions to the clutter. Unfortunately, without conscious guidance your subconscious cannot create concrete and practical solutions.

2. Time Consuming – A cluttered environment is hard to manage and navigate. You will have to spend double or triple the normal time just trying to find the things that you need. Often, people look for things when they are urgently needed so the stress increases even more.

3. Things Are Lost – There will be situations where you won’t be able to find the things you need because of all the clutter. So you will spend a lot of time searching for stuff buried under the clutter and at the end of the day, your efforts will yield nothing. This is the harsh reality of disorganization that we have to accept in order to motivate ourselves to finally get organized.

4. Reduced Living Space – Clutter can easily consume your living space to the point that you will only have a small nook left to move about.

If you don’t believe me, trying watching shows like “Hoarders” to see some extreme examples of how organization problems can conflate to the point where people are actually threatened with eviction by landlords and housing councils if they don’t clean up the messes in their homes.

5. Social Isolation – If your home is chronically cluttered, you may feel embarrassed about the situation and this may lead to ignoring requests of friends to come over.

You may be limited to meeting friends in restaurants and other outdoor locations, which may not always be the most convenient option for all parties concerned.

How can you motivate yourself to become more organized?

Getting the right type of motivation can be hard especially if you’re “going solo” and your support network is very small. Don’t worry – you can still do it!

Here are some ways that you can motivate yourself to finally clean up your clutter at home or at work:

1. Create a De-Cluttering Schedule – Procrastination is the number one enemy of would-be clutter warriors. It’s very easy to say you’ll do something tomorrow, a week from now or 2 months from now.

The human mind cannot fully grasp the passage of time so a year’s worth of procrastination may feel like a week. You will have a much higher success rate if you set a specific day and hour for your first de-cluttering effort.

Do everything to remind yourself to clean up on the appointed day, even to the extent that you have to cancelling other appointments so you can get something done.

2. Kick-start Your Efforts With Visitors – This is one of the fastest and most practical ways to get motivated. Invite some friends over for dinner or a movie night so your mind can finally relinquish its inhibitions about getting organized.

Be sure to invite friends that you secretly want approval from so you will become really motivated to take action. It sounds silly at the outset, but trust me, the most brilliant ways to get rid of clutter come out when you’re having some great friends over.

3. Find Your Tolerance Level – This is extremely important for long-term management of clutter. Some people are averse to the idea of having clutter anywhere in their house while some are completely oblivious to disorganization.

You’re feeling stressed about the clutter at home or in the office because the clutter has exceeded your tolerance level.

You need to identify your tolerance level and use it as a benchmark for staying organized. If you start feeling stressed about the clutter, you have to do something immediately to relieve the stress (e.g. by cleaning up).

This is the only way that you will be able to remove this major stressor for good. Don’t worry – you will soon develop practical routines for getting clutter out of the way!

Disorganization is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a state in which everything is out of order”.

• When a person is disorganized, he/she often spends twice or thrice as much time looking for things that should otherwise be easy to find.
• He/she also feels periodically overwhelmed by the burgeoning amount of clutter that he has to contend with on a daily basis.

Adults and children have different tolerance levels for clutter.

Young children often don’t realize that there’s clutter in front of them unless an adult points it out.

This is due to their age and their cognitive maturity.

Some adults who live in perpetual clutter claim that disorganization don’t bother them at all.

Unless a person is suffering from conditions like compulsive hoarding, clutter is a major stressor that can cause substantial grief and stress to a family.

How organized are you?

• Not everyone is an expert at staying organized, but some individuals need more help than others.
• To gauge your organization skills, I’ve created a short list of items that you must grade from 0-3, with 0 being “no that’s not me” and 3 being “yes, this is exactly me!”.
• 1’s and 2’s represent the middle range (“this is sometimes true”).

1. You find it difficult to find things at home because of the volume of stuff you have and how they are arranged/stored inside your house.

2. When you open a drawer to look for something, it takes you more than 10 minutes to find what you need because of the clutter.

3. You find it difficult to come early or on time for scheduled events and appointments.

4. Procrastination is your middle name.

5. Paying bills is often a monthly exercise of asking “how many weeks do I have before this company starts calling?”

6. Family members, close friends or even colleagues are telling you to do something about the clutter you make at home or at work. You feel bad most of the time, but you feel that it’s hopeless or not worth your time.

7. You are chronically stressed by clutter at home and wished it would just go away.

8. You have a tendency to buy 2 or more copies of the same item so you wouldn’t have to spend time looking for the ones you misplaced.

9. You don’t normally use lists because you think they don’t work.

10. You often think that it’s going to take too much time to fix your clutter, so you let the clutter be.

Analysis:  Each person has a certain degree of disorganization.

• However, if the disorganization is already causing chronic stress then you have to do something about it right away.
• If you answered more than 3 items on the list with a 3, you need to step up your game and start remedying your clutter issues.
• This current series will help you achieve that.

What’s the first step to stay organized!

To beat down your clutter problems, you need to know why you have a tendency to cling to too much stuff. Here are some of the common excuses that people use to justify their clutter-field lives:

1. “What if I suddenly need this one day?”

2. “My mother gave this to me when I was 5 years old”

3. “Someone out there will pay good money for this thing”

4. “I can find something to match this someday”

5.  “Right now it’s broken but one day I will have it fixed and it’s going to work perfectly again”

6. “If I lose enough weight, this is going to look so good on me again”

7. “I’m sure that one of my kids will want to hand this down to their kids in 20 years or so”

8. “It’s such a waste to throw it away, I bought it bargain price”

9. “One day this is going to be a collectible and I’m going to have a true treasure sitting at home”

10. “One day I’m going to have enough free time to start reading again, I want this to be there on that day”

NB: If you find yourself making these excuses every single time you want to get organized, you’re only making things more complicated because you’re actually allowing the disorganization to continue.

NB: You need to stop rationalizing your old habits if you want to make any progress in getting organized.

NB: If you allow yourself to hold on to really old and nonfunctional items now, there’s no way you can guarantee yourself a clutter-free future.

In the first part of our series on mindfulness, we discovered that in order to develop mindfulness, you have to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions at all times, even if you’re working on something stressful.

You also have to remind yourself to look inward at all times so you can become a calmer and more relaxed spectator-participant of the world.

• Today’s post will center on some advanced techniques that you can also use to master mindfulness.
• It must be noted early on that there is no shortcut to deep mindfulness and you have to continue practicing if you want to be naturally mindful at all times.

How can you become more mindful despite the presence of stressors?

Mindfulness can be likened to a very sharp sword that can slice stressful situations in half.

However, you have to be willing to wield it before it can help you conquer stress. If you’re ready to vanquish stress through mindfulness, here are some additional steps that will help refine your mindfulness… and discover more of  ‘The Super Power of Mindfulness’

1. Suspend Your Judgments –

• We now live in a world where people are constantly required by society to choose, decide and judge things.
• We pass small and big judgments on anyone or anything that comes our way.

The problem with passing judgment all the time is that you end up spending too much mental energy on even the smallest inconveniences of life.

The result is that you will feel exhausted and burnt out even if you are just sitting in the office. Mindfulness requires us to adapt a mindset of acceptance, instead.

How does the mindset of acceptance work?

You must avoid viewing things as positive or negative; instead, you must simply accept what is happening at the present time and mold your action or response to suit your present needs.

As you practice suspending your judgment, you will soon find out that many of the stressors that have been “chasing” you around are actually insubstantial are not deserving of your time, effort or energy.

The fogginess caused by stress will also begin to lift and your mind will become as clear as the sky. A clear mind is something you will definitely need if you want to manage your stress more effectively.

2. Avoid Instant Reactions –

• The human brain was designed to create routines or patterns of thoughts and behaviors that are used automatically in different situations.
• These predetermined patterns, as you may already know, are not always useful or productive. I call these behaviors and thoughts “reactive elements” of the mind because they come to the surface without the need for conscious thinking.
• Instant reactions can foster a life full of stress because it’s easy to let the stress get the upper hand because it feels ‘right’ for the situation.

However, if you continue to let stress get the upper hand, you will become unhappy and less productive in the long term.

In order to combat these subconscious reactive elements, you have to practice conscious thinking.

How does conscious thinking occur?

1. The human mind is divided into two distinct parts: the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.
2. The subconscious mind actually gives instructions to the conscious mind.
3. The latter protects the subconscious mind from intrusions (e.g. potentially harmful ideas).

• Conscious thinking will require you to shift the power of thought to the conscious mind so you can exert more control over what takes place in your subconscious.
• Conscious thinking is also a great way to create actual solutions that you can use to remedy problems for good.
• The subconscious mind can help with creating solutions but only if it’s not on “autopilot”.

3. Be More Compassionate –

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines compassion as “having sympathy and pity for the misfortune of other people”.

Choosing to be more compassionate automatically hampers negative judgments and knee-jerk reactions, which then leads to a quieter and more peaceful mind.

• Being more compassionate toward other people and their situations in life is a great way to beat stress because your mind will be focused on sympathy rather than on negative thoughts and emotions.
• Immersing yourself in compassionate thought and action can also break down the hard shell of pessimism that many people develop as a way of dealing with stressors.

When you see reality as a series of bad situations and misfortunes, you definitely need a dose of compassionate behavior to reverse your pessimism.

A person who chooses to be compassionate at all times is more likely to find inner peace and happiness than someone who makes a conscious choice to be critical of other people’s words and actions.

If you have been reading this blog from its very first post, you may have already learned about the modern stress model or the sequence of events that lead to the physiological stress response.

For those of you who are not familiar with it, here’s the summary:

• Person experiences or thinks of something that is stressful. His negative thoughts and emotions combine at this phase.
• Person triggers psychological stress. He may begin experiencing signs of mental stress.
• Psychological stress, if left unregulated, triggers the physiological stress response. Person may experience physical symptoms of stress such as clammy hands and an elevated heart rate, even if he is at rest.

Why should you practice control over your own thoughts?

If we would look carefully at the modern stress model, we would come to the conclusion that the actual, physiological stress response only comes to the surface during moments of mental stress.

Mental stress on the other hand, doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. A person only experiences mental stress if his thought patterns and emotions are working toward this particular outcome.

With these facts in mind, it becomes very clear that in order to stop physiological stress in its tracks, you need to address the causative agent, which is mental stress.

Why do we think the way we do?

I often encounter individuals who beat themselves up over the fact that they have a tendency to think and feel in certain ways especially when they have to contend with common stressors.

Your habitual responses to stressors are actually determined by 3 different yet interlocking factors:

1. DNA – Your parents’ genes are partly responsible for your tendencies and general temperament.

In addition to the way you were raised, there’s also the fact that you inherited your parents’ chromosomes, which also means that you’ve inherited at least part of their personalities.

So if one or both of your parents are aggressive or hotheaded, you may have the same inclinations because of your DNA.

2. Childhood – Sigmund Freud, the old father of psychoanalysis, often analyzed people’s childhoods to get to the bottom of strange neuroses.

It turns out that Freud was spot on when he determined that early childhood experiences have a lot to do with how we fully develop and mature as adults.

Our individual responses to stressful situations are partly determined by how we were conditioned to respond when we were still young. So keep this in mind when you are raising your own children; your children are not only absorbing the world at large, they are also absorbing your behavior and thought patterns!

3. Life Itself – Our DNA and early childhood experiences comprise only a small portion of the totality called the self. Your experiences as you grow older are also strong determinants of your behavior toward stressful situations.

We can’t do anything about past experiences, may they be good or bad, but we can do something about our beliefs and values in the present time. We must not allow past negative experiences to dictate how we live in the present time.

***

Now that you are more familiar with how the mind works and why it operates in a particular manner with regards to stressful situation, it’s time that you learned how to control unstable and stressful thought patterns.

How can you control seemingly unstable thought patterns?

Thought patterns are powerful, but they are never more powerful than the person itself. A thought, no matter how destructive, does not have free will or a life of its own. All negative thoughts are vulnerable and extinguishable, remember that!

Easy Mind Control Exercise

•  Find a quiet place to perform the Easy Mind Control Exercise. Get a piece of paper and write down 5 of the most horrid thoughts you’ve been having for the past few months.
• Below the first 5 items, write down 5 beautiful thoughts, memories or ideas that are directly in contrast with the first 5 items you wrote down.
• Focus your mind’s power on each of the undesirable thoughts and as you do, give your mind a firm command to remove the thoughts.
• Visualize a blank space where each of the undesirable thoughts used to be. Begin placing pleasant thoughts on this blank space, to replace the bad ones that have just been driven out.
• Repeat the exercise until you are satisfied and try again tomorrow.