How to Organise Your Diary

As the new year grows ever closer, it’s good to make sure you’re on top of your organisational skills. New diaries, planners, and stationery are some of the highlights of the new year – make sure you’re using them to their full potential with these five handy tips!

1. What gets scheduled, gets done.

If you have some tasks to do, but just think you’ll do them at some point, then it’s highly likely they won’t get done. No matter how mundane the task, make sure to always write it down and plan out when it is going to get done. This will stop you from forgetting, and from doing something else instead.

2. Use your to-do lists wisely.

As good as a to-do list may be to make sure we keep a record of what needs to be done, much like in point one, they won’t get done if they’re not scheduled in. Make sure to break things down into bite-sized pieces – they’re more likely to get done if they’re not overwhelming.

3. Colour coding is your best friend!

Colour-coding is a quick and effective way of making sure you know exactly what needs to be done at a glance. It can help to save you time and can also help you to stay way more organised and on top of what you need to do.

4. Plan out your tasks

Don’t try and do too much at once. Make sure you break your tasks down into bitesize pieces – if you have too much to do, you’ll become overwhelmed and won’t want to do any of it. Slow and steady wins the race!

5. The multi-tasking myth

Multi-tasking, although it is often portrayed as a talent to be admired, is a sure-fire way to forget something. Focussing on a single task at a time and making sure only a single task is allocated in your diary per day, or afternoon etc. will prevent you from dropping the ball. Trying to do too much is when things go wrong!