Have you ever forgotten to replace your pens and glasses? Do you often find yourself unable to hand in your homework and job assignments in a timely manner? Are you always late for your appointments and meetings? If the to-do lists you have and the plans you make are useless and prevent you from achieving your goals, then you undoubtedly need to hone your organizational skills! What are these skills? What is its impact on your productivity and performance at the academic and professional levels? How can you develop it? Read our article for today to find out the answer to all the questions posed above.
What is meant by “organizational skills”?
Organizational skills express all the skills associated with arranging and organizing, increasing productivity, setting urgent priorities to complete them before tasks that can be postponed, or assigning others to do them. It includes several skills, including the following:
1- Physical organization
The physical organization does not include just an arranged office; it also includes the organization and arrangement of rooms, floors, or entire buildings and their design in a way that achieves comfort for those who sit in them. An environment that lacks organization often leads to physical discomfort, wasted time, lost property, and even lost people, so the need was for a person with high organizational skills to design these places appropriately, and then it remains the responsibility of other individuals to maintain order in them.
2- Planning skills
Without a clear plan, the goal turns into a mere wish. Planning in the context of projects means determining the necessary resources and the time period that the project will take, then working to provide these resources and allocating the appropriate time, and developing alternative plans in the event of any defect or problem.
But planning is not limited to business areas. Determining which room you will clean, for example, is a type of planning, and preparing to complete daily tasks the next day, such as visits, household chores, and shopping, is also a type of planning.
3- Time Management Skills
Poor time management is one of the most important causes of failure in all aspects of life. A person who does not make good use of his time effectively will not be organized enough, and you will always find him mired in chaos.
4- Resources Organization
It is critical to improve the correct use of the resources available to you, and this requires organization, as organization in this context means the ability to identify existing resources or that you need to implement a project with the need to use these resources correctly and on time. Failing to do so means wasting resources, which is not something you want to happen to you, either professionally or personally.
5- Delegation skills
At work, you cannot take care of all aspects of the project alone, nor can you control all aspects of your life. Therefore, in order to achieve organization and arrangement, you must possess commissioning skills. In other words, being able to delegate tasks to coworkers, family members, or friends to increase productivity in less time.This does not mean that you ask others to do something like this without any thought; it requires the ability to know the best person to accomplish a certain task in the best way. Putting the right person in the right place will avoid a lot of stress and problems in the future.
How do you develop your organizational skills?
The process of acquiring organizational skills goes through several stages, starting with organizing the thoughts inside our minds, then organizing our workplaces and living spaces, and finally maintaining the order and organization that we have achieved. Below is a set of tips that will help you reach each of the previous three stages.
First: organizing ideas
1. Create a daily to-do list.
Write down all the tasks you want to complete during the day, and be sure to cross out each task that you have finished. This simple movement will make you feel more accomplished and motivate you to achieve more. and avoid the stress of trying to remember what to do.
2- Write a general to-do list
This list differs from the previous one in that it is not intended for one day only. You can write on it everything you want to accomplish or achieve in terms of goals, aspirations, and wishes, and then use what you wrote in preparing your daily list. This method will save you a lot of time thinking about what you have to accomplish each day.
3- Take notes when talking to others.
Of course, this does not mean that you should walk down the street with a piece of paper and a pen and write down every word that your friend, co-worker, or salesman in the mall says to her! Rather, what is meant here is that you write down what you find really important during your daily conversations, as talking to them may spark in your mind an idea for a project, a solution to a difficult problem, or something else. Write such notes and come back to them when needed; even if you don’t, they will remain as a memory of your beautiful moments with your loved one.
4- Hire an annual organizer
An annual planner goes a long way toward getting your ideas together. Use it to write your long-term plans, such as travel, long-distance appointments, projects, etc., and be sure to update it constantly.
5- Clear your mind.
Clean your mind of negative thoughts and stressful feelings like stress and anxiety in the same way you clean your house of dust and garbage. Do regular meditation exercises and accustom yourself to positive thinking, which will ensure that you acquire organizational skills in all other aspects of your life.
Second: Organizing the place of work and residence
1. Buy boxes to arrange
Before you begin the process of organizing your office or home, be sure to purchase several boxes, cases, file folders, and any type of box that can contain your things.
2- Put titles on the organizing boxes.
There is no point in buying boxes and boxes to store things without specifying what each box contains; in this case, you will have to search all the boxes to find a purpose and thus re-spread the chaos around you. Avoid this by placing labels on each box or box and writing a suitable title for it, for example: “pencil box,” “trash bin,” “2019 work folder”…
3- Determine the contents of each box.
The title alone is not enough to know what each box contains, so in some cases you may need to specify the contents of each box. You can write under the title of each poster what it contains, as shown in the image below.
4- Allocate a place in your office for completed and unfinished tasks.
This place could be in the form of special boxes, a file folder, or just a corner space on your desk. And be sure to stick to it. Put the piles of files and papers you have to work on and the books you want to read in the “to-do” space, and move them back after they’re doneof files and papers you have to work on and the books you want to read in the “to-do” space, and move them back after they’re done. You won’t believe the impact of this simple movement on your sense of accomplishment and your overall performance at work.
5- Get rid of everything you don’t need.
Get rid of all the items you put in your organizing bins that you haven’t touched or used in the past year. Likewise, do not keep broken items, be sure to return all borrowed things to their owners, and donate everything you have that is useless.
6- Organize your computer.
No matter how tidy and organized your home or office is, you will not be able to achieve that feeling if the computer you work on most of the time is untidy. So take some time to reorganize it, create new folders with specific addresses, and put all the relevant files in them. Get rid of duplicate files, applications, and programs that you do not use, and avoid randomly placing files of all kinds on the desktop.
Third: Maintain order and organization.
After you have managed to arrange your general surroundings, including work, home, and even your thoughts, you must maintain your achievement in this regard. so that you don’t have to spend a long time trying to rearrange everything around you every time. Follow these steps to create a daily routine that will ensure an organized life:
- Dedicate ten minutes a day to make sure everything is in its place and to arrange new or used items in their appropriate places.
- Every time you add a new object to your life, be it a book, a piece of clothing, furniture, or something else, get rid of an old one in return.
- Keep a special donation box at all times. And use it to put all the things that you do not need and that you find in good condition to donate, such as clothes that no longer fit your size, books that you have finished reading, toys that you had in your childhood, etc.
- Don’t wait until tidy-up time comes at the end of each week to arrange the items around you. If you come across something that needs to be put back into place, do so immediately. But don’t interrupt your work just to do it; continuous interruption from work reduces productivity by 25% each time, according to an article published in the Harvard Business Review.
- Use technology in your favor and use what suits you in terms of tasks and priority-setting applications. The Internet is full of such programs; choose what you prefer and start using it immediately.
Don’t get frustrated or sad if you’re not an organized person. Being organized is a skill that can be learned with some hard work and practice. Start with simple steps and apply the above tips. You will find that over time it has become a part of your daily routine, and it will not take long for you to get used to this new lifestyle and see its positive impact on your life and productivity. And if you have any other ideas to boost your organization skills, feel free to share them with us in the comments.
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