More Productive With a Better Environment

Everyone wants to be productive but not everyone lives in a productive environment. You know you live in a productive environment if everything that surrounds you helps you achieve your goals so you can become who you desire to be. And it follows that a productive environment should be well organized.

If you become organized, the chances that you will succeed increase as well. The principles behind organization are the same as those for achieving success, namely, being clear about your intent, forming a doable plan, and then acting on those plans accordingly.

Clarify Intentions

Let us look at clear intentions first. If you live in a cluttered place, this reduces your productivity and shows that you generally have a lack of deliberate thoughts and actions. If you want to become well organized, you need to clarify your intentions first.

This means thinking how you want your life to be generally organized. You will need to examine how you want to live from day to day, what situations you want to experience, and what values you aspire to have. If you take the time to do this, you will be able to see why you need to become organized.

Plan How to Establish It

The next stage is to plan how you will establish a productive environment – usually this involves organizing paper documents. With papers, you can either act on them, file them away, or throw them out (which is sometimes best, in the end). If you have clutter, it means you did not make any decision.

Next, look at other aspects of your life that need organization. Ask yourself: what constitutes obstacles for me, what resources do I have on had, and is there a definite plan I can make about these?

Ask Questions

A very common example is that your office desk is cluttered with all sorts of stuff that you do not know what to do with. Let us examine this problem using the above questions:

– What is my obstacle? You do not have time to look through this stuff and decide what to do about them. You also lack space to store what you think should be kept.

– What are my resources? If you have money, then you could always buy additional storage space like new cabinets, or clear plastic boxes with covers, and even purchase an organizer so you can keep track of what you own.

– What type of plan can I come up with? You should set a specific date and time when you will deal with all this clutter. Take one item at a time, consider what you should do with it, then act accordingly. If necessary, set aside a series of days to deal with the problem.

Follow Through

The last step in achieving a productive environment is to follow through. You should act on your organizational plan. Be sure to create a schedule for maintaining the system as well so that you stay productive even after the clean up.

To implement your organizational plan well, you need a great organizational tool. Sometimes the simplest tool (such as a schedule book) is the best. Others swear by electronical organizers. It all depends on what you need exactly.

You should also be aware of what positive or negative outcomes could result if you follow through, or do not follow through. You might reward yourself if you succeed, or acknowledge the price you need to pay if you fail.

One thing is for sure though – truly successful people do push through with the follow-through. So remember, stay organized so the odds that you will succeed will also increase. And you will benefit from a productive environment in the end.