5 SMALL THINGS I DO TO FEEL MORE ORGANISED

Deep down I am a very organised person, but as well as being organised I am lazy and these two qualities spend a lot of time fighting against each other. If I don’t make an effort, my organisation skills start to slack and I then start to lack motivation and feel like a crap version of myself and it all spins out of control.  When I’m in the mood to organise and get my shit together I feel so much better in myself, literally like I’m winning at life. So I thought I’d tell you guys the small things I do to feel this way if you want to give them a try, as well as a reminder to myself to keep it up!

Keep that laptop clean
Literally inside and out. As well as giving it a good wipe down with laptop wipes, I like to try and remember to clear my desktop screen of clutter, removing any unwanted files and organising them into folders or onto hard drives. And if you’re an Apple user you’ll sympathise with the pain of those daily computer update notifications. I try to get it all done on one day; clear my desktop, back up my computer onto a hard drive and then update the system. It feels good when it’s eventually done.

Organise and print photos
This is something I’m trying to get my friends to do, mainly to get them off my back and stop them constantly saying how jealous they are that I have printed photos in albums. If it’s really something you feel passionate about it’s annoyingly one of those things you have to put the effort into. At first it’s super overwhelming but if you keep it up it becomes just part of your routine. I started by going back to 2016 on my phone, but you can start where you wish… I went though every photo and gave myself three actions to pick from; keep, delete or put into album.  I deleted any duplicates (you know how we all have 20 angles of the same photo) although I tend to do this at the time of taking the photos – top tip if you want to save time later! I made a few albums depending on what I wanted to print such as ‘2016 Phone Pics’ or ‘Home Renovation’ or ‘My 30th Birthday’, that part is totally up to you. Printing them is easy too, you can use an app like Free Prints or take them into somewhere like Boots to print them instantly. I like to use self-adhesive photo albums so I can print any size photo and arrange them as I wish. We live in such a digital age now that printing photos means so much to me, I don’t want all the memories to be lost and living in a cloud for no-one to ever see.

Clean, clean, clean
This time of year has me wanting everything clean and stripped back to how it was ‘before’. I go a bit cleaning mad, which ain’t no bad thing and rarely happens the rest of the year – although I’m hoping I get that nesting phase that so many pregnant women talk about. I start by cleaning my makeup brushes, something I think we all neglect but is so important especially if you want to have good skin, just think of the dirt that lives in there! I also like to give the inside of my wardrobe a good clean, which usually coincides with a wardrobe clear-out, you can see mine on Anna’s YouTube channel here. The most satisfying clean is the fridge/freezer which I like to completely empty, give a good wipe down and then re-stock with only non-expired, neatly piled food and drink (although it doesn’t last long let’s be honest).

Burn those candles
Now this one is hardly difficult, but I always find that I have half burnt candles lying around the house, especially festive Christmas candles. So at this time of year I like to make an effort to burn those candles that are almost finished, especially in the evenings when we are relaxing and watching TV. It means saying goodbye to the festive scents, but it also means I can get out any new and unused candles and actually feel like they’re not going to waste sitting in the cupboard.

Set up a Bullet Journal
I’m still such a huge advocate for the Bullet Journal, three years after starting my first ever one. I spoke about what a Bullet Journal is in this video and then went into more detail of how I set up my ‘blogger style’ Bullet Journal in this video. Whether you’re using it for work or for personal use (a lot fo people use it for food shopping lists, gratitude lists, the options are endless) I think it’s just such a brilliant way for getting what’s in your brain down on paper. It makes me feel less forgetful and more organised, I use mine mainly for to-do lists, planning out my video content and writing down detailed ideas. If you want to get really creative with it, it’s also a great outlet for that and can be really relaxing. If you’ve never heard of the Bullet Journal before, set some time aside to do some googling and watch some videos online, you’ll get sucked into a hole and before you know if you’ll be the proud owner of a dotted notebook and a tippex mouse – enjoy.

For me the new year is never about diets or exercise, but it does give me that motivation to get organised and sort of out the things I put off at the tail end of last year. So I hope this inspired you a bit to do the same! Good luck!