AJ’s advice – chaos and organisation
| July 29, 2012 | Posted by Alaa Jasim under AJ's Advice |
I don’t know about you, but my family, when we’re all together, can often be the epitome of chaos. It doesn’t help that we’re all a bit insane and a lot of the time we just tend to improvise when it comes to, well, doing things. Now, I don’t know if you know this, dear reader, but I am a little obsessive when it comes to planning and organising things, so being a part of my family often drives me insane. I do often wish that they would put more thought into plans… tragic but true. There’s rarely a day where I’m not organising something or someone for some event or other, so here are my top tips on keeping the world organised:
If you’re organising something for a few people, or indeed just for someone else, then make sure that you keep in touch with them. It always helps to be able to contact them to ask the stupid questions about timings and guest lists and so on. Make sure as well that, as the organiser, you’re always easy to get hold of. Personally, if I’m not on the other end of a phone, then I’ll probably be at the other end of a computer screen, trying to sort something or other out. It helps to keep things running smoothly and if there are any mistakes in planning something, it can help to iron them out fairly quickly.
Using reminders is always a big help as well. Technology is wonderful, isn’t it? You can set alarms for things, write a to-do list on your phone or your iPod; you can carry your world around in your pocket. I often use alarms to tell me to get a move on and write something or set something up – they were a huge help with getting my Student Finance and accommodation applications out of the way before I started my exams so I could focus on revision, which was definitely a plus.
Ask for help if you need it! People seem to forget that they don’t have to organise things alone and that having someone there to help you do some of the work can really help. Team efforts can work really, really well when you need them to.
If your family are anything like mine, then make sure you plan things in advance and know what your family is up to before you plan things for yourself. The number of things I’ve had to flake on because I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing on the day… It can get pretty crazy. If for some reason you need to buy things for whatever you’re doing, make sure you buy those well in advance too, just in case something goes wrong or they take a while to arrive.
Note things down. I have a little book that I carry with me everywhere – it’s only tiny, about A6 size, but it’s good enough that I can jot down thoughts and ideas when I have them: I have a memory like a sieve so it’s always useful. I suppose that goes hand-in-hand with using reminders and alarms.
Getting organised and being organised can make people remarkably more efficient. It really is quite fascinating. I hope my top tips have helped, so I’ll stop there. That’s all from me for this week! Feel free to get in touch with me in the meantime with thoughts, questions and ideas, and I’ll see you next time!
