So in order to get started on my way to being a Renaissance Polymath I have decided to list the Top Ten Improvements I Can Make This Year. I tried to pick things that will have an effect on my habits and lifestyle not just random meaningless tasks to do (like cleaning out my sock drawer).
1. Get Organized - I've always been the type of person that wrote things down. I have countless notebooks from middle school and high school that are filled with random notes to myself. The biggest problem that I have though is that I always manage to have some sort of catastrophe in my life (at least the way I see it anyway...) that manages to get my productivity system to completely fall apart. Last year I read Getting Things Done by David Allen. It seems like a decent system to start with. I also managed to finally figure out just what I need to write down to be able to stay focused. So with my Christmas money (Thanks Fam!!!) I brought myself a nice new Franklin Covey planner to use this year. A good investment for me since I have used planners similar but not as structured for the past 10 years or so. My friend called one THE BOOK OF LIFE one year as she was convinced that without it my brain would melt and I would forget everything about my life.
The real goal here is to find some sort of a system for me to use so as not to lose all of the information and stuff that's important to me. Which leads me to #2.
2. Get Rid of 365 Things - I know. You're wondering how an unemployed, recent college grad, who lives in the same room they did when they were 6 can have 365 things to get rid of. You'd be surprised. I apparently have quite a few things to get rid of. When moving out of my apartment in December I found that my filing cabinet had bank statements from before I started college, my closet still had clothes in it that hadn't fit since freshman year, and I had way too many highlighters, post-it notes and refillable pencils. Keeping things that don't get used is a waste of space, filing papers I will never need again is a waste of time, and buying duplicates because I can't find the original is a waste of money. All things I complain about not having enough of already. And that doesn't even begin to cover the random stuff that managed to sit in my parents' house two hours away for 5 years.
I've been a fan of Erin Rooney Doland's work on the site Unclutterer for awhile now. And they've had some really great tips on how to get rid of things that are just lying around for no reason. Add that to the hate that I share with them for unitaskers and I think this just may be my go-to site for the next few months. Also, I'm kinda curious about Erin's book Unclutter Your Life In One Week. I think I may have too much going on right now to try to do it all in one week, but maybe it'll help if I hit a wall with getting rid of stuff. Or maybe I won't need it at all. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
The point here is that it'll be much easier to organize and care for the things I do have if they're all things I like, use and enjoy. That and I'll never again have to lug 3 crates of papers from one apartment to the other while wondering where they came from.
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