#4: 10 Powerful Tips on Organizing Life to Make More Time

Have you ever considered the extra achievements you could have by regaining power over your time instead of letting time have power over you? By seeing our relationship with time from a different perspective, you can create more time and space for what truly matters, ultimately propelling you towards more significant achievements. Stay tuned to these 10 powerful tips on organizing your life to make more time and start your self-improvement journey right now.


Support the show! Buy me a coffee ☕😀❤️!

One-on-one coaching session with me

Follow me on Instagram

Link to give me a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙️

Follow my Facebook page

A gift for you! FREE Daily Focus List

Support the show with Bitcoin!

Credits: 

Song: Green Lights
Performed By: DLP
Written by: Daniel Labate (BMI 100%)
Published by: Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI 100%)

Song (Trailer): Epic Hybrid Trailer Music
Performed by: by 2CoolFire
Licensed by: Envato Market

Cover Photo: Angela Clifton Photography
Hair and Make-up: Casey J. Cheek

Transcript

You're listening to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast, episode number four. In today's episode, you are gonna get 10 powerful tips on organizing life to make more time, so stay tuned. 

Welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast. My name is Katia Mesquita. I'm a personal organization expert, an online business entrepreneur, and your host on this weekly variety show. I'm excited to bring you an extra dose of inspiration to become more organized, stay organized, and make things work better for you. My goal in this podcast is to help you achieve a more functional, harmonious, and meaningful life. I can't wait to connect with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in, and now let's begin. Hello and welcome to episode number four. Thank you so much for pushing play today. This is your host Katia Mesquita. I'm a personal organization expert for those who don't know me yet, and I help people become more organized so they can have more control over the organization of their lives, space, and projects and, of course, have more successful accomplishments. I'm so happy that you are here. 

I love when we get together somehow, even indirectly, like this. It means the message I had in my heart to send to you has finally arrived. It doesn't really matter to me how many people I reach, but just imagining making a tiny positive difference for one single person, wow, it already makes me feel happier. Now, think about something just in between us here. What goals would you be able to achieve if you become a more organized person? I'm sure a lot, a lot of significant ones, right? But to organize life to make more time for ourselves, we first must change our relationship with time. This will allow us create more time and space for what really matters and will move us toward achieving our goals. So, are you ready to make things work better for you? You're sure? Okay, good. Because every favorable outcome in our lives starts with a decision. 

The decision to be ready and open for the changes that allow you more favorable outcomes. We cannot keep the same pattern and expect different results, right? Something has got to change for better, to have better results. Another important thing is to be committed. Commit to yourself in the first place to make that thing happen. I don't mean commit to convenience or commit to comfort. To achieve what we want, we must take full responsibility and embrace steps that might not be the most convenient and the most comfortable. And in order to get what we want, we need to face some uncomfortable situations and do one step at a time. As long as we keep going, we will get there sooner or later. It depends on how you organize yourself for that and persist. You know what? In the past, when something didn't go my way, I used to think that it was because it wasn't supposed to happen, and I was totally wrong.

When something doesn't go my way, I just have to change my approach and persist. Failure is actually part of success. It's an experience. Failure is part of testing, part of being a scientist. Think about how the world would be if Thomas Edison had given up after so many failures trying to create a light bulb that lasts. He never felt defeated. Every time his experiment didn't work, he kept changing the approach and persisting despite the temporary defeat he was experiencing and also the unpleasant feelings he was experiencing. Successful people prepare to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable and do what needs to be done. Same thing with courage and fear. Successful people are not necessarily courageous all the time. The secret is making sure to do what needs to be done despite having fear. The way to overcome fear is by facing the fear and breathing with the fear, and also breathing with the unpleasant feelings. 

Sometimes, people self-sabotage and mess up with their own lives and goals or waste time by distracting themselves just to avoid dealing with unpleasant feelings. And regarding dealing with unpleasant feelings, there is a fantastic book that I highly recommend by psychologist Joan Rosenberg, PhD. It's a life-changing book called 90 Seconds to a Life You Love. It is super easy to read, first of all, because it's very conversational, and secondly, because we can also listen to the audiobook version of it. It's so convenient. I have actually two different versions of this book. I have the audiobook version and the ebook. The audiobook is the perfect version to use while I'm doing my stuff, my laundry, or doing my dishes or organizing my home, for instance, when I'm doing some working on something that is not complex, it's very easy to access. You just subscribe to one of the many audiobook platforms available. 

I have been using Audible, and as of today, I have been having a good experience with it. There are also others like audiobooks.com that I am considering trying, and just to clarify here, I'm not their affiliate. I'm not getting any commission from them. I'm just sharing the experience I have with what I really use. Anyway, if you just do a quick search on Google, you will find different options for audiobook platforms. And the ebook version of it is perfect for searching keywords, searching, like I use a lot for searching quotes and to revisit some part of the book that I want to read again or I want to compare with another author. This particular book helped me to be more courageous and confident because it taught me that "You can move from one side of an unpleasant emotion to the other side in roughly 90 seconds if you just allow yourself to really experience it."

And I did it, and it definitely works, especially when I was organizing to build my own business, my dream business, and that gave me so much more freedom and flexibility. That said, let's get to the 10 powerful tips to organize life to make more time. Tip number one: find your big why. Find out the big reason why you want to have more time in the first place. It's going to help you have a clear destination of where you want to go and what you want to succeed with. You might want to succeed in something, but what does success even mean to you? I'm going to quote Michael Hyatt, the amazing author of the book Free to Focus, when he says, "Most of us never stopped to define what success means. It's like running a race with no finishing line. We are leaving for a trip without knowing where we want to end up. With no clear destination, how will we ever know when we have arrived?"

So what do you want more time for? What do you want for your life? What drives you? What sparks your curiosity? What lights you up? Start by asking yourself these questions, and be okay if you don't find the answers immediately. Sometimes, we need to stay in these questions for a few days until we start to have some ideas. Find your compelling reason, a bigger purpose, if you haven't found yet. Do you really think we came to this world just to sleep and wake up every day, pay our bills, and basically eat, poop, and die? What's the point? I really wanna invite you to search for a bigger purpose if you haven't found one yet. You have special gifts, and I truly believe we all came to this world for a special reason. I'm sure there is something special about you, and if you just have been getting by, your purpose now is to find a purpose. 

I will eventually expand a little bit more about purpose in the upcoming episodes, but at least for now, consider having these as your next step. Don't worry, we will get there. Tip number two: make a self-assessment of the current situation of your relationship with time. Before you get anywhere, you first need to know where you are. Sometimes, we keep running on autopilot just because we always do things the same way without realizing that we could do things differently or that some of these things don't even need to be done anymore. I agree that doing things on autopilot can be beneficial, somehow, if the habits lead you to save time. So, let's stop the autopilot just for a moment to evaluate. Start by figuring out and questioning where your time is going. How much time do you spend with distractions that doesn't get you anywhere? How much time do you spend scrolling down reels on social media? 

What about the TV and Netflix? I love Netflix, but I really limit my time on that because I really have more meaningful things to do with my life and with my time. I'm not saying not watch it, but what I'm saying is be more in control of your time instead of letting time control you. How many tasks are you putting on a quote-on-quote "to-do list" every day? Do all these tasks need to be done on the same day? Are you sure all those things need to be done by you? And do some of these tasks need to be done at all? Question everything you put on your list. Tip number three: feel deservedly of more time. It doesn't matter if you made mistakes in the past. Forgive yourself. Get over it and feel worthy of better things in your life, including more time to do what matters most to you. 

Think about how you were 10 years ago and see how much you have evolved in so many other aspects. Think about how many great things you can still do. Look, I totally get, if you don't feel very optimistic about the future, I know that there are a lot of bad things in the world, but remember there are also a lot of good things. If we keep focusing on the bad stuff, our attention will be too busy with the bad stuff and we won't be able to see the good opportunities and the great people, the good things around us. Remember, look and you shall find. If you look for bad things, you will find them. If you look for good things, you will find them. You cannot focus in everything at the same time. If you don't feel deservedly, it is probably because you are still beating yourself up for something that you have done in the past, and please forgive yourself. Sometimes we need to do some exercise to forgive others, but sometimes we need to do some exercise to forgive ourselves. I learned a very good exercise with Jim Fortin. I'm going to quote him on this exercise, and you silently repeat after me, okay? 

It says, "I am someone who was once a child. I am someone who was innocent, joyful, and free. I'm someone who was forced to grow up. I am someone who has given up on dreams. I'm someone who has acted out of fear. I am someone who has known suffering, sadness and defeat. I am someone who tries not to show pain. I am someone who I can forgive. It's powerful. I love this exercise, and I am honored to share it with you. 

Tip number four: take control of your time. Don't let time or other things have power over you. Take full responsibility and be in charge of your own time. And if you are in a situation where you are an employee, for instance, or experiencing a situation within the family in a way that part of your time is controlled by others, remember, there is still another part of the time you can control. So, be in charge of that part of the time you can control. We are not passive beings living entirely at the mercy of others. We have a say on the part of the time we can control. And there is a brilliant quote here from Wayde Goodall, author of the book "Why Great Men Fall." He says, "If you don't control your time, someone else will. If you don't protect your dream, you will fulfill someone else's dream." 

Tip number five: budget your time. Be mindful of the time you have and set an approximate amount of time for each task and each person. Practice estimating the time required. Tip number six: prioritize the right things and the right people. Many things are important, I know, but not all are urgent or have the same value. It is important to identify what is urgent to do first, and there is a difference between what is important and what is urgent. So, we can do the urgent things first, especially those tasks that will help you move toward your goal or are tied up to a deadline. And regarding the right people, many people are important, but they have different meanings in our lives. Choose carefully those significant ones. A family member or your spouse, a best friend who lifts you up and adds value to you or a partner, they should be a priority. 

Tip number seven: consider your energy in the equation. Monitor your energy. A person who is good at accomplishing things or tasks and feels burnt out doesn't seem successful to me. Save energy, protect your time to sleep, search for natural ways to improve the quality of your sleep. A good night of sleep provides you with higher productivity and you can do things in less time if you feel rested and energized. Also, surround yourself with uplifting people who energize you. Have you noticed that when we spend time with negative people, they drain our energy? I started to protect my energy by limiting the amount of time I spend with them. Sometimes, it's inevitable to have them around. Sometimes, it's a colleague at work or even a relative, but it is important to minimize the time we spend with people that drains our energy. Honestly, I started to be more selective about my friends or people I hang out with. 

Tip number eight: eliminate stuff and tasks. Less is more. Sometimes people keep buying stuff, more clothes, more houses, more vehicles, more gadgets, without realizing that as much as they have as much more they will need to manage, they will need to take care of. More to address time, more to pay attention to, more to clean, more to store, more to organize, more to fix, more to worry about. But anyway, I want to clarify that I'm not saying here "Do not have things or properties at all." I really believe it is important to have our own properties and things, but what I'm saying is: consider finding and establishing limits when it comes to accumulating things. Acquiring and keeping just what is really necessary for you and your loved ones to live well. Have you noticed that the joy of acquiring a new item usually lasts a couple of days? 

There are many reasons people buy stuff. One of these reasons is to feel more significant, but significant for whom? Have you noticed that there is happiness in giving or making a difference in someone else's life? Have you noticed that the joy of making a difference in someone's life or doing your part to make the world a better place is long-lasting? When we stop focusing on significance and start focusing on contribution and purpose, life starts to become more meaningful to us and happier. And this whole thing reminds me of a documentary on Netflix. It's called "The Minimalists." I don't know if you haven't watched it yet, but please watch as soon as you can if you haven't yet. I hope it's still available on Netflix when you search for it. It's a great documentary where two long-life friends, their names are Josh and Ryan, they share how our lives can be better with less. 

Listen, I don't consider myself to be a minimalist. I don't really like these labels, especially because some people distort it and start to use to promote a life without private property, and I don't like the idea. I really think we should have our properties, yes, but it's about the idea of having the essential to live well. We feel really lighter by having less. I experienced that. I'm sure you are going to see life differently after watching this documentary. It's really short. It lasts about 53 minutes or so. It's less than an hour. And please let me know how was your experience watching it, okay? Alright, but besides stuff, we also manage tasks, right? And instead of packing your day with a never-ending to-do list, question every task. Eliminate tasks you can live without or delegate some of them. Make a smaller list of what is a priority. 

My focus list is really small and tangible for me. That's one of the things that gives me more time for myself. When I set a smaller number of tasks to do, I'm actually freeing myself more, taking things off my plate. I eliminate heaviness from my shoulders. I feel enough, I feel happier, and energized. If you have kids, for instance, I know how challenging it can be, but it is possible. Maybe you can have a family member, or a friend or even a babysitter to watch them for a couple of hours while you have some time for yourself to rest or to do something toward your goal. And please don't even think about multitasking. Focusing on everything means actually focusing on nothing. It is important to focus on one thing at a time. There is a concept called context switching. I don't know if you have heard about it. 

You can easily find it on Google. This term was created to explain some operations computers do to alternate between tasks and make it possible to support a "multitasking environment." This supposed multitasking capability started to be frequently used in the corporate environment by workers who started to promote themselves as excellent at multitasking. The problem is that every time we switch from one unrelated task to another, it takes time for our minds to adjust. According to the American Psychological Association, switching refers to the change in our "mental control settings," and we end up losing time and productivity instead of increasing them. Okay, let's move on to tip number nine: Harmonize time and attention to other vital areas of your life. Make sure when you organize your weekly calendar, not only do things related to work. Making more time depends on harmonizing the attention you also give to different areas of your life, especially your relationships, your health, your sense of purpose and contribution, and personal growth. 

Tip number 10: improve your personal growth. Making more time is something that comes from within yourself. The life you experience around you is a reflection of who you are, how you organize yourself, and how you organize your day, your week, your mouth and your year. Improving yourself as a person will help you access a higher level of problem-solving and create more time to really enjoy life. Some people are just existing, while others are truly living. Focus on developing your being instead of developing your having. And if you are not familiar with the principle "Be, Do, Have," I talked about it in episode number three. I really want to invite you to listen to it if you haven't listened yet. Just making a quick recap, the 10 steps are: Number one: find your big why. Number two: make a self-assessment. Number three: feel deservedly of more time. 

Number four: take control of your time. Number five: budget your time. Number six: prioritize the right things and the right people. Number seven: consider your energy. Number eight: eliminate stuff and tasks. Number nine: harmonize. Number ten: improve your personal growth. I want you to live your best. Give yourself a chance. Start a new you, a new version of yourself. 

That's all for today, and in this episode, I just scratched the surface. I do have a special training on organizing to make more time, and better yet, it's absolutely free. I just did one recently, and there is another training coming up. You are invited to participate. It's a 60-minute training, and it's really easy to sign up for. Just head over to www.neatlifestyle.com/programs. I will put the link in the show notes of this episode. I really hope by the time you get there, the doors are still open. If not, make sure to join the waitlist. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful week. I'm Katia Mesquita, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to share it with those you care about so they can also benefit from it. If you aren't already following me on social media, do so by clicking on the link on the show notes or simply by visiting my website at neatlifestyle.com. I appreciate you so much. I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you in the next episode of The Neat Lifestyle Podcast.