#10: The 8 Major Areas to Pay Attention to for a More Organized Life

What does it mean to have a more organized life? What should we be mindful of for that? An organized life goes far beyond just putting stuff away. Discover the eight crucial areas to pay attention to for a life that sets you up for more significant achievements. Stay tuned as we explore each one of these areas.


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Transcript

This is The Neat Lifestyle Podcast, episode number ten. Today's episode brings you the eight major areas to pay attention to for a more organized life, 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 everyone and welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast, now present in 15 countries worldwide. I cannot list all of the countries in just one episode, so today, my special thank goes to my listeners in the US, in Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and Germany. Thank you so much for listening.
 
I'm your host Katia Mesquita, and what does it take to have a more organized life? How is your life now? I'm not talking about just putting stuff away, okay? Of course, we organize our physical spaces, but there are other aspects in life to check if they are organized or at least taken into consideration. For example, some people may have their homes organized, but their finances are messy. Some people may struggle to organize their lives better to create space for relationships or improve them. Sometimes it's missing a little piece, a tiny detail that can make the whole difference and what do we need to address to have a more organized life. In episode number seven, I spoke about some qualities of an organized person. I remember in that particular episode, and I invite you to check that out after listening to today's episode, I mentioned the eight vital areas of life to pay attention to, but in today's episode, I will expand a little bit more on them because this is exactly what helps stop that pattern of keeping running in circles and getting nowhere, and developing the foundational structure to have a more functional life with more significant achievements, more joy, more peace of mind, improve relationships, be more centered and strong when facing unexpected life events, be confident, have more enhanced decision making. 

But first of all, what does even a more organized life mean? My definition of having a more organized life is being more in charge of our life in a more holistic way to make it function more fluently, even when things don't go exactly our way. We rearrange certain aspects to make life work better and provide us with the structure to respond to unexpected life events more favorably. The whole point is to find harmony by dedicating weekly attention to eight major areas in our lives. Things usually don't go well if, for example, we just pay attention to work and don't pay attention to relationships, if we just pay attention to responsibilities and forget about health, if we spend most of our time with fun and distractions and forget about personal development. So, these eight major areas are time, relationships, health, work, finances, personal growth, responsibilities, and contribution to society. 

But why do we need to pay attention to them on a weekly basis? Why not on a daily basis? Well, some of these areas don't need to be addressed daily, but they all still need to be addressed during the week. Just to give you an example, to take care of my health, I need to exercise, but I don't have to exercise every day. As long as I exercise three to four times per week, I'm okay with my health. So, let's talk about each one of these aspects. The first one is time. It's the very first thing we should pay attention to because when you organize your time, you actually make room for all the rest. Many people believe that time is something that we have or not. The problem with this perspective is that when you say that you don't have time, you are basically stating that you are entirely powerless about your time. 

You have no control of your time and time or others control you. When you say that, you are giving your power away. Organizing your time starts with taking charge of your time or at least the part of your time you can control because I understand that some people may have part of their time committed to their employers or to family, but it should not mean a 24/7 commitment. It is important to establish some boundaries, rearrange things, and find other alternatives to reclaim the part of your time you can control. There are some strategies. One of these strategies is to stop everything once in a while to evaluate and become more aware of where your time goes, and identifying the difference between what is important and what is urgent. I can only go over some of them here. In my 1-on-1 session, I show more in detail on how to identify and set the right priorities according to the life you want to design, how to establish boundaries, how to say no to things and people that are not your top priorities, and how to be more in control of your time, seeing it from a different angle. 

The second one is relationships. It doesn't matter if it's a general or intimate relationship. Once you reorganize your life to make room for meaningful relationships and explore how to interact and understand relationships more deeply, you can enhance them. Just to give you an example, women usually don't think like men and vice versa, right? Understanding these gender uniquenesses gives you more assertiveness to modulate emotions, pay attention to certain moves and body language, ask questions in a more tactful way, be more selective, respond and communicate with them more assertively.

General relationships help you connect to more insightful ideas, fun, energizing activities, and other people who, by word of mouth, would give preference to your services, potentially increasing your income. Money comes through general relationships. The way we relate to people is the very beginning of choosing you, of considering you serve them with your business. On the other hand, intimate relationships are for more intimacy, enjoying life together, mutual support, emotional and financial, some kind of stronger partnership, strength, safety, a sense of closeness, deeper connection, celebrating achievements in overcoming life's challenges together. Reorganizing life to create room for meaningful, intimate relationships and nurturing them is the way to go. 

When life or behaviors are in disharmony or your attention is in disproportion, don't be surprised if you realize relationships are disconnected or already far gone, just keeping appearances. Sometimes, even when partners are present, they might be just that physically, but their minds and their hearts are no longer there. So many mistakes are made in intimate relationships, and I was guilty of them somehow, but we learn, right? As we keep going. Life shows us a better way. One of these mistakes is not creating space even for starting the relationship. If we make an analogy to a plant we want to grow, the first thing we get before planting anything is the container where you will put the dirt and plant the seed so it can grow. I have been helping some people with this mistake, especially when they get divorced or when they are single. Giving an example of some men, of course, it doesn't apply to all men, but it is very common. 

There is this idea that to make things more practical, they furnish their homes with a single size bed and a chair just for one person at this small square dinner table, and they expect the new partner to adapt, maybe sit on the couch or on the bar stool, on the kitchen counter. The problem with that, at least in a traditional intimate relationship, is that women are instinctively wired for structure. If this man brings a woman for dinner, the first thing she's gonna start observing and concluding in her thoughts is, there is no room for me here. Therefore, there is no room for a relationship between us here. She can be very nice, very polite, but will probably not move on with that relationship. Even if the guy offers that only chair for the woman because he's willing to sit on the couch, he's not doing any better because part of what makes the relationship more meaningful is enjoying things together at least from the woman's perspective. Part of the enjoyment for many women is ensuring they both have similar experiences together so she can feel like they are in the same boat. 

Another common mistake is to take the relationship for granted. They get too comfortable or too familiar and start not paying attention to each other and making that analogy again with a plant. A relationship with a partner is like a delicate plant. A plant needs frequent attention as well as water and nutrients. If you don't water it or if you water it too much, it's very likely to die. In some cases, you can repair it before it dies. In other cases, it's irreparable because the partner may lose interest in repairing it. So, struggling in relationships happens frequently because they are not considering learning more about what attracts and keeps relationships, whether general or intimate. 

One thing is to attract. Another thing is to maintain a relationship. We can learn from hardship and experience in life, but it takes time until we figure out why we keep experiencing that same pattern over and over again. One way we can save time, avoid unnecessary hardship, and be more assertive in relationships is to take at least one hour per week to work on self-improvement. As we learn and have a better understanding of human behaviors, we can modulate our emotions and see things starting to unfold differently with significant improvements in this area. Then, self-improvement becomes addicting. You can do it by reading some books on the subject, reading articles or attending coaching programs. I am always working on self-improvement. It's part of my routine six days a week. Of course, I have one free day per week to recharge, but I love keeping improving myself.

The third one is health. Health goes far beyond exercising and nutrition. We need to consider physical, mental, and spiritual health. For those of course, who believe we are also made of some non-physical part. For those who don't, I respect that. I am tolerant, and we can disagree and still respect each other, right? But what does it mean to be healthy? The best definition for me is a person in a state of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being and free from disease. Now, does a person in a state of well-being and free from disease need excessive use of legal drugs? What does excessive mean? For some people, 30 to 50 bottles of prescriptions are normal. It depends on how the habits can be normalized in such a way that people can change their parameters to adapt to their "new normal."

I went to a doctor for a stomach discomfort the other day and she asked me if I was taking any medicines, you know? When you tell your whole history, and she was shocked when I answered that I was, at that time, taking just Tylenol occasionally for cramps or for uncomfortable headache during menstrual cycle, and she asked again, "No medicine at all?" I said, "Nope." Then she turned it to her assistant, who was typing the info into her database, and said, "She's healthy." I immediately grasped that. That was her definition of a healthy person. Then the endoscopy revealed nothing wrong with my stomach, no sign off gastritis or anything, but regardless of the results she prescribed with me an anti-acid and the prescription arrived at home and I didn't take it. It didn't make sense, any sense to me to take it, first because she didn't find anything wrong with my stomach, and second, because the potential side effects of that prescription were worse than my discomfort. 

One thing that I want to make clear here about traditional medicine is that I don't have anything against it, but I'm careful with excess or unreasonable intake. I'm very careful with my intake, especially if it's a quick fix just to address the symptoms but doesn't go to the root cause of the problem. After all, the problem might be still there, so my way to organize my health is with a specialist who searches for the root cause of the problem instead of just giving me a quick fix for the symptom. I usually prefer naturopaths with more holistic approach, who also check the level of my vitamins and minerals. So later, I went to another professional for a second opinion, and I found out that my stomach problem was emotional stress. And once I addressed this issue, my discomfort was gone, and I love considering alternative solutions, a second opinion, ancient wisdom. 

The fourth area is work. Some people spend more than 95% of their time thinking of work. When they are with family and friends, they talk about work most of the time, even bring up work-related subject to discussion during vacation. They are usually present physically, but their minds are completely distant, absent. When we work on reorganize our lives, we can reestablish harmony, set some boundaries, and be more present for our loved ones. There are some good exercises and techniques for that. The fifth one is finances. Life can't get organized if our homes look neat, but finances are messy. Do you organize a budget? What's a good percentage to be used as an emergency fund? There are some basic principles to be followed in order to get our finances more organized, and the next episode is all about organizing finances. It's an interview with a specialist in finance. She's a Dave Ramsey, certified financial coach. You won't want to miss that.

The sixth area is self-improvement. There is no way we can improve our lives or anything in life without improving ourselves in the first place. That's one of the most important points where people get stuck. Okay, and the seventh area is responsibilities. Life is made of things we enjoy doing and also things we don't enjoy doing but need to be done. The way we care about and handle our responsibilities and deadlines are going to be determinant to make life flow and function better. The habit of facing them and doing them first gives more peace of mind to relax and enjoy the rest of the time. Instead of leaving the responsibilities for later and spending the entire day thinking and talking to yourself over and over in the attempt to remember, I have to do that thing, I have to do that thing, it makes the day unproductive and unpleasant. 

Now, the eighth area of life, contribution to society. 
Our existence must mean something. There is so much joy in giving our contribution to a bigger purpose. It doesn't necessarily have to be a financial or material contribution. Sometimes it can be with our time or our attention, our kind words. There is so much joy in making some impact in others' lives. What can we do, even like a drop in the ocean, to make a difference and help make the world a better place? Think about it. And just making a recap, the eight major areas to pay attention to for a more organized life are time, relationships, health, work, finances, personal growth, responsibilities, and contribution to society. 

And paraphrasing a beautiful message I read, "Today is the day. The day you can firmly say to yourself, I'm done with suffering and done with complaining about what went wrong. Today is the day of my independence, the day I take control of my life, decide to improve how I respond to life events, and take full responsibility for my decisions. Today is the day I stop being that poor person and take charge of the situation before others take charge of what I do with my life, and if I do that, I don't fear the future because I know the future will be about harvesting the fruits of the seeds I'm planting today." 

That's all for today. I hope you had some takeaways from this episode. If you did, please let me know. Send me a direct message on my Instagram telling about your takeaway, a brief description of your story and struggle for a chance to win a free 1-on-1 online session with me. I'll put the link to my Instagram on the show notes of this episode. We will select the best story. I can't wait to that. 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.