My LIFE ORGANIZATION SYSTEM ✨ How to organize your life (*all my systems + tools*)

Today I'm unveiling my life organization system and sharing all the tools to help you organize your life. So I call this system the office life system and it's so easy to implement even the busiest people could really start today and I'm really not being dramatic when I say this system has the power to transform your life from chaotic and overwhelming to organized and peaceful. So have you ever noticed the underlying stress and the anxiety that disorganization really causes? That nagging mail you haven't opened? Those projects that you started but you never completed? Missed appointments and lost paperwork? It's all so so stressful and maybe you've even tried various hacks or quick fixes in your life but you just couldn't really make lasting change. But I'm here to let you know that the lasting life organization that you crave comes when you learn an organization system that can easily become a new lifestyle and not just a fad organization diet if you will. As a neuropsychologist I've spent years helping typical and neurodivergent folks really get more organized and fill an overall greater sense of stability in their lives and in this video I want to give you a step-by-step playbook to feel more in control of all the things you're trying to juggle because I know you're trying to juggle all the things you are me. So get ready to say goodbye to chaos and hello to peace and satisfaction that comes with an organized life. First up is middle management. First up in our office life system is middle management. I want to start with an organization system that is going to help you fill an overall sense of control and stability. Most importantly it's going to remove that constant feeling of brain fatigue caused by trying to really keep your life organized all in your head. As David Allen said our brain is for having ideas not holding them. So you're really making life harder for yourself by not having a system to manage all these things. So not to mention this type of system can give you so much more brain space to be creative to be present and to be productive. For instance since I started using this system less things fall between the cracks I've had more free time and I just overall feel a sense of more ease. And this system can be summed up as managing things and more specifically this system uses the tenets of getting things done by David Allen and building a second brain by Tiago Forte. Let's start with getting things done by David Allen the system of GTD. This is a framework to help you keep track of ideas tasks and different projects. The first step is to capture. The capture concept in David Allen's getting things done is all about jotting down every task every idea and reminder that pops into your head. You can think of it as clearing your mental clutter by getting everything out of your brain and into a trusted system so you can focus on what really matters without worrying about forgetting something important or anything else that can get lost between the cracks. And you do this by using inboxes to capture all this incoming information. For me I have real life inboxes which include my mail and paper inbox post-it notes my desk whiteboard and my pocket in the front of my planner. And I also have my digital inboxes which is where I store majority really of the bulk of my incoming ideas and my to do's. This leads me to my next step in this system which is to process. And for me this is all done in my notion second brain. So the second brain is a book by Tiago Forte that outlines an easy easy system to implement the strategies of getting things done. Essentially it's a thought partner to organize all your things based on actionability. So let's jump over to my laptop so I can show you my second brain in notion. I will say that by the way if you like this template feel free to take screenshots and do this for yourself. But if you want this template for yourself you can grab it a link in the description below. I have everything interconnected in this system so it's all linked together. I put a lot of work into this template and you can customize it how you like. But let's take a look and look at it so you can see what it is I'm actually talking about. So this is the initial dashboard of my second brain. I have everything here aesthetically pleasing of course and you'll get the same kind of layout in the template. Of course you can change anything you don't like. You have a section on the dashboard to quickly add actions like tasks and projects. You have the date the time brain dump and the promo door method. This is where all the buttons are to use the para method in the system. You also have a task calendar that shows all the deadlines for your task here. You can toggle this up down the dashboard also gives you a bird's eye view of your different active areas in your life and then you have a calendar for your project. Favorite resources so in the resources section you can tag any resource as a favorite and it'll show up on your dashboard in your daily habit tracker. So the task page is basically the most efficient to-do list you'll ever see. Let me just show you quickly what it looks like in here for me. This is an example one because the other one has all my personal stuff in it but you have a section for your inbox. These are unprocessed tasks that you haven't had a chance to sit down and decide what to do with them yet. You have a list of your active tasks so these you've scheduled or you've said that you want to do them next or to be scheduled next or they're in progress and then you also have a complete task list. When you're done with a task it automatically archives it to the archives folder so if you need to reference it later. These tasks are also interconnected to different areas in your second brain so all my tasks are connected to different projects if they're related to a project etc. Then I have a view of my past due tasks and a calendar of the tasks with their deadlines. So this would all be pulled in if you were looking at all my personal information. So then when it's time to process my task the first thing I ask is is it actionable. So let's go back to the dashboard because this whole system is based on actionability. If it is actionable if it's part of a project you're going to create that project in the projects folder. So you'll have a projects folder here which you can expand and you'll have for each project if we look at an example all those lists of tasks for that project populate into my task folder. I can also do things like have my related resources and my related notes to a project. It's all interconnected so you're not duplicating anything. And then we move down the actionability for me. Let me go back to my personal one. If we look at the areas in my life so these are not like projects in the sense that there's not a concrete deadline. These are ongoing areas of my life. So I have my YouTube, business development, family, affiliate marketing, routines, personal life like therapy notes, things like that, health information, my work as a neuropsychologist, my goals, and my branding. So again this is order of actionability. So I have my tasks very actionable. Then I have my projects. Then I have my areas. And then you have resources and archives. Resources are things like articles, content education for me. Let me show you just recipes. For me I like to keep a list of affirmations and mantras. So everything is in this system. So when it's time to take action I have a system that works for me to actually use the things that I'm saving and save the ideas. And then once you have everything processed. So I usually do this on Fridays and take a look at my running task list, my inbox that hasn't been processed. It's time to engage and review as part of the getting things done system. And I'm going to show you how I do that. Okay then once you have everything processed the next step in getting things done is to review and engage. Okay so this brings us to the next step in our office life system, the actual doing. And let's face it in our office metaphor David Wallace and Jim were really the only ones doing real work in that company to get things done. And your second brain is going to give you that organization piece that you're craving. But that's just one piece of the puzzle. It's also important to have easy systems that help you actually become more efficient, productive, and confident when you're taking the actions to engage what you've organized. So there's nothing worse than setting up a new system but not following through with the actions to actually get things done. So these next tools are going to actually help you stop breaking promises to yourself and intentionally, intentionally get more done. For me growing up I was always that type A overachiever and never really struggled with knowing what I wanted nor getting things done. At one point in my 20s I was balancing two jobs, I was balancing grad school, and I was had a way too active probably social life. But as soon as I started implementing these strategies of planning and doing my productivity went into overdrive like putting myself into sports mode. So here's my system to help you plan and do. This system is largely based on the strategies used in the book The 12 Week Year which can generally be broken down into having this larger vision and a 12 week plan to help you take actions to move closer to that larger vision. So let's start with the systems I use for the vision. You need to know where you're going before you just start doing stuff and it's important to clarify what's most important to you and do the conscious work actually to set goals the right way. Which is why I start my goal planning using my Modambition 2-in-1 Goal Planner. It has a goal planner at the beginning that I created and also has a 90-day planner. Now the reason I like to take this out of notion in my digital system is to really use the benefits of writing things by hand and brainstorming by hand. I will link in the description of like four articles that I have on hand about the benefits of writing our goals down and also writing our to-do's down. The benefits of writing our goals down are you're more likely to achieve them if you write it down with real paper and real pen. Not to say you can't move that over to some digital system after but when you're brainstorming you want to start with writing it all down and getting it out of your head. I also do the conscious work in the goal planner to help me really align my goals with what's most important to me and use evidence-based psychology. You guys know I'm a neuropsychologist so that's really important to me. And then once I have my larger goals usually my yearly goals and my quarterly goals flushed out by pen and paper in my planner based on this vision I develop my overarching strategy for my quarterly goals inside of Notion. So I have my quarterly goals that I set up in my planner then I move it over to Notion to kind of get a bird's eye view of my three months within my quarter and a strategy that I can keep checking back in with that's digital to kind of track everything for my 12-week year and to strategize what I'm going to do for each month. So let's take a look at my 12-week year system in Notion. So now let me show you how I strategize my 12-week year goals after I do the conscious work in my mod ambition planner. The goal planner I've set my quarterly goals I have that larger vision that the quarterly goals are feeding into. I move into actually strategizing a bird's eye view and I use Notion to do that because over the three months I can have one place that I don't have to keep rewriting it especially when it comes to the scorecard. So let me show you how that works. So my goals are kept in my goals area of life area section in my second brain and I'm going to show you the template again since my personal one has like all my personal deep information in there but I want to show you a blank one. If you want this 12-week year template I have a link for that in the description as well. It's not as robust as the second brain template I have for you obviously because it's just focused on your goals but it is pretty thorough and pretty helpful if you want to check it out. It starts with this summary of all the tenants of the 12-week year. This is something if you ever get lost or you just need a refresher crash course in the 12-week year you have a little cheat sheet of how all this works. Then you have some options to work on your vision and commitment. I like to use this in conjunction with the mod ambition planner that has a lot of evidence-based psychology for reaching goals and setting goals where this is really specific to the book the 12-week year. So there is a commitment worksheet the book talks a lot about committed action and vision worksheet as well. I also have a link to the planner if you wanted to see what that was about. So at the is that vision work and then you have the section where you have your actual goals. If I open this you can see you have some reflection to set these goals and just some deeper work for how this applies to the 12-week year outside of what I do in my mod ambition planner. So this is the actual goal planning section where you have your goals. So once you have your vision and your goals are set you also have a tracker of where you are in the 12-week year on the side here. So how far you are in the month, how far you are in the quarter which is good to keep an eye on, and then how far you are in the year. So that's close to how far left. So now I have about 50 percent on those larger goals left in the year. And then in this section you can insert your vision board here. So you just click and insert image. So you have that top of mind when you're looking at your goals. You can also put other vision boards. You can put your quarterly vision board. You can put your yearly one whichever one you prefer. And then this is something that's really special about this template that you're not going to find in any 12 other 12-week year template because it's something I came up with myself. I wanted something to do a larger bird's eye strategy of how I was going to meet my quarterly goals. And this is really the piece that pushed me over the edge to start using Notion for this. I do also have a PDF free template for you to download to track your 12-week year if you're just getting started. But if you want a robust system and you know you want to use the 12-week year I suggest downloading this Notion template. So you have your quarterly goal and the yearly goal it's related to up at the top. And then you have a section to really map out how you're going to meet that quarterly goal. What are going to be each month's priorities for the lead goals that are going to get you to that quarterly goal. So if we just take this example by Q4 I'm going to gain 100 subscribers on YouTube. That's related to this person's goal of wanting to build an online community that helps ambitious women which may or may not be my own yearly goal. So for month one this person's going to post four videos a month once a week go live once a month and create a job listing for a video editor. And then month two they're going to move up to posting five videos still going live once a month but trialing two editors that they got from this job listing. And then month three their goal their strategy is to be posting six videos per month going live twice a month and making the final decision on their editor. So you can really see how no matter what the goal is whether it's to get healthier to take actions on something like YouTube you can really have a bird's eye view of a realistic way to meet those goals and come up with those monthly priorities. Then once you have those monthly priorities you go back to the dashboard and on a weekly basis I track my lead goals for those monthly priorities. And so you're just going to list them all out here. You're going to tag which quarterly goal they're related to and throughout the week you're just going to check off what I did and then I'm trying to reach according to the book 85 percent each week for each lead goal. And then what I like about the template versus writing it out is when I'm ready to start a new week I can just hit this reset button and it starts a fresh scorecard for me. So this is how I track my 12 week year goals. Again if you want this template check it out in the description below. Okay so now we're back let's talk about how I actually engage with these larger visions and this larger strategy. This is where my day to day planning comes in my 90 day planner which I do by hand. So I do my monthly planning my weekly planning and my daily time blocking and planning all based on that larger vision and it helps me keep track of it all in the day to day because I have it all written out and it's more easy for me to engage with it in a physical tangible copy. So then I go and track every week and make sure I'm keeping up with it digitally on my Friday planning but I keep up with the actual day-to-day engagement and the work in my paper planner. And by the way if you're new here I'm Dr. Tiffany Shelton-Merrill. I am a neuropsychologist and published author. I make videos on how to intentionally get more done so you can enjoy your dream life. So be sure to subscribe and join the family. Moving on human resources let's move on to human resources. So before I became a mom I thought I was a nice person but becoming a wife and a mother really made me be more thoughtful about what it takes to run a home and really promote a happy family life. After all nobody wins when the home is chaotic. Clutter is everywhere and there aren't any systems to keep that machine running. According to the American Psychological Association 47 percent of mothers with children under 18 report feeling stressed about managing their home life and work responsibilities. So let me give you some systems and tools for managing your home and family. Okay starting up I have two toddlers and they're already in the phase of getting lots of schoolwork and paperwork from their school. So I took this idea from I saw this initially on Maddie James Instagram but I've seen it also on other people's Instagrams now but to get them file boxes to keep up with all their school paperwork as well as their art that they make. Now I don't keep all their art most of it is organized in the trash but for those special ones that I do want to keep like if it's a handprint a footprint Layla is now in an art class so the things that she's making very intentionally I keep there. So I will put up on the screen a video of this new system that I got to very aesthetically pleasing art boxes to store their art and school paperwork and as they get older as well things like report cards those sorts of things. We also if you're a mom you know meals are a thing you got to cook for these people every single day even if you're not a mom if you're just a busy woman like let's say you're grad school and you want to make sure you're eating right all those kinds of things. Meal planning is essential way I like to do it is using a meal planning calendar that is on the fridge so if it's a day that I have to go into work I don't cook on the days that I go into work my husband takes over so everything is on the fridge we know what we're doing it also helps us when we're going to the grocery store because you can just look there and see what you need and cross reference what you already have. On the topic of food also I have a recipes binder inside in my kitchen which I will show you as well that is really helpful because I'm old school as you know probably now I like to have things tangible so when I'm actually doing a recipe I'll usually print it out I know I'm so like old school but I do also have a recipe resource within my second brain where I keep all the digital ones as well so I can have it in two places the physical and digital. Then we also come for me which used to be a nightmare until recently is toys. When my kids were younger I did successfully have an efficient toy rotation using like the Montessori sort of strategies now that they're getting older that sort of one toy per cubby is not really working they're not really interested in that type of play they have they want to choose from like all their toys which is fine but I did move everything from the downstairs up into their rooms I did a major decluttering of their toys which you can see in a previous video I did of my mid-year brief life reset and now I just have a toy rotation downstairs of the main things that they like to play with downstairs and everything else they can keep in their room we don't have a playroom and I am reclaiming my living room so the rest of the toys have to stay in their own rooms also related to kids I was tired of having their art supplies all over my house so I did develop a system to keep their art supplies all in one container which I'll show you on the screen it's been very helpful so I don't have art supplies everywhere and then lastly is organizer of paper clutter so we keep our like home documents all in a binder that my husband set up he set up two binders for my children like the medical paperwork things like that and then all our home all those sorts of things into one binder I decided this year I wanted to make it more aesthetically pleasing so I did buy this like portfolio that holds documents and then for my paper clutter my system is to go through all my mail on Fridays I'll show you like my mail in boxes that I have that I use and then I just usually if it's not urgent I will file it in there to take a look at to take action on on Fridays next up in our office life system is what I'm calling the office hottie she's the receptionist that is also the office therapist the maintenance person and just overall good for the wellness of the office so I started to make this the maintenance person in the office but any the office metaphor has to have Pam I figured so we're calling this the office hottie so here are the habits and routines that help me take care of so for my spiritual self there's a few things I do I obviously do things like prayer and meditation I usually do that at night and then I also have a habit now of journaling every day and reading my devotional my devotional you've probably seen here on the screen before if you watch my videos before I still have the same line but I am using a couple new journals I have this journal that is made by the same author of my devotional which I have really liked it's Christian based and it just helps you to kind of meditate and reconnect with who you truly are your higher self the God that lives inside of you and reconnect with the word as well and then I also have another journal self-compassion for OCD I do suffer from I do live with OCD I don't necessarily have to suffer and this book is very helpful in the sense of the inner dealing with the inner critic that comes with struggling with mental health issues so journaling and that workbook has also been really helpful for my mind I do a lot of reading my system for notes for books that I'm reading is I used to you know take like have like a dedicated note book for book notes and I just found that not to be not really helpful so what I like to do now is take notes in action so anytime I have a note from a book that I'm reading I like to put it in a place where I'm actually going to use it again really basing my systems on actionability so if it's something like a note for business or marketing I will put that where I will refer to it if I actually need to take action like an email my email templates or something like that or my youtube templates or if it's a spiritual note I'll put that in either my therapy notes or my affirmation and mantras lists that kind of thing so I take notes in action I also do attend therapy about once every two weeks I take notes for my therapy in my personal area I have a therapy folder I also have a cleaning routine and mini reset routine so I reset weekly throughout the week I have a video on that I also do monthly resets which I usually post here and quarterly resets just to make sure that I'm on track and staying on track that has been probably one of the most important parts of my system it's just really honing down and staying consistent with resetting because life happens and you just never know when you're going to fall off track and need a little bit of redirection realignment with what's most important to you and then for my body routines and systems that help me is just doing cardio throughout the week and pilates once a week and financial system I budget on Fridays you probably notice the theme now Fridays are kind of like my admin CEO days so I do my personal bookkeeping and I also have a meeting with my husband every Friday it's our family meeting and within that meeting we do our budgeting we use something called tiller and then for my personal business I use zero so in the words of Michael Scott I think that pretty much sums it up but I do want to remind you that you can have the best life organization system ever but to actually capitalize on that system and get more done you have to know how to manage your time I approach time management in a way that most people aren't talking about and the time management tips I have for you in this next video can take you from burned out and overwhelmed to having an abundance of free time so I suggest you watch that next until next time cheers to planning manifesting and enjoying your dream life namaste