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Organizing Like A Pro
Planning and organizing life can be quite fun, enjoyable and extremely easy but ONLY if you have the right tools. Otherwise, the whole process of preparation for a highly productive (and fun) day will be rather boring, uninspiring and tiresome. And if you are tired before you even get into work, that’s not a good start. You want to be motivated, inspired and ready to work hard towards your goals.
Lucky for us, there are a lot of awesome tools, methods and techniques to plan and organize for success. Actually, there are so many of them that it can get confusing. But don’t worry. You don’t have to waste your time and energy to test all of them out. I’ve already done it for you. Here are the top 11 absolutely fabulous tools to plan and organize your life for maximum productivity and success.
1. Notion
Imagine all the tools you use for organizing and planning your life but in one place. Sounds impossible, I know, but with Notion is not only possible, but it’s also true!
Notion is completely free for personal use, which means that you can plan, organize, schedule, track your habits, journal, set your life goals, set a budget or even create your vision board without spending any money out of pocket at all. Well, except paying for the internet.
I personally use Notion to manage my content calendar, master-to-do list, work projects, daily schedule, monthly calendar, saved passwords or even my ideas. But there’s more. This organizing and productivity app provides components such as databases, boards, calendars and reminders helping you manage your time like a pro. And it’s highly personalized! Ready to try it?
Get FREE Notion App here
source: support.google.com
2. Google Calendar
The secret to living an organized life is to plan everything in advance. This simple strategy will give you comfort, peace of mind and a sense that you’re focusing on the right things instead of falling into the trap of urgency. Not to mention that having it all planned out means is a synonym of being less stressed, more productive and mentally prepared for what is about to come, or more precisely, what you’re about to accomplish. And what better way to plan, schedule and organize your life than by using Google Calendar? Seriously, is there any better Calendar App?
Google Calendar is one of the best online calendar services for multiple reasons. First of all, this cross-platform calendar app helps you to schedule like you have a personal assistant working for you 24/7 with the difference that it’s completely free (just remember to pay your internet bill).
Second, Google Calendar makes managing and sharing your multiple calendars with others extremely easy. Not to mention that you can sync Google Calendar with your phone and integrate it with your Gmail. Isn’t that great?
The third reason to start using this calendar app is that you can use it for time-blocking making your productivity levels skyrocket. I use it for that purpose and I have to admit that it works! So as you can see there are so many benefits of using Google Calendar that you should really give it a try!
photo source: Wikipedia
3. Evernote
Evernote is one of the most powerful productivity apps you can use to manage your projects, arrange your ideas, organize your notes into notebooks and collect resources in one place so that you have everything under control.
This awesome (and FREE) note-taking app will not only boost your organizing skills but also it will take your productivity to next level. There’s a reason why highly productive executives and entrepreneurs use it on a daily basis for manipulating their time and arranging their ideas. And now it’s your turn.
Download FREE Evernote app here
Watch an awesome Evernote tutorial here and discover all the possibilities offered by this powerful note-taking app.
4. Physical Planner
Maybe I am old-fashioned but I love using a physical planner to plan, organize and schedule my life. There is something special and unique in writing your plans, goals, to-do list, gratitude notes or even random ideas in your paper planner. And I have this overwhelming feeling that writing things down actually helps you to memorize them better. Don’t get me wrong I love digital planners especially Notion and Google Calendar that I’ve mentioned earlier, but I also love my old-fashioned, minimalist paper planner.
A physical planner is a perfect organizational tool for many different reasons. First of all, handwriting with a pen is a kind of relaxing experience. Second, putting your thoughts on paper truly helps you to declutter your mind and free up your mental space. And since you’re not being distracted by thousands of notifications, reminders, open folders or social media profiles writing in a physical planner boosts your focus and motivation.
5. Lists
According to scientific research, our short-term memory can hold approximately seven separate items for less than half of minute. This is due to the fact that human brains are not designed to remember things but to process them. So if you’re having a hard time memorizing multiple information at once or you „easily” forget what’s on your never-ending to-do list, it’s because it is simply impossible.
Relying on your memory is a quick way to get overwhelmed and confused. Not to mention that, if you don’t write things down you will simply forget them. To prevent that you should make a list or multiple lists.
Keeping things out of your head will help you to organize your thoughts and capture what’s truly important. A written list is an amazing tool to determine your most important tasks, categorise your to-do’s and organize your information. And you know what’s even better? That you can make lists about anything. Seriously, about anything. I, for instance, make my master to-do list, my not-to-do list, shopping list, grocery shopping list, enjoyment list, booklist, audiobook list, bucket list, declutter list etc. Yeah, I know I am an obsessive list-maker but I love it and my brain loves it!
Download Your FREE Printable Lists
6. Financial Planner/Budgeting App
Can you even tell that you are seriously organized without having your finances under control? Well, probably not. Because, money plays an important role in our lives, thus pretending otherwise is just unwise.
Money can’t buy happiness but they can buy financial freedom and open door to opportunities you didn’t have before. For instance, if you’re struggling financially you cannot afford the highest-ranked University even if you’ve got accepted, you’re struggling to pay medical bills, you can’t improve your diet by adding more organic food into your daily meals and of course, you’re struggling with financial stress, which is the worst because it literally ruins your health.
Planning and organizing your finances is crucial for living a healthy, enjoyable, fulfilling and financially stable life. That’s why it is so important to take care of financial health and start building your future wealth right now. And to help you with that here are absolute best tools for organizing your financial life:
Financial Planner Kit
Best Financial Apps Of 2021
- Qapital here - Banking designed with your goals in mind
- Wally here - professional expense report app
- Mint here - saving and budgeting app
- Digit here - saving app
- Every Dollar here - budget tool and expense tracker
- Acorns here - saving and budgeting app
- You Need a Budget here - create a budget within your actual income
- Prism Bills&Money here - organizing and paying bills app
- Bill Watch here - managing, organizing and reminding bills payment app
- Albert here - saving, budgeting and paying a debt app
- Tycoon here - Freelancers app
- Personal Capital here - investment optimization app
- PocketGuard here - extra money spending app here - categorizes and organizes your expenses, monthly bills, and subscriptions
- Travel Wallet iOS / Android - travel budget and expense app
Best Posts On Personal Finance
- 9 Best Financial Goals For 2021 & Powerful Tips To Actually Achieve Them
- 6 Essential Steps To Regain Control Of Your Finances
- How To Become Money Conscious And Start Saving Money From Scratch.
- Become A More Mindful Shopper And Save Money! – powerful tips & call to action
7. Declutter Like A Pro With Ultimate Bundles
Living an organized life means decluttering regularly. Because no matter how much of a neat freak are you, things build up pretty fast. All it takes is a momentary lapse of attention and you get a sink full of dishes, the pile of clothes on your chair, stack of papers on your desk and of course, a bunch of trash that you should throw away immediately to avoid a complete mess. Not to mention digital clutter that negatively affects your focus, productivity and wellbeing.
Being able to effectively navigate life requires some system for decluttering. And if you haven’t already set up your own system, you will find a lot of tips and creative ways to conquering the clutter in the new “Conquer Your Clutter Super Bundle” that you can get here
My Top 5 Recommended Products in the Bundle
- Digital Decluttering (eCourse) by Gael Wood
Organize your digital life so you can thrive! - Declutter Like A Pro (eCourse) by Jessica Litman
A practical guide to owning less and living more. You will learn how to change your mindset so you can get rid of stuff without guilt, create action plans for physical areas of your home, and maintain order throughout your home with ease. - Declutter Bundle: Printable Planner Stickers (Printable) by Mim Jenkinson
Discover how decluttering and tidying becomes easy when you schedule it into your planner and create a simple method to organize your home; without feeling stressed or overwhelmed! - Simple Decluttering Checklists and Resources (eBook) by Susan Santoro
Created by a professional organizer to help you work through the decluttering and organizing process on your own with the guidance and support you need. - The Clutter Buster (Planner) by Amy of DeliberatelyHere.com
The planner that gives you your life back by providing you with a detailed guide telling you exactly what you need to be decluttering from your home today and how to start.
8. Time Blocking Tools
Have you ever experience a zone-like state of absolute focus and undisturbed concentration? Would you like to repeat this? What is I tell you that you can enter your brain’s most productive way on command? And what happens if I add that that achieving flow state is easier than you think. Because developing laser-like focus is actually very simple, but it requires some strategy. The strategy comprises five consecutive steps:
- Get out tasks of your head into your notebook
- Add all your tasks to your prioritized to-do list
- Decide on specific time slots in your calendar and reserve them for the tasks (you can also schedule your breaks to boost your productivity levels)
- Work on your tasks within the prescribed time period
- Be disciplined and act on your schedule
I am sure you have already figured out that the strategy we’re discussing here is called time-blocking or calendar blocking. There is no coincidence that the most successful entrepreneurs use this simple time-management method to increase their productivity levels, minimize the cost of the context switching and maximize their commitment to their goals.
If you ask me, time-blocking was a real life-changer for me. I didn’t realize how effective and simple this strategy really is until I tried it. That is why I HIGHLY recommend you to use this technique to organize your task, increase your focus and make your productivity skyrocket.
Best Apps And Tools For Time Blocking
9. Online Courses On Skillshare
Another awesome tool for improving your organizational skills to increase your productivity and effectiveness is of course Skillshare. You will find thousands of classes on this online learning community and some of them are pretty interesting.
Here are my top 5 recommended classes on decluttering and complete organizing home, office and life:
- Organizing Your Life: Asana (Task Management)
- Planning a Life You Love: Creating, Organizing, & Utilizing an Agenda
- Organizing Your Life: Financial Management (Being Happier)
- Organizing Your Life: To-Do Lists (Being More Productive)
- Organizing Your Life: Google Slides (Create Beautiful Presentations)
Now you can try Skillshare Premium for FREE for 14 days. This means that you can watch all these classes (and some more) for free. You will find more information here
10. The Eisenhower Box
Have you ever felt overly stressed and anxious because everything was so urgent and important that you weren’t able to choose what tasks you should be doing first? I bet you did. Me too. Being completely honest with you I used to feel overwhelmed, overly stressed and seriously overworked all the time until I discovered the Eisenhower Box.
Honestly, I am amazed how this simple method improved my entire life. I just wish I had discovered it sooner. If you haven’t already tried this simple but incredible effective time management strategy created by the 34th president of the United States - Dwight D. Eisenhower, I highly recommend you do that ASAP. It’s a life-changer! But how exactly this strategy works.
Well, the Eisenhower Matrix, also known as Urgent-Important Matrix is a simple decision-making tool that will help you prioritize tasks in order of urgency and importance so that you can focus on what’s really matters and use your time more effectively. This visual method of time management consists of four quadrants;
- DO - urgent and important tasks that need to be done immediately (ex. finishing a client project, paying bills)
- DECIDE - important but not urgent tasks that aren’t your top priorities but you should schedule them to ensure that progress is being made (ex. strategic planning, personal development, new opportunities)
- DELEGATE - urgent but not important tasks that need to be done but they can be done by someone else (ex. responding to some emails, meal prep)
- DELETE - not urgent and not important tasks that don’t add value to your life (time-wasters, distractions, unnecessary decisions, non-critical choices)
Prioritize & Simplify Your Tasks Worksheets
11. Fitness/Health App
Living in a Technological Era has many advantages, like being able to work remotely, study online, connect with your loved ones within seconds, increase your knowledge without going to the library, develop new skills, create an online community, pay your bills or even shop for food without leaving your home. However, there are also many disadvantages of living in a tech-saturated world and one of them is lack of physical activity.
Scientific research shows that a sedentary lifestyle is a leading cause of many chronic or even terminal diseases. So why risk so much? You want to be a healthy, happy, glowy, creative and physically active individual, right? To achieve that you should build workout plans that fit your schedule and goals. And what better way to do that than by using fitness apps? If you’re not sure which one is the best, here are the top 5:
- Sworkit - personal trainer app iOS / Android
- J&J Official 7 Minute Workout - science-based workout method designed by Chris Jordan iOS / Android
- Fitness & Bodybuilding Pro on the App Store - iOS / Android
- Daily Workouts Fitness Trainer - each workout and exercise is demonstrated by a professional trainer iOS / Android
Grab Your Free Printable Workbook
Best Posts About Achieving Goals:
- 9 Best Financial Goals For 2021 & Powerful Tips To Actually Achieve Them
- How To Organize Your Life For 2021: 7 Simple Steps
- 8 Steps To Make 2021 Your Best Year Ever.
- How To Set Goals For 2021 And Achieve Them
- 8 Steps To Reset Your Life For A Successful 2021
- A powerful method to simplify & prioritize your life
- Making your productivity skyrocket
- Managing your time wisely and effectively
- Increasing self-motivation
- Lists to level up your life
- Lists to organize your life
Stay positive, be mindful and organize your life like a Pro!
xo Kate
2 thoughts on “11 Awesome Tools & Apps To Plan & Organize Your Life In 2021 + FREE printables!”
I love that you listed all of these options! I hope to explore them soon. I’ve recently heard of Notion on a Reddit feed, and I want to test drive that one. Decluttering is also high on my to-do’s. Thanks Kate!
Hi Theresa! THANK you for your comment! Honestly, Notion is the best! It’s the all-in-one workspace! What I love the most about this app is that it’s extremely flexible highly-customizable. And it’s free 🙂 PS. I hope you’re doing well. Have a wonderful week and take care!! 😃😉