How organized are you? Do you pack for a trip two weeks in advance, or do you leave it to the last minute? Everyone has a different way of doing things, but highly organized people tend to do these things to make their lives easier and run more smoothly.
1. They wake up early.
Are you a night owl or an early bird? If you love waking up at the crack of dawn to get started on the day before anyone else is awake, then you are most likely highly organized, per Reader’s Digest. Not only do you get up before your alarm goes off, but you know exactly what you’re doing to do first—make a coffee, then get the school lunches ready. When you get an early, productive start to your day, the rest of the day flows well.
2. They enjoy decluttering.
Are you a minimalist, or do you prefer to have knickknacks all around the house? If you answered the former, then there’s a good chance that you’re a highly organized person. You keep the counters clear of unnecessary items, and every couple of weeks or so, you love going around the house and decluttering all the drawers to ensure you’re not hoarding items you don’t use.
3. They stick to a routine.
People who are highly organized typically have a routine that they stick to. While they don’t mind breaking this routine up from time to time, for the most part, they make sure that everything else revolves around it. Every Sunday is your time to make all the coming week’s lunches. Monday is grocery shopping, Tuesday is washing day, Wednesday is vacuuming, and Thursday is cleaning the windows. You can’t remember the last time you missed a day.
4. They use logic to solve problems.
If a highly organized person faces an issue, they typically use logic to work their way through it. For example, they come home to find that their leftovers aren’t in the fridge where they left them. Instead of trying to remember whether they ate them or not, they quickly deduce that it must have been their roommate. Their roommate mentioned they didn’t have any lunch prepared for earlier and they were the only other person in the house. They calmly confront them and ask them not to eat their leftovers.
5. They set aside time to deep clean.
Most of us get by with a quick vacuum and only throw the essentials in the weekly wash, but highly organized people will take this a step further. It’s possible that they have even set time aside every week or month to tackle bigger jobs that only need attention occasionally. For example, they might decide that every third Sunday of the month is the day to clean their gutters out, or they wash their car every last Sunday of the month.
6. They prepare.
Do you like to prepare or leave things until the last minute? If the former sounds like you, you’re most likely highly organized. You spend your Sundays preparing all of your lunches for the week, or if you know you have a meeting coming up at work about a promotion, you spend time preparing for what questions you might be asked and how you will answer them.
7. They break jobs down into manageable parts.
When faced with a daunting task, some people will get so overwhelmed that they never start it in the first place. With highly organized people, though, they figure out how to make the task more manageable, and often, the easiest way to do this is to break it down into manageable tasks. For example, someone might want to clean their entire house. Instead of getting exasperated by everything that needs doing, an organized person would break the task down by room. They would start with the kitchen and just think about that until they completed it and could move on to the next room.
8. They understand their limits.
While it might feel like highly organized people don’t know when to stop, they are often great at understanding where their limits are. They have a high level of self-awareness and know where their efforts are best placed. If they feel like a job is too big, or they don’t have the skill set for it, they’ll ask for help or delegate. Perhaps your team leader at work is great at delegating different aspects of a group project and doesn’t try to be the “hero,” taking the lion’s share of the workload. That’s organization at play.
9. They love to-do lists.
Highly organized people won’t miss the chance to make a to-do list if they can help it. Whether it’s the grocery list, a list of restaurants they’ve wanted to try, or a list of vacation spots they’d like to look into next year, you can bet that an organized person has all these and more in the notes app on their phone. They also gain satisfaction from ticking off items on the list as completed.
10. They make sure everything has a home.
Even if you’re not a minimalist, you can still be a highly organized person. Perhaps you like collecting small items and having them around the home. However, the difference between you and someone who isn’t highly organized is that you have a home for each item, allowing your house to have a comfortable but clean feel without risking being a hoarder.
11. They’re great at multitasking.
When people are highly organized, they know when they need to multitask and when they can focus on the matter at hand. Some people might take too much on, wanting to please others, before quickly getting overwhelmed. Highly organized people know when it’s worth being efficient by juggling multiple tasks, and when it’s worth slowing down and giving one task their undivided attention. If various reports are due simultaneously at work, you have no issue completing them.
12. They’re proactive.
If you’re someone known for being highly organized, you won’t waste any time once you decide to do something. Perhaps you’ve heard that a new grocery store is opening closer to you and has many foods you like. Instead of waiting for the weekend, you decide to check it out today because you know that on the weekend, it’s likely to be busier.
13. They’re good at budgeting.
Highly organized people are often also good at keeping track of their finances. They don’t let their finances get away from them, and they don’t spend impulsively, so there’s more than enough to cover all the bills and general expenses. They may sit down every weekend and look at the bank statement, determining if there was any unnecessary spending.
14. They email back quickly.
How often have you been left on read when sending work emails? You take your time to construct your email, and once you’ve sent it, you periodically check your inbox to ensure you haven’t missed a reply. For some reason, though, some people are slow to reply. If you’re highly organized, people can rely on you to get a quick reply to an email they send you.
15. They set aside downtime.
You might think that highly organized people need to learn how to relax, and while this might be true for some, it’s not the case for all. According to Psychology Today, highly organized people need downtime to recharge to function at the level they do for the rest of the time. They know how to schedule and prioritize time for themselves in their routine. They may set aside time every Saturday to hike or choose one night of the week to watch a favorite TV show.
