Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 02, Issue 17: Mastering Organization

Throughout the month of January, we have been talking about making goals and drawing action plans for achieving our goals. We have seen that only what get scheduled gets done. That whatever it takes to attain what we have set out to do has to find its way on our daily schedules.

Having settled that, perhaps juggling all our responsibilities at work and at home is a bit overwhelming as it is. How about when we add personal development activities for achieving our goals? Where are we to find the time and energy for these given our already cramped schedules?

In order to be successful in any area, you must exercise wisdom and plan carefully. I am a big fan of journals, budgets, programs, plans, and writing things down. I like putting systems in place to ensure sidestepping needless emergencies, dramas, overload, and burnout. I don’t allow things to pile up until they reach unmanageable proportions.

Break down each of your objectives into manageable bits; look out for what you can do daily to make up for the overall objective in the fullness of time. This way, you won’t get overwhelmed or intimidated by the size of the task.

Having a personal plan will make you more effective. Put a plan into action in your own life. Organize your activities well enough so that you are not behind the eighth ball, but in front of it, one step ahead of the game.

Organization is everything. If you organize your life well you will have time for all the things that are important to you. What if you think your day is already too full to add anything else? Not necessarily. You have to budget for your time the same way you budget for your money. Prepare a time budget grid for your 24 hours for each of the 7 days of the week.

Realistically set goals for yourself, and then make a list of all your daily and weekly responsibilities, tasks and activities. Allocate the time each task needs to be completed. Prioritize their order of importance and then assign each task to a different slot on your time budget log. Be honest with yourself about your limitations; and be sure to build rest time and time for fun and recreation into your calendar along with your tasks and activities to keep your life in balance.

Lillian Chebosi