40 Examples of Personal Organization

John Spacey, March 16, 2022

Personal organization is the process of structuring, systematizing and improving your efforts to be more productive in work and life. This can include any practice, principle or tool that allows you to achieve goals and use time more productively. The following are illustrative examples.

Brainstorming	Budgets
Calendars	Checklists
Deadlines	Decision Analysis
Decluttering	Design Thinking
Digital Organization (e.g. organization of documents into folders)	Document / Media Backups
Document Templates	Documentation
Feedback From Others	Goal List
Journal	Lessons Learned
Measuring Progress	Mise en Place
Mobile Apps	Naming Conventions
Notes	Personal Mission
Personal Standards	Personal Values
Planning	Prioritization
Procedures	Process Improvement
Processes	Productivity Tools
Proofreading	Record Keeping
Sanity Checks	Schedules
Scripts / Coding	Self-evaluations
Single Tasking	Software Tools
Task Lists / To-do Lists	Timeboxing

Design thinking is the process of using design to solve everyday problems. For example, designing a work process to reduce the chance of injury.

Lessons learned is the process of learning from failures and successes. This typically involves listing out what worked and what could be improved at the conclusion of an effort.

Mise en place is the practice of carefully organizing a workspace.

Naming conventions are standards for naming things such as documents.

A sanity check is a step back from a strategy, decision or process to ask the big picture question -- doesn't this really make any sense?

Timeboxing is the practice of assigning a block of time to an effort. This can involve giving up on a task if it starts to take too long.