Adulting Guide: How To Organize Your Life As An Adult

Becoming a newly realized adult is a major transition in life. Oftentimes, it comes at a time where we really aren’t as prepared as we would like. But have no fear. I wrote this post to help give guidance on what you should be doing next as a new adult. The next step is to organize your life.

You want to begin organizing your life by setting your priorities. From there everything else will flow. Aim to minimize procrastination while maximizing proactiveness in your life. Additionally, you want to organize your financial life. I am talking about budgeting and growing your financial literacy. Lastly, you want to stay on top of the things that are happening in your life. So, create schedules and routines for yourself, writing things down as necessary. 

Taking these steps will help you organize your life as a new adult and hopefully help you build good habits. What’s been stated so far is just the overview though, keep reading to truly understand how to organize your life as a new adult.

Why Building An Organized Life Is Important as a New Adult

Now, let’s first talk about the overarching reason why organizing your life is so important. Well, it is actually pretty simple- your organization skillset will affect your whole life. If you allow yourself to live a disorganized life as you transition into adulthood and have more independence, it can cause great distress and make everyday tasks much more difficult than they need to be. So in essence – organization is the best way to promote a good sense of peace of mind which is essential during these important transition years.

Maintaining an organized lifestyle goes beyond merely having a tidy living space – it directly benefits your mental well-being and overall quality of life. When you can efficiently manage important tasks, utilize your time effectively, and develop a clear action plan, you’ll enjoy more free time and reduced stress. Studies demonstrate that improved organization leads to enhanced focus, productivity, and a sense of calm.

Whether addressing work-related responsibilities or personal life commitments, the advantages of being organized are evident. Making a few minor adjustments can provide you with more quality time for the things that truly matter. From meal planning to setting reminders for key dates, an organized individual can accomplish their goals without feeling overwhelmed.

Make Setting Priorities Your First Step

Figuring out your priorities is the most important step. Once you figure out your priorities, you can then build a life around those things most important to you. 

So how do you set priorities?

The first step is to define your major goals and end goals for both work and personal tasks or life. In order to figure out your priorities begin with thinking about what the areas of your life that you cannot live without. Think beyond the regular food and shelter mindset. These are given priorities. 

Are you someone who wants to focus on relationships, nurturing a skillset, or growing your career? Whatever you decide, you then need to rank them in importance or whatever your personal preference. 

Once complete, you now have your priorities ranked and can begin to organize your life around them. Note that as you grow older and life happens your priorities might begin to change. As they change, you should be adjusting how you organize your life as well.

A great way to get started with setting priorities is using the Eisenhower Matric to break down specific tasks and prioritize the next action. Of course, the daily routine that you develop does not have to be 100% rigid, but having a framework in place can be very beneficial, especially in the beginning.

One important thing to stress about setting priorities is to understand that there is no one right answer and everyone will have different priorities. They will be unique to you and how you approach them will be unique as well. Comparing yourself to others probably won’t be helpful in this case and will likely make you feel discouraged about becoming an organized person. So, just focus on determining your goals and a clear vision for the life you want to lead.

Reduce Procrastination

Do you know how you would wait until the last minute to complete an assignment for school? I do, I did it a lot during my K-12 and early college years. It worked for a while but once I became more active in college and life became much busier, I could no longer afford to procrastinate. 

I had to take time management seriously. I started scheduling activities, beginning tasks, and generally starting tasks much earlier. While it was necessary for me to make this change in order to take more control of my adult life, it wasn’t always easy.

There is a lot that must be accomplished in our day-to-day life. Procrastination is a slippery slope. There is no doubt about it. Though many of the daily tasks may not be overly serious, anything left unchecked can quickly turn into a daunting task, especially if procrastination is the culprit.

So, take the time now to start doing what you can to fight procrastination. Set aside time to plan your week or month ahead. The easiest way to start is with the little things. I’m talking about those simple daily to-do list items that are so easily forgettable. Plan your grocery list a few days in advance, automate your bills, or even just set reminders to get you thinking about how to reduce your procrastination., Eventually, you will get the hang of it and start handling those larger tasks earlier on as well.

Be More Proactive In Your Time Management

Reducing procrastination is only one side of the coin. The other side is seeking ways to be proactive so that you can more easily have an organized life. However, proactiveness is not just relegated to tasks and duties. Being proactive should play a big part in multiple areas of your life. 

What do I mean by this?

Well, if you are trying to organize your life, you need to seek areas where you can take more control. This could be something as simple as choosing the best time of day to focus on specific tasks.

In order to take more control, though, you need to proactively seek out pathways for yourself as well as the obstacles that might be in your way. 

For example, if you know that you tend to be more focused and productive in the mornings, then try to schedule those important tasks during those hours. You might be surprised by how much time it takes to complete those important tasks when you take advantage of your focused mindset and reach “deep work”.

As a quick aside, if you are not familiar with the term deep work, it is a phrase that references a state of intense, focused work that often leads to you producing your best quality output. Within this state, is usually where we can overcome an impossible task or complete that weekly to-do list in record time.

Another way to be more proactive is to hone in on those obstacles that you feel are holding you back and address them head-on. Maybe it’s an area of your life that you feel ill-equipped to manage. Maybe that area of your life deals with addressing your finances. As a new adult, you should definitely proactively work on handling financial obstacles and developing a clear plan of action.

As a young adult, this is where I decided to place a more concerted effort. I wanted to be proactive in my finances, thinking about future costs and obstacles that might arise, so that I could better prepare for them. 

I knew that money and financial literacy if left unchecked could be a major hindrance to my personal development plan. So, I actively sought out the knowledge and people to help me create a plan for myself. Being proactive and taking more control gives you the ability to alter your trajectory instead of being stuck on a crash course with nowhere to turn.

Create Systems To Bolster Your Time Management Capabilities

An organized life is built on solid systems, not just completing important tasks. In general, systems give you the opportunity to streamline your workflow, eliminate decision fatigue, and focus on what really matters to you. Some examples of helpful systems to implement include: 

– Creating a overall daily routine or schedule

– Set up automated notifications and reminders

– Batch complete similar tasks together – think something like the Pomodoro Technique for work tasks

– Incorporate tools like Google Calendar to keep track of important tasks, due dates, and your daily goals

Ultimately, you want to utilize good time management techniques to keep track of important dates and plan in a way that allows you to feel in control and better able to focus on being an organized person.

Organize and Manage Your Digital Life

When it comes to the digital aspect of organizing your life, it is important to keep in mind that organization doesn’t just apply to your physical space or mental health. It also has to do with your digital life – your social media accounts, email inbox, computer files, and so on. As you transition into adulthood, make it a priority to organize important documents, emails, and files on platforms like Google Drive. This will increase your productivity and reduce the chance of losing critical information. 

You can even start to digitize your shopping list. There are actually a ton of apps out there that offer better organization when it comes to managing your grocery list or shopping lists.

Take the time to create folders for different categories of things and use a master list for large projects that you might be working on whether personally or professionally. 

Build New Habits That Are Maintainable

The key to creating an organized life is to find daily routines and new habits that work for you. Frankly, the best way to do this is to experiment to see what works best. You need to experiment with different approaches to time management and organization to determine what strategies, tips, and tricks are most effective for you. What might work for small tasks might not be as effective for large tasks or things that require a longer time commitment. Take these findings into consideration as you build weekly goals and define a more natural way to schedule your time. Of course as life develops and your responsibilities grow, set aside time to review and adjust your plans to ensure continual progress throughout adulthood. 

The organizational skills that you develop and cultivate now, while you are young, will serve you incredibly well as you grow older and continue to build and shape your adult life. Don’t underestimate the power of establishing strong organizational habits on early. They will surely provide you with a solid foundation that will pay dividends throughout your future personal and professional journey.

Long-Term Strategies To Stay Organized

Now that we have discussed the high-level idea of how to organize your life, let’s now discuss some actions that you can take right now as a new adult to better organize your life.

Know Bill Due Dates

Controlling your money habits early on is integral to building a healthy life.

As an adult, one of the most important things you can do is ensure all your bills are paid on time – especially those credit card bills. The easiest way to stay on top of bills is knowing when they are due and having a plan to pay them. Unfortunately, for many people, not knowing their bills’ o due dates are biting them in the butt. It leads to missed payments, late fees, and when it comes to credit cards- a damaged credit score.

Take the time to review all your bills and subscriptions, write down the due dates, and put them in your calendar.

A major part of organizing your life as a new adult means getting a handle on bills and money. If you have read any of my other posts you know that I am a major advocate of creating and living off a budget. Controlling your money habits early on is integral to building a healthy life.

Read More: Credit Cards 101

Budgeting

You should have a budget. It doesn’t matter if you are making $250,000 a year or $25,000 a year. A budget helps you keep a handle on your spending and highlights your lifestyle. 

When I talk to friends about budgets, they seem to have a negative connotation of the word. A budget is not bad. It is not a cage for your money. Living by a budget doesn’t mean that you must remove all fun or entertainment from your life.

A budget is just another tool, albeit an important tool, to help you organize your life. I like to think of a budget as a spending plan instead of something that says what I can and cannot do.

One cool thing to think about is wherever you spend your money, that’s a priority to you.  

Remove the food and shelter aspect. Look at your budget. 

You can see what some of your priorities are. Do you spend $200 a month on dining out? If yes, a priority for you might be social spending. 

The only question you would really need to ask yourself is if that spending is sustainable. If it is then no need to really change that particular spending category of your life. 

Developing a budget can be such a helpful tool to add to your life as you look to organize it and take more control. Now, there are plenty of budgeting tools out there for you to use. I would be remiss if I didn’t let you know which budgeting tool that I live by.

I use a budgeting software called YNAB (You Need A Budget) and it has transformed my financial life. It is an intuitive software the helps you give “every dollar a job” and I am really reaping the benefits from this service. I’ve even convinced a few of my friends to check it out. 

So, I wanted to put that out there and let you know that if you do want to check out YNAB I have a referral link. You get a free 34-day trial and at the end of that trial if you sign up for the subscription you get another free month using my referral link. Of course, using my link comes at no extra cost to you. So, check it out if you want. 

Financial Literacy

Once you have organized your day-to-day life on a budget, you know have a snapshot of a piece of your financial health. 

Notice I said a piece. 

Your financial health is more than your budget. With it being a part of getting your life organized, you should look beyond just the budget. 

What do I mean?

Well, as a new adult, you might have just started your first real full-time job. I am talking about a job that provides a 401(k), health plan, dental, plan, etc.  You will need to learn about all of that.

You are now in a whole new world. In order to take proper advantage of these things, and you should, you must educate yourself on them.

For me, one of the biggest things I really had to learn about and dive into was taxes. It can and is very confusing when first trying to understand how it all works. I mean as I write this post, I still don’t completely understand how the tax system works. 

However, that is no excuse for me not to proactively seek the knowledge that I need. And I believe the same goes for all of us. As adults, we have to make a consistent effort to understand where our time, energy, and money go.

Did you know that the average person pays over 40% of their lifetime income in taxes?

That’s a hefty chunk. And I am sure a lot of us don’t understand the make-up of that 40% nor will some of us.

Again, there is no excuse though. Information is out there for free for us to start learning and seeing how we can maximize our money. 

In line with the dedication of Life v Lifestyle sharing information to help make transitioning into adulthood easier, I have an article linked below that goes into ways to save money on taxes and other things. Check it out. 

It has some really good information that I hope will help you along your financial literacy journey.

Read More: 5 Tax Hacks That Could Save You Thousands.

Autopay

Autopay can be an extremely useful tool in managing your finances, but it requires careful planning and organization to avoid potential pitfalls. While autopay can simplify the bill-paying process and ensure timely payments, it is important to have a solid understanding of your financial situation before setting it up. You definitely want to be sure you know when your direct deposits are posted to your account.

Without a well-organized budget and a clear picture of your income and expenses autopay can lead to inadvertent overdraft fees and missed payments, which can have a negative impact on your credit score. Therefore, it is probably best to first take the time to review your financial obligations, set up a budget, and ensure you have sufficient funds to cover your bills before enabling autopay.

Many companies offer autopay as a convenient option, and some may even provide incentives for enrolling in the service. If your bill providers do not have their own autopay program, you can still set up recurring payments directly through your bank. However, it is crucial to monitor these transactions closely and make any necessary adjustments to ensure your bills are being paid on time and in full.

Ultimately, the key to successfully leveraging autopay is to approach it with thoughtfulness and diligence. By first organizing your financial life and then carefully implementing autopay, you can harness its benefits while minimizing potential risks. As with any financial decision, it is essential to do your own research and find the framework that works best for your unique circumstances.

Now, everything I have stated so far is more abstract than what’s to come. The next tips that I will give are more actionable and can be started right now. So, if nothing else, consider these tips below.

Write Things Down

So much happens in a day. There is so much information that we are being given. How do we keep it all in check? How do we remember the things that we must complete?

Simple, write them down.  

Writing things down helps you record the things that are grabbing your attention. It is a method that helps you see where your attention spends most of its time and where it might need to be spent more. 

Plus, it is a great method to help you clear your mind. For me, the benefit of having a clear mind before bed helps me sleep. I actually have a bunch of sticky notes that I jot my thoughts onto before bed. I write down whatever comes to mind and just try to empty out my brain. 

Then the next day I wake up, look at that sticky note I made, and begin my day by accomplishing anything on it that I can.

No matter if you are looking to help yourself sleep or just forget less stuff, writing things down can help you in many different aspects of life. You just have to try it out and see what kind of things you feel are important to write down, and go from there.

Create a Schedule

Developing a proper schedule is essential for organizing your life. Creating a well-structured schedule can help you effectively manage your time, focus on your priorities, work towards your goals, and allocate time for self-care and personal activities.

As a new adult, you may find yourself facing a lot of changes and feeling overwhelmed. Establishing a personalized schedule can be a powerful tool to regain a sense of control over your daily life. By putting together a schedule that caters to your specific needs and preferences, you can streamline your routines, minimize decision fatigue, and ensure you make progress on the things that matter most to you.

There are numerous tools and methods available to help you create a schedule that works for you. For instance, digital calendar apps like Google Calendar offer robust scheduling features and the ability to set reminders, block off time for focused work, and sync across devices. Alternatively, you may prefer a more hands-on approach using a physical planner or a visual scheduling system. The key is to experiment and find the approach that resonates with your personal working style and lifestyle.

Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to organizing your life through scheduling. Be open to trying different techniques, such as block scheduling or more granular time management, until you discover the method that empowers you to achieve your goals and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Create Deadlines

The same reason you should create a schedule applies to creating deadlines for yourself. It helps you organize your life and move it forward. Think about it. Creating deadlines helps enforce a sense of completion and order. 

Additionally, it is important to embrace responsibility as an adult. At the end of the day, you won’t really have people tell you what you should be doing and when. You are an adult and it is your responsibility to keep yourself in check and moving forward.

You can create deadlines for yourself with really anything.

Create deadlines for the tasks you want to accomplish or goals you have. 

For the goals, you can actually create deadlines that serve as checkpoints for yourself. 

These can be great motivators to help you break up large challenges into smaller ones.

For example, I have deadlines for myself when it comes to this blog. I have overall goals that are loftier, but I also have smaller actionable goals with deadlines that keep me on track to reach my overall goals. 

Creating deadlines also gives you a sense of urgency reducing the likelihood of procrastination which again helps us organize our life better.

Morning And Night Routine

Establishing a consistent morning and night routine is one of the most effective ways to organize and structure your daily life. A morning routine can set the tone for the entire day, helping you stay focused, productive, and on track with your daily priorities. Similarly, a nighttime routine can help you wind down, prepare for quality sleep, and set the stage for a successful following day.

Mornings are often considered the make-or-break period of the day. How you choose to start your morning can significantly impact your energy, mindset, and the trajectory of your day. By developing a morning routine that includes activities like exercise, meditation, planning, or simply enjoying a peaceful start to the day, you can streamline your to-do’s, maintain a sense of control, and ensure you’re addressing your most important daily necessities.

Establishing an evening routine can be equally beneficial, as it allows you to wind down, reflect on the day, and get ready for restful, restorative sleep. This might include activities like journaling, light stretching, or preparing for the next day. By creating these consistent routines, you are essentially organizing your life and setting yourself up for success, both in the short and long term.

For example, a morning routine might go something like this:

6:15 AM	Wake Up
6:45 AM	Head to Gym
7:00 AM	Workout
8:00 AM	Leave Gym
8:15 AM	Shower
8:30 AM	Eat Breakfast and Listen to News
9:15 AM	Read Emails and Start Work Day

Ultimately, a morning routine offers organization that helps us start our days off moving forward. A night routine works in the same manner except it helps us wind down from the day instead of getting it started.

Implementing a morning and night routine is a simple yet effective step in organizing your life as an adult. The best part, like most of the tips I have given so far, is that there is no one right way to do it!

Find An Accountability Partner

You sometimes need more than just a spiral notebook filled with important tasks in order to get organized. You will likely need some person-to-person support as well. Having someone to help keep you accountable for your goals and tasks can make a big difference.

In fact, studies show that people are more likely to achieve their goals if they have support and accountability from others.

So, think about reaching out to a friend, family member, or even a professional coach who can check in with you regularly and provide encouragement along the way.

Putting It All Together

In summary, organizing your life does not have to be an overwhelming challenge. By taking simple actions like decluttering your surroundings, prioritizing essential tasks, and establishing time management systems, you can build sustainable habits that provide lasting contentment.

Whether it’s managing your daily routine with tools like Google Calendar or focusing on small steps that progress you toward your goals, this guide offers a clear roadmap to make organization a natural part of your daily life.

If you’re ready to take the first stride toward a more productive and organized lifestyle, start applying these strategies now. Additionally, explore more of our blog for other great ways to simplify various aspects of your life, from meal planning to achieving your personal development plan.

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Best of luck adulting!

And Remember,

Adulting Starts Here

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