One of the most frequent comments that I get from viewers of my YouTube videos is that I'm "so organised" and the implication is often that they can't do what I do, because they're not as organised.

This frustrates me a little, because although I'm able to organise a few strategically important aspects of my life, I'm by nature very disorganised. So much so that for most of my working life I had people who's main job was to organise me.

Over the years I've learned the value of organisation, but also a set of tools that I've used to mitigate my disorganised nature, maybe even to see it as a strength.

So if organised would be a poor way to describe me, strategic, effective and efficient would be much better. Organisation is a tool that I apply very selectively, because it allows me to live a very flexible, free, easy, purposeful and creative life.

In this article I dive deep into how a disorganised brain can still get a lot done in life.

Summary

I tend to go into a lot of detail, because I like writing, not everyone likes reading, so here's a summary!

Usually a fairly small number of things in life are important to people, think strategically about these
Some things in life can have a big impact, typically 20% of activities deliver 80% of the results, focus on finding and doing the 20% really well, ignore the rest
You need to be effective most of the time. I like to aim for 80% of the time, effective just means doing the right things
You need to be most efficient at routine activities that take up a lot of time/energy, but efficiency might not be appropriate in other areas of life. I like to be efficient 20% of the time.
Having slack in your life is very important, by slack I mean spare time, spare energy, spare resources. If you have slack you stand a much better chance of being strategic, effective and efficient. I like to have about 20% slack in my life.
If you succeed in being strategic, effective and efficient you will rarely be busy but you won't be bored either
Organisation and discipline are tools to apply sparingly to achieve the above
Don’t be over organised, it uses up too much discipline, time and energy. It’s constraining and can be inefficient
Don’t be over disciplined because its exhausting, you will burn out
Remember being strategic is about making choices, setting priorities, knowing yourself and your strengths and weaknesses. It’s about really understanding what makes you satisfied and contented in the long term and thinking through the biggest risks and uncertainties in your life and managing them

Introduction

Viewers of my YouTube channel or readers of my website all get the impression that I'm a very 'organised' person, whereas in fact I'm disorganised and happy about it. I fully embrace that aspect of my personality. In this article I will expand on why I think this confusion arises and what I do about it.

I learned a long time ago that I'm happiest when my life is flexible and unscheduled, when I can do what I want, when I want, without constraint or worry. This might sound a bit like chaos and it would be without a small amount of focus, discipline and yes, organisation. That organisation is minimal, it's just directed at the right place and done at the right time, when it will have the most impact.

I've tried to create a bit of a framework to describe what I mean and how this actually plays out in reality. I've gradually refined this framework in small focused bouts of time (like writing this article) when I'm particularly motivated, or particularly frustrated (it's a good way to feel like I'm making progress, or restoring some control to my life) or when it's raining.

Here's the framework that I use to think about activity in my life:

Strategic - I have a vision and objectives, I know which activities are important to those objectives and the most impactful. Where practical I have approaches to achieving these objectives that are resilient to uncertainty
Effective - I try do the right things at the right time, often this means doing things up front, so that I'm ahead of 'plan', being ahead is very relaxing
Minimally planned - I plan a few time critical things, but I try and keep life as flexible as possible, so no more than 20% of my activities are planned in advance and where I can, I always try to be ahead of the plan
Flexibility - I try not to be rigid in my beliefs, objectives and plans. Plans in particular need to be flexible and adaptable, so they serve me, rather than control me. No plan survives contact with reality.
Minimally disciplined - In a few key - strategic - areas I sacrifice short term wants and overcome dislikes in order to achieve long term objectives
Very efficient - the routine things I do, don’t take much time and effort or generate much waste, things like sowing seeds, paying bills, cleaning house, watering, doing the laundry, weeding. I try to get very good at doing these things, so they take as little time as possible. When I get good at something, I do a good job of it, so at least I'm pleased with the result and sometimes even start to enjoy it.
Mindful - I try to be mindful when doing everything, but particularly activities I dislike. Even annoying jobs can become enjoyable when I pay enough attention to them and get good enough at them
Slack - I’m very rarely busy, I try to make sure I have plenty of slack in my life: spare time, spare resources, spare energy. I always have things to do, but it's normally a positive choice to do them
Organised - I'm very organised in a - very - few, important areas of my life. Most of my organisation is automated, so it takes no effort. In areas where I need to be organised, I try to be ahead of plan, so I can skip activities if I don't feel like it, or if the sun's shining.
Rainy days - most of my organising, automating and annoying jobs get done of rainy days. I alternate 1 hour doing things I like, with 1 hour of things I don't
Default routines - I like to have a default routines, that I slip into if I have nothing better to do. These default routines are usually very purposeful, social and enjoyable, but not so enjoyable that I don't change or skip them if I have something better to do. Having these well trodden routines/habits is very useful because if I'm not feeling good (I'm occasionally ill, fed up, overwhelmed, frustrated etc) then I still do them and I always feel better as a result.

So that might be more than enough for you, but if you want more then here's the details:

Strategic

A strategy is just the plan of action that you have to achieve your aims and objectives. Living life strategically, requires you to think hard about what you want to achieve in life, how you want to live your life and the way you are going to achieve those things.

When I'm thinking about how to invest money, time and energy, when I'm choosing the places I want to spend time in and the people I want to spend time with, I'm thinking strategically.

A good strategy also looks at the uncertainties and risks in life too and tried to mitigate them.

Effective

Effective means doing the right things at the right time, i.e. things that support my strategy. Investing money, time and energy in the things that have the most impact, ignoring things that are out of my control. The 80/20 rule is vital here, as 20% of activities usually have 80% of the impact, so choose carefully.

Minimally planned

I'm a freedom junkie, so I like as little of my life planned as possible. Some people might dream of a diary full of scheduled activity, I like one that's fairly empty. I have a long wish list of things I want to do, but I schedule a lot of these only a day or so in advance.

<aside> 💡 Of course, if I'm doing activities with other people, they need to be scheduled, but I like a fair amount of time on my own too. I generally recommend that everyone learns to enjoy their own company, it's a great way to improve your resilience to uncertainty.

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This approach to life won't work for many people, but as someone who spent close to 20 years not knowing from one day to the next, whether they'd be able to walk or not, it's bliss to have this flexibility.

Minimally disciplined

I don't have a lot of willpower, so I need to use what little I do have very carefully. I use it on the 20% of activities that have the 80% of impact on my strategy. But I also use it to automate and eliminate annoying activities out of my life.

<aside> 💡 Getting annoyed saps my reserves of discipline, so I work hard to eliminate little annoyances from my life

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Very efficient

Efficiency just means getting a lot done, relative to the amount of time, energy, money etc that you expend to do it. It's easy to be efficient, but not effective, i.e. being 'good' at doing the wrong things. So you need to be effective and efficient!

Efficiency is best applied to things that don't matter to much to you, in a gardening content this is watering, weeding, cutting the grass, harvesting. In a household context it's cleaning, ironing. In a personal context it's working out.

I don't want to be efficient in all areas of life, I want efficiency in some areas to make room for relaxed, laziness on other areas, plenty of time playing games, chatting, family meals, pottering around the garden, reading etc.

Slack

Slack, as the word suggests is a kind of loose, flexibility in life. Having a little more money than you need, a little more time than you need, a little more energy than you need. Having a little more, makes life very rich and relaxing, it makes it easy to respond to the unpredictable, to drop everything and go for a hike, to babysit. Slack also means you have time to fix problems, to automate annoying tasks, to invest to save, to live strategically, rather than lurch from day to day, to learn new things and perfect existing ones.

Slack isn't a luxury, only for the rich and retired. It's an approach to making choices in life. Live simply, live modestly, put in the effort where it counts, don't over-commit and lean on others to create space.

Having slack in your life gives you plenty of resources to respond to the unpredictable in life and to be there for others, who will in turn might well be there for you.

Organised

Organised implies a lot of structure in life. I dislike structure in many areas of my life, mostly in how I spend my time. I do like structure - organisation - where it makes life effective and efficient. So I'm happy to spend a few hours on a rainy day organising how I store my seeds, so that it's easy for the rest of the year. I will tidy storage areas that I use every day, so I can always find things that I use every day. I organise my wardrobe, so that I don't need to think about clothes.

I also organise things that I can leverage/share, so I'm quite happy to organise my seed sowing schedule, so that I can share it efficiently and effectively with thousands of other people and easily copy it from one year to the next.

At this point in my life I spend very little time thinking about being effective and efficient, but for those short periods of time I'm generally organised.

Rainy days

I'm the sort of person who loves to be outside. I'm often walking, cycling, swimming or gardening. When I'm socialising I prefer to be walking, sitting in the garden or playing games. When it's raining I'm usually in the health club or the allotment polytunnel, with the doors open. I love to spend a few hours a day reading, writing, learning, planning and automating but even then I'm sitting by a window, with plenty of sunlight and fresh air, or sitting by the health club swimming pool.

So on rainy days, when I'm not motivated to don the rainy weather gear and walk, I'm at home. That's when the cleaning gets done, that's when the seeds get organised, or next years garden plans are developed. That's when my book gets written, my objectives reviewed, the wardrobe organised, the decorating done.

I've learned to love rainy days, because I make so much progress. I also love them because I interleave jobs that need discipline with jobs, or relaxing activities, that don't. One hour on, one hour off.

Default routines

Although I like freedom and an empty schedule, I like to have well established routines to fall back on. These routines ensure that bad days, are as good as they can be.

If it's raining I still leave home early in the morning to spend time in a cafe. If I'm not outside I will always go to the health club in the morning. I also have a great night time routine!

These default routines mean that every day has a bit of social, creative and healthy time in it, no matter what.