How to Organize Your Life and Money
The new year is right around the corner and with it, a fresh start for your home and finances. If you want to brush up on your organizational skills, there are a handful of steps to approach both parts of your life. Here’s how to organize your life and money in preparation for the new year, using one plan of attack.
1. Gather your tools
Deciding to clean your house and your finances takes a lot of mental and physical energy. That’s why it’s so important to keep the momentum going by having all of the tools you need to succeed within arms reach.
This can include extra trash bags and household cleaners when tidying up your personal space, or a reliable paper shredder — and again, trash bags – as you sort through piles of old bank statements and receipts.
2. Choose your starting point
Once you have all of your supplies ready, it’s time to choose what you want to focus on first. This step helps make organizing your life and money less stressful.
When organizing your life, is it more important for you to have a clutter-free car during your commute? Perhaps you’re more concerned with the room in your home that guests see most often, like a living room or bathroom. Since you probably can’t organize everything in one sitting, you’ll need to pick one point to focus on.
The same goes when organizing your money. You can decide to work on the area of your finances that you feel takes the most time or needs the most work. This might be finally putting together a budget or maybe you want to clean up your debt through debt consolidation.
3. Address the clutter
It can be difficult to let go of items or ways you’ve managed your money. Take the Marie Kondo approach by asking yourself if items in your space “bring you joy” to help you decide whether to keep it, give it away, or throw it away.
In a sense, the same mantra applies to any financial clutter in your life, too. Ask yourself if your current bank is serving you in a way that you need it to. For example, your financial institution might not be very technologically friendly, but you need this level of accessibility and ease to stay on top of your financial health. If you find that something in your financial picture no longer serves you, now is the time to change it up.
4. Maximize your space (and money)
By this step you’ve evaluated what areas of your life and money need more organization, and have cleared space, physically and mentally to make both of these areas a well-oiled machine.
Now you’re better able to see new areas of opportunity. Take a step back and take a look at what spaces aren’t being utilized effectively. Perhaps your inbox needs sub-folders to easily find and organize emails, or you need to install coat hooks by the front door because you can’t be bothered to open the coat closet every single time (it’s OK)!
When it comes to your finances, find ways to make your money work for you. For example, if you have extra funds sitting in your checking account each month, opening an investment account might be worthwhile. If you need help, we have your back — reach out to a financial coach for ideas and support.
5. Focus on visibility and accessibility
To help you stay organized in life and with your finances throughout all of next year, it’s helpful to focus on keeping the important areas of your life visible and easily accessible. Doing so avoids pushing important elements of your life and your money to the back burner.
Think back and recall how you felt when you couldn’t find something in your space or it wasn’t easy to get to — it can be frustrating! For example, if your often-used hairdryer is stored at the back of your bathroom storage area, and you have to wrestle with other toiletries just to get to it, it’s not in an ideal location.
Similarly, visibility and accessibility are key to maintaining financial order. When you set up your accounts in a way that helps you see daily transactions, overspending or your debt balance, it stays at the forefront of your mind. Also, if you’re more likely to check-in with your daily transactions through an app versus the desktop website, make sure you’ve downloaded the apps you need to keep your financials within reach.