11 Habits Organized and Productive People Do Every Day

Often, we confuse productivity with busyness throughout the day. Also, we fear that taking time for organization might impact our productivity.

However, the facts suggest otherwise. For example:

• Office employees spend more than an hour daily searching for files, stationery, and other items.
• Executive managers waste six weeks annually searching through cluttered office drawers and disorganized files to find misplaced information.
• 23% of adults admit to delaying bill payments because they lost the bills.

Disorganization is costly in terms of both money and time. But if you can convince yourself to prioritize patience and organization, you'll be surprised by the results. Benjamin Franklin once said, “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

Even though Benjamin Franklin's estimate might be inflated, spending time on organization remains a valuable investment. According to experts, every hour invested in organizing and planning prevents three to four hours from being wasted.

It follows that those who are the calmest and worry the least are typically more productive. They understand the value of structure and modify their behaviors accordingly. The good news is that by adopting their routines, you too can become more productive and organized.

Some daily habits of organized people

1. They Don’t Let Their Desks Get Cluttered

You might think you know exactly where to find a specific document among the mountains of paperwork, but you're deceiving yourself if you believe a clean and organized desk won't make you more productive.

Simply organizing things on your desk helps you mentally organize them as well. Furthermore, Princeton University research has shown that cluttered desks cause us to lose focus. They used MRI scans to see the difference in brain activity, so this was more than just anecdotal evidence.

2. They Never Handle Tasks Twice

Organized and productive people never put a task on hold. Dealing with tasks twice is a significant waste of time. So, wait to answer a call or email until later. When something grabs your attention, decide whether to finish, assign, or cancel it.

3. They Don’t Immediately  Respond to E-Mails

Productive people don’t let emails constantly interrupt their workflow. In addition to checking their email according to a schedule, they utilize features that prioritize messages by sender.

They set alerts for important vendors and top customers and save the rest until they finish their work. Some even use auto-reply features to inform senders when they will check their emails again.

4. They Work from a Single To-Do List

They prioritize their to-do list in a color-coded notebook, with the most urgent tasks in one list and color, and less important tasks in a separate list with a different color. This way, they don’t waste time trying to remember which list contains the information they need.

5. They Have a High Level of Self-Awareness

Productive and organized people have a clear sense of self. They know their weaknesses and create organizational structures to overcome them. They create an agenda when they can't seem to keep meetings on track. Also, they set an alarm for the morning in case they forget to check their voicemail.

Details don’t matter here; what matters is that they think carefully and use specific tools and procedures successfully to address their organizational weaknesses.

6. They Make Time for Lunch

We’ve all been there. You’re so busy that by the time you look up, you’ve missed lunchtime and end up skipping lunch or just having a small cake or a bag of chips. Obviously, neither is a good choice.

You get a 20-minute energy boost from the cake, but after that, your concentration wanes. Meal skipping affects your concentration, productivity, problem-solving skills, and waistline—not in the way you might expect. According to Ohio State University research, the weight you lose by skipping meals is muscle mass that you’ll later regain as fat.

7. They ‘Eat Frogs’

‘Eating the frog’ is the best remedy for procrastination. Highly productive people start every morning by ‘eating the frog’—they tackle the least appealing and most annoying task on their to-do list first and foremost. After that, they are free to deal with matters that interest and inspire them.

8. They Tidy Up at the End of Each Day

Organizing your desk for approximately ten minutes at the end of each day is the best way to combat chaos. Although it’s best to handle tasks just once, we may need to stop mid-task to answer the phone or speak with someone. These interruptions can’t always be prevented, but you can end your day by resolving all the issues you haven’t finished yet.

9. They Plan Their Days the Night Before

Organized and productive people go to bed each night knowing what they will accomplish the next day. They set their priorities right before bedtime, which helps them avoid being sidetracked from their true goals during the day.

10. They Maximize Technology

Much discussion has been about how technology nowadays keeps us available "on the clock" and lengthens the workday. While this may be the case, technology can also help us be more productive.

For example, you can use Evernote to organize information you'll need later or set up email filters to keep spam out of your inbox. When applied properly, technology can save us a great deal of time.

11. They Don’t Ignore Their Snail Mail

This brings up the idea of "handling tasks just once" once more. Although most of us don't receive much regular mail these days, it can still cause issues if you ignore it, particularly regarding bills and tax notices. Just check your mailbox and take care of it as soon as it arrives. Otherwise, you'll look under the couch cushions for the past-due bill.

Your productivity will suffer every minute you spend looking for something you lost or trying to remember what has to be done next, ultimately affecting your ability to advance in your career. Fortunately, you have many available tools to maintain productivity and organization. Even the most careless among us can establish a system to help them get organized.