Does life ever feel overwhelming? Do you wake up in the morning with a seemingly endless mental list you have to accomplish before the day is done? When responsibilities stack up without order, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a constant state of “catch-up.” Instead of finding peace and contentment in accomplishing tasks, you might be stuck in a place of discouragement and exhaustion. 

Truly, the only remedy to a chaotic life is in creating and sustaining order. If this at all sounds like your experience, then check out these 10 powerful tips used to bring order into your life. 

1| Vent in writing. 

A brain can often be clogged up by the information you’re attempting to process, the only way to relieve this internal pressure is to get it all out. Likely you’ve experienced the act of venting with a friend. The idea is that by releasing your thoughts into the world, you can both experience relief while gaining perspective. The same approach can be used in approaching your day. 

If you are feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where you should begin, then just write everything out on paper. List everything that makes up your day, from your desires to your obligations. This will encompass work, family life, hobbies, activities, and everything else. When you can translate these mental burdens onto paper, it’ll make it all seem far more approachable. This is the best way to begin building order. 

2| Prioritize your needs and wants. 

You can only do so much in a day, a month, and even a year. In your head, you may be juggling several mental tasks or desires at one time, but maybe it feels like you never are really focusing or completing a single one of them. You need to prioritize. 

Determine the need behind the ways you spend your time. Start by asking what is most important to you. What do you need to survive? Then, what is important for you to find satisfaction and joy in life? Without prioritization, you can’t have a strategy, and without a strategy, you’ll waste countless hours trying to inefficiently split your time. Priorities bring order to your decisions. 

3| Make a plan. 

Plans can be molded to whatever needs or wants you might have. Daily plans are great for giving a sense of what needs to be finished in a single day so that you can continue moving forward toward a grander purpose. Monthly and yearly plans can be a great way to divvy out large responsibilities over a far more manageable timeline. 

Some people can struggle with plans for the simple reason that it feels like too much control. Without a plan, many will buy into an illusion of freedom, while silently drowning under a pile of unmet needs and responsibilities. Research shows that those who manage their time more closely, actually experience greater feelings of satisfaction and control than those who don’t. 

4| Get sleep. 

Probably the most underrated method of bringing order to your day is the idea of adhering to a proper sleep schedule. Early in life, especially in college years, individuals can develop a habit of sacrificing sleep. Unfortunately, despite the idea that in doing so you are gaining more time, you’re really just robbing quality and efficiency from your future self. Left unchecked, we see poor sleep health having highly negative effects on performance and progress. 

5| Stop multitasking. 

Multitasking isn’t the best way to accomplish many things at once. Instead, it acts as the most effective way to reduce the quality and potential of success. Just because you can multitask, doesn’t mean that it’s a good way to organize your day. In fact, most people will waste more time juggling several projects than they would if they just set aside time slots for each individual one. 

6| Take time to be alone. 

Humans are inherently social creatures. Whether you spend all your time with family, friends, work associates, fellow students, or complete strangers, you should consider taking some time to be alone. What this does for us, it allows us to realign with our inner purpose and plan. Around external influences, it’s far easier to get wrapped up in the needs and desires of others, leaving your own to be put on the back burner. 

7| Organize the physical. 

Our outward environments tend to reflect our inner experiences. Thankfully, this connection can also happen in reverse, with modifications to our environments bringing positive modifications to our internal perspective. This is why maintaining a clean and orderly home or workspace can do wonders for your own productivity and control.

A messy space presents loads of stimulating imagery for constant analysis by your subconscious. This constant information cycle can lead to far more distractions and anxieties. In these spaces, you’ll be more prone to becoming sidetracked, or even road blocked by potential hazards, such as losing something needed in the moment of work. Bringing order to your space will bring far more order and clarity to your mind. 

8| Limit time-wasting habits. 

It’s easy to waste time in this day and age. There is virtually an unlimited library of content that we can binge, articles we can read, and timelines that we can endlessly scroll. A time and place exist for everything, but the key is not to be caught in a cycle of waste that negatively impacts our goals and plans. Great accountability options, from friends and family to applications, can help rein in excessive use of any time waster out there and bring order to your usage. 

9| Plan your meals. 

Food can really get on top of your day. It’s a necessary component of our life and yet many of us approach it with a devil-may-care attitude. Grocery shopping, cooking, prepping, waiting in line, ordering online, and picking up your food all take time. Having a meal plan helps bring order to a necessary and ritualistic part of our every day.

10| Don’t expect perfection. 

You can take every tip, do them to the very letter, and still experience days or seasons in which time gets away from you. Accept that not every day will be perfect. There will be tasks that’ll move and needs that’ll change. Instead of feeling like your efforts are ruined and your plans are falling through, instead learn to roll with the punches. 

In doing this, among all the rest of these powerful 10 tips, you’ll have far more peace in the long term and experience far more order in the now.