The Importance of Being Organized and Having the Right Tools

No matter how you look at life, there are still only 24 hours in a day, and there is only so much you can squeeze into any given day.

Sometimes it can be tempting to think that we are moving towards some ”magical future” in which we will somehow have more time. I’m afraid that’s simply not going to happen… we'll always have the same 24-hour day, and more "stuff" to put in it than we feel we can manage!

As I have written about before, there are a myriad ”time management” tools on the market, but most of the ones I have looked at actually do little to help those who feel like there is just overwhelmingly much that must be taken care of, every day.

Truthfully, the only tools I have found that are useful are being properly organized and having the right tools for the job you’re trying to do.”

Today, I spent a couple of hours just organizing the mess on my desk. No, this wasn’t some fancy procrastination exercise, it was actually an exercise in being able to use my time more wisely.

When we get extremely busy and start feeling overworked, one of the things that often happens is that we don’t take time to stay organized. What can often happen is that we end up — inadvertently — building several ”piles” that actually contain the same things.

Think of it — metaphorically speaking — as having your electric bills filed in three different folders because you couldn’t find the original ”paid electric bills” folder when you last needed it.

Of course, many people just use the "toss it in a shoebox and worry about it later" method of organization. That never worked for me!

The other thing that happens to us… particularly true for those of use who feel financially strapped a lot of the time… is that we do a lot of work with a ”make do” space and tools.

This is perhaps not of crucial importance in the context of tasks and processes you don’t have to do very often, but something you know you have to do all the time? You have to have the right tools!

For example, between Mrs. Denmarkguy and I, we run no less than six actual home based businesses. They are all very small, and none of them (alone) makes us an actual living, but when we add them together it becomes ”something.”

But it also means there is a lot of paperwork to chase around and keep organized!

Over the years, I tried all manners of using spreadsheets, old-fashioned ledgers, bookkeeping apps, recordkeeping apps and what have you… in general with the intention of saving money. Keeping track of everything was not only a pain in the rear, it became extremely time consuming!

Then I spent a good three months researching literally hundreds of accounting/bookkeeping/tax apps and software; reading reviews from actual users, looking at free ”trial versions” and so on… all for the purpose of not just ”hoping that the most popular solution will do the job,” but trying to match our needs to something relevant to our particular weird situation… even if it were somewhat obscure.

Believe it or not, I actually ended up with a free online app that allowed me to do simple but highly customizable bookkeeping for multiple businesses.

It was not a widespread or particularly popular app — because it didn’t integrate with ”the most popular” accounting software, nor load directly into tax forms — but it allowed me to have the right tools for our situation, and it was relatively straightforward to set each business up in such a way that doing taxes was relatively easy, but we also got the information about business results that we needed, not what some mainstream package required us to accept.

For about four years now, it has saved me maybe 5-10 minutes every day... and several days when tax time rolls around!

I suppose the message here is that it is best to get yourself organized — with the right tools — from the beginning, so you can spend your time actually doing what needs to be done, rather than running around in circles, doing busy work.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!

How about you? Do you consider yourself well organized? Do you feel you have the right tools to do your work, hobbies, personal finance? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2025.01.12 23:45 PST
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