The Simplest Tool to Organize Your Life

AnOrganizedLife

Want one tool to help organize your whole life? Want it available with you at all times? Want it to be easy to use, compact, and comprehensive?

I did too. So I created my own.

Be Hold the Lowly Spreadsheet

I am a busy guy. I work full-time, play three instruments, write a blog, created a financial tool to sell online, trade stock options, exercise daily, travel the world, serve on the board for a non-profit, read 60 books per year and so much more.

I couldn’t keep track of everything and as a result I was not as productive as I should have been. For example, I play bass in a couple of bands. I need to practice, learn songs, new techniques, remember practice sessions, gigs, settings on effects and so on. Without a tool to organize all of this, my learning was haphazard and I could schedule something on top of a gig date.

Another example, like a lot of people I participate in my 401K at work and invest in mutual funds. I would forget about my retirement accounts and look at the quarterly statements and celebrate or moan when I looked at the results. I needed to look at this account daily, if only for a few moments to better manage my investments.

I would use different methods for everything. journals, notebooks, legal pads, Outlook, to do lists…everything was everywhere.

So I went to one place for all things: a simple spreadsheet with different tabs for every area of my life.

I could keep everything together, update it or review it daily and never have to worry about losing the information.

Recently, I saw the need to be able to use this spreadsheet at work, on my phone, and when I travel.

Migrating to Google Docs

So I migrated my spreadsheet to Google Docs. Now anytime or anywhere I can access the internet, I can access my spreadsheet.

Here is a link to find out more about Google Docs. LINK

Google Docs is like having Microsoft Office Online for free. My free account also has 15GB of space to store documents. You can also allow others to share your documents. So you could create directions to your house for a family reunion and share it with all your family.

What to Include on the Spreadsheet?

I have about 25 tabs on my spreadsheet.

The first tab has my Daily Routine with check boxes so I can run through everything I want to do in the first two hours of my day. My routine has things like ear training, grammar lessons, write 500 words, review financials, daily affirmations, and plan my day. I did a blog post about this here…LINK

I have tabs for the following topics:

  • Track Retirement Account Balances
  • Exercise Log
  • Blog Log
  • Investment Trade Log (Real and Paper Trades)
  • Grammar Rules
  • Vocabulary Rules
  • Spanish Words
  • Google Analytic Stats
  • Annual Goals and Lifetime Goals
  • Books to Read and Books Read
  • To Do List for Things That Don’t Have to Be Done Right Away
  • And A lot More
  • SUMMARY

    I know some people use Evernote and other tools to do something similar, but using Excel is much more comfortable for me and a lot of what I do requires calculations so a spreadsheet is more convenient.

    I continue to expand this tool as it becomes my one-stop-shop for my life and hope you can use it as the simplest tool to organize your life too.

    I would love to hear what you use or ideas you would have to add to a tool like this.

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