It is the start of a new month, I love that clean slate feeling and a chance to re-evaluate your goals and what you want from life. You will want to start your new month off the right way – organised!
When you are organised you are more likely to be act more productively and intentionally. You are going to want to give yourself the best possible start.
Like I said a new month for me feels like a clean slate. I have a monthly reset routine, where I look to refresh all areas of my life to achieve my goals. A new month is your own blank canvas, it is exciting and there are endless possibilities that lie in wait for you.
Reflection is a helpful practice and should be a regular occurrence in your life. It enables you to appreciate what you have and what you have achieved so far.
These are 8 things I do at the start of the month to be more organised:
1. Reflect on the previous month
The start of a new month is the perfect time for reflection. You can look back on what has happened in the past month and what you have achieved. You should acknowledge the small wins and not just your big achievements.
It also gives you the opportunity to see what tasks or goals you didn’t achieve and bring them forward into the new month. In addition to these, you can reassess whether your goals are still aligned with what you want in your life.
2. Set your monthly goals
A new month means new possibilities and to make sure you are productive with your time you are going to want to set S.M.A.R.T goals. Setting specific monthly goals will help you to stay focused on what you ultimately want to achieve.
When you set yourself goals they not only motivate you, it also means you are holding yourself accountable for progress. I try to focus on a particular area each month and not overcompensate. Do not set lots of goals each month that are not realistic, you do not want to set yourself up for failure.
Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash
3. Clear and organise your emails
I know as a blogger how many emails you can receive including spam emails. That is without including all the emails I get to my personal email address. They can sometimes be overwhelming. At the start of the month you should take time to clear our and organise all your email folders.
Once you have filed the emails that are needed, you can remove the others and this means you are less likely to miss an important email when it comes in. This is vital if you are a blogger.
When you are going through this process you can also evaluate your email subscriptions and unsubscribe to the companies you keep meaning to. Another positive benefit of clearing out all your email folders is that you help the environment, as you are using less server space.
4. Check in with your finances
Regularly checking in with your finances is a healthy habit to start. You can look at what your income will be and your outgoings will help you budget for the month. Additionally, this will help you when you are scheduling in fun activities.
This can also be a great time to look into any subscriptions services you are paying for that you have been meaning to cancel. You don’t want to waste. Being aware of your finances means you can budget for the month, it can stop you from missing a payment and cause you to become overwhelmed.
5. Have a paper clear out
Over the course of a month a lot of paper can accumulate – receipts, letters, to-do lists or notes with reminders on.
Use some of your time to file away the mail correspondence you have around your home or office. Not only will it make your life easier when it comes to needing specific paperwork but, your home and office will be clutter free.
To keep all my paperwork organised I have a file box that has separate folders for different subjects, this stops me mislaying any important documents. Loose papers can always make a space look untidy.
6. Schedule in some fun and self care
Now of course you cannot always plan in fun, sometimes it comes from spontaneous decisions. However, it is important to schedule in some fun social activities. Allocating time to spending it with family and loves ones is not only good for your mental health but allows you to make treasured memories.
Your health and mental health are so valuable so it is important you have time set aside each week to practise some form of self care. This means that even if your month gets busy, you still have allocated time to make yourself a priority.
I use my habit tracker to help me stay consistent when it comes to practising all forms of self care as it holds me accountable.
Related to: 25 ways you can practise self care
Photo by Mathilde Langevin on Unsplash
7. Clean and organise your workspace
Whether you work from home or in an office, your work environment should be clean and organised to limit distractions and improve your productivity. There is nothing worse than sitting down to a messy and unorganised desk.
Give your desk and work environment a clean and tidy, so that when you come to work you will feel motivated to work. You will enjoy working at your desk.
I have recently brought a desk and chair and I love having a designated workspace. I will be decluttering and giving my desk a clean every month, to ensure my space stays organised. That will help me to start each new month off the right way.
8. Do a brain dump
Use a page or two in a notebook or your bullet journal to do a brain dump, noting down any business ideas, tasks you need to do or upcoming events and occasions. When you declutter your mind it can help your improve your focus and concentration.
I like to start a brand new month knowing what events and occasions I have so that I am prepared, I hate not being prepared! It also means when you go to plan your weekly spreads you have master list of all tasks and plans you would like to achieve.
These are 8 things that I like to do at the start of each month to keep me on track, to not only reach my goals but to ensure I am organised with my time.
What do you do at the start of the month to be organised? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Great ideas, Well, i’m not doing all of them to be honest haha. But I should work on it. Thank you for sharing!
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Great tips to begin a new month for sure!
Joseph
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Yeah! I did six of these things every time a new month begins. I need to start doing the other two too. Thank you for sharing.
That’s great you already do a lot of these. Thank you for reading and commenting. Have a great month!
Love this! Thanks for all the reminders 🙂
Thank you for reading and commenting. If you have a blog I would love to read it.
I really like the idea of having a paper clear out; I have this tray fo correspondence or important paperwork that just piles up. I need to organize it and/or recycle, etc. Great reminder!
Definitely a good time to organise it. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I do have a google doc of goals, and an organized inbox so yay! I even have a day planned to see my sister coming up which I’m excited about. 🙂
Thank you for reading and commenting. It is great you have a planning system in place. That is lovely you have something to look forward too.
Hey Lauren,
I like to keep things organized, clean and clutter free. It is amazing how quickly I see papers, and to-do notes and bills getting to take over my space and the desk suddenly feels like all full!
Will look more into the brain dump thing, heard it for the first time here.
My first visit here, followed you on Twitter,
thanks,
Uttoran Sen
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great ideas here about starting a new month on the right foot. i personally love a new month for that fresh start feeling. especially when august 1st started on a monday. win win!
Yeah it is a definitely fresh start. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Ooh I love this! I really need to up my organisation game. I always try to do a big declutter of my workspace when the new month comes around. I’m quite good at staying on top of my blogging emails now but I really need to start going through my personal ones at the start of the month! Thank you so much for sharing these ideas x
Thank you for reading and commenting. I hope you managed to get those organised!
These are really great tips. I like the sound of having a monthly reset routine. I’m going to brainstorm some ideas for this and include some of these tips. I really need to make time for clearing out my inbox, decluttering my workspace, scheduling self-care days and social events, evaluating my finances, reflecting on my past month and setting a focus for the new month. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for reading and commenting. I am glad you found this post useful. Can you link your right blog, as the link you have shared is not your post.
I’m not too sure what you’re referring to with the link. I didn’t link anything. 😕 Can you clarify?
Can you link your blog, in the web address bit you have put a website. But it isn’t yours x
I couldn’t change . Well not too sure how. But Biochemology is also my blog but an older one from when I was studying.
Thanks for this inspiring post to get my life together this month! Haha
Thank you for reading and commenting. I am glad this post has been helpful.
These are such great tips to get started for the new month. I am trying to track my progress and achievements, because I think it’s important to focus on the positive.
That’s a great thing to focus on. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I love everything planning and being organised. Tour posts always give me so many ideas on how to go about doing it.
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These are all great ideas. I am a bullet journaler so I find it helpful when setting up a new month to reflect on the month that just ended. I love that feeling of a new month’s pages in my bullet journal–just waiting to be filled.
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I love your points and ideas. I like being organized for the month and knowing what you need to do. Thanks for sharing,
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I wrote a post about this a few years ago and pretty much cover all the same points. Reflection and setting goals are two things I focus a lot on when a new month rolls around x
Yeah for me a monthly reset is important. But I do more now than I did in my monthly reset post. Reflection is helpful me, especially if my pain has been bad, I think my month has been wasted. I always have to look for more positive points that happened. Thank you for reading and commenting. Have a great month Jenny!
Such a great list, outlining all the important stuff! list! That being said, I rarely reflect and need to incorporate that much more. Thank you for the reminder! ✌️
Thank you for reading and commenting. Can you link your blog?
These are great tips! I really love the idea of a brain dump. It’s such an amazing way to get all of your thoughts out so you don’t forget anything later. I like to keep a notebook close by so I can write down ideas immediately.
That’s great you have a system that works for you. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I love the idea of doing a brain dump. That’s going to be so helpful for goal setting and remembering ideas.
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This a very good habit, sitting down at the beginning of each month and going through this fabulous list. Thank you for sharing!
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These are all such helpful tips. Clearing and organizing emails makes such a huge difference! It’s something I’ve been more aware of doing right away instead of letting them pile up. Thank you for sharing!
That’s great you have found clearing your emails have been helpful. Thank you for reading and commenting.
These are such brilliant things to do at the start of each month! I love to keep a track of my finances throughout the month and I love seeing how much money I have saved at the end of the month – it’s very satisfying! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
That’s great you already check your finances. Thank you for reading and commenting. X
Love the idea of doing a brain dump and setting achievable goals. I’m very disorganised outside of work so could do with sorting my life out 😂
I hope these tips help you organising your life. Thank you for reading and commenting.
You’ve shared some really great suggestions here which I’ll defiantly make great use of. I do love to have a complete clear out of everything: emails, photos, notes etc to start the month with a fresh and clear mind. Thank you so much for sharing this with us lovely Xo
Elle – ellegracedeveson.com
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Fantastic ideas! I love the brain dump! Thanks so much for sharing!
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Love this post, these are great tips for starting a fresh new month! I really should try and bring these into my monthly routine haha 🙂
Courtney x
I hope these help you get more organised. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Reflecting on the prior month gives you great clarity. I like to review my blogging campaign and life from time to time to get clear on where I intend to head. Review the past to organize your thoughts and life for the future.
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Thank you for sharing these tips. Some I already do, like my finances at the beginning of the month. But others I can learn from. Like the brain dump or cleaning the emails and all the papers. I do like the clean sleight a new month brings.
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Amazing ideas, definitely need to organize my email as my storage is full.
It’s so lovely also to take notes..
Definitely do, as it is affecting the planet. Thank you for reading and commenting.
I’m starting to get myself back into writing, so I really need to sit down and start doing this sort of things again. Since slowing down on writing a few months ago, things have sort of went to pot!
That’s good you getting back to writing. I hope these help! Thank you for reading and commenting.
I always intend to get organised at the start of the month but I’ve not been so good at this lately!
Corinne x
It is the perfect time to organise. I hope you manage to get back into it. Thank you for reading and commenting Corinne x
These are great suggestions. I love the idea of having a reset each month.
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Great ideas here – thanks Lauren. I tend to let one month flow into another without stopping to take time to reflect and reorganise so will definitely use these suggestions
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These are all such great suggestions. Especially finances and self care, those two are my favorite and usually the only two I focus on. Having more suggestions & reminders is great! Thank you.
Thank you for reading and commenting. I am glad you found it helpful. If you have a blog can you link it? So I can have a read.
I definitely need to do more of these! I’m always up-to-date with finances and I’ve gotten better about goal-setting since starting a blog. Clearing out emails is something I need to work on, for sure! Thanks for sharing these tips! 🙂
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These are some great tips, thank you for sharing x
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These are super great tips! I have to say email clean up and desktop cleanup would be a great way for me especially to feel less cluttered at the beginning of the month. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Love these ideas Lauren! It’s nice to reflect on the last month, and I always have a few monthly goals to complete. Remembering to set time aside to take care of yourself is definitely important too. Hope you are feeling better from Covid now x
Rose
Definitely a good idea. I feel a lot better than I did. I still feel more fatigued than my usual fibromyalgia, but hopefully that should become less soon.
Love all of these ideas. I am doing most of them on a weekly basis except the self-care and brain dump. I have a CEO day every Friday where I check in with my business. Thanks for sharing and I will be sure to incorporate some self-care in soon.
Thank you for reading and commenting. If you have a blog, pop your links so I can have a read x
I try to check in on my finances several times a month, just to make sure everything’s ok. I then move money to my savings and bills accounts, on the first day of the new month. So I highly recommend doing that
Sounds like you are really money savvy! That’s good! X
I lobe the beginning of a new month too, feels do fresh and exciting! I’ll def be working on adding some fun and self-care time – love your idea for that! I also like to do a monthly check in with my husband and see how he’s feeling and if there’s anything coming up for thr month he’d like to do, since I typically manage the calendars lol
That’s great you have a routine in place that works for you! Thank you for reading and commenting.
I really need to start doing these because I jump into a new month with no reflection, plan of action or anything in between. A good clearout and checks should be the very least!
It is always great to reflect because you can look at what you have achieved and all your small wins – it makes you feel much more confident going into a new month. Thank you for reading and commenting. X