I’ve always been an Autumn girl.  Something about the colors changing, Halloween (which is my favorite holiday, hands down – over my birthday and Christmas), the crispness in the hair, apples, cider, pumpkins, changing leaves, mums and frost just strikes a chord in me.  It’s when school starts and things happen.  So it makes sense that I sympathize with starting the year in the Autumn.

Fall is the beginning of the year, and nobody call tell me likewise.

A small sampling of lists.

Which means that Fall is when I clean out closets, put on my jeans and get ready for the long haul.  When I went to school each year, it was the time of setting up my organizational system that would carry me through the schoolyear.

It seems I really can’t break that habit.  Over the weekend I cleaned out my closet, and committed a bunch of clothes to be donated.  I re-organized my remaining clothing (it needed it, the old system needed maintenance almost every other weekend, and it just wasn’t happening).

I also made lists.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, Michael and I have become big lists makers.  There’s solid proof that writing down your goals (ie making lists concrete lists) increases your likelihood to achieve desired outcomes.  Having someone to check up on you?  Makes it even more effective.  We have lists for everything.  A casual perusal around the apartment (I wasn’t even trying!) turns up lists for:

• themed meal weeks
• things for our apartment
• wedding registry ideas
• times to leave for work
• places to go when driving to the farm
• short term travel places
• long term travel places
• medium term travel places
• designing monthly goals
• designing quaterly goals
• shopping list
• shopping sub-list: wants for next week
• meal plan list
• weekly list Jen
• weekly list Michael
• Jen’s daily list
• Weight Watchers Metrics List
• Recipe Idea List

And best of all: a list for a list.  We decided, much like our weekly meal plan list (which we print out each week and fill out) we needed a packing list, of things we need to remember to do and to pack when we travel.  We also have a list of lists we need to make for this week.

Why all the lists?  Well, Michael and I hold each other accountable.  When we write things down, we are more likely to do them.  And if I’m going to be juggling a wedding and a business, I need to make sure certain things get done by the end of each week.

So what do you do to stay organized?  How do you make sure that things get done?