My first 20 years of working was in the world of Early Childhood Development. Fourteen of those years I ran a licensed daycare home where up to 14 little ones would visit each day. I used to call our “madness” Organized Chaos. I am Type A personality and cannot function when things are out of control. I get overwhelmed and shut down! We had to keep out of overwhelmed chaos and practice organized chaos. When working with that many under the age of 5 each day, you cannot expect things to not be chaos. There are too many changes that happen each and every day. 

The same is true for Entrepreneurs. 

Why does it have to be chaotic at all? Because we all thrive in a little bit of chaos. Really? YES! As an entrepreneur, your spirit is to test the waters, try new things, shake things up a bit, and not follow all the rules. It’s what drew you to entrepreneurship - and probably why you weren’t a great employee inside a company ;) 

An Entrepreneur’s brain is often darting all over the map and, often, it lands on a place where they are overwhelmed and don’t even know where to start. This is because there is no organization to the chaos. 

How to organize the chaos

Get It Out of Your Head and down on paper. For most people, the first step to move from overwhelmed chaos to controlled chaos is to get it out! This can be in a notebook or digitally in notes. When your mind is busy holding all the “things,” it can’t find the solutions or a good path. The overwhelmed chaos that’s going on in your head is probably leading to stress and sleepless nights if you’re not getting it out. Do this step first! It’s important to your business and your health.

Organize and Prioritize Your Tasks. If you need to write your blog, create the image, schedule the post on your website, schedule posts in social media and create an email, do this all at the same time with no other distractions. This is a productivity hack that maximizes smaller amounts of time for your tasks. Most things take more time than you think, so don’t overschedule or you’ll be right back in overwhelm. 

Schedule Time for Your Work and Your Play. If you don’t have a schedule, you won’t get anything done. You can own your schedule or let others own your schedule. Personally, I have to be careful of this as I work in the service of other entrepreneurs and I truly want to help everyone. Sometimes, I have to say no and be unavailable, though, in order to adhere to my schedule. I found that if I had a lax schedule I would get nothing done, so this was a wake-up call to be in charge of my own schedule and availability. 

Each night before you turn off your computer and step away from the desk, make it a ritual to write down anything that’s in your head (even if you organize it later) and make a schedule plan for the next day. When you have a plan and schedule in mind for the day, you know exactly what you need to do. It will also help you plan for the chaos that will inevitably hit. Yeah, just when you think you have it all together, the car will break down, your child will get sick, or a new fun shiny object will come along and attempt to sidetrack you. 

Can you say yes to all these things and still not be overwhelmed? YES! You know exactly what you need to do that day. Where was your wiggle room? What can you move to tomorrow? What is your priority? If you still had all those things in your head, in overwhelm, something like one of these might push you over the edge into stress and breakdown. You got this! Shuffle a few things and you are set to turn your day around on a dime. That’s what I call Organized Chaos.