Have you ever been looking for a phone number that you know you wrote down? You look in your purse on all the receipts, in every notebook you can find and on all the sticky notes posted on your desk but you just can’t find it. I don’t know many people that would say this hasn’t happened to them.

I thought I was an organized person until recently when I realized I have notes from meetings in three different notebooks. It dawned on me that if something were to happen to me, I would be leaving a lot of folks in the dark about where to find my important documents.

There are several different areas we can organize in our lives ­—starting with time.

Make a list at the beginning of everyday of the tasks you need to accomplish and prioritize by deadlines. Keep the list in one location so you can cross off and add to it throughout the day. Remember to make some time for yourself.

Next is setting up an effective filing system. Make sure that all your important documents such as birth certificates, insurance information, etc. is in the same location.

As for work, every project you are working on should have a computer file and hard file. Any files that have completed projects should be filed away in alphabetical order so that anyone can locate it at any time. Same for your computer files.

The last one is organizing your notes. I’m constantly writing notes or phone messages all over the place and then not being able to locate them later. The best solution is to keep one notepad that you can take with you everywhere.

This will make life so much simpler when you think of something you need to write down or you’re looking for that important phone number. Everything will be in one place.