Comment by farley13

You have many great replies about specific methods - but I found the most important tip wasn't where I was looking. Tools, software, books, methods all can come later. The most important part for me was creating the time for cleanup and organization. Physically and mentally.

Jumping from thing to thing without time set aside for "stop, reflect, adjust" makes it very challenging to make changes. I realized that you don't become organized if you don't spend time on it. Picking up physical messes. Thinking about what was important in your day vs what you got done. How the week went. Writing it down.

I found it was only after I started consistently putting time aside to catchup, think and adjust that I started being able to consider if any particular methods would be helpful. Parts of GTD have helped me (capture first) - but the aha moment really came before that.

If you want to be organized, put time into reflecting and adjusting (eg. organizing) the critical parts of your life. Once a day, every day. Maybe more than once a day. Then use one of those to reflect on the week. Not reading about it or endlessly sorting the books on your shelf, but focusing intently on stuff you'll remember 20 years from now.