Stress is a natural and necessary part of life, but sometimes it can get overwhelming. We’ve all been there, you have a million things to deal with, things start piling up and your house becomes a pigsty. You don’t know where to start and you feel like you’ve lost control and feel worry and stress beginning to cripple your ability to think.

Trust me, I’ve been there plenty of times and what I’ve learned from my experience with stress is that you have to bring order to the chaos; you have to get organized. The opposite of chaos is order so you must polarize to order, and the best way to do that is to get organized, but what’s the best way to start?

First, make a list of all of the things you have to do. There are several ways you can go about that, one being make a list of all of the things you have to do in a hierarchy of highest priority down to the lowest priority. Another way you can go about your list is to accomplish the smaller things that you should do first in order to build a little momentum, and then start back up at the top with your highest priority.

However, you must avoid the pitfall of doing a few of the easy things and then getting high on that sense of accomplishment you got from knocking out a few tasks and deciding that you made enough progress for the day. Doing so only provides those big things time to grow and fester in the back of your mind and create more stress and worry. The way I usually get the ball rolling is that after I’ve created my list, I get my house clean. When my house is clean, I feel equally decluttered mentally.

It’s difficult to go about accomplishing those big tasks when you are surrounded by chaos and clutter. At least for me, living in a mess adds additional stress to my life and I get distracted and my stress compounds by seeing a mess around me when I’m trying to get things done, and getting home after a stressful day to a messy house doesn’t help me relax or destress in the slightest.

You should ‘get your own house in order’ as Jordan Peterson says before you start trying to take on the world. So, first create your list of priorities, then get your house clean and organized and then start knocking out that list of priorities with relentless resolve.

Sometimes I have so many things to do that I can’t keep track of it all, or I start one thing and realize that I had more to do than I thought I had, or I start that task and realize that it requires I accomplish other task first and I lose track of all of my priorities. I have big things to do as well as all of the smaller things I have to get done in order to set myself up for success for the larger tasks.

I’ll be at work stressing out and wondering how I’ll possibly get all of those things done. The way I’ve found that I can relieve my stress levels is to write everything down first and then I open up Excel and make a schedule, breaking up all the tasks and assign them to different people depending on what other things they need to get done, and then by the end of all of that I have a clear and organized schedule and a plan of execution for the upcoming week or two weeks. I can see everything that needs to get done and when it will get done plainly in front of me, and I feel much more relaxed and confident that I can get everything done.

Get fancy with it. Use color to make things stick out or color code things based on priority or category. It makes planning much more aesthetic and enjoyable and making something enjoyable will inspire you to actually do it and do it well.

Don’t be one of those people who is so disorganized that you drop the ball on things or can’t find what you need, or one of those people who are so clutter-brained that they can’t find the time or place for all of their things and tasks.

Every large and successful business or corporation is effectively organized and that order that they establish to combat the chaos of running a large organization is the reason for their success, I guarantee it. See how a business or a company is called an organization? There’s an obvious reason for that. Where you see success, you will find order as well. Every athlete, every fitness enthusiast you see has a plan, a goal, and an organized way to achieve it.

Bring order to your life, get organized, and you will see your stress go away.

Related posts: On the Virtue of Order, HOW TO HANDLE STRESS: LIVING IN DAY-TIGHT COMPARTMENTS, WORRY AND THE VIRTUE OF INDUSTRY