You must first understand the fruit in having everything you touch represent you. You are your own brand. In business you have to build a brand, a name. How you look, how you carry yourself is important; these things communicate your true brand. It all begins with how you manage your life. It is important to have an organized mindset, organized behaviors; at home, at your business, it all matters.

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We have enough in life! Having a place and purpose for our things leads to less stress.

No longer am I asked Mom where is x?

No longer am I responsible for redirecting things when they land in a spot someone thinks would work or just that it “fit” there.

No longer do I have to supervise cleaning up or putting newly acquired shopping items away.

No longer do I have to spend time finding something when I could be doing what I really want to do.

I could find more but you get the picture
Mid America Mom

5 years ago I could get away with being disorganized, because I had far more time then I had things to fill it and I didn’t really have any greater responsibilities than making sure I had milk in the fridge for cereal and some relatively clean clothes. That’s no longer the case. Unfortunately, I didn’t pick up on this quite as quickly as I should have. Things that had to get done didn’t, and this led to some stressful times. Getting organized wasn’t really a choice, it was a necessity.

Of course, having made that difficult adjustment, I can now see the additional benefits of being organized, which helps me stay motivated and put in that little bit of additional effort that may be required. Every wasted minute I spend searching for a document or a tool in a pile of clutter is a minute I don’t have to spend on something fun. Being organized means that the mundane tasks get done faster, leaving me more time to spend on things I enjoy.

I find that when I try to do a major cleaning on a Saturday, I get far too lazy and rationalize that its ok to be lazy since I had a long week and hardly anything gets done. And when I try to clean one room at a time each day after work, the little bit I did on Monday is messy by Thursday and after spending 4 days of tiring work after my real job, I still have yet to get that relaxing feeling when the whole house is clean at once.

But when I know that I took a vacation day off work to make this happen, you better believe I am not going to waste it and vow to keep it this way. I guess you could say my lack of organization at times is definately from a lack of mental focus rather than an actual shortage of time.

I find things, I spend less money replacing or buying second copies of lost or misplaced items, I worry less about what people will say when they visit, I argue less with my child or partner, I complete work in a better time frame and I’m not exhausted just walking into a room. All of these make life much simpler in a way that I couldn’t conceive of until I started the process.

Of course, trying to explain that to people who aren’t working to the same end is like trying to describe the colour blue to someone who has been blind their whole life.

When I talk about calm environment, I don’t mean some zen oasis where everybody is sitting on pillows and meditating — I mean it’s an environment that doesn’t agitate me on any level — mentally, spiritually, etc.

That means that it’s a tidy and clean environment. No little piles of junk around prodding at my consciousness saying “clean me up”. For some that may mean pristine — for me it doesn’t. But it needs to be at that point where I don’t feel like I need to do something to improve it.

That’s calm.

It’s like getting to the gym. Don’t think about it. Just start doing it. Do it whether you’re motivated or not.

Just chunk it into manageable tasks. Can’t do all 5 rooms at once? OK, focus on 1 room. Or focus on 1 task across all rooms.

Just do it. A little bit everyday.

I hate feeling overwhelmed, which is what I feel when I see a huge stack or box of mystery papers. Thankfully, the mystery paper problem is almost gone.

Being organized helps me avoid situations like:
ad 1) 5 min to go – where are my car keys/memory stick/money/phone? … I did wash my favourite Tshirt, right? … I’m sure I took down that phone number somewhere?
ad 2) I guess the moldy bread goes great with the furry jam and the ancient yoghurt … I’ll just hop down to the convenience store for toothpaste … 2-for-the-price-of-1 ended YESTERDAY?

None of this for me, at least not on a regular basis. I know what I have/need, where my stuff is (yes, my -small – wardrobe is organized by season and then by color, so I know immediately that my favourite piece is in the laundry when not on its spot) and I have a basic plan for the day.

I don’t worry about guests, I only invite friends, not the Spanish Inquisition. Also, I don’t quite understand the ‘calm environment’ sentiment. I LIVE here, thank you so much, it’s not supposed to be a showroom/church/library. Although, a library…

Begin your journey to declutter..today.

I saw that organized people tended to be more productive and could get more done. I found that some productive people had lots of stuff while others had very little. The people with the least stuff intrigued me more because it always took them less time to find any one thing they needed and the least amount of time to clean and reorganize or move.

That was when I realized if you want to be productive but are too lazy to organize your loads of junk…then declutter it and go minimalist. I have a packrat tendency like my mother my grandmother, my father, my sister, my other sister and my aunt. I see them very emotionally drained and bitter in their living and working spaces and the only universal conclusion I could see was that their stuff controlled their emotions. How can one concentrate or maintain calm and loving attitudes if you have a million things in your way?

So I junked it. I made it a goal after seeing and helping them all move to new and bigger places to store stuff….that I would not own more things then I could transport in one trip via a 1992 Geo Prism.

You’d be amazed at what you find worthless when you think about why you are bothering to save it and how much time it cost you to discard it or save it.

For that sense of serene calm that comes with a tidy, organized space.

Knowing that, if he were here, my blind grandfather would be perfectly at home.