Yesterday I told you about my attempt to declutter my living space in hopes of ultimately decluttering my life. Today I want to talk about the next step toward organizing the clutter and chaos. Now that you have eliminated the unnecessary items from your environment, it’s important to realize that you’re not done yet. Even though it’s tempting to call it quits after removing the extraneous things from your home, everything you have left in your world has to have a place to belong so you need to find one or create one before you can truly claim that you are organized. That’s where we are at now.
I started this process with my bedroom and we’ll continue there because your bedroom is the place you start your day and end it so whether you know it or not, you bedroom is setting the tempo for how each day of your life will go. For example, if you wake up in the morning and you’re rummaging through clothes on the floor to find what you’re going to wear that day or stressing because you are going to be late because you can’t find your keys, you are going to carry that chaos throughout the rest of your day. If you end your day in that same disheveled place, it will affect your sleep and set up the cycle of disorder for the next day. Amazing that it took me 29 years to come to the earth shattering conclusion that I should keep my room clean J
However, organization goes beyond clean. Messiness is caused by laziness and let’s face it, we are all a little on the lazy side at times. I recently finished a book by Maria Menounos where she says, “lazy people work the hardest” and that couldn’t be a truer statement. If I had just tried to keep things a little neater as I went along then cleaning wouldn’t be a full day or week long process. Sure it might be easier to take the shirt off and throw it on the floor when you’re getting changed but how much longer does it really take to throw it in the hamper or put it back where it belongs?
Now my question becomes, how can I set myself up so that it is just as easy to put the shirt in the drawer rather than throw it on the floor and that answer is simple. If it seems easier to throw something somewhere other than where it should go, your space is obviously not set up to produce the best results. By this I mean, after you have decluttered and you are left with the things you truly want to keep, you need to find a place for each of these things and they should fit there without being shoved or forced or pushed into that place. If your drawers are over flowing and you have to pull everything out to get to the shirt you want or you have so many shoes that you can barely close the closet door, your room is set up for organizational failure. Maybe you need to buy more drawers or rearrange your closets so that you are utilizing your space correctly but for everything you want to keep in your life, you have make sure it has a place where it fits and is easy to access so that you will be more likely to return it there when you need to.
Ok I’m sure you are really wondering why you wasted your time reading all about my cleaning but there is greater purpose here. I want to be the best version of myself and therefore I need to set myself up for success. An organized home can directly impact other factors in your life. Since I’ve reorganized everything, I have not had to do any major cleaning days because I’m straightening up as I go along. On top of all that, I have been getting to work earlier because I’m not rummaging for things and I can get ready quicker. That is also allowing me to do things like make my bed or eat breakfast before I leave the house, which in the past were completely out of the question because I was always rushing to get out the door. When I come home, I feel like I can just unwind from the day because I’m not overwhelmed by all the clutter and if something is out, I have a place to put it now that is just as easy to access as a pile on the floor. Overall, I feel better about my world and more in control. My diet is better, my mood is better, I sleep better, and I’m managing my time better.
Cleaning and organization are little things but as I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s the little things that help to paint the bigger picture. We can say that they are too inconsequential to mention but if you think that, then you probably aren’t taking care of the little things in your life. Once again, in order to achieve success in the bigger sense of the word, you need to set yourself up to succeed but handling the smaller details to create the most efficient environment for the life you want to lead.
“There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.” – Peter A. Cohen
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