Based on the comments I received over the past several years as a professional organizer, there are two major components that defines an organized life:
1. Stuff, clutter, items, boxes, etc.
2. Thoughts & emotions.
Life is not meant to be too organized, we don’t want to live in a rut, however, we would like to have a degree of routine & predictability.
“Life is like an ocean, always moving, changing, developing and we need to be like a well-seasoned captain of our vessel.” CSRoth
We want change but we are kinda used to doing things the same way. It is interested that major changes in our life causes MUCH stress! A new house, new job, new baby, etc. All of which causes us to assess our life as it is and consider making major adjustments.
- We want life to be flexible, spontaneous, but to be prepared for the unexpected drama
- We want life to be simple and not too stressful
- We want some control, not utter chaos
- We want to have fun and enjoy life at its fullest, every day!
All of these things require some degree of organization. So how do we get there? I believe that that in order to minimize the chaos of life, the one thing that had to change was YOU! “It is not how the situation looks, it is how we look at the situation”.
We had to take a real serious look at what we wanted and need in life. Now life is not perfect, nor should we expect it to be, but there should be some semblance of peace and order.
Suggestions:
- Take a few moments to invest in our future. Jot down some notes on our life as we know it today…. we might be amazed at how our life looks on paper!
- Take a look at those things that we would like to see changed, Big and small.
- Does clutter of any kind, have an impact on those changes? For example, we need a bigger house. Again, we might be amazed how much more room we might have when we de-clutter. I need a new job, because I can’t ever seem to get anything done around here. Etc. etc. etc.
It is very difficult to change something, without understanding our current state and our desired outcome.
So, I guess that there is no one answer, an organized life looks different to different people…