I am not an organized person by nature. I never have been. I can remember growing up having a messy room and a messy locker. This continued into college. While I had my ways of keeping my head above water, so to speak, it was never perfect. However I’ve had a nagging in the back of my head over these past four years as I settle into adulthood and my late 20’s. I know I need to be organized and yet I have not consistently found my system.
I’ve concluded that some people are just born to be organized. I have no idea what makes some people organized and others not. Perhaps they had parents who nagged them to clean their room all the time. Perhaps they were not allowed certain privileges and freedoms until their room was spotless. While my parents were generally concerned that my room was clean, they were never sticklers for spotlessness. Perhaps some people are so bugged when things are out of order that literally nothing else matters. For me, I’ve never been like that. I can let a few things sit in my car for days. I can let things pile up on my bedroom floor until I have to dig to get things out of it. It can be bad.
However organization is important to me. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t feel this nagging. I want to live as the best me I can possibly be. I know that that means organization. My dresses will love it. My earrings will love it. My shoes will love it. And, most of all, my mornings will love it as I won’t be rushing around digging through piles of things to find those perfect earrings to go with that cute red dress I’m wearing.
So last night I began part one on my journey towards organization. Organization is like jumping off a cliff: you just have to do it. It’s also like playing any sort of a sport: you can’t wimp out or be a pansy. Honestly, I found myself either wanting to yell at myself last night or give myself pep talks.
The first part is normally pretty easy. You’re excited. You have all these visions in your head of your nice, organized life. I know I’m very much an imaginative kind of person. I can often jump to conclusions. It’s in this stage that you need to remind yourself that it’s only through hard work that good, solid organization happens.
I’m going through my things. I’m making piles of things to recycle, things to throw away, things to donate and things to keep. I’m hanging up clean clothing and putting dirty clothing in my hamper. Everything feels great. I’m making progress.
Then step two happens. Step two is a trap and you should avoid it at all costs. Step two is the Internet. I found myself on my phone and laptop with the excuse “Oh, I need to check Twitter! Maybe I need to make a tweet. I haven’t tweeted in a few hours.” IT’S A TRAP! Do whatever you can in this moment to get yourself back to cleaning. Perhaps leaving all Internet communication outside of the room you’re cleaning would be best (as I say this in hindsight).
I did return to cleaning. I ended up cleaning my room so that I can actually walk around it. Are these still bags I need to go through? Yes. But have I made progress? Also yes!
This here is the after of this side of my room. I can walk! While things in the entirety of my room are not perfect, I feel good. I have a healthy start that I can sleep well on.
Over these next few weeks, we’ll organize it all! My dresses, my dresser, my closet, my bathroom and my car. I welcome any and all tips or tricks you may have for organization. Lord knows I need it.
