The Importance of Being Organized

We all know how important it is to be organized both at home and in the office, how we waste endless hours looking for something on our desks, in our drawers or closets, and how about that garage?! It’s even gotten to the point where our digital lives are equally as unorganized. Mmm, how many emails do you have languishing in your email in-box?

Okay, since there is so much agreement, why the heck are so many people still unorganized? A few reasons for sure:

· Getting organized takes time and that seems to be the one thing that most of us are lacking…time.
· Often we don’t know where to begin. It’s overwhelming and when a task seems to be insurmountable, well, we often don’t even start to do it.
· Organizing and clean up can be very emotional. Discarding things, sorting through items and papers can evoke memories and situations that one might not want to encounter.

But really, we know that it simply has to be done if we want to be as productive and time efficient as possible.

So what’s the solution? Well, there are several that come to mind almost immediately:

· Hire an organizer. It’s a very robust field with their own professional organization (http://www.napo.net). You can get recommendations from the Association and, of course, from your own contacts and connections as well.

· Don’t want to hire someone? Well then, enlist a friend or family member to be your cheerleader and give you encouragement and tips as you go about the task. Sometimes we just need someone on the sidelines (on-site or not) to provide the positive reinforcement to keep us going.

· Break the overall task into smaller parts and reward yourself every step of the way. Organizing won’t seem to be as overwhelming if it is approached in small pieces. The reward, well, it makes you feel better and gives you that extra push to tackle part 2 of the job.

But really best of all is the complete and total satisfaction that comes from seeing the task completed and having a well-organized room, closet, desk…life!