Enhancing The Good

New month means new topic! And yes, we’re focusing on organization now!

Whether you already consider yourself an organized person or not, I’m sure we can all see that there are some benefits that come with living that kind of lifestyle.

You don’t have to color-code the clothes in your closet or label and nicely stack your matching food containers in your pantry to be considered an organized person as there are many ways to be just that.

The kind of organization I’m referring to this month can be the action of carefully and neatly putting things away in your home, but more in depth, we need to make sure that organization of the mind is of top priority. Having a tidy home and work space will definitely help you excel with this part of organization as well (as you’ll soon see), so if that’s something you are willing to pick up if you haven’t already, you’ll have me believing you can do it and cheering you on!!

There are five main benefits that come from living an organized life, especially when trying to achieve your goals, and they are:

1. You are able to prioritize the things you need to focus on now vs what can wait
2. Distractions become more limited (goes along with ^)
3. You are given the strength and momentum you need to keep going
4. Saves you time
5. Keeps you on track

To dive more into each of these:

1. You are able to prioritize the things you need to focus on now vs what can wait. Having an organized headspace and home/office space allows you to better see what needs to be done right away. When you’ve carefully given prior planning and thoughts to events, projects, or whatever it may be, you are more likely to be able to recall those thoughts much easier and know where you need to put more time and energy by comparing it where it may not be needed as much since you already took care of it.
2. Distractions become more limited. Ever tried getting an assignment or task done, only to pick up your phone and start scrolling on social media or through YouTube videos? This is the one of many examples I hear from clients as they’re trying to figure out how to better organize their time. In any given time where you might get distracted by something, how often have you regretted giving into that temptation? As we organize our time in an efficient matter (as well as our space), we’re put on a track where we care far less about distractions and aren’t even attracted to them even a little, because we know what’s important and what we really want! Which leads us to the next benefit:
3. You are given the strength and momentum you need to keep going. As you stay on the track of an organized life, there is some kind of power that propels you forward to want to get more done. It’s hard to understand if you’ve never experienced it, but think of it like riding a bicycle down a hill. It may be slow at first as you’re coming up over the top, but as you ride further and further down the hill, you gain more and more momentum to go faster, feeling that rush of adrenaline and that excitement the faster you go. In relation to organization, if you have the goal of gaining control over social media, the more times you find yourself having the strength to say no or turn it off when you know it’s not the right time to be on it, you will feel that strength working in you and have more energy and confidence to be able to continue avoiding that distraction in the future. In addition, this strength, energy, and confidence carries into other aspects of your life that might not specifically have to do with your goal that you’re currently working on.
4. Saves you time. Think of your workspace. That can be a desk at school, craft room in your home, or work office. In this case, we’ll focus on the office. When all important files are put away in a cabinet, in alphabetical order, your pens are stored away in a cup at the top right corner of your desk, etc., and you are put in a situation where you need a certain item, you know right where to find it because it has a home. Instead of having to look through a stack of papers when your boss asks you for a report (making him/her impatiently wait as well as causing stress to build up in your own body), ten seconds or less later, and that request has been taken care of. Easy! With our goals, having them written down (as well as the tasks that help us achieve them) in places where we are most likely to act on them, allows us to make progress much more quickly than if we didn’t have these steps arranged.
5. Keeps you on track. Life isn’t always going to go the way we hope. Responsibilities pop up, vacations happen, last-minute emergencies, etc., and it can be a lot to try and remember ourselves and our goals on top of it all. However, as we live an organized life, we have reminders that pop up for us so we don’t even have to give it a second thought. This can be through accountability partners, calendar reminders, alarms, sticky notes, habits, etc. Organization is your best friend when it comes to staying on track because it doesn’t want to see you fail and it won’t let you! When there is order, it’s a lot harder to forget.

There are many parts of my life that I consider organized, and there are also some parts that aren’t. However, I’ve found myself to be able to successfully reach my goals when I’m organized. It makes progress SO much easier because of these reasons mentioned above.

Which one of these five benefits do you struggle with the most? What are you going to do to better apply organization to your life so you can overcome it?