This article originally appeared in The Simplifier #28.

Organization — The Mystical Destination (Not!)

By Shawn Tuttle

“I wish I were organized…” I’ve heard this sighed with the same wistful feeling I might have on a cold winter day when I’d say, “I wish I were in Hawaii…” You’d think they were talking about some mystical place shrouded in fog reachable by secret pathways.

Is organization really that mysterious? Perhaps a more relevant question is: “What does it mean to be organized?”

Does it simply mean being tidy?

Nope. True story: a couple of years ago I received a phone call from a woman who felt debilitated by her lack of organization. “My office is a mess and I’m totally overwhelmed by the mere thought of dealing with it.”

She went on to explain that a death in the family had thrown her once-orderly routine into chaos and she couldn’t dig through the mess to regain her peace of mind. We set an appointment for the following week. I arrived at her home office expecting the worst. I wore my work clothes, ready to roll up my sleeves and jump in. I walked into an office that was more tidy than mine! What?!

Stuff was not her issue at all. When she said, “my office is a mess,” she meant that didn’t know where to find information she was looking for or how to effectively process incoming information. She needed systems to manage and access her information.

So does it mean having efficient systems?

Not exactly, though they help! What good is the most brilliant system in the world if it isn’t used? Answer: no good at all. Who hasn’t implemented a new, “fool-proof”, state-of-the-art system to organize this, that, or the other, only to stumble across it months later? (“Oh yeah. I forgot about that!”)

Organization is a process.

Just like housecleaning! Buying the cleaning supplies doesn’t make for a clean house. Nor does cleaning every surface once make for a permanently clean house.

It’s not just a process, it’s part of the journey. It’s a means to an end. What end? Your goals and dreams, of course! This is important because the more compelling your goal, the more likely you are to keep a satisfactory level of organization in your life. I use the word satisfactory here because it is entirely up to you. There is no right or wrong answer. If you (and whoever you share your space with) are happy with the amount of tidiness and the level of functionality, then it is perfect.

While “there is no right or wrong answer” to how organized you should be, it behooves you to see yourself through others’ eyes now and again. Your appearance and surroundings are extensions of you. Clients, potential clients, and even friends may be attracted, or repelled, by what they see around you and how they see you functioning. Alienating yourself by living in a pig sty won’t make you happy, will it?

Back to your end goal. Organization weeds out distractions so you can do what you want to do. Conversely, your goals are more important than every single thing being in place.

Now, I’m not suggesting you get accustomed to your current level of mess and be done with it. Acceptable levels of organization still take time, agreement with others (with whom you share the space), and effort to maintain.

Organization, like meditation, is a practice. It’s not something you complete and check off your list for good. It’s a part of life that we must come to terms with if we are to achieve peace of mind in our day-to-day doings. There will always be clothes to hang up, papers to file, new phone numbers to enter in the address book, emails to respond to, and so on. The issue is adjusting these to integrate with the rest of your life and your priorities.

One way to integrate necessary actions into your life is to create systems. Systems encourage organization to happen on auto-pilot, thereby decreasing the number of brain cells required to deal with it. The less you have to think about it, the easier it is.

Let’s look at three areas ripe for organization:

stuff covers physical items - where items belong, how they get to where they belong, and systems for maintaining them.

mind involves information - the data passes through your life, how to get data out of your head systematically so you know where to find it when you want it, and systems for processing and storing data so that you and/or others can easily find it and use it.

time involves your schedule - how much you pack in everyday, getting to appointments when you say you will, making (and keeping) quality-time appointments with yourself, and systems for recurring activities.

We know that organization isn’t monumentally crucial to our survival—yet it is crucial for our peace of mind. Everyone would rather do what they want to do rather than what they feel they must do. Removing organization from the position of frustrating-goal-that-is-never-complete, and relegating it to a position of assisting you in achieving your goals is a positive step towards making peace with organization.

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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify