Readers have noted my previous admissions that being organized is not something which comes naturally or easily to me. 

This is why I enjoy writing about it.  I’m interested in the reasons I struggle with it, and how to be organized anyway.  Despite my lack of natural ability, my desire to be organized has always been strong and I have generally been reasonably successful in my efforts.

The fact that I have to work at it and struggle with it just makes it easier for me to write about it.  As several readers have observed in emails, who wants to hear advice from someone who finds everything easy and doesn’t share the same struggles as the rest of us.

There are things in our lives that we’re not naturally talented at, and we have absolutely no need to do anything about it. 

Personally I can’t stand sport and couldn’t hit a barn with a basketball, and I have absolutely no intention of taking up tennis or golf lessons any time soon.  I’ve met people who feel the same way about music, and couldn’t care less if they never learned to play the piano, strange as that seems to me.

But with other things, we may decide that even though it’s not going to be something that is easy for us to learn, we know it will be good for us and make our lives better, that it’s necessary, or that we’ll feel better when we work on that area and improve our skills.

Being organized is something I think falls into that category for those of us not naturally talented at it.  It may not be easy or come naturally, but we know it will do us good.  So, when being organized is not something we just naturally and automatically are, we can teach ourselves.

Firstly we need to learn the little techniques and systems and ideas for being organized that will work best for us.  Some of these are in the daily tips emails you received when you first subscribed, things like using a calendar, preparing the night before for the next day and so on.  All the rest of my best advice on the topic is in my e-book, and of course there are now 46 of these newsletters you can browse through for free on the website.

The tricky part though, is making these new behaviours habitual.  When we make something a habit, it becomes easy.  We can arrive at a point where that particular issue, whether it’s how we deal with out clothes or keeping up with our bills, just automatically and effortlessly gets done in the most efficient and organized way, making our lives easier, and not requiring any thought, effort or decision making from us as we do it that way consistently, day in, day out.

The decision making process for creating a new habit should happen once.  Make decisions quickly and change them slowly is a good piece of advice I heard years ago on a motivational tape.  It means you identify that you need to make a decision about something, for example how you are going to run your calendar/diary/planner.  You gather the information you need, identify your options, do some brainstorming, gather the equipment you need, and come up with your decision, eg “I am going to check my diary each morning and evening, I will keep it in my bag so that it is always with me, I will write down appointments in the diary immediately rather than on a piece of paper or card which may be lost or forgotten….”

(Incidentally, I strongly advise avoiding making any important decisions, like whether to leave your job, end your relationship, send that letter/email/text, throw out that stuff, promise to do that big thing, get a puppy etc, while you are feeling angry, depressed, stressed, intoxicated etc.  Put that one off for now, but you can decide you want to do your dishes every day – something you are quite sure will do no harm).

The part about changing decisions slowly, means you stick to that decision, not re-thinking it every day, doubting your decision, but abiding by it, changing it only when and if it becomes clear that there is a better way.  If we keep changing the system too frequently, the habit is lost and must be re-formed.

Having made the decision, we then stick it out until it becomes automatic, which takes about a month of consistency.  Yes, there have been studies done, that’s how long it takes. 

Perfectionism can deter us if we forget, miss or slip up one day, then decide that because we have not been perfect we’ll just give up.  If we fall off the horse, the wagon or whatever, we need to just get back on again – just get back to it, not worrying about what’s been missed, just going on as originally intended.  The goal is to form the habit, not to be perfect!

All the helpful little things we learn to do for ourselves reinforce positive thinking habits.  Yes, there are extra side benefits from learning to be organized as well as less stress, more calmness.  Our self esteem says “thanks very much” for each little positive organizing habit.  It says “hey, you do care about me, you do think I’m worthy of an easier life”.

Of course there’s that inner rebellion thing to deal with.  The one that wants to take the easy way out, get away with something, not conform, argue, disagree….  Hmmm, kind of silly isn’t it?  Who and what are we rebelling against?  Ourselves, our own good decisions which we’ve made for the purpose of making our own lives easier, happier, less stressful.  Why would we want to do that?

If I ever find out, I’ll write a book about it.  It’s totally on my list of books to write.  The “let’s shoot myself in the foot” factor.  The inexplicable self sabotage thing that causes me to pull into McDonalds at the mere thought of wanting to lose weight. 

Until the vaccine is developed, we can just learn to recognize and dismiss it.  I hear that’s how you get rid of intrusive thoughts when you’re trying to meditate too – you just acknowledge the thought and let it go – still working on that one, and again, when I figure it out I’ll try to explain how I did it. 

So, when we have a vague awareness cross our minds that we decided we were going to load the washing machine in the morning before leaving the house, and we consider pretending to forget, or making an excuse or whatever, we can just recognize that this is that silly thing we haven’t cured yet, acknowledge it, say goodbye to it, and get on and load the washing machine.

We have to do this over and over and over again of course.  It’s just another little habit we can learn.  We can teach ourselves this habit of dismissing negative thoughts.  Just like we can teach ourselves to be organized. 

It’s one of those things which may not come naturally to us, may not be easy to learn and establish as a habit, but is well worth the effort.

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