This One Thing is The Key to Successful Organization

Is being organized a lost cause for you? Has the key to successful organization eluded you? Have you decided to give up and embrace disorganization as a sign of your genius?

To organize or not to organize seems like the endless debate. Everyone has an opinion—and a system to go along with it. There is no shortage of organizing systems and each claims to be the right method, the one that will banish your organizing challenges forever. So how do you choose? Or do you just throw up your hands and concede defeat?

Is there really a right way and a wrong way to get organized? I grew up in an organized home. My parents had a place for everything—and everything pretty much was always in its place. My father was an engineer and a Marine; he was also a DIY guy. He kept his workbench precisely organized. He always knew where to find everything. That also meant I always knew where to find everything. No excuses for not having the right tool to finish my chores.

I’m pretty sure I got my love of containers from my mother. She had a container for everything. A while back I reconnected with an old friend on Facebook. One of the first things he shared was remembering how my mother had little bins—with labels on them—for all the crackers in the cupboard (it’s true). She was uber organized—and she still is. A cross-country move after her retirement involved color-coded and numbered boxes with corresponding inventory lists. My move at about the same time did involve neatly labeled boxes. No inventory lists, though. My excuse was that I still had three kids at home and a small zoo to relocate. I thought I was doing well to have actually packed everything in boxes.

When I got married and moved into a home of my own, I wanted it to be organized. My husband came from a different organizing philosophy, though, and it caused some conflict while we figured it all out.

And as we worked things out, we learned an important lesson:

 Being organized means different things to different people.

With that in mind, then, how does anyone get organized?

What is the key to successful organization?

You need to figure out what organized means to YOU.

It’s that simple. Or not. This isn’t about what the organizing expert of the week says is the sure-fire method to control the clutter and liven up the laundry room. This is about learning what organized feels like and looks like to you.

Before you head to the store to invest again in organizing supplies and containers, take a time out and ask yourself why you want to be organized, what being organized looks like and what an organized life feels like to you. Write it out if you need to. Visualize what it feels like to move through your organized home or office. What does it look like? How does your home or office feel? What is different (better) as a result of being organized? How is being organized improving your life?

Once you’ve answered these questions, then you can make it that way. Without these questions, you’re just going to drop another chunk of change on bins, boxes and containers that will eventually become more clutter and frustration caused by a system that doesn’t work for you.

So, set all the organizing manuals aside and ditch the guilt because you haven’t been able to make all those other organizing systems work. You are not an organizing failure. You will never be successful at living someone else’s life, because you need to live your own life in your own way. And part of living your own life means organizing yourself in a way that works with who you are and how you live.

Now it’s your turn to figure out what organized means to you and then implement it. What is your key to successful organization? Remember, becoming organized is a process. It’s not going to happen overnight. In the beginning, once all the newness wears off, it will be tempting to go back to old comfortable habits. And you’ll change things up more than once as you learn what works and doesn’t work for you.

Do you need some help figuring it out? I can help you get on the right track to finding the organization method that works for you. Message me today or leave a comment below so we can end your organization frustration once and for all. You can find your key and become successfully organized.