Have you ever shown up late to a meeting that you forgot about? Have you spent an hour looking for something you lost in your house? Have you ever tried to read something, but couldn’t follow along because of how disjointed it was? Do you constantly feel stressed and overwhelmed by everything you have going on?
Organization may be the solution you are looking for. However, organization must be clear and logical for it to be effective. Organization patterns help you make sense of information that would otherwise be a jumbled mess.
Organization also serves as a blueprint for action. It provides focus and direction to help ensure you achieve a desired outcome.
It may be difficult to see organization applied effectively, but it is apparent when it is lacking. Clear and logical organization creates order out of chaos. It makes you more effective and helps you take control of your life.
“For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.” – Benjamin Franklin
Organization Is Not the End Goal
Organization is a useful strategy for reducing stress, keeping things in order, and providing clarity.
While organizing takes effort, the effort pays off. You’ll be more efficient, wasting less time, effort, and headspace on unnecessary activities. Being organized also helps you track progress so you know where you stand. You can use that information to make informed decisions and drive prioritization.
However, organization is a means to an end. You don’t want to spend too much time organizing. The purpose of organization is to provide order and help you achieve your goals more effectively and efficiently. Organization that distracts you from making progress on your goals is ineffective.
Being organized for the sake of being organized misses the point. Think of organization as a tool that helps you get a job done more effectively. You need to understand what ‘job’ you want to use organization for. Ask yourself, ‘Why do I want to be organized? How will being organized help me reach my goals?’
When you get clear on how organization can serve you, you can take full advantage of its benefits.
“Managing your time without setting priorities is like shooting randomly and calling whatever you hit the target.” – Peter Turla, former NASA rocket designer and time management expert
Organization Is Not an Act, but a Habit
If you want to experience the long-term benefits of organization, getting organized once is simply not enough. While there are immediate benefits after you get organized, disorder and chaos will return in full force if you don’t make organization a habit. Writer, author, and podcaster Meagan Francis said:
“Cleaning and organizing is a practice, not a project.”
The key to making organization work over the long-term is to build systems. Systems provide order and methods you can follow to ensure you stay organized.
You do not want to rely on your brain to keep everything organized for you. There are many things to keep track of and it is easy to forget things. If you are often busy, imagine keeping track of every meeting and activity without a schedule. Putting events down in a calendar is a reliable system. It takes the pressure off your brain to remember everything, and frees up headspace to focus elsewhere.
Building organization systems help you stay on top of things. Thomas Frank, a productivity author, and YouTuber, highlighted a key difference between disorganized people and organized people.
“Disorganized people let life catch them off guard. Organized people are constantly looking ahead and anticipating things before they become urgent.”
Expanding on this, people who organize themselves occasionally are still more likely to get caught off guard by life than people who make organization a habit and build sustainable organization systems.
Think of areas in your life where you have obligations that you want to keep track of. List them out. Look for areas where implementing an organization system could help. This may include your health, relationships, finances, school, work, or projects.
You can build systems to help with almost any area of life, but there is always a trade-off. The more complex your system, the more time and effort is required to maintain it. The goal is to find the right balance of organization that yields the greatest results.
Organization Applied
How can you build an organization practice in your life? You can start by learning from the professionals: chefs and organizers. With an understanding of essential organization concepts and principles, you can apply them in areas of your life that need organizing.
Mise-En-Place – In their kitchens, professional chefs respect the French culinary concept of mise-en-place, which translates to “everything in its place.” In kitchens, mise-en-place refers to organizing the ingredients and tools needed for cooking before you begin. For example, chefs chop and measure all the vegetables before they start cooking. It also includes putting things back when you are done with them. Implementing mise-en-place transforms cooking from a disorganized scramble to an orderly process.
Mise-en-place can be applied beyond kitchens as well. It is a state-of-mind that creates order out of chaos. The essence of mise-en-place remains the same wherever you use it. Upfront planning and preparation facilitates successful processes down the line.
Mise-en-place requires self-discipline and thinking ahead. When you respect its value and implement it in your life, it will help you plan in advance, streamline processes and become more efficient, and feel more in control.
An excerpt from NPR on mise-en-place that sums it up nicely:
“Practiced at its highest level, mise-en-place says that time is precious. Resources are precious. Space is precious. Your self-respect and the respect of others are precious. Use them wisely.”
S.P.A.C.E. – Professional organizers help others build and maintain organizational systems by teaching them the principles of organization. Julie Morgenstern, author of Organizing From The Inside Out, coined the acronym SPACE to help communicate the principles of organization.
While most often applied to organizing places in your home, SPACE can be used more broadly.
- Sort – Sorting is the process of arranging things systematically. Think how you can categorize similar items.
- Purge – One way to make organizing easier is to reduce how much you have to organize. At the extreme, this could turn into minimalism, but practically speaking, look for ways to simplify. At home, this could be donating clothes you no longer wear. At work, this could be archiving files you no longer use.
- Assign a Home – Assigning a home means a place for everything, and everything in its place (mise-en-place). Building off of purge, it is easier to assign a home for everything when you have fewer things you need to assign. You’ll always know where something is and where it goes when you’re done.
- Containerize – Find a suitable storage container for what you are trying to organize after you’ve sorted and purged. You will want your storage to be accessible so you can find what you need when you want it.
- Equalize – Once you have a system in place you need to evaluate how well it is working. If it is not working well do not be afraid to experiment and adjust it. It does not make sense to blindly accept conventional or popular organization strategies if they do not work for you. You won’t have a perfect system on day one, but as you gain experience you can make iterative improvements until it works for you.
Organization may come naturally to you or it may take work, but the benefits are there if you choose to embrace it. Organization isn’t a one-and-done task; it is a lifelong endeavor. Building organization habits takes time, but you can learn and improve as you go. Once you commit to organization you’ll gain greater control over your life and priorities. You will find that things that caused you stress are now easier to manage. Organization may not be the end goal, but it can help you accomplish your goals, effectively and efficiently.
Footnotes:
- YouTuber Thomas Frank does a good job covering habits of organized people and how you can implement them in your life.