How Getting Organized Will Change Your Life

If you find yourself feeling tired, stressed, guilty and/or overwhelmed, then you need to make a pitstop and read this article. You can learn how to get organized and how to organize your life so that you can eliminate your never-ending to do lists, declutter your life and find more personal joy and freedom.

Why do so many of us feel overbooked and overwhelmed?

Let’s face it, we live in a consumeristic society. Unless you live in a jungle without television or wifi, you are pressured non-stop each and every day to make purchases. You are also pressured by most folks around you to overcommit your time and your mental resources. To top off all of those pressures, the world wide web moves faster than the speed of light and most of us feel like we actually need to keep up!

Are we all going nuts or just racing against our own imaginary finish line? I think neither of these are the actual problem. Simply put, we are natural born pleasers. We want to be nice and please everyone. We also want to be ahead of the game and naturally compete to keep up with the Joneses. When someone asks us to bake two dozen brownies for tomorrow morning, host a gathering this weekend or show up at 5 am to take a friend to the airport, our first inclination is to say, sure, I can do that!

In her book Unstuffed: Decluttering Your Home, Mind, and Soul, Ruth Soukup theorizes that busyness has, in a way, become our idol. Our common standard of action is to be busy so that we can prove that our lives have meaning and are valuable. Ruth says it this way, “We can’t slow down for fear that our lives won’t matter if we do. The busyness gives us purpose, the jam-packed schedule provides meaning to otherwise empty lives. But here’s the truth. A busy life is not a meaningful one.”

If you want to create a more satisfying life with more meaning, you have to eliminate anything that distracts you from living joyfully. Maybe it is a relationship that literally sucks the life right out of your heart or an overbooked schedule that has you running faster and faster and never being able to finish your tasks by the end of each day.

How does decluttering free your life from guilt?

The idea behind decluttering your life is to become free from guilt, free from overwhelm, and free from the expectations of a world clamoring for your time, your money and your inner resources.

When life spirals into a state of disorganization, bills are paid late and schedules become overbooked. The result is that we run behind, let people down, get super stressed and eventually can even become sick. Our immune system is not designed to be under constant stress and can find itself in a state of dis-ease, commonly known as disease.

Can clutter and stress keep you up at night?

As a professional organizer I am saddened to see that more and more of the clients I begin working with initially have sleeping disorders. Many of them are barely sleeping more than a few hours each night. This is alarming and, as an impartial observer, I often see a direct correlation between an overflowing environment, overbooked schedule and sleep deprivation.

As women, we mentally tend to keep track of all things left undone. One of my clients, an amazingly talented marketing director, stayed up almost every night worrying about deadlines she might miss and projects that were literally piled up and waiting for her at work. For the two years up until we met, she was subsisting on 3-4 hours of sleep each night. Even though she worked 60+ hours a week, she still could not get everything checked off her ‘to do’ list. When I looked at her office, desk and later, her home environment, the message was loud and clear. She needed to stop, take inventory and build systems to eliminate the unnecessary and delegate wherever possible.

My client was a living breathing example that shows when your environment is crowded and disorganized, you can’t see the forest for the trees. You can’t make any sense about what you should be doing versus what you should be outsourcing. You especially can’t determine what you should ultimately stop doing. Life and all projects become a blur and therein lies the problem.

What did living on a boat teach me about stuff?

I was blessed and lucky when over a decade ago I named my professional organizing consultancy Add Space To Your Life! After living on a boat and sailing for a living, I became super clear about what was and was not important back on shore. It was never so easy to be crystal clear about what I didn’t want in my life than when I returned from sea and gazed around my apartment. Upon arrival, I realized each and every time that almost nothing I had left behind was important or necessary to my being happy or joyful. In fact, I found that I was more happy when I was out to sea with only a few books and a few pieces of clothing. Life was so very simple. I didn’t have possessions screaming at me for attention and nothing to take care of or keep track of. I lived a simple schedule based on sunset and sunrise.

Years later, after downsizing a home stuffed full of stuff, I know that there is a happy medium. I also now know that once a home is completely organized, it only takes a few minutes to keep it that way. I call it getting to that ‘zero space’ where everything has a home with a yard around it. Where my schedule is manageable and I actually have time to complete pretty much every task on my list. This is my sweet place.

What kind of life do you want to create?

You too can declutter your schedule and your life and create a life that is joyous, relaxed, organized and efficient. A life where there is space in your day to day routine and room for unexpected house guests as well as time for spur of the moment fun adventures and enjoying peaceful dreams at night.

This is my desire for you. I know it is possible when you eliminate the events, people, possessions and environments that keep you stuck in a state of overwhelm and discomfort.

Why should you start by dreaming?

In order to create the life of your dreams, you need to begin by dreaming. Imagine what type of lifestyle would make you feel inspired and joyous. Maybe your new lifestyle would include playing a round of golf or batting a tennis ball around the court once or twice a week? Perhaps it would mean setting up your own personal art studio?

Maybe it would be spending more time with friends relaxing and doing a bunch of nothing (my favorite) or simply puttering about in your garden? Whatever it is that makes you feel relaxed and carefree is what you should envision. Once you have a clear picture of what you want to do, you can then move forward and eliminate or simplify the things you don’t want to do.

Another way of saying it is this: it pays to take a moment to think and dream about your ultimate lifestyle in order to design and organize your life. Once you are crystal clear about what you want your life to look like, you can then begin to improve it.

Improving it will mean putting more systems into place so that your life will run more smoothly. It also means eliminating the ‘busyness’ details that can quickly distract you from creating a life of freedom, joy and a sense of life purpose. You can do this when you become clear minded and create a knowing of what makes you feel happy. Even clients who have families to care for or a job that takes 40-50 hours out of their week have found the path to an organized and simplified life and you can too!

What are the 7 steps to organize your life?

These are the 7 action steps you can take now to create a life that provides a sense of purpose and freedom:

Step one: shift your mind

Take the time to remember and think about what activities in life make you feel happy. Many of us have become so busy in life tasks that it is hard to remember what makes us happy.

If you have difficulty remembering, it will help you to make a list of past events where you felt free and joyous. Thinking about what you did during those times will help you remember how your life felt as you lived through those experiences.

Step two: take control

Now make a list of the things in your life right now that make you feel overwhelmed and out of control. It could be too many hours doing tasks that were assigned to you and that you accepted. It could be a tedious dead-end job. It could be cleaning the house. Whatever it is, make a note and start formulating what you can do to begin to change that circumstance.

Step three: simplify your life

Schedule time each week to do something only for you. It could begin by cleaning out your closet and getting rid of the ‘too small clothes’ that no longer fit and remind you of your younger, slimmer years. It could be enrolling in an art class or scheduling a regular girls night out.

Step four: create systems

Slowly begin to restructure your life so that you have more time for you and less time satisfying and serving others. This might sound a bit self-centered and it is.

Developing systems for where you will store items based on where you use them is a great place to begin. Don’t forget about leaving a ‘yard around’ each new-found home which leaves you room to grow.

Step five: enjoy freedom

Once you have your life optimized by eliminating what you don’t need to do and your home and workspace organized, you will have much more time to do the things that make you happy. In fact, if you are similar to many of my clients, for a short while, you might be at a loss for what you want to do in your spare time. You might have forgotten what hobbies you like or how it feels to simply sit still and watch the sunset.

Step six: live your purpose

The secret to a happy life is this: the happier and more fulfilled you are, the more time, resources and love you will have to give to others!

Giving your time, heart and talents are what you are here to do in the world. Once you have a vacuum of space and time (which comes after getting your life in order) you will be able to think about what activities make you feel joyous and how you can bring your unique talents to help others.

After getting their life organized and simplified, some of my clients switch careers, others have found a place to volunteer that uses their natural gifts and talents. The great thing about using your natural talents is that it is something that you naturally love to do so it is a win-win!

Step seven: experience freedom

The bottom line is that getting your life organized is an opportunity to make a major life shift. You can take inventory, eliminate the unnecessary and create systems that will bring you renewed energy, personal fulfillment and freedom!