Organization – How do you keep motivated and not lose faith?

Entry #85, May 10th, 2010

One of the most daunting tasks to many people is organization.  It’s not because they can’t physically do it, it’s because they mentally lose motivation and psyche themselves out of it. Uncluterrer has an article on what to do when you can’t get yourself back into the organized mode.  It happens to all of us .. yes, even me.

Keep Things in Perspective:

• Failure only happens if you never recover. If your system falls to pieces but you eventually get things back in order, you
  

  Keep your motivation and your sanity, organization takes practice

  simply learned a lesson. You only fail when you give up entirely and abandon all uncluttering and organizing efforts for the rest of your life. You’re not failing; you’re learning.

• Being organized takes practice. You wouldn’t play a musical instrument or a sport like a professional if you hadn’t put in hundreds of thousands of hours practicing, so don’t expect professional organizing results without years of practice.
• Who cares?! Unless your health or welfare are at risk, being disorganized is not the worst thing in the world. Watch 30 minutes of the national news to help put things in perspective.
• Embrace the mess. Since you will eventually get off your bum and get back to an organized existence, take a day (or seven) and enjoy the chaos. At least temporarily, let go of the stress.

Embrace the mess.

Find Motivation:

• Determine why you want to be organized. As I’ve written in the past, if you don’t know why you want to be organized and clutter free, you’re going to struggle with every attempt you make to be an unclutterer.
• Ask for help. Call a friend and ask him/her to help you get your project started again. If you don’t want your friends to see your place a mess, call in a professional organizer.
• Plan a party. Nothing gets me moving faster than knowing there will be people coming into my house. Plus, the reward is that when your space is orderly, you get to celebrate with a party!
• Acknowledge that you’re procrastinating. I don’t know why this works, but simply admitting to yourself that you’re avoiding a task can help get you motivated to change. Check out “Eight strategies to stop procrastinating” for tips on what to do next.
• Plan your project. As you would a project at work, plan your entire uncluttering and organizing project to help you get back on track. Pull out your calendar, determine the scope of your project, create action items, and block off time each day to reach your goal. Being specific (and realistic) about what you will want to accomplish helps to alleviate the overwhelming Cloud of Doom and realize you can get things back to normal.

For the rest of this article visit Uncluterrer.

TIP: Take your time! If you aren’t a organized person by nature, take small steps so it won’t be overwhelming.