Ready, Set, Get Organized!
by Nichola Mitchell
Ready, set, get organized! By Nichola Mitchell (Bsc)HonsPsych, Professional Organizer and Personal Coach
Why is it so difficult to get and stay organized? I want to show you how you can get organized by changing your mindset. Negative thoughts lead to negative energy. You can change these thoughts into positive ones by asking yourself different questions. According to scientists we have over 60,000 thoughts every day, and 80% of these thoughts are negative ones. For example; ‘isn’t organizing boring?’, ‘where do I start? ‘Why can’t I be as organized as (fill in the space), ‘why am I always so unreliable’. These questions can certainly lead to a lack of motivation. By changing the focus of the question, you can introduce positive thoughts into your life.
‘Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers, - Voltaire
For example, instead of thinking ‘isn’t organizing boring?’, ask yourself the question, ‘how can I make this fun? ‘Why am I always so unreliable’, replace with ‘what can I learn from this situation, how can I improve my time management?’
To give you an impetus to start getting organized, list all the things that you are losing due to disorganization:
Time: Rushed mornings, losing keys, documents, running back into the house for items, forgetting to make lunches, kids’ items not ready for their activities.
Money: buying doubles of items you already have, (batteries, pens, etc), losing coupons and gift certificates only to find them when they have expired.
Social life: embarrassed to have friends over? Can you tidy up quickly if someone drops by - does everything in your home have a home?
Now you’re motivated, let’s begin! How can this help me in my battle with the clutter I hear you cry! Habits are formed through repetition. Recent studies show that thinking new thoughts create new neural pathways, (Davidson R. 2005). When we change our thinking from negative to positive, the negative neural paths shrink, while the positive one increase - this is, in effect, the making and breaking of habits. Clearly defining your goals is just one step towards reaching them. Maybe your goal is ‘I want my hallway to be clutter free, not as it is now full of shoes and an overstuffed closet, Your goal therefore is to change the habits of leaving shoes and coats lying around. How do I form habits," you ask? It has been said that after 21 days of replication we can create habits around what we want. Use visual aids, for example a big stop sign upon entry in the hallway. If you have kids, have them make it!! Explain to them what they need to do, (put shoes on shoe rack, hang coats up, put hats and scarves on hooks etc).
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