The Benefits of Being Organized
Being organized is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. There are so many positive affects to achieving and maintaining an organized home. While I realize that getting organized is an investment, I truly believe that the lasting effects of this process are well worth it! I am a big believer that living in an organized space has a direct affect on many things! Stress levels, overall mood, the ability to think clearly, and feelings of overwhelm, are among the many affects that your space will can have on you. The environment that you live in has huge affects on your overall mental health and well being and can either be a detriment or provide an abundance of peace and tranquility.
How do you feel when you walk int your home? Lets imagine for a second that when you walk into your space the first thing you see is clutter all over our countertops, random papers on your coffee table, dirty dishes in the sink, cabinets full of random items, food in various scattered places, toys all over the floor, etc. This can’t possibly have positive affect on your mental health. Right away, your brain feels constricted, anxiety levels rise, stress becomes apparent, and you feel scattered and overwhelmed. Its completely understandable that your environment could cause such turmoil within your body. How could it not?
What is the purpose of a home? To me, my home is an extremely important piece of the puzzle. It makes an enormous impact on my daily life. As soon as my home is not functioning at an optimal level, I feel it within my bones. The purpose of our home is to create a sanctuary; where we can leave the craziness of daily life at the door and know that we will feel peaceful upon entrance. How can you expect to feel peace if you come home from a long day of work, errands, and all the rest only to be met with a laundry list of chaos in your home?
There is truly nothing worse for me then walking around the space that I live in and not feeling 100% zen. I know what your gonna say; life is busy, its hard, and you don’t have the time to be organized. I will challenge you on that and say that being organized takes up much less of your time then always trying to clean up the mess you are currently living in. Once you have committed to living an organized life and taking the necessary steps to get there, you will come to realize that being organized and maintaining it is MUCH easier then you thought.
Now lets imagine what an ORGANIZED home would feel like. You walk in from a long day at work, kids carpool, traffic; you open your door and you see an empty coffee table, nothing is scattered on your countertops, your sink is clear,, the mail is sitting in a basket labeled “mail”, your slippers r in the same spot they always are, all the toys are either being played with or put away in designated labeled bins. You don’t feel stressed with the amount of clean up you have to tend to, you know where everything is, you know exactly where to hang your clothes back up, everything has a home. It is hard t explain how peaceful I feel because this is how I walk in everyday.
I know what your gonna say. We are human; its impossible to always live this way. To that, I will say the following; yes there are SOME days where you maybe didn’t get a chance to hang your clothes back up or wash the dishes. Here is the difference though, when I get the moment to hang up my clothes I’m not just putting them wherever in hopes of finding them again among the mess in my closet. They are being hung back up in their designated location among a CLEAN & ORGANIZED closet.
Hiring an organizer to come into your home and create lasting systems in your spaces will make your life easier, not harder. You will have clear direction of what goes where. Once your home is set up properly by a professional your requirements are to maintain it. What does that mean? There is really one rule and its pretty simple. Put things back where they belong. Everything in your home, will have a home. All you have to do is maintain that order.
To wrap things up, here is a to do list to get started.
- Pick a space in your home, a small one. It can be as small as one drawer.
- Clear all contents from that space.
- Now go through the items and do the following
- Toss or Donate what you don’t need
(Rule of thumb- if you don’t absolutely love it or absolutely need it, get rid of it.) - Sort everything you are keeping into like categories
- Create a system for these categories, such as labeled bins, drawer
organizers, etc. ( check out my instagram for inspiration @theprojectneat)
- Toss or Donate what you don’t need
- RINSE & REPEAT – do these steps one small space at a time over the course of a few months to a year.
- Enjoy your peaceful home for years to come.