Post 5
Organize your life
By Trafford R. Cole PsyD

This fourth aspect of taking control is sort of the miscellaneous column. It includes managing our time, our relationships, our free time and simple things like cleaning up the clutter in our home. We will dedicate posts to each of these aspects, but today let’s start with the easy part first, if indeed it is so easy.

Some people are just naturally orderly. Their desk is clean or well organized at work, their house is always neat and in order and they take great care in how they dress and their appearance. There are indications that this has a genetic root. In one instance for example a set of twins were brought up in separate families. Both were obsessively neat – what we would call neat freaks. The first explained this saying: “how could I not be neat, my mother had mirrors everywhere in the home and everything had to spotless. If my room was in disorder I could not eat dinner.” The other twin justified his obsessive neatness saying: “My mother was such a slob that the house was always dirty and I could never find anything. I became neat as a reaction to her sloppiness.”

Some experts believe that the neat freaks and slobs are really two sides of the same medallion. They believe that the neat freak has to have absolute control over their environment because they feel out of control internally and any outward manifestation of disorder sends them in tilt, whereas the slob feels comfortable in the mess because it allows for creativity, and they do not feel the need for external control because they are in control on the inside.

Which are you? For most people clutter in their environment is a sign that they feel out of control. There are rooms in the home that they avoid because they have gotten out of control. They can’t find important papers or files, or they are constantly looking for things and feeling frustration. If this is you then it is time to take action.

Organizing tip # 1
Rather than wait until you have time to clean the whole garage or closet, which you keep procrastinating because it will take hours or days, every time you pass through the garage, or open the closet take one item and put it away. Over time instead of having a mammoth task to perform it will become more manageable.