Why is organizing so important anyway?

Why is organizing so important? This post explains how getting organized can create a positive ripple effect on the rest of your life.

I spend an awful lot of time talking about how to organize around here, but today I wanted to talk a little bit about why I organize and why I think organizing is so important.

Sure, I love the pretty pictures and the lines of neat and tidy items with cute labels. But that’s really only the surface level, the more superficial reasons why I love organizing so much. 

I made a quick video to share an illustration I like to use to explain the real reasons that I think organizing is so important. You can catch it below or keep reading for the written explanation.

Why organizing?

The “Baseline of Crazy”

It’s so much more than pretty bins or color coded everything. The real reason I love organizing so much is because it lowers what I call my “baseline of crazy.”

We all live our lives and start our days with some base level of stress and craziness happening. Whether it has to do with raising kids, pressures at work, tension in family and friend relationships, a significant loss, or something else, we carry these burdens around with us each day, and the circumstances of our lives begin to add to this “baseline” level of stress.

If we’re heading out the door, running late, and realize that we can’t find our phone, we become frustrated and a little frantic because we don’t want to be late, but we also need our device with us during the day… and the crazy level goes up a little bit. 

We make it to work and have to give a presentation. We’re nervous because we don’t like speaking in front of people, and we’re worried that we’re going to forget something important that we needed…and the crazy level goes up a little bit more.

We get an email from someone with bad news or that adds to our ever-growing to-do list…and once again, the crazy level rises.

We get home and need to feed the kids and run everyone to practice and figure out which parent is taking which kid where… and the crazy level rises.

These tricky things in our days keep adding up and adding up until eventually, they overflow. And this can manifest itself in a bunch of different ways.

Sometimes our “overflowing crazy” causes us to snap at our kids or our significant other when we really shouldn’t have, and then we end up feeling badly about it.

Sometimes this overflow makes us break down and feel absolutely miserable.

Sometimes we try to keep the overflow of crazy bottled up, which isn’t healthy either because sometime, in some way, it’s going to come out.

And this isn’t to say that we can never get upset– sometimes it’s helpful to have a good cry! 

But the thing I love about organizing, and the reason I’ve worked so hard at it even though it doesn’t come naturally to me, is that it lowers that initial baseline of crazy in my days and helps me start out on firmer footing. 

And what’s more, organization helps me proactively avoid some of those situations that “raise my crazy level” throughout the day too. 

When I have a spot for my coat and purse and phone and can easily grab them and head out the door, I don’t have to stress about being late.

When my work life is organized, I can have confidence that I have everything I need for my presentation and go out there and kill it.

When we have systems and routines in place at home, everyone can get to where they need to go in the evenings without hassle or stress.

There are always going to be things that we can’t control that raise our level of craziness throughout the day. But when we make organizing a priority and have solid systems in place, we can also avoid a whole lot of craziness, which can cause a positive ripple effect into other areas and allow us to live lives with less stress and more peace. 

The reason I spend so much time writing about organizing and making videos about organizing is because I’ve seen the tremendous benefits of organization in my own life, and I want others to be able to experience those benefits too. 

Our home and life is far (FAR!) from perfect, but it is a lot more manageable now that we have solid organizing systems in place.

Our habits and home organization won’t change overnight, but if we’re willing to be consistent and make small, positive changes each day, we will end up with HUGE results.

Thanks so much for following along! Have a wonderful day!