Expectations of Being Organized

Set realistic, achievable goals for organizing your home or office space. It doesn’t need to look like a magazine cover—just better, more productive than today.

Businessman Looking to SunsetSet realistic, achievable goals for organizing your space.

There are lots of magazines and books and TV shows that show pristine rooms and offices and clear, uncluttered desks—the pinnacle of cleanliness. Not coincidently, there are also no people in those pictures. There is no work actually being done. That isn’t reality. In the real world people have papers on their desks when they are working. Sometimes they have a few items that they are actually using in the course of a business day. And that’s okay! So let’s set some realistic expectations about what you can hope to achieve in the world of getting organized.

Don’t expect to achieve the cover of a book or a magazine by the process of getting organized. That is not what we are going for. Of course a clear, clean aesthetic is great—don’t get me wrong. But setting that as a goal for yourself can be so daunting as to overwhelm you and make you give up altogether. Shoot for better than things are today; more productive than things are today; less clutter than things are today. Any improvements you can make can have a dramatic effect on your productivity. Look for the things that you can do that are realistic for you. Believe me: any progress is good progress and can help you get toward being better organized.

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