Organized People Aren’t Better People…
… they’re just organized, and enjoying the benefits of an organized space!
Being organized is not a moral value. The extent to which your home is organized has no relationship whatsoever with your worth as a person. Bad people can be very organized, and absolutely wonderful people can struggle with disorganization. And this is because, as I say all along, organizing is a set of skills, not a personality trait. Anyone, no matter their values and beliefs, can be organized if they are willing to learn the skills!
Let me say it a different way: being organized doesn’t make you a good person. This is easily confused because when you see someone you admire who is also organized, you attribute their level of organization to all the wonderful traits they have. But you’re seeing the causation in the wrong direction! A wonderful person who is also organized is so much more effective at living out those values and priorities because they’re not wasting precious time and energy dealing with their stuff and their space. The organizing systems are the tools that level up their game, not an innate quality that makes them better.
Organized people are not better people, but they do understand that we get organized so that we can.
So that we can devote time and energy to our families
So that we can pursue our careers with dedication and ambition.
So that we can be more loving and supportive partners.
So that we can fulfill our souls with hobbies and passion projects.
Put another way: being disorganized doesn’t make you a bad person! You may hate that you’re disorganized, and you may be struggling with your priorities because a disorganized space is making everything you do more difficult, but this has absolutely no bearing on your values, beliefs, and worth as a person. You can learn the skills it takes to be organized just like you’ve learned any other skill in your life.
We fall into the assumptions that organized = good and disorganized = bad VERY easily. I have had many couples as clients over the years where the more organized one feels a certain amount of superiority and the less organized one feels guilt and shame. Part of my job is to call this out and remind both people that we are talking about stuff, space, and simple skills, not moral value. In what may be a surprising move, given that I’m a professional organizer, I try to take down the importance of organizing relative to the other wonderful things each person brings to the relationship. Because, as I say all the time, it’s just stuff!
No, really. I’m constantly telling my team, organizing is not rocket science, and it doesn’t have critical importance in anyone’s life! It’s a set of simple skills and habits that, once implemented, enable to us to do all the things that matter to us more quickly and efficiently.
So many people judge themselves harshly because they believe that in order to be a good person they have to be organized. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Get organized so that you can, not in order to measure up to any standard.
LMW
