How to Organize for Optimal Growth

I used to teach high school, and that job taught me more about how people operate than any psychology course did. There's a common assumption that grades come down to raw intelligence. In my experience, what a student actually does day to day matters far more. A kid who shows up angry, checked out, or looking for trouble will usually stall out. A kid who is curious, driven, and willing to pay attention tends to climb. But all of that becomes irrelevant the moment someone forgets the homework, loses the notebook, or blows past a due date. If I had to name the single behavior most tied to success, I'd name organization.

Plenty of brilliant people are a mess, of course. Look at photographs of Albert Einstein's desk on the day he died and you'll see that insight can bloom in total chaos. Still, when I sat across from the parents of a struggling student, the advice I found myself giving again and again was simple: help your child get organized. The kids who were drowning were the ones who had to dig through a backpack to find yesterday's assignment, wadded up somewhere at the bottom. Homework went undone. Textbooks vanished. Getting them to keep usable notes felt about as likely as Einstein tidying that desk.

So I shifted what I was trying to do. Instead of leading with the subject matter, I decided the first thing worth teaching was organization itself, as a skill and a habit people should actually respect.

Most of you reading this aren't sitting in a high school classroom, though you might be a student yourself, or raising one. The point holds regardless. Building organizational habits and keeping them up pays off across the board, whether the problem area is schoolwork, your job, your home, or every one of those at once. Putting things in order and ranking what matters first moves you toward the goals you set.

Being organized signals a certain kind of self-awareness. I don't mean organized people are inherently more capable at any given task. What they tend to do is notice where they fall short and build systems to cover the gaps. Yes, a few people are blessed with sharp memories and a natural love of tidiness, but most organized people lean on calendars, planners, notebooks, whiteboards, bins, folders, whatever works. Hitting a target like paying bills on time or arriving when you said you would usually requires scaffolding. No mail sorter, no auto-pay, no email reminder, and the bills slip. No calendar, no alarm, no honest estimate of how long it takes to get out the door, and you'll be late.

Some people resist the whole idea, saying they haven't got the time or the energy for it. The irony is that organization gives time and energy back. And the benefits bleed into the rest of your life. Organized people are more likely to:

Carry less stress and feel less low. One study found that women who felt stressed by clutter and half-finished projects at home reported more depression and showed higher cortisol, the hormone tied to stress.

Eat better. People with cluttered desks reached for candy more often, while those with cleaner desks tended to grab a piece of fruit instead.

Stick with exercise. Working out demands both willpower and planning. Organized people set goals they can actually reach, budget their time, and hold to a routine.

Keep stronger relationships. Flakiness wears on friendships when you keep forgetting plans or showing up late. It strains partnerships too, especially when the other person craves more order. Living in constant clutter can breed shame, friction, and quiet resentment.

Get more done. When there's too much in front of you, the visual cortex gets overloaded and focus suffers. A cleaner setup means less wasted time.

Rest better. Fewer late nights working means more time to wind down and turn in early, or at least not drag yourself up before dawn to finish something before the day even starts. People carrying fewer loose worries fall asleep faster and stay asleep, since their minds aren't racing.

Buying a stack of folders and bins and dumping everything inside won't do it. You have to set goals and grow into the kind of person who stays organized. The behaviors have to harden into habits. Here are a few tricks to get moving. With practice they fold into your routine.

1. Set goals. Organized people aim at something. They know what they're after and how they'll get there. Naming the goal, tracking progress, and checking how you're doing is an ongoing mindset, and it drives growth.

2. Keep a calendar and set alarms. I run three calendars and I'm about to add a fourth. One sits in a central spot for doctor visits and family logistics, another lives as reminders and alarms on my phone, a third handles work on my computer, and soon my husband and I are starting SCRUM (go look it up) to coordinate better.

3. Go through your mail every day. Don't let 496 unread emails sit in your inbox. Don't let the junk pile grow by the front door. Handle what matters, reply when you can, and toss the rest. Get a letter organizer, and for email, use color codes to flag how urgently something needs an answer.

4. Plan ahead. Work by the day, the week, or the month. Each month, look at what's coming and arrange a babysitter or request time off. Big presentation on the horizon? Get ready for it. Set yourself up for tomorrow the night before, and write a to-do list (it helps you sleep).

5. Keep your space clean. Every day, put away what you've finished with. Return things to your desk, wipe down the kitchen, clear the kids' toys (make them pitch in), hang up your clothes. Don't burn time hunting for things.

6. Let go of perfection. A lot of procrastination comes from not being able to tolerate flaws. Move on. Sometimes good enough has to be good enough, because an unfinished project just piles onto the backlog and the disorder.

7. Keep up with your life. This part is about preparation. Go to your wellness checkups. Fix the broken fan or the dead light fixture. Get your will sorted. Keep your finances in order. Emergencies don't announce themselves, so be ready for the ones you can't predict. Staying on top of things lets you and the people around you deal with the mishap at hand instead of the backlog of things you ignored.

Melissa Lavery, M.S.

References: Fowler, P. (2015, January 29). How Cleaning and Organizing Can Improve Your Physical and Mental Health. Retrieved March 13, 2015. Philben, D. (n.d.). 20 Daily Habits Of Highly Organized People. Retrieved March 13, 2015.