Anyone else noticed how much information is available to help us get organized? Countless books and magazines everywhere you look. (That is except in the public library in the city in which I live, but that is another blog.) But there are countless books available at any bookstore and magazines dedicated solely to the subject.
If you notice, every month on the newsstand, you can find one, if not more, magazines with an article about organizing something, and in January, it seems that entire magazines are devoted to the topic. A person could experience “information overload.”
Well, no surprise that January is National Get Organized month. Admittedly, this is a great month for the focus; after all, we are cleaning up from Christmas, rearranging the furniture, etc after the Christmas tree is down, making New Year’s resolutions, setting goals, establishing the yearly budget, clearing out files to do tax returns and the list goes on.
But maybe we should call it National Get Ready to Get Organized month. With all the above things to do, it seems that January should be a planning month with the intent to initiate the plans in February ~ when we get past all that January requires.
So-o-o-o now that you are disappointed in yourself for fudging on those New Year’s resolutions, laboring over a new budget, and frustrated that you cannot find all your tax information, let’s regroup.
1) Stop fretting that you didn’t get organized this month. You didn’t get into your mess in one month; you won’t get out of it in one month.
2) Set goals or revive those resolutions that you made. Think of January as your planning month. You may, or may not, be surprised to learn that every month during the year has a day, week or an entire month designated for awareness of organizing some area of our lives. For example, besides January being National Get Organized Month, it is also Clean Out Your Closet Month. February has Clean Out Your Computer Day, and the list goes on. If you bite your organizing off one area each month, you can avoid overwhelm and accomplish a great deal.
3) Join me at the beginning of each month to “walk and talk” about that month’s organizing project and some ideas on what you can work on to get organized in a year.
4) Meanwhile, work on your mindset. No amount of organizing information, organizing system, consulting or coaching will help you get and stay organized until you determine in your own mind that being less stressed, operating more efficiently and effectively, finding energy you thought you didn’t have and redeeming time for the people who are important to you is this year’s top priority. What is it you really want? Is this another year to just talk about taking charge of your life? Or is this the year to get organized?
You may think that you won’t stick with this for a whole year, but you can if you bite this off one month at a time.
