Procrastination is the Enemy of Organized Living

You may think procrastination is harmless. But it's not! Minor delays in decision making can have painful consequences for organized living.

The lasting effects of procrastination are that later turns into never!

If you think of yourself as unorganized or if you think of your every day life as “out of control” it could be a matter of neglecting to make timely decisions! You could be procrastinating!

Did you know that delayed decision making is a decision in and of itself?

Whenever you put off making a decision about what to do with something or “where to put it” you have in fact engaged in the decision making process and made a decision to do nothing! And every time you delay a decision about where to put something or how to handle a piece of personal business you are neglecting your obligations.

You cannot achieve control when the necessary decisions are delayed... or if decisions are never made.

If you want to achieve control through organized living.......

One of the habits of highly organized people is that they make timely decisions for those "little" things that come up in everyday life. Highly organized people do not procrastinate.

Highly organized people are aware that not making decisions in a timely way can result in the painful consequences of clutter, mess, and emotional stress.

Leaving small decisions unmade at the time they are needed means that you end up with a lot of decisions that that are waiting to be made. Not making a decision at the time the decision is needed does not make it go away, the decision is just delayed.

A habit of procrastination will only make needed decisions pile up. Eventually you will feel completely overwhelmed by the number of small decisions that need to be made and you might even make the decision to make no decision at all.............and so the cycle of procrastination continues!

Every piece of paper cluttering your desk, every piece of clothing on the floor, every piece of unopened mail represents a delayed decision. You cannot control anything if you do not make timely decisions.

The television show Clean Sweep highlights interventions with participants who have volunteered to undergo an organizational makeover. The professional organizer on the show, Peter Walsh, is very strict about forcing quick decision making.

He will often give a very tight time line for the show's participants to make decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. This provides the pressure necessary to force the decisions that need to be made. Up until this point participants in the show have been masters at delaying decisions so unless some pressure is exerted the usual pattern of procrastination will prevail.

Peter Walsh knows that most decisions necessary to achieve control can be made within a few minutes. Making these decisions at the time they come up is very important in gaining control. It is the accumulation of a lot of little decisions that overwhelms people.

Sometimes a necessary decision is as simple as where should this be filed? Once that decision is made, actually filing the item should take no more than 15 seconds.

Of course if you do not have a place specifically designated for filing that item..........well that just complicates everything and actually promotes procrastination. (See the principle for organized living A Place for Everything.................)

As you can see, many of the principles for developing effective habits for organization are interdependent. Not following one imperative will affect your ability to follow the others.............and on it goes.

The general principle would read something like this:

Once you get used to doing this you will be amazed at how quickly you can do things and you will notice that the to do list that constantly runs through your head will disappear.

So when it comes to those many decisions that need to be made for organized living how do you overcome procrastination?

One of the keys to overcoming procrastination is to set priorities. People who procrastinate often assign the same level of importance to everything. Then they are completely overwhelmed and cannot make a decision because they have so many important things to do!

You cannot make decisions and get things done if you assign the same level of importance to everything. Some things are simply more important that others and your set of priorities will be different from those of others around you!

Prioritizing is an essential skill for organizing.

Prioritizing is simply making a decision about what is important to you. Following that decision you simply then rank the level of importance.

An organized life requires a lot of decision making and you cannot make a decision without setting priorities. Once you have your priorities identified decision making becomes easier as the most important things will need to be decided upon first.

Don't know where to start? Try This!

If you want to live a life that is more organized and more in control here is a quick way to get some clarity in your everyday priorities.

1. Sit back and take some time to think about your home.


2. What rooms do you feel need the most attention in order to bring them under control? - make a list eg family room, garage, kitchen, etc


3. Make three columns on a piece of paper and label each column with the following headings

utmost importance

somewhat important

not at all important

Take each item from your list and place it in a category of importance. If you wind up with everything listed in the "utmost importance" column you are having difficulty with prioritizing. Not everything is of the same importance. You will not be able to live an organized life if you assign the same level of importance to everything.

So if you are looking at your list and the "utmost importance" column is the longest do it again! You did not prioritize. Everything cannot be at the same level of importance!

This time be brutal with setting the level of importance.

Ask yourself why this space is of utmost importance.What are the consequences of demoting it to a lower level of importance? Try to put only those things in the utmost importance column that:

• carry a risk that is....if you do not get to it then there could be some consequence in terms of safety, health, or financial risk


• would reduce your stress level on a daily basis if it was taken care of. Developing inner peace is always important!

Take a look at your list.

Forget about anything in the not important column.....this is small stuff don't sweat it! It is not important to you anyway. Cross it off and put it out of your mind.

Now do this whole process over again, except this time instead of thinking about rooms or spaces think about daily processes and do the same thing with the three columns.

Instead of writing down rooms or spaces you will be writing down things or processes that you want to bring under control such as kid's toys, mail, computer files, DVD collection, photo collection, making lunches, whatever................you get the idea!

Take a look at what is in the utmost importance column in each of your lists..................that is where you will start!

Are you worried about making the wrong decision?

Do not procrastinate just because you are afraid of making the wrong decision. Your goal is not to make the right decision, but rather to get the matter decided and move on!

Nobody makes the right decision every time a decision is made. But if a decision is never made you will never know if it is a good decision or not.

Not making the decision is never the right thing to do. It only delays the inevitable.

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