More Chaos While Trying to get organized?

I saw a Twitter-tweet recently, “In my attempt to get organized I believe I’ve become more disorganized than before I started.”

It’s quite a strange phenomena indeed, but one that is so common I shouldn’t consider it strange.

See, it often goes like this: When people start to organize an area, it goes from a disorganized mess to what seems like total chaos and then unfolds into an organized area. It’s the cycle of getting organized.

Stopping at the apparent chaos stage is bad. Don’t do that. And, although it’s tempting to run and get away from the scene you created, just keep at it because organization is just around the corner.

I’ve seen this happen time after time, even when I organize someone. Take, for example, a disorganized office. There are piles of paper and miscellaneious stuff all around. You start to sort through the papers and one stack turns into numerous categorized stacks. That can seem like chaos, but it’s really order that looks like a mess.

Eventually, all those now-categorized papers go somewhere (other than staying as piles in view to the world). They go into file folders or filing baskets; they get put into filing cabinets or storage boxes; they are placed into desktop folder holders or action bins.

It’s the putting away so you can find it part that brings total order to disorder. And it’s the last step after all the sorting. So, you’re not far away from a “done” while you’re sorting and creating a bigger mess in the area.

Think of it this way: the mess is just confusion. Confusion is just a bunch of stuff all around and you can’t make heads or tails out of any of it. When you start creating a bigger (but more organized) mess while sorting through the stuff, confusion is just a little more obvious because it’s flying around more (before it was motionless).

That can be overwhelming, so to prevent that, just be sure to focus on what you’re doing, one item at a time. Start with one stack, pick up the first item in that stack, decide what to do with it, and then move on to the next piece.

Pretty soon, whalla! You’ve gone from disorder to order!