As a rule people don’t suddenly become disorganized. It takes time to develop bad habits that lead to a habitually disorganized lifestyle. Many of these unproductive habits are lifelong, seeded in childhood and developed in maturity.
A good many may have started because of your environment, unconsciously acquired by mimicking those around you. However, you do have the power to change, if you desire. This will allow you to better control your life, instead of always feeling you are ‘out of control’.
If you are a disorganized person, then you will need to replace those bad habits that took years to cultivate, with new ones. Developing the necessary good habits requires you to motivate yourself. If you are to become organized you need to plan ahead and prioritize your tasks.
Here are some signs that can indicate you are living a disorganized life, one that can be improved with personal application. Improving any of these areas will have flow-on effects, small improvements in all areas will be life-changing, for the better.
Procrastination
It is a sign that you are procrastinator if you are continually putting things off and you are unable to make decisions. As a procrastinator, you are disorganized and frequently find yourself overwhelmed with stacks of work and unsolved problems.
It puzzles you that you spend hours at your desk, yet your work never seems to diminish. Your desk is cluttered with half-completed projects and your record of missed deadlines depresses you. Your life remains static and you become frustrated because you are continually passed over for promotion or recognition.
If you are disorganized you are always “waiting for the right time to act”. This serves as a good excuse to explain why you keep putting things off. Over the years you have even convinced yourself that this is true. This frees you from feeling guilty about your disorganized, possibly chaotic, lifestyle.
Never On Time
When you are unpunctual and often late for appointments, sometimes missing them completely because you have the wrong day – you cannot claim to be organized, and on top of things.
Your lack of organization means you are almost always late. This impediment has an adverse effect not only on yourself but on the life of everyone who is involved with you. It affects the trust others have in you.
Relationships Suffer
You may have trouble maintaining steady lasting relationships. Friends and partners will get tired of your lateness and broken promises. As hard as you try you may never seem to be able to take control of your life. You envy other people in your group because everything seems to be easy for them. They never appear to be rushed, stressed or overwhelmed. Their organizational skills are beyond your understanding, and you seem to lack the ability to emulate them.
Cluttered Environment
A cluttered, untidy home is a very visible sign that you live a disordered life. You seem to be always forgetting where you put things. This happens because you rarely put things back in the right place. The truth is, disorganized people seldom plan dedicated right places to keep their goods in to begin with.
This results in them never being able to find the important things they need, when they are needed most. Items they cannot do without, such as their keys and phone.
When the home is always in disarray, disorganized people rush around shoving things out of sight into drawers and cupboards. This occurs regularly especially when they are expecting visitors. For the moment this gives the home a semblance of tidiness.
Their idea of a tidy home is out of sight out of mind. However bulging cupboards that spill their clutter every time the door is opened is a sure sign of bad organization skills.
Health Suffers
Your health often suffers because of bad nutrition and lack of sleep. Coming home tired and dispirited you find it difficult to face the messy disaster your kitchen has become.
You find it so much easier to just have junk food in front of the television, then falling asleep and waking to find you have spent another uncomfortable night on the sofa.
Things Won’t Change On Their Own
History is about to repeat itself, your closet is in such a jumble that it takes ages to find a clean shirt. Then you have to spend time finding the iron to iron it. When you eventually find your car keys it won’t start because you have forgotten to get petrol. All you want to do is go back to bed, close your eyes, and hope your life improves sometime soon.
If you want things to change for the better, you have to instigate changes yourself. No amount of idle wishing will make a jot of difference, but incremental improvements, over time, will add up to a life where you know you control your time, and your outcomes.
