Getting organized doesn’t have to be scary

Maybe you’ve tried a million times before.

This time, I’m going to do it right. This time, I’m going to stay on track. This time, I’ll be good.

And yet again, you end up feeling disappointed and frustrated. The feelings turn into a story you tell yourself:

I can’t keep it together like everyone else. I’m not good enough. What’s wrong with me?

Then the self-defeating talk keeps you from trying new ways to manage things, and on and on the cycle goes.

Most of us have an intuitive sense that the world is asking more and different things of us these days, a feeling that things are speeding up or getting more overwhelming. You might feel more tired, more scattered, more agitated, more numb. But even if we acknowledge that, a lot of us then start playing the comparison game:

Well, she looks like she has it all together, so why can’t I even cook dinner tonight?

This is easy for everyone else, so I must just be really bad at it if I’m not understanding it right away.

Sure, the world’s getting busier, but that’s just life - you have to keep up, and your coworkers are doing fine.

But the cognitive demands of modern life are unusually intense - we’re having to use our brains in different ways than before, keeping track of more information, filtering out more noise, marshaling more motivation to cut through the distractions and do the boring but necessary tasks. It can be quite literally exhausting, since the brain uses a proportionately large amount of the energy we take in via food each day. Focusing means a lot of heavy mental lifting to sort through the onslaught of things vying for our attention. For a lot of people, the strategies that worked before don’t work as well now that the fire hose of information is turned on 24/7.

The good news: getting a better grip on things doesn’t have to mean banging your head against the same wall again and again and perpetuating that feeling of frustration. Remember that old adage, work smarter, not harder? With a little insight into how our brains process information plus a little creativity, we can start to find more effective strategies to stay grounded and feel less out of control of our lives. “Organized” isn’t a final destination, and it doesn’t look the same for everyone - what organized looks like to you depends on your priorities.

If you could imagine feeling more in control of your life, which things would be different?

What’s something that, if you could feel more capable at managing it, you just know you’d feel more confident overall?

What tasks would you most want to pay someone else to do, if you had the budget?

Getting organized with an executive function coach is a zero-shame space - because it’s about what works for you, and what makes your life feel more manageable. It’s a process of identifying the particular stuck points getting in your way, problem-solving new ways to approach modern life’s new problems, and building the skills and confidence to move forward. Along the way, there’s a chance to rewrite some of those old comparison stories. There is no one-size-fits-all idea of “the right way” or “the way you should be able to do the thing” and you aren’t broken. When you have the right tools, you can get more organized, and you can see setbacks and challenges as the learning and growth opportunities they are.

Maybe your organized means the mess is contained in bins and baskets instead of living in a pile on your desk; maybe your organized looks like keeping the important things visible and front-of-mind even if it makes your desk a little messier.

Maybe your organized is setting a regular schedule of time in the library and you get work done some of the time rather than none of the time; maybe your organized is learning to be more flexible with yourself so when you don’t make it to the library, it doesn’t derail your whole day.

Maybe your organized looks like offloading your least favorite chore to your partner in exchange for you picking up one of theirs that you find easier; maybe your organized looks like finding ways to make mundane chores feel more exciting and worthwhile.

And maybe your organized looks like getting fresh ideas and the direction and support you need instead of feeling discouraged yet again.