3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys to Getting Organized and Staying that Way

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Even though we might never be perfectly organized, most of us are satisfied to be just organized enough. Just organized enough to find what we need when we need it. Just organized enough not to panic when last-minute company is headed our way. Just organized enough for things to run smoothly.

Most days, anyway.

Luckily, this isn't an impossible dream. Here are three key ingredients to getting organized and staying that way.

Styles. Identify them. Embrace them. Use them. Once we identify our styles, we automatically pay more attention to them, which leads us to experimenting with strategies that work for us. Embracing our styles allows us to let go of the guilt and shame that often accompany organizing in non-traditional ways. Once we do this, we can channel that wasted energy into actually getting organized instead of lamenting our organizational struggles.

Habits. Identifying our styles and putting them to work helps us to build new habits -- habits that take what we already do and use it to our advantage. Knowing that I'm a drop and run organizer helps me to catch myself in the act. Choosing tools that embrace this tendency (bins without lids, for example) leads me to dropping things where they belong. Voilà! A new organizational habit. Best of all, each successful habit can form the foundation for others just like it.

Confidence. For those of us who've long struggled with organization, this can be the toughest of the three. Luckily, the first two ingredients are the catalyst for this one. Once we embrace our styles, viewing them not as stumbling blocks but as something we can use to our advantage, we become more confident in the way we do things. The more our strategies work, the less we care about what doesn't work, no matter how many other people swear by those strategies. Confidence in yourself is the fuel you need to succeed, in organization and in everything else.

And, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times.

It's a process.