Having organised habits is great, as habits are at the core of most of the things we do, especially if we are organising or are trying to live an organised life.

Most of the information I write comes back to a few basic principles the basics of organising which consists out of: Decluttering, Cleaning and Organising but when we go beyond this we enter what I call the psychology of organising. This is interesting stuff that is often hidden from us. We can however raise awareness of our psychological processes and with it our ability to organise. As well as an understanding of what we can do to increase our organisation in our lives. We do this by learning about our organising habits, creating deliberate habits and by our routines or by consciously creating routines in areas that don’t work.

Hands nurturing a seedling which symbolizes habits

Some backgrounds on habits

We live in interesting times popular books on habits abound. There is more research released every year about the link between habits, psychological well-being and neuroscience. All of them impact our ability to be successful or more productive. We can go into heavy academic literature on neuroscience and psychology. Instead, I suggest we distil the few simple principles which could lead to amazing psychological and practical successes in our daily organising efforts.

In this section, I will focus on organising habits and how these organising habits can lead to routines which help and support us live an organised life.

Some literature on habits

Let's look at what others have to say:

Regina Leeds mentions in her book One year to an Organised Life that; we all already have habits and we follow these habits in a system with the “fervor of a religious zealot”. Are they all very beneficial habits? Probably not.

The good news is, as Charles Duhigg in the Power of Habit points out, is that;

"if we understand habits a bit more, it could mean we can change some of them to get more positive results in our lives".

Definition of organised habits

My definition of a habit is a simple task we do either because we chose to do this or because, we are used to it.

Some of these behaviours you have deliberately chosen, others semi unconsciously developed as your life unfolded.

Think about drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning, going for your daily coffee or having a smoke, they are all examples of simple habits that we have gotten into.

How habits work

There are a few basic principles at play in a habit; this is a trigger, the actual habit (activity) and the reward as mentioned by Charles Duhigg (2014).

Negative Habits - Positive Habits

Any habit can be positive or negative for example you could smoke or fold your laundry, the loop or trigger and reward remains the same. If we are not aware of the trigger and reward it might create a situation in which we engage in a habit without realizing why.

This is interesting and powerful stuff because you could analyse what you think and feel for example before you want to organise your wardrobe, paperwork, do your finances or simply organise your bedroom or kitchen. Once we can label the feeling we can alter our behavior as a responds to this and think of a reward that appeals to us.

In the example of positive behavior the person sees the pile of laundry, their organised habit is to fold for 5 minutes and then have a double reward the sense of completion of this job and a cup of tea which they enjoy.

How to use organised habits to become and remain organised in life

Moral of the story is, start to become aware of your Habits and what triggers them. Once you have some more awareness around them find a reward that is appealing and change the habit if you need to. Over time you will find yourself responding differently to triggers like; a pile of laundry, needing to pay bills or organise your budget or even stress and overwhelm which are all very natural feelings when organising and decluttering. You can get past them through learning more, thinking about your internal and external environments and trialing different techniques to see what works for you.

Do you like this stuff?

In the Secret to organising I not only give you a mini course and worksheet on where to start organising. I also unpack the complicated system that can make or break your decluttering and organising efforts into a life changing tool - Sign up below.

Why are routines and habits so useful?

They create a frequency and an actual space in your day to do them. It also short cuts or limits (on most occasions), the chatter that states; I don’t feel like it. We just know it is morning and in the morning we do a set number of things in a particular order end on a positive note like getting a cuppa or reading a book.

If you think about it, everyone has habits and routines. Why not try to deliberately create some for yourself this week? Start simple and work your way up. What would make the most impact on your day or week, if you could do this on autopilot? Finally, note to give new habits and routines time to settle in. It takes a minimum of 21 days for things to become second nature with days 7 to 14 being the hardest, because, we might not feel like it. This time, however, we are not going to let that stop us - are we?