Getting organized sucks

My mother always used to say, “Someday, I’m going to get organized,” but she never did — not at home. The house was always a mess. At work? That was another story.

Mom started out as a waitress, then a cook, then she managed an executive dining room and an employee cafeteria in a large airline headquarters, and finally owned two restaurants herself. You can’t do that without being organized. But at home, forget about it. It was like night and day.

Naturally, I carried on in the family tradition. On the job, my desk was nice and neat, and I always straightened up my office before I was done for the day. Once I got home, I felt like I had already put in a day’s work — and then some. Why should I have to clean house too? I’m sure that’s how my mother felt as well.

I suspect this sounds familiar to a lot of you.

But the house is always there waiting for us, with all the stuff inside, requiring cleaning or putting away or maintaining, whether we like it or not. [I’ve heard there are people who like housework, but I’ve never met one.]

Back in the 60s, a wonderful writer named Peg Bracken wrote a hilarious — and subversive — book called, The I Hate to Housekeep Book. I was a depressed young housewife at the time and that book changed my life.

Peg’s book made a revolutionary statement:

Most things don’t need to be done perfectly, and some things don’t need doing at all.

In other words, lower your standards on the things that aren’t important to give yourself time and energy for the things that are.

Since my standards weren’t that high to begin with, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The pressure I felt to live up to some ideal of pre-feminist womanhood had been unbearable. Bracken was giving me permission to be imperfect. I looked around me with new eyes and allowed myself the luxury of not doing the things I really hated to do.

Of course, I got a little carried away with that. Dishes do need to be done once in a while. Sometimes you just have to vacuum. And that pile of laundry isn’t going anywhere until you fold it and put it away. [But hey — at least you washed it, right?]

A popular saying these days goes like this: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I like that.

There’s got to be a middle way between being perfectly organized and being a complete flake. Because the more I think about getting organized, the less appealing it sounds. It’s not that I wouldn’t like everything to be where I can find it. But the reality of what it takes to actually get there sounds terrifying — it means having to constantly be doing something. And that sounds absolutely awful.

I was miserable back when I felt worthless as a human being because my house was messy. I don’t want this project of getting organized, and then sharing how I did it on this blog, to make me miserable again.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up. But I want to figure out a way to get things done without sucking all the enjoyment out of life.

How do you feel about getting organized? Does it scare you too? Tell me in the comments below.