When Life Feels Disorganized

Ever feel like your desk, your office, your room, your apartment, or your house is too disorganized? Or that your schedule, your sleep routine, your goals, and your priorities are getting away from you? We’ve all been there. Luckily, meditation isn’t just for sitting well. Meditation can also help with organization.

When your mind is racing a mile a minute, it’s difficult to bring order to your life. If your mind is clogged with all sorts of repetitive, negative thoughts, your surroundings will reflect that.

Meditation is an incredible opportunity to rest, relax, and bring some calm and peace into your mind. A decluttered mind always spills out into the rest of our lives.

Simply sit down, put away distractions, close your eyes, and focus on your breath or repeat a mantra silently. Use a mantra such as “Om” or anything else you like. Do this for a few minutes and just observe the way your mind wanders off.

When it does, gently and without judgment, bring your attention back to your breath or mantra. The more you meditate, the more organized your thoughts become. This is because you’ve given yourself time to look inward and clear out some of the incessant, needless clutter.

The Root Cause of Disorganization

If we have an unorganized desk or room and decide to clean it up, that’s great. But we still have not addressed the root cause of this disorganization. The room or desk will just become disorganized again later, or the disorganization in our mind will manifest in some other way.

It may manifest as a feeling of chaos in our lives, lack of discipline, uncontrollable eating, addictive tendencies, an irregular sleeping schedule, not getting anything done, or something else entirely.

We must always address the cause of any problem in our lives. If we don’t, that unaddressed cause will keep manifesting in new and different ways. Because every choice, action, and habit stems from our mind, that is where we must look first. This is the practice of meditation, and this is why meditation is the best tool for helping with organization.

Working With Your Thoughts During Meditation

Obviously, in meditation, we try to focus on our breath or a mantra. But unless you’re a hermit monk living in a cave for 30 years, lots of thoughts will come and go. That’s okay. That’s actually vitally important for processing what happened yesterday and for making plans for today and tomorrow.

During your meditation, notice how your mind wanders. Be conscious of what it wanders to and if there is something of particular importance you need to work on. Let your mind wander there and focus on what can be done about it.

Oscillate between clearing your mind by focusing on your breath or mantra, and focusing on whatever needs to get done. This will help you think more effectively and with more clarity and calm than you would get from normal efforts of problem-solving.

Step 1) Using Meditation to Plan and Prioritize

Start with a few minutes of meditation, and then, as your mind wanders, guide your focus to your schedule for the day. Really think about what needs to get done. Rank your priorities and visualize yourself getting all the most important things done.

Then finish off with a few more minutes of meditation. This will help you organize your surroundings as well as your days and weeks ahead.

When we can’t focus, our lives feel out of control. Disorganization is one manifestation of that. Don’t worry, though, it’s not your fault. None of us were ever taught how to focus in school. This is also where meditation can come in to help us become more organized.

When we don’t focus, we don’t pay attention to where things go or put them back in an orderly way that will help us save time in the future.

By constantly focusing on our breath or mantra, and when our mind wanders, repeatedly bringing our attention back, we train the muscles of focus in our mind. Soon, our focus will be unshakable, and we will be able to use that focus to bring order and organization into our lives.

Step 2) Clearing Mental Clutter

Secondly, by examining our thoughts, we examine each one of our preconceived notions, and if they serve us, we keep them. If they don’t, we get rid of them.

It’s like cleaning out your room. If you just keep accumulating things, the clutter will pile up so much that there will be no more room for you. So what you need to do is take everything out.

Then look at each item carefully and ask yourself, “Does this add beauty, meaning, or usefulness to my life?” If it does, move it back inside. If it doesn’t add to your life, toss it out. Meditation helps us with organization because it gives us the time we need to look inward and reevaluate what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

Step 3) Setting Intentions After Meditation

Lastly, the end of your meditation can be a wonderful time to set intentions and bring some of that calm, peaceful energy into the rest of your life.

After your meditation is over, but before you open your eyes, spend a few minutes setting your intentions for the day and weeks ahead. Think about your goals and how best to achieve them.

In this relaxed state of mind, during this transition period from meditation to the normal mind, there is a powerful window of time. It’s here when we are able to consciously tap into our subconscious mind and rewire it however we choose.

From Autopilot to Awareness

Don’t just run on autopilot, a slave to the subconscious. Take this time to really think about what you want out of life and what needs to be done today to get it.