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

Meditation Helps Organize the Clutter in Your Mind and Your Life

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, our surroundings will reflect that.

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

Simply sit down, put away the 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 judgement 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.

Meditation is Time to Help Organize Your Day, Your Priorities, and Make a Plan

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 ok. 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 between 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.

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 stuff 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.

A Chaotic Mind Leads to a Chaotic Life – Meditation Can Help Organize Both

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 for helping us become more organized. When we don’t focus, we don’t pay attention to where things go or putting 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 to our breath or mantra, 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.

Meditation is a Chance to Reexamine and Reorganize Our Life

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 stuff, the clutter will pile up so much that there’ll be no more room for you. So what you need to do is take everything out of it. Then, look at each item carefully and say to yourself, “does this add beauty, meaning, usefulness in my life?” If it does, move it on 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.

Meditation is Time to Set Intentions and Start Living More Deliberately

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 our lives. 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 goals and how best to achieve them.’

In this relaxed state of mind, during this transition period from meditation to 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.

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.

Meditation is Time to Get Clarity

Some might say meditation is the only way to truly be organized. True organization comes from a deep understanding of who we are, what we want, and where we want to go. Only in meditation do we really take the time to get to know ourselves without any distractions. This understanding of ourselves and who we are allows us to craft our lives in the way that aligns with our deepest self.

Let meditation be that time to really get to know yourself without any outside influence. For so many of us, 100% of our waking lives is spent being influenced by something: entertainment, work, friends, family, etc…

Use this time to focus on you without distraction. Ask yourself, “What do I want? Who am I? What do I need? How can I get it? What is standing in my way?” Meditate on these questions to further help you really narrow your focus, which will help you organize your life. When we try to do too much, disorganization usually follows. Meditate to help narrow down what’s really important so you can be more organized.

Disorganization is a Symptom, Not the Cause

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.