I am the type of person who is obsessed with organisation videos. Whether it’s for notebooks, bedroom storage, or even how they organise their kitchen cupboards, I’ll click on it. Even if I don’t have my own kitchen to organise (#GenerationRent), or children whose toys need putting away, I’ll watch it anyway.
There’s definitely been a spike in these types of videos in the last year or so, in part thanks to the boom in popularity of Marie Kondo’s tidying methods in 2018, but perhaps also because I am in that early-adult stage of my life where I am beginning to realise how much of my life I need to organise in order to function, so I am simply more tuned in to it.
I particularly enjoy videos where people talk about goals, creating habits and sticking to them. Where people create life maps and mood boards of what they want their future to look like. I do it too, but all in my head. Nothing is neat; all my ideas are scattered across five different notebooks (bought in haste each time I had a new idea), a Trello board and a trusty to-do list app on my phone. It’s not neat but it is all there. From my weekly grocery list to places I want to go on holiday, outfit planning and a list of the countless films I still haven’t seen, I have a list and a plan for everything. I spend my commutes into work organising my to-do lists, adding and checking off the things I have done, or the plans I have changed in the day since I last updated them. There’s nothing I enjoy more than *sorting* things out, not necessarily creating.
So why do I feel so unproductive? I have plans of what I want to achieve outside of work, and I begin with an energy boost that eventually peters off. This blog was my baby for two and a half years before post-uni life meant I didn’t give it quite enough attention. I want to return to it and I have plenty of ideas for posts and articles, yet when I get to it my brain just doesn’t seem capable of writing.
From blog posts to bookstagram, there were many plans I had for this year (which, to be fair, has only just started) I wanted to become a regular routine that haven’t. And because it hasn’t, my brain just shuts down and moves onto the next exciting thing only for the cycle to continue. It probably doesn’t help that I am so tuned in to what everyone else is doing online that as soon as I see someone else do something I get excited and want to do it too (note to self: stop scrolling!).
Does anyone else feel like this? Where your brain is very focused on creating the list of ideas and a plan that by the time you get round to doing it you’re already bored of it? It’s as if all of my energy is based on forming, rather than executing, an idea. My brain is buzzing with plans but it doesn’t want to stick to them for long. Is it subconsciously scared of not being able to pull a plan off? Oof, that’s a heavy thought.
So what’s the solution? Perhaps it’s that I need to give myself tunnel-vision (if that’s the right word) and focus on, say, three tasks at a time. Maybe I should get up at silly o’clock in the morning and go to bed at silly o’clock at night to try and cram everything I want to do in. What if this whole panic is my brain letting me know my calling is actually to organise other people’s lives. That’s wishful thinking, but if anyone has any ideas of how I can stop obsessing over the organisation and start doing, then please let me know.
The Mortal Fool 