How often have you thought to yourself, “I need to get organized!” When this thought strikes, we often work on things like cleaning our desk, prioritizing our tasks, arranging our surroundings, and planning our schedule. These are fine, worthwhile activities. But the idea of getting organized can go a little deeper.
When a master artist creates a painting, she takes different colors of paint and organizes them on the canvas to create color and texture, highlights and shadows, until she has created a masterpiece. She doesn’t just arrange the paint in logical order, or lay out the brushes by size and shape. She is actually creating something new, something beautiful and unique, by organizing it into a painting.
When an architect and builder team up to construct a skyscraper, they organize steel, glass and cement into a magnificent building. They don’t just arrange the building materials in alphabetical order on the ground. They organize these materials in such a way that they become a one-of-a-kind structure that is both beautiful and functional.
When a wood carver makes a sculpture, he organizes the removal of wood shavings, bit by bit, until the finished shape emerges from the wood. He is not worried so much about the shavings that clutter the floor. They are immaterial to his work. He will occasionally sweep them into the garbage; but he does not waste time sorting and organizing these shavings. His focus is on organizing the wood block into a timeless work of art. When an entrepreneur organizes a business or a chairman organizes a committee, they are not just arranging people and resources into a logical framework, they are creating something new—a unique entity that has to potential to make a huge impact on its members, customers, and the community at large.
Likewise, when you decide to get organized, I urge you to think a little deeper. Think of it as creating something new, unique, and magnificent—the masterpiece of your life. Instead of focusing on arranging clutter into files or planning our schedules to make room for events that may actually be quite trivial, I urge you to step back and decide what you want to make out of your life. Then, organize your life to make that vision into reality. When that happens, you have moved from managing trivia to creating a life. So, next time you have the urge to “get organized” don’t just manage trivia, organize your life into something that has beauty, meaning, and purpose.
Success Tip: Get organized by creating a vision for your life, then arranging everything in your life to support and create that vision.
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