Get Organized: Metacognition of Organizing My Closet

I chose to complete the daunting task of organizing my black hole of a closet. The thing practically unhinges its snake-like jaws every time I feed it with random objects, clothes, shoes. Usually I'm not an excessively organized person; that is until my situation-onset OCD kicks in and my straightening up turns into an alphabetized game of Tetris. Some things needed to be dumped, some moved, folded, tilted, turned. I didn't want to do it, but once I started I knew I wouldn't be able to stop.

Before I started I knew my goal and how I wanted to accomplish it. I knew what should go where and with what and how. But I didn't really know specifics. I didn't know that my jeans were going to be folded in two piles, or that my old piggy bank would be parallel with a snow globe.

During the process I felt anxious. I saw the progress like taming my hair by brushing and untangling its endless knots. Creating piles of right out garbage and useless parts of nameless objects was relieving. I don't quite know how to articulate it, but it made me feel current and in the moment, seeing that all that was really left were things that I had a good chance of using or appreciating in the future, and the past was cleaning itself up.

Even after my closet was dustless and organized like a well-ordered machine, I felt that I couldn't stop. I then proceeded to clean and straighten the rest of my room until every object was neatly tucked away in its home. Even my "crap drawer" looked a bit less crappy and more purposeful. After I finished, I felt satisfaction and serenity. Organizing my humble abode definitely made my mind feel more at ease, for my thoughts had less objects and junk to jump around and think about.

This project made me realize that the way I create ideas inside my head parallels the environment around me, Like my room, my thinking process does not organize itself. If left alone they will tangle into a taxing pile of "I'll-do-it-later"s and "it-will-happen-eventually"s. Unless I truly focus and put my mind to it, things will never be worked out. My endless divergent thought will never converge unless I choose to take the time to steer it in that direction. I would like to work on creating an organized mind that allows me to be messy up until the point where it becomes noticeably overwhelming and I need to clean it. Like my room, its okay to throw things on the floor or push things under the bed, but eventually I need to embrace that I live there, and straightening up is inescapable and necessary.