13 Habits of Disorganized People

Before I start this, I do NOT mean for this to be a negative post shaming “disorganized” people or shaming yourself if you feel you're disorganized.  Being disorganized doesn't mean you're a bad person.  It's not a character trait.  It's a skill that anyone can learn!  Some of these things are things I still struggle with myself LOL!  However, some of the habits in this list will be surprising, I think, and hopefully it helps you think about things in a new way!  Keep reading, or check out the video here to see if any of these habits are things you do yourself!

1.  Being a Perfectionist

This might be surprising because if you're a perfectionist, doesn't it mean you do everything perfectly, LOL?!? Not really.  I'm a perfectionist myself, and when those tendencies take over, mostly I find that it leads to chaos.

If you're cleaning a bathroom, the perfectionist will want to get out a toothbrush and scrub every little nook and cranny, and the bathroom cleaning will take WAY longer than it should.  Instead of cleaning all the bathrooms plus the kitchen in an average way, only the one bathroom gets cleaned (though it's spotless!).

Perfectionism just takes way too much time, and hyper-focusing on one thing leads to letting a lot of other things go because we only have so much time in a day.  It's also exhausting, which can lead to just giving up all together.

Instead, I'm trying to train myself to do a “C” job when I clean.  It's better to do an average job than to not do it at all!  Believe me, this has been hard for me, LOL!  I did an entire video about how I'm trying to be more “average” in cleaning.  It actually leads to my house being cleaner overall!  Check that video out here!

2.  Putting Things Off (Procrastinating)

I do this too, LOL!  It's sooo much better to do things immediately once they come up.  If you put things off, it can really lead into a negative spiral.

For example, I really try to do the dishes every night.  I WANT to be a person who does the dishes every night before bed.  But then before bed I start to get tired.  If I put it off, then maybe the dishwasher still isn't unloaded from the day before.  Then I can't put dirty dishes in during the day.  Then they pile up!

The same concept applies to all sorts of other things.  If I don't do my laundry, I end up rushing around searching for socks or underwear, LOL.  Ask me how I know!

3.  Don't Notice Clutter

Being “clutter-blind” is totally a thing!  If you have a perfectly clean desk and leave a piece of paper out, that paper is super noticeable.  But if you let that paper sit, then a few pens get added to it, then a dirty coffee cup, then more stuff…and before you know it, you're working at a super messy desk, but you haven't even noticed it's messy.

The messier and more cluttered things get, the less we notice it because we just start to look past it.  The best way to combat this is to reset your space!  Even if you can't clean up a whole room, just clear off the table.  Maybe that means you have to shove everything in a laundry basket (I've done this!) just to get it cleared quickly.

4.  Trying to Organize in a Way that Doesn't Fit Your Personality

Did you know our personality type really determines what method of decluttering and organizing will work best for us?  It's true!  It's much easier to work with your personality than against it!

For example, I'm a Sunflower, and I like to do long sessions of organizing and go all-in on a project to knock it out quickly.  Other people like the 15 minutes a day approach.  We're all different!  Do you need things to be beautiful in the end, or does functionality matter much more to you?

To find out your organizing personality type, just take our quiz here!

5.  Work Hard

Disorganization seems to get lumped in with laziness, but this couldn't be further from the truth.  Disorganized people are some of the hardest working people I know!  They're not usually working smarter– they're working harder!

Think about it– if you let your dishes pile up, eventually you still have to do them.  But by the time that happens, the food is all crusty and stuck on, and the job is a lot harder.  The same goes for not knowing where things are and having to search for everything when you need it.

6.  Say Yes Too Often

I have a really hard time with this one because I want to make people happy, and most of the time I genuinely want to do all the things!  But are you overbooking yourself?  Do you not have time to keep up with your home because you're doing too many activities?

Activities can be good things, but if it's contributing to overwhelm, you probably need to practice thinking harder before you say yes to new things.  It's hard, but getting more comfortable with saying “no” or even “not right now” can go a LONG way to making your life less chaotic.

7.  Indecisive and Tend to Overthink

This is also me, LOL!  If you spend too long trying to make a decision, then fewer things actually get done.  And often these decisions are so unimportant!

I brought tape home once and couldn't figure out where it should go.  I literally spent many minutes trying to figure this out.  Then when I couldn't decide, I just stuck it on the kitchen table.  It wasn't at all important!  A better choice would have been to literally put it ANYWHERE!

Does tidying your closet take hours because you can't decide if long sleeve and short sleeve shirts should be together or separate?  This is not important– just choose one and move on.  You can always change something later if it doesn't work out!

8.  Have Too Many Lists

This might sound counterintuitive.  Don't organized people have lists?  Yes, but you can have too many.  If you have a ton of lists, some on your phone, some on paper, some on your computer…it can be really hard to refer back to them.

It's still useful to make lists, even if you don't ever go back.  There's still some magic in getting things out of your head and down on paper.  But it's even more helpful if you can go back to that list!

Try to have a system for your lists so they're as useful as possible.

9.  Speak Harshly to Themselves

This can really be hurtful.  If you struggle with disorganization, maybe you say things to yourself like, “Why can't I keep this room clean?!?” Or, “I must be lazy.”  Would you talk to a friend that way?

Sometimes we want to do things better, or we wish we were different, but we all have struggles.  They're not the same from person to person, but every single person struggles with something.  It doesn't make you a bad person.  So you should treat yourself kindly, as you would a friend.  You wouldn't assume the worst of a friend.  You would give that friend grace and help them if you could.  So you should do the same for yourself.

Negative self-talk also perpetuates bad cycles.  It can make it even harder to become organized because it makes you feel hopeless.  It's much better to encourage yourself and keep trying!

10.  View Habits, Routines, and Plans as Restrictive

A disorganized person might feel like a laundry routine of doing something on a certain day is super restrictive.  But it's actually freeing!  If you have a routine, you can choose when and what you do!  Then you don't have to even think about when you're going to do it.  You waste less time because it just gets done in the routine.

You have to do laundry eventually.  Life (and lack of underwear) kind of forces that on you.  If you have a good routine in place, you can even skip a day every now and then without it being an issue.  But if you were super behind from not having a routine, then things can get dire, LOL!

11.  Don't Enjoy the Process of Organizing

This might seem obvious.  But disorganized people just don't really like the process of organizing, cleaning, or decluttering.  If you don't like something, you're much less likely to do it!  So you have to get creative and think of ways to make yourself enjoy (or at least not despise) it more.

There are certain home tasks that I really don't like.  I hate cleaning my toilet.  But I know I always feel better once it's done.  I tell myself that every time!

It helps to try to find ways to make tasks more fun.  I hate being rushed, so sometimes I'll set aside an hour or two on the weekends to clean my house.  I'll listen to a podcast or YouTube video or music, and then it turns into “me time.”

You can also invite a friend over.  I had a room in my house that had recently gotten super out of control.  It was the “junk room.”  Basically it's a storage room in our basement, but things had gotten BAD.  I invited three friends over to help, and in 90 minutes it was soooo much better!  And the four of us had a ton of fun talking and catching up while we worked.

12.  Struggle to Face Reality and Be Honest With Ourselves

This is me, too.  I struggle with dishes.  I WANT to be someone who goes to bed with a clean sink every night.  But by bedtime, I'm tired!  Maybe I have a sinus headache or I've had a really long day.  By the time I get the kids to bed, I just want to go crash!

It might be okay if I just said, “I'm not going to do the dishes tonight.”   But I don't want to say that because then I feel like a failure!  So then I make up some story in my head about why it's better to wait until morning ( I need those six minutes of sleep for my health!).

But I'm so not a morning person.  So then when I get up, I'm definitely not feeling better about that choice I made last night.  And then I might not even do the dishes in the morning because I'm still a bit of a zombie.

Another way we can lie to ourselves is by over-estimating what we can actually get done.  This leads to falling “behind” and feeling like a failure.  And it's all because we weren't honest about what we could actually accomplish in a certain amount of time.

13.  Are Organized in Their Own Way

It takes only two things to be organized:

• Everything has to have a home.
• You have to know where that home is.

That's it.  Things may not all be labeled and in matching bins and look how a typically “organized” area looks, but if you know where everything goes, then that's all that matters!  It may appear disorganized to an outsider, but it doesn't have to be all streamlined and beautiful.  If the system works for you, and you're happy with it, then you're actually organized!

Hopefully that helped you think outside the box a little and think about your own tendencies toward disorganization.  We're all a work in progress!

Organization that actually sticks for busy, happy lives