The joys of… being disorganised

I’m the most disorganised person I know. I spent weeks looking for my headphones only to find them lodged in the gap between my bed and the wall. I buy earrings just to lose them, and I show up to every occasion at least five minutes late.

Fighting against your natural instincts, however, is hard

When I was in sixth form, I desperately tried to change this part of myself. I would plan to wake up at 6AM and practise my French before breakfast. I would dig my fingernails into my skin and wish I was someone else anytime I forgot a book at home. Fighting against your natural instincts, however, is hard. You can desperately reimagine a new personality for yourself, but soon enough, it’ll all fall apart.

Nowadays, I try to make room for my disorganisation. For example, my drive to work is a little over thirty minutes, meaning I should leave at 20 past – but I leave on the hour instead. I know from experience, I’ll get into the car ready to go, realise I’ve forgotten everything I need and have to run around for fifteen minutes like a headless chicken.

Don’t fight your bad habits, live alongside them

It sounds simple but I’ve found accounting for my forgetfulness has made me less stressed, and more likely to arrive on time. So here’s my advice: don’t fight your bad habits, live alongside them. Fill an unused pocket with pens. Plan the day according to your sleep schedule. Tell friends about important meetings so you have someone to remind you the day before. Your life won’t miraculously transform, and you’ll still stay the same, but your life will become just a little bit easier. I try so hard to be organised, and yet I do still lose things. I’m no stranger to slipping into a lecture late by the back door yet, this is generally a rarity, no longer an everyday activity.

Despite this, I can’t plan everything and I do notice my bad habits get worse when I feel stressed or down. I forget things, procrastinate more, spend all day in bed. Life is hard sometimes, and you need to give yourself lee-way. In my head I’d love to be one of those ‘studytubers’ who work for 12 hours everyday, but sometimes you just need a break. Listen to your body, lie in, and maybe focus on domestic chores like laundry and food shopping instead of fixating on something too overwhelming. The sad fact is no one can perform at their best everyday, and sometimes you have to accept a lapse in organisation to stay sane.

I wish I could sit here, and give you perfect advice on how to be organised, but I genuinely can’t. It’s something I really struggle with – I constantly find myself thinking about it, trying to do better. Although I know from the outside, as someone watches me turn up late yet again, or struggle to get an essay done last minute, it must look like I don’t care.

I like to think of myself as being in a state of continuous becoming

I do care though, and – as I’m constantly reminding myself – that’s not everything, but it means a lot. I like to think of myself as being in a state of continuous becoming. There will always be another chance, and sometimes, you have to be upset for a day, get up, and write a list of what went well and what didn’t. Hopefully, in the future, you’ll do better, and if not, then there’s always the time after that.

In Pride and Prejudice, (leave me alone, I’m an English student!) Elizabeth Bennet responds to Mr Darcy saying that he doesn’t possess the same talent for socialising as other people do, by talking about how she herself can’t play the pianoforte as other women do, not because she lacks talent but because she hasn’t had the same level of practise. I love Jane Austen, and I think here she’s really right. It’s easy to allow bad habits and bad mindsets to fester by pretending that they’re just a part of who you are, even when they’re not. At the end of the day, organisation is a skill which, just like socialising or the pianoforte, requires practice and failure in order to improve.

I may currently be the most disorganised person I know, but that’s just for the present – who knows what I’ll be tomorrow!