The Well-Ordered Life: Bringing Order to Your Physical Space

The first step of Catholic spiritual growth is to grow in the virtue of prudence to live a well-ordered life. Then you can take the time to pray, to nurture your relationships, and to do all of the other things necessary to deepen your relationship with God.

The well-ordered life includes practical elements like time management, household management, financial management, and management of our physical space. These areas require a lot of work and effort. But the effort is so worthwhile!

Let’s take a look at management of our physical space. I tend to be a . . . bit of a mess in this area. Always have been. Part of it is my temperament. Personality tests label me as a “creative” and a “catalyst.” Neither of those personality traits leads to good personal organization. So this means two things for me.

1. I need to work harder at being organized (to which my wife say, “Amen!”). I can blame my messiness on my temperament all I want. But the truth is that nobody can thrive in the midst of chaos. Why not? Well, it has to do with that spirit-body connection in human nature. As images of God, we are made for order, reason, and beauty (all of which are related) because they reflect attribute os God. This isn’t just philosophical mumbo-jumbo, either. Physical chaos actually causes dis-ease in our soul. It might come through to us as lack of focus (guilty) or even depression. Just think about how good you feel after cleaning the house or vacuuming the car. In our hearts, we all appreciate and need order. However . . .

2. My “organization” is going to be different from someone with a more ordered temperament. There is some truth to the concept of organized chaos. When I’m working on a project, I need to have things spread out on a table. What seems like chaos to my wife is a highly efficient “system” to me. The problem is all of the stuff lying around my home and office areas that aren’t related to my projects. My unique temperament also means that I have to find an organizational system that will work for me. I don’t do filing cabinets. If I try to keep all of my papers in a filing cabinet, I never get around to organizing. So I use filing bins instead. I have labeled bins that I can quickly throw stuff in. No extra effort needed, but everything gets categorized same as a filing cabinet. Works for me!

So what I really need is guidance from an organizational expert who can work with my unique circumstances and temperament.