Summary:
Being organized isn’t a personality trait. It’s a cognitive skill developed with practice.
Our level of organization is directly related to our ability to recognize and care for our future self
Organization isn’t about creating new systems. It’s about a habit for maintaining them.
The color-coded family calendar, the perfectly packed beach/camping tote, the tidy little kit kept in the back of the car in the event of an emergency.
“Wow, you are so organized!”
I think we’ve all been on either the giving or receiving end of that compliment at least once in life, so you know what well-organized looks like.
Maybe you are that organized person, so you know that some areas of life are easier to organize than others. But why?
Perhaps you’re the one often looking at someone else’s level of organization, with a mix of relief and longing as you wonder, “Why can’t I get it together? They make it look so simple.”
Your Future Self
You’ve read all the books, saved all the business articles, purchased the latest productivity software, and maybe even pinned all the Pinterest boards. Things start off organized, but rarely stay that way.
The question morphs from “Why can’t I get organized?” to an identity-based misbelief: “I’m just not an organized person.”
The sentence feels like a fact, when in reality, it’s evidence of something stranger.
A falling-out with someone you haven’t met yet.
Hal Hershfield’s research on the concept of “future self continuity” has found that when people picture themselves a year or more from now, brain scans show activity more like thinking about a stranger than about themselves.
People aren’t fully disconnected from the thought of their future selves, just more distant, the way one might feel about a coworker versus a best friend or family member.
These researchers have found that the more distant someone feels from their future self, the worse they treat that person. They save less. They procrastinate more. They leave the mess for later.
The Burden We Place On Our Future Selves
I’ve seen this happen in my own life.
In job roles I love and see a long-term future in, I carefully organize each file into a hierarchy of digital folders so I can find it easily. I color code my calendar to ensure I don’t drop any plates. The meticulous daily to-do list.
Whereas in roles I was filling in for someone else, or didn’t see myself in the role for more than a year or so, I was less keen to keep things organized.
It never failed that I’d be in the role longer than planned, and within 18 months, I was kicking myself for not doing a better job of keeping up with files.
That’s the burden we place on our future selves. It’s not neutral. It’s something we are doing to someone: our future selves.
But our future self is still more difficult to register as a full person. So the pile of paperwork, the abandoned meal planning, the relinquishment of spending to things outside our budget all happen when we stop advocating today for the future of the person who shares our name.
A client once said to me: “I don’t set my future self up to succeed, and then act surprised when she fails.”
Who’s Paying for This Tomorrow?
Every time you leave something for tomorrow-you, the tomorrow-you struggles to keep up with both today and yesterday. Suddenly, you’re blaming today you for failing at something that was more than their fair share of the load.
Say, for example, your child lets you know that tomorrow’s soccer practice would be canceled, but it’s 7:30 pm, you’re exhausted, and you don’t feel like updating the calendar right now or writing yourself a sticky note to put on the door.
Tomorrow comes, it’s 3:55 pm, and you’re getting a call from the school asking if you plan to pick your kid up today.
“Oh my gosh, I forgot!” That’s today you, suffering at the hands of yesterday you.
The worst part is when the self-talk shifts from addressing the action, “I forgot”, to forming an identity, “I’m so forgetful.”
In reality, today you was juggling the fact you ran out of milk, your boss called an impromptu meeting, and your gas tank was on empty. Add to that yesterday’s tasks and today-you didn’t stand a chance.
We don’t know what tomorrow holds (James 4). That’s exactly why today-you keeps paying for yesterday-you’s disorganization. Waiting doesn’t make the issue disappear; it just passes the burden to whoever shows up next.
A Different Kind of Fix
It’s when we hit the bottom of the disorganized pit that we start looking for systems. Some systems may serve us well, but others take time to build. And suddenly, when the new calendar apps we bought don’t work, we slip again, and we’re tempted to give up: “I’m just not an organized person.”
Here’s what’s actually going on. You may not need a new system, but rather, a better relationship with your future self.
We wouldn’t leave a mess for a friend to clean up without a word of warning. We wouldn’t hand a stranger our to-do list and then disappear. But that’s what we are doing to our future-self, over and over. It’s not that we don’t care about our future self, but because future-us doesn’t feel like a whole person yet.
Before Hershfield ever had the brain scans to show this, Scripture has been telling us to provide for who’s coming tomorrow. The ant stores in the summer for a winter it hasn’t seen yet (Proverbs 6:6-8). The sower plants, not knowing which seed will actually take (Ecclesiastes 11:6). Both of these are examples of caring for someone we can’t fully see yet, but we anticipate they are coming.
Making Changes for Today
Here’s the change you can make starting today.
· Notice It ·
Catch the moment you’re about to leave something for later, and ask yourself, “Who’s going to deal with this?” And don’t deceive yourself, because the answer is most definitely future-you. Don’t heap that burden on him/her.
· Name It ·
What we’ve been labeling as “I’m just not an organized person” is simply a skill gap that can be closed when we start to see the future-us as a real person. When we name this gap, it stops the shame spiral before it starts, because there’s nothing wrong with our personality. It’s just a relationship that needs to be nurtured.
· Nurture It ·
Do one small thing tonight as a favor to your future self, and say who it’s for. Not just setting the coffee-maker or packing the diaper bag out of duty, but as a letter of gratitude and appreciation to your future 9-hour, 9-week, 9-month, and 9-year self.
Naming our future self is the practice. Strangers become family the way anyone does: we say their name, we do something for them, we picture them clearly enough to care. This is a small nightly way of doing that for someone who happens to share our name and our future.
Give yourself a few weeks in this new rhythm before shifting focus to another area. If you want a companion for building the habit itself, The Power of Habit is a good one to have alongside you.
So the next time someone talks about organization, we don’t have to hear it as a verdict on personality. We can hear it for what it actually is: proof that somewhere along the way, we stopped treating tomorrow-us like a stranger.
This is a very helpful framework. It's how I feel about dishes. Haha! I always say "I'll thank myself tomorrow."
But what about people who's brain just works differently? Like someone who is neurodivergent?
What an incredibly insightful understanding of the psychology behind adult organization... or lack thereof! From someone who suffers from this plight (Susan, that is, Mike does not)... this has opened not only my eyes to see what's really going on but my heart as well -- because I want to take much better care of my future me! Thank you for such insight, Bethany!