Organizing helps me feel settled, but lately it’s started running my day. I’ll plan to tidy one drawer and somehow lose an hour sorting everything by color, size, and how often I use it. Then I get irritated if someone moves one item, even if the room still looks perfectly fine.
The frustrating part is that organizing used to be useful. Now I sometimes put off eating, relaxing, or leaving the house because something feels unfinished. Has anyone found a way to stop before organizing turns into an all-day task?
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Victoria, the part about putting off eating or leaving because something feels unfinished is the bit I’d take seriously. I’ve had better luck treating those as fixed appointments rather than rewards I earn after the room is “done.”
One thing that helped was setting a 20-minute timer and taking a photo when it rings. The photo reminds me that the space is usually fine even when my brain is still finding details to fix. Then I have to leave the drawer as-is until the next day, even if one item feels out of place. It was uncomfortable at first, but the urge usually dropped once I stopped feeding it.
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The fixed appointments idea makes sense. I’ve noticed that if I treat food or leaving the house like something I have to “earn,” I can keep finding one more thing to fix forever.
The photo trick seems useful too, especially for catching that feeling that the room is somehow still wrong. I might try taking one before and after the timer, then stepping away even if I’m not satisfied. The next-day rule sounds rough, but probably helpful for proving that an out-of-place item isn’t actually an emergency.