Staying Organized
By Thinking - How Can I Do This Myself?

Staying organized is so much easier if you can find a way to do most everything yourself.

A reasonable person finds it hard to get outraged over anything. A reasonable person is mostly concerned with what he can do to improve the situation himself rather than convincing lots of other people to help.

Life is so much more difficult when you rely on others.

The key to staying organized is to set up your life in such a way that you need very little help with anything.

This is such a simple shift, but so difficult for most people to realize.

Most everything we do is overly complicated and dependent on other people. Most people are always looking for help from someone else, asking for opinions, thinking they need lots and lots of help to do things.

If you can just start moving away from that mindset to one of what you can do for yourself, your life will become far easier.

Let's look at some times when you are usually counting on others and how by changing things somewhat you do not need others.

1) Moving. Normally you will call a bunch of friends and family to help you. What if they cannot make it? What if they are too old, too sick, too frail or too busy to help? A better way is to hire moving men to do this and move as much as possible yourself. Minimize the size of your furniture. Toss out as much as possible. Reduce your possessions. Sell and give away things to make the move as simple, easy and inexpensive as possible. It costs nothing to throw things out.

2) Doing any type job where you have to work with a partner or a helper or assistant. Working with someone all day, every day would just drive me insane. I am just not interested at all with putting up with someones idiosyncrasies and problems. I am not interested in spilling my guts to someone at work. I have had times where I had to work closely with a partner at times. I did it, but only for the money. I did not do it because I liked it. I love to do the bulk of my work on my own. I like to work at my own pace. I hate to be slowed down by someone else almost as much as I hate being rushed by someone else.

3) Doing work that involves others. My civil engineering job depends on CAD operators. This part of the job is frustrating to no end. If I could just do a little CAD work myself my job would be so much easier.

4) Depending on your spouse for financial support. Depending on your spouse for anything. I think one of the main reasons people stay in terrible, dysfunctional, loveless, and even abusive marriages is mostly for the money. They fear what would happen in they leave. It does not matter if you are the person who is making the money or the person receiving it. Women who are dependent on their husbands income fear leaving and men who make all the money in the marriage fear leaving due to finances.

5) Operating a business that depends on having very capable people working at peak efficiency all the time. A better business model is one in which almost anyone can do the work without needing to work that hard or be really bright. Look at how some of the most successful businesses are staffed by high school kids, seniors and even disabled people. McDonald's, all fast food restaurants, convenience stores and Wal-Mart are all staffed with people who are not that great of workers. Yet, the business does great. The business system is what works.

6) Being in an industry that is highly regulated. You are then dependent on the regulators.

7) Being in a business that relies on complex, expensive machines that need really capable operators. A better model is to have machines that are easy to maintain and can be easily runby anyone.

8) Insisting that others agree with you.

9) Looking outside yourself for answers.

10) Looking to leaders to tell you what to do. This is huge. It is a far better way to live to count on yourself for staying organized and doing what you want with your life.

11) If you are in business it is better to hire somebody to help with things once in awhile rather have employees permanently.

12) The type of major in college would be one that is naturally suited to being an independent contractor.

Let's face it, people will always let you down. Counting on others is a mistake. It will be great if they help you, but set things up so that you can do it without their help. Staying organized is easier if you just concentrate on what you can do.

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