I want you to put your water bottle down for a second + try to imagine what it’s like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant. No matter how you approach this scenario, it’s pretty tough to quench your thirst without getting a face full of water. Am I right?

Sadly, my friend, that’s the consumer culture we live in today. 

Whether you choose to spend time on social media or visit a website that’s chock-full of annoying pop-ups + inconveniently placed advertisements, no matter where you turn we’re constantly bombarded with stuff to buy. 

And the best (or rather worst part) of it all is that those perversely awful algorithms are really smart. They’re so intuitively advanced, they know exactly what you’ve searched for, which sites you’ve visited + how long you hung out on any given page. So regardless of whether you checked using the convenience of your 1-click Amazon purchase or not — technology won’t let you forget about them.

Where am I going with this? 

Well, you see, everything we purchase has a price tag attached to it. And based on basic human + behavioral psychology, we tend to rationalize the value of items we’d like to purchase with what someone is asking for in return. But, for the sake of simplicity (and this article), I want you to consider the hidden cost of being unorganized.

Cliff hanger… *wink*

Before I divulge what the million-dollar answer could be, lets first spend some time laying the groundwork that differentiates being disorganized versus being unorganized.

Disorganized vs. Unorganized

Girl, being disorganized from time to time, is simply a part of life. What do I mean? 

Thanks to having a toddler on the loose, there are areas in my own home that can go from being organized to haphazardly disorganized with a blink of an eye –– even as Seattle’s top professional organizer + interior designer.

Being disorganized simply means that what was once organized — is no longer. 

Living in a home you never want to leave isn’t about never experiencing disorganization again, it’s partly about knowing how to work your way back to order in an efficient way.

What about being unorganized though? Being unorganized speaks to having an area of your home (lets say your closet or a drawer) that’s a hot-mess + sadly, has never before experienced the life of being organized. 

So often, we see this manifest in our day-to-day life at home as the miscellaneous junk drawer or a catchall surface area with “no rhyme or reason.” Have one of those? We all do.

Looming on the horizon, beyond the subtle differences between disorganized + being unorganized, lays a much bigger question –– what’s the hidden cost of being unorganized at home?

Waste

Waste comes in a lot of forms. From wasted space + wasted food to even having wasted energy. But what it really boils down to is that we’re focusing on two types of waste as they relate to being unorganized. 

Wasted Money

I always laugh when I see this gif. Classic –– yes because no one in their right mind would throw wads of cash out the window...except for a kid who doesn’t understand the value of money, right? 

Unfortunately, that’s not true. As adults, we do this all the time. 

Imagine for a second, holding a hundred, a thousand, or maybe even 10 thousand dollars in your hand. And now I want you to imagine yourself hocking it out the window like you're... idk, for the sake of this argument…  Russel Wilson slinging the football. Its 2nd + goal but instead of throwing a game-winning touchdown for the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl it’s intercepted by… (and we all know how it ends so I won’t make you relive that moment in history) But are you catching my drift? How does it make you feel? 

Gut-wrenchingly awful + guilty.

Why does wasted money make us feel guilty? Simply because purchasing things + then rarely if ever using them isn’t who we are, at our core. You didn’t consciously stand at the register and say, “I’m going to buy this but don’t worry I’ll never, ever, use it + plan to store it in the back of my closet, where it’ll collect an inch of dust; Because it’s contributing to my goal of creating an unorganized home.” 

Simply reading that last sentence, feels all sorts of uncomfortable! So where my friend, did the disconnect happen? 

In fact, there are a variety of things that triggered our buying decisions. For instance, maybe you felt compelled to buy more batteries because you couldn’t find the ones you already purchased at home. Or maybe you threw a few things in the shopping cart simply because it was a good deal. Or *gasp* maybe it all boils down to being a good old fashioned feel-good impulse buy.

Needless to say, you’re silently nodding your head because what started out as endorphin high later morphed into buyers remorse –– except in this case, buyer’s remorse doesn’t happen until wayyyy down the road when we rediscover that once upon a time we bought something only to realize, we never used it.

This leads us down a rabbit hole of wishing we had made different choices. Like what else could you have done with the money wasted on the stuff you’ve never used? Taken an all-inclusive luxury vacation to Sandals? Visited your kids or the grandkids? Invested it into your financial portfolio?  Or simply living life to experience the beauty in the ordinary and the joys of experiencing the unordinary. 

A quick question that we can all ask ourselves is, what’s it all worth? Does having more stuff or owning more things truly make you a happier person –– because if it does then it’s not going to contribute to the unorganized areas of your home.  However, if it doesn’t delight you, lean in closer dear because now we’re talking reasons to reconsider your buying habits.

And yet, wasted money isn’t the only hidden cost of being unorganized.

Wasted Time

What I want you to consider is the waste of something we all take for granted + think we have an abundance of today but in all reality, it’s something that’s ever-fleeting moment by moment. And that is time.

Wasted time as it relates to being unorganized isn’t the same as it would be for someone who is disorganized. 

If your time is wasted by being disorganized somewhere along the line you decided organizing your clothes for the upcoming season wasn’t important (in that moment) or organizing your kid’s toys after Christmas and birthdays’ wasn’t necessary. So, you’re left with disorganization as a byproduct of not keeping up with the organizing systems you once had in place. You’ve adopted the dangerous mindset of “get on with life.” 

But not to worry boo, if that’s you we can fix that.

When it comes to wasted time, as it relates to being unorganized, we’re talking about the loss of time you can never get back. Time spent with loved ones (or ourselves) because we haven’t yet taken the time to create an organizing system that’s in alignment + work intuitively with our everyday lives. 

We haven’t yet indulged ourselves, in evaluating our daily routines and looking for ways to improve + make them more efficient. So that we can spend less time dealing with the headaches of tending to monotonous stuff + focus more of our time on living with intentional purpose.

Wasted time being unorganized leads to constant stress, searching high + low for the things you’ve misplaced and more missed opportunities that we can never get back.

And that’s why Elegant Simplicity exists because all too often being unorganized isn’t simply about not knowing how to get organized. It’s about digging in + understanding why you want to be organized.  So boo, ask yourself — which areas of your home have you overlooked when it comes to organizing? And how could those spaces be organized free you of wasting time?

There you have it –– waste is the hidden cost of being unorganized. Wasting time + wasting money both have a way of quietly creeping into our lives but when our homes are unorganized it only amplifies the effect. 

So how over the long-haul can we minimize + reduce the unnecessary waste in stuff?  By simply being mindful + not purchasing items you neither want nor need.

When it comes to your home you organize the unorganized. You deep dive into creating organized systems for you + your family to follow and you invest in creating true customization –– because at the end of a long + exhausting week, you want coming home to be the most comfortable part of your day. 

All it takes is slowing down + taking the time to look at how you’re living. Then, with the help of our talented team of organizers, we’ll help you create a roadmap for addressing all of the crazy clutter challenged areas in your home — before you know it, all of the unorganized chaos transforms into organized bliss.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed when it comes to tackling this alone, we’d love to add you to our inner circle of organizing bff’s. Let’s Chat!