Your Organized Life

Okay, the title might be a slight exaggeration, but – as with so many exaggerations – there is something behind it.

Two of the biggest challenges to the health of our planet are consumption and waste. Being organized has a direct positive effect on both.

I’ve heard that in the last 30 years the average house has doubled in size despite the fact that the average household is half as big as it was. Translation: Fewer people are using more resources. More land, more building materials, more utilities, more furniture, more stuff.

Organization helps make it possible to live not just comfortably but well in a smaller space with less stuff.

How many times have you had to replace items because you couldn’t find them? Somewhere in your closet is a perfectly good black sweater, but . . . Oh, well, get another one. Can’t find those leftover condiments that came with the take-out Chinese? Buy some more. Who can ever find the extra batteries? Well, you know what to do.

If you were better organized, you’d have been able to . . . well, you get it.

And what happened to all those things you couldn’t find? They must be somewhere, not being used. They’ve become waste. More waste. Did you know that the U.S. accounts for 5% of the world’s population and 30% of its garbage?

And, just by the way and to add one more element to the theme, if you were organized you’d be able to recycle better.

These examples may seem minor, even trivial, but multiply them across the population and take into account that consuming things always requires resources besides the obvious ones, and you’ve got something significant going on.

So you probably knew that organization could help you, but now you can see that it can actually help the planet, too. And, sure some of the ways are small, but when it comes to saving the planet, every step counts.

Have a Happy Earth Day!