Disorganization has many root causes, but there are some elements that can aggravate a disorganized environment, compounding the problem. If these elements are addressed, chances are the environment around us would be much more manageable.

Too much stuff

We can’t organize clutter. That’s a fact. Things accumulate over time if we do not keep a close eye on what we purchase or even what we have had for years. Things that once served us well might no longer be relevant in our lives. We need to make room for what we truly need and want by eliminating what no longer has a place in our lives. Ongoing purging of what we no longer need and want should become a lifestyle, rather than a once a year activity. Things will continuously enter our space. If we do not get in the habit of eliminating what no longer serves us, we end up with an unmanageable accumulation of stuff.

Improper use of the space

Having too many things that we do not want or need is just part of the problem. Another part of the issue is the inefficient use of the space available to us.

Thinking in terms of categories and placing similar things together forces you to assign a specific space to a single category of things, so everything in your home has a place where it belongs. You will always know where to go when you need that item and where to return it.

If things do not have an assigned home, you end up with random stuff scattered everywhere. When anything can go anywhere, then everything will go everywhere. By virtue of the disorganized state, your belongings occupy three or four times the space they should.

If you start using the space appropriately, thinking in terms of categories and their unique, logical home, chances are you’ll get backspace you had no idea was even there.

Lack of proper tools

Buying containers or systems needs to happen once we know what we are keeping and where it’s going. This needs to happen after the purging of items has occurred. Buying solutions or bins beforehand might be a waste of time and might even compound the problem by adding to the clutter, when these items are purchased without taking into consideration the area where they are going and what they will contain. Many items we purchase the wrong items or the wrong amount or kind.

Imagine an under-the-sink cabinet, in a bathroom. It’s the classic example of the messy cabinet where we can’t find anything. Unless we get a system that divides the space and allows us to place all bottles and items upright, we cannot access what we need. The same can apply to the lower cabinets in the kitchen, for example, the way plastic containers are organized (or not, in most cases!).

Oftentimes what begins with the good intention of being organized ends up being a bigger problem. When we buy a system that ends up not working for the space intended, we might pull apart that system that is supposed to work together in order to provide certain benefits. When doing this, we end up with parts of the system scattered, containing random things we never intended to store in them because that is what we could use it for after all. That storage solution, rather than planned, becomes a circumstantial “band-aid” that performs a mediocre job. We compromise the right use of the tools we buy to avoid returning or exchanging them. They end up being a problem rather than a solution.

Broken things

We call them structural barriers to organization. These are things that have stopped working as intended and as a result of being neglected, cause further disorganization around them. That dresser with the broken drawer that no longer opens causes the contents to be all scattered around the room because it has no other place to go. That closet rod that failed caused you to install a rolling laundry solution in the middle of your bedroom and you trip on it every day when walking by (not to mention how it looks!). That shelf that fell from inside your cabinet has caused you to start shoving the contents of the cabinet inside that space without any rhyme or reason because it can no longer be divided or organized. You get the idea, right?

We live life at a very fast pace. That causes us to ignore many details like these. The problem is that such details accumulate over time and we end up with a dysfunctional environment that stresses our minds and bodies and we don’t even realize how it happened. These details do matter. Take the time to fix these little problems the moment they happen. It would be much more time consuming and costly to let them go and try to deal with the repercussions later.

Many elements can be roadblocks to organization or make a disorganized environment worse but keeping in mind these four factors gives you the control you need to bring order and organization back into space.