044. The Motivation Myth: Why You Don’t Need to Feel Inspired to Get Organized

Do you ever find yourself saying "I just need to get inspired to organize my closet" or "I'm just waiting for a little motivation to get started on decluttering the garage!"

The truth is, motivation is NOT what will get you to organize! You know what will?

• Action
• Momentum
• Seeing incremental results

In this episode, you'll hear the 3 proven ways to get started, and keep going, on your organizing tasks:

1. The 5-Minute Start Rule
2. Make It Fun
3. Pair It With Something You Already Do

Try these out, and let me know how it goes! I'd love to  cheer you on! Send me a DM on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing/.

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

Have you been telling yourself that you just need to ‘feel motivated’ to organize? Well, in this episode, I’m going to tell you why I think that’s a myth that we need to bust through right now.

Hey, welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living, the podcast for working moms and entrepreneur moms that provides sustainable organizing tips for your home, work and life.

I’m Zee Siman, Professional Organizer and Productivity Consultant, and I’m here to share simple ideas that don’t take a lot of time so you can love your home, excel at work, and have the time to enjoy both without stress or overwhelm. 

Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen!

This week is a a particularly busy week for us, and so when I was doing my Friday planning last Friday, I scheduled in time to do a lot of cooking on Sunday. That way, I’d have a bunch of meals prepped and in the fridge, so weeknights would be much, much easier.

Well, when Sunday morning rolled around, I just wasn’t in the mood to cook. All I really wanted to do was hang out, read my book a bit, spend some time outside, and just generally have a lazy Sunday.

But I knew that the cooking had to get done. I mean, it didn’t HAVE to get done, right? I could have chosen to do takeout, or bought ready-made meals from the grocery store. But I wanted the home-made meals. I had already bought the chicken and the beef was marinating - I had to use them or lose them.

So I brewed my coffee in my french press and I got started.

I’m not going to pretend that it was easy, but several hours later, I had 3 fully cooked meals and I also had made a huge batch of pancakes that I put in the freezer. It felt so good to have it done!

Now, if you’ve ever thought, ‘I just need to feel inspired to start organizing,’ or ‘I’ll do it when I have more motivation,’ then this episode is for you. Because here’s the truth: motivation is a myth**.** You don’t need to wait for motivation to get started. In fact, waiting for motivation might be the reason that you feel stuck.

So today, I’m giving you practical, doable strategies that are going to help you take action—even when you don’t feel like it.

Because just like anything that’s unpleasant, like taking medication or going to get a mammogram, you’re never going to feel like doing these things for the sake of doing them.

Think about someone who wants to lose weight. Maybe they’re motivated to lose some weight before going on vacation 3 months from now. That’s their inspiration. So they know that they have to start to do things to drop the weight: they need to stop eating desserts, they need to increase their workouts from 3 days a week to 5. They need to start intermittent fasting. Whatever.

Well, doing these things is not the motivation that keeps them going; no, the number on the scale going down from week to week is what will keep them going. That’s the motivation to continue!

And so that’s how it is with organizing: a burst of inspiration to get organized is not enough to keep you going after you get started.

No, what will keep you going are the incremental results that you see.

So let’s start with this: motivation is unreliable.

Think about it—have you ever had a burst of motivation to start something new, like decluttering your closet or reorganizing your pantry? Right? And at first, it’s exciting, yeah? You’re, you’re in the mood, you’re making progress, and then… well, life happens. The excitement wears off. You get distracted by a more important task. And then suddenly, that project sits half-finished, and you’re waiting for that next **wave of motivation to strike.

The problem, of course, is that motivation comes and goes**.** It’s like waiting for the ‘perfect’ moment to start eating healthy or going to the gym. If we waited for motivation, we’d never get anything done.

So instead, we need something stronger than motivation—something that keeps us going even when we don’t feel like it. That’s where habits, systems, and action come in.

Here’s the secret: Action comes before motivation, not the other way around.

So let me say that again: Action creates motivation.

Like the person trying to lose weight. Once they take action to eat better and exercise, and they begin to lose a bit of weight, they’re more likely to continue.

So think about a time when you didn’t feel like doing something—maybe going for a walk or cleaning up the kitchen after dinner—but once you got started, you found yourself wanting to keep going.

In fact, you probably started by thinking “I don’t want to do this. I want to just get it done as fast as possible.” Which is what I felt about cooking on Sunday, by the way.

But then, something interesting happens. As you’re, say, a couple of minutes into cleaning up the kitchen, and you see 2 pots are washed and out of the sink. And then another minute later, you’ve cleaned off the stovetop, and that section of the counter is clear. You kind of start getting into it a little bit more, and maybe wipe off more sections of the countertop, or you put away some more dishes before you call it a night.

Well, that’s because taking action triggers a shift in your mindset. You start to see results, and those results create momentum. And momentum is what keeps you going—not motivation.

Now, the thing is, even though you’ve got some momentum, it may not be, hmm, enjoyable throughout the activity that you’re doing. For me, the cooking was difficult. It didn’t you know, automatically happen happily. I had to put some work into it. Yet I was seeing results as every dish was getting cooked, I could see that it was getting done and I - I enjoyed that part of it. I didn’t like the act of the cooking.

So if you’re waiting to ‘feel inspired’ to organize your home, I have a challenge for you: Stop waiting and just start doing**.** Just a little. Even for 5 minutes. Because once you start, your brain shifts from ‘I don’t feel like it’ to ‘Oh, I can actually do this.’ as you start to see even the smallest of results.

Okay, so if we don’t need motivation, how do we actually get ourselves to take action? Here are three simple, proven strategies, ok?:

The first is the 5-Minute Start Rule. Now this is a well-known productivity hack and one of my favorite tricks to get things done, like the cooking. Instead of telling yourself, ‘I have to clean out my whole closet today,’ well, just commit to 5 minutes in one small area. That’s it. So:

Set a timer.

Start with just one drawer, one shelf, one small section, one small surface.

When the timer goes off, you can stop—or keep going if you feel like it.

More often than not, you’ll find yourself wanting to continue. Because getting started is the hardest part, and once you push past that, once you hit that 5, 10-minute mark, 15-minute mark, momentum kicks in. OK? Depending on what activity it is that you’re doing.

The second practical way to get things done, to get started is to Make It Fun. Let’s be real—organizing can feel like a chore, right? But what if it didn’t?

Well, put on your favorite playlist, or audiobook, or podcast (hey, maybe like this one!).

And then turn it into a challenge—how much of your t-shirt drawer can you go through and declutter in one song?

And then reward yourself—set up a ‘before and after’ photo moment ok? So you can see your progress.

And the third idea to get started is to Pair It With Something You Already Do, which is also called Habit Stacking, which you’ve probably heard of.

Now one of the easiest ways to make organizing a habit is to attach it to something you already do. This habit **stacking can really be a game-changer.

For example:

While um waiting for your coffee to brew, go though a small section of your pantry, and pull out expired foods, or things you know you won’t eat. Just while your coffee’s brewing, you’re doing this.

Or, after putting your shoes away, also take your laptop out of your work bag and put your bag away, right?

Or before bed, spend 5 minutes tidying one room—just a quick reset, before you go brush your teeth.

When you pair organizing with an existing routine, it stops feeling like extra work and becomes just what you do*.* And once something becomes a part of your daily rhythm like that, motivation doesn’t even matter anymore. It just happens.

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from today’s episode, it’s this:

Small actions lead to big results.

You don’t need to overhaul your entire house in one weekend. You don’t need to wait for a ‘burst of inspiration.’

Instead, you just need to take just one small step. And then another. And then another. In 5 minute chunks if that’s what it takes. And before you know it, you’ll have an organized home that feels like you—one that you can keep up with in just minutes a day.

Remember, motivation is not the key to getting organized—momentum is.

Alright, so here’s your action step. For every episode I want you to have an action that you’ll take.

So right now, if you’re stationary and not driving, of course, I want you to pick one small thing to organize. Maybe it’s clearing one corner of your kitchen counter, or tossing out expired food from your fridge, sorting through that one drawer that always collects clutter, or maybe clearing out the console of your car. That’s always a favorite.

Start small. Start today. And let me know how it goes! You can send me a message on Instagram at fireflybridgeorganizing. I would love to celebrate with you!

And if you loved this episode, do me a quick favor please—find the follow button to follow the podcast, leave a review, and then share it with a friend who needs to hear this.

Thanks again for being with me today! I’ll see you next week on the next episode.