Despite the tendency to surround ourselves with clutter and chaos, disorganized people truly do need to learn how to be organized in order to live a more simple, less stressful life.

That’s because clutter and chaos cause visual clutter which increases mental clutter. If you hadn’t noticed, life can be pretty challenging without additional mental clutter. You don’t need more!

My life is a living example. When my office is cluttered I get distracted more easily and my productivity plummets. When my house is messy I get overwhelmed and cranky. Staying on track and on time challenges me enough without having to search for things I need or getting distracted by piles of clutter.

In fact, that’s one of the reasons I decided to learn to become organized in the first place. I found living a disorganized life simply made everything more difficult than it needed to be.

Are you convinced that getting better organized is a noble goal? Great! So, where do you start?

I could tell you to start at the biggest pile or to install some fancy storage but I won’t.

First, before you do anything else, you must set realistic expectations. Otherwise you’ll be aiming for perfection and perfection is a recipe for disappointment and disillusionment.

Realistic is good enough. Unless you’re expecting a team of photographers from “Beautiful Home” magazine to show up at your door, when it comes to organizing we care more about how it works for you than how it looks.

So, just how organized do you need to be?

You need to be organized well enough to quickly find the things you use the most when you need them.

It’s that simple.

Remember, this isn’t about some magical standard. It’s about you and your needs.

What’s organized well enough for you might be too organized for one person or not organized enough for another. That’s why ’one size fits all‘ organizing solutions seldom work.

Can’t do it alone? You don’t have to. There is help.

You can work with a supportive and caring friend. You even can bring in a Professional Organizer – someone you hire to help you get organized.

If you’re a do-it-yourself kind of person, you might find my program, Organized for Life!, useful.

Whatever path you decide you must first take that step of deciding what’s organized enough for you.

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Dana Rayburn is an ADD Coach and former Professional Organizer dedicated to helping adults get organized, outsmart their ADD / ADHD and live more successful and satisfying lives. Read more free articles about living successfully with ADD / ADHD.