I tend to be a messy person. Not me personally, I always brush my teeth, comb my hair and take a shower. My desk in my office gets very cluttered and difficult to locate because it is covered with papers and books most of the time. My shop is worse than my office, and outside around our place is lots of stuff that needs picked up and put away. It is one of those things that gets on my “todo” list everyday, but I seldom get to it. I am going fishing on Friday, and I haven’t found the fishing tackle that I need yet, I know it is in my “Man Room” somewhere, I know I remember seeing it, someplace. I get terribly frustrated when I am doing a project and can’t find a tool, when I am going golfing and can’t find my clubs, and when I am going fishing and can’t find my reel. I always vow that I am going to get everything cleaned up, picked up, and organized, but it doesn’t seem to happen.

I am always talking about “Character,” and the importance of growing mature in character. I have identified 26 different character traits that I work on. Which of the 26 does this problem fall under? Orderliness is number eleven, and I have considered myself orderly because of my disciplined use of my time, but I guess I better expand my definition. OK, here is a new definition, “Organizing my tools, work places, and stuff so that I waste little time looking for what I need, and get projects and work done effectively.” Ah, here is another definition that I just thought of, “Having my surroundings neat and organized so that I give the impression to other people around me that I am a competent and self-controlled person so that they have confidence in my leadership and influence in their life.” Here is one more definition, “Having all my tools and stuff organized so that I know what I have, can find it quickly so that I don’t have to keep buying another one when I can’t find it, and save lots of money.”

So, the key to changing and growing is to write the goal and the strategy for accomplishing the goal out in detail, break it down in small parts, pick one of the smaller parts as the starting point and then read it everyday. In order to increase motivation it helps to add a reward to the completion of a goal.

OK, my first goal is to clean up my boats, park them out of the way and put a cover on them. When I get that job done I will reward myself by taking the cover back off of one and taking it fishing!