All Triumphs are Triumphs: Getting Organized in 2017

I finally did it! I purchased my very own daily planner, and in late December 2016, I actually wrote in it.

As you can tell, I am proud of this moment. It may not seem like a huge feat to all, but for a disorganized mess like myself, it is certainly something to celebrate.

I’ve had planners before that were given to me. As a treat to us—or you know, to actually try to train us into being productive, organized, and motivated adults—my high school would provide each and every student with a daily planner for the year. As a teenager, I used it to doodle or pass notes. Or I just let it go empty. I think I even tried turning one into a scrap book.

I am not so sure I have ever been very organized, and it shows. My bedroom is a mess. My car is a mess. My office was a mess—when I had one. No matter how much I swore these things would never be a mess, they always were. I have read so many times that disorganized individuals are simply creative creatures or even geniuses. I have read that some people can maintain functional lives in organized chaos. That was me, I swore..Megan, the creative genius. Megan, the master of organized chaos. I couldn’t work without clutter. I can do this. I can do everything.

But I can’t.

A 40+ hour work week, platonic relationships, romance, family time, and fur babies all serve as constant reminders that I simply cannot.

I look around my bedroom every day and suffocate in a mess of what I own, what I cannot find, and projects I desperately want to complete. Like many of us, I am exhausted from the day-to-day, but I am also further exhausted by this suffocation.

Usually I sleep to cope with the suffocation unless someone pushes me to leave my house, and I put my shoes on and breathe in the fresh air that is not found in my bedroom.

Recently, I realized that even though I was always so sure I was a high-functioning disorganized person, I was only just lying to myself. Sure, I handed homework in on time, met work deadlines, and so forth, but the reality of the situation was that it was all just piling up and waiting to crash down on me.

And it has.

With a New Year upon us and the smell of resolutions is in the air, I decided it was my time. Now is my time to get it together and get it done. I’m no longer going to be a disorganized, unmotivated shell of a person. I pray this planner doesn’t simply become a symbol, or worse, an empty book of what could have been done or what might have been.

Instead, I pray that it is a book filled of words, check marks, and adventures. A tangible acknowledgement of accomplishments and goals in real time. Real life triumphs—no matter how big or small.

I crave the check marks. I crave being able to walk into my bedroom and not only be able to see all the carpet on the floor but to see all my progress. I crave being able to breathe again.

I am encouraged and motivated by these cravings.

A month into 2017, I already see a lot of check marks. It reminds me that all triumphs are triumphs.

Megan Andreuzzi is an animal lover and a traveler from the New Jersey Shore. She earned a degree from Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, USA in Liberal Studies with a dual concentration in writing and a minor in theater.