Self-care and Disorganization

It is almost a case of what came first; did the poor self-care habits cause the disorganization or did being disorganized cause the poor self-care habits? Well, probably a little of both.

Self-care is being talked about everywhere these days. It is more than what most people think?  See my blog from earlier about types of self-care.  But here is a shortened version: Self-care isn’t always fun or pretty but it is good for us in the long run. It is taking care of our needs. If those aren’t getting met, they will jump up and down until we take care of them. It starts to affect our how well our frontal lobe is working. The constant bad habits and disorganization snowballs into negative self-worth, negative self-talk and that there is an overwhelming amount to do.

Poor self-care can cause the following issues for organization and productivity:

• Productivity – paying attention is hard when something else keeps saying “hey pay attention to me instead, think about me!” It is those needs that you didn’t attend too. They will keep butting in until you do.
• Present – If you are stressed, overwhelmed, and have poor time management, you are going to have a hard time being where you are when you are there. When at work, think about and do work. When you are with loved ones, think about them, engage with them and do activities with them.
• Bad role modeling- Have a daughter or even a son? If you aren’t taking care of yourself you are showing them you aren’t worth much. They may learn that exact lesson and not treat you well either. Or worse, they may learn that lesson but not treat themselves well just like you.
• Judgment/reasoning/decision making- If you aren’t eating well, getting enough sleep or performing other self-care, you are probably having trouble thinking clearly which means your judgment and reasoning are off. You are probably making poor decisions.
• Planning and prioritizing – Related the above, without having sound judgment and reasoning planning and prioritizing difficult.
• Foresight- Foresight using projected future outcomes to guide behavior in the present. This takes multiple executive functions to work together. It is difficult to do when you are not doing the basics.
• Emotional control/emotional functioning – Lack of self-care can cause our frontal lobe to not work as well as it should which means, we can behavior spontaneously with strong emotions, lost sight of the big picture and be unable to see someone else’s perspective.