“If you struggle with disorder in your actions and environment – if your life is a bit chaotic or unorganized – remind yourself that orderliness starts on the inside.”

Be neither dilatory in your actions, nor disorganized in your conversation, nor rambling in your thoughts; ensure that your soul, in brief, neither contracts into itself nor wells over, and that your life is not so busy that you have no time for yourself. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.51

Why be orderly?

Orderliness is one of those virtues that doesn’t jump off the page with excitement – no one wants to have orderly written on their tombstone! But orderliness was quite important to the ancient Stoics. It shows up in their virtue taxonomies under the heading of temperance, which relates to controlling our impulses. If we are orderly, we organize our words and deeds to correspond to our goals in life. We don’t do things impulsively, carelessly, or at random. We ensure that our conversation, our actions, and our environment (to the extent that we control these things) align with our overall purpose and ideals.

Being in command of yourself

To be orderly is to be in command of yourself at all times. In daily life, we can be orderly in our inner discourse, in our relationships, and in our habits. We want to have a good reason for doing everything we do. If you find yourself wasting time by watching TV or scrolling through social media, pause and ask yourself why you are doing this. Do you have a motivation for this action that connects to your higher purpose in life? If your actions and activities are not aligning with your ideals, this is a good time to switch to a more fulfilling activity.

That’s not to say we can’t also be spontaneous sometimes. Spontaneity is an appropriate response to some situations that require us to act without a premeditated plan. But even when we are spontaneous, our actions should always align with our larger purpose for our lives. You can be orderly even while being fun and spontaneous. Orderliness is about a state of inner control, not rigidity in planning your life or inflexibility in responding to surprises. Our goal is to be orderly while also being adaptable, accepting, and resilient.

Orderliness starts on the inside

If you struggle with disorder in your actions and environment – if your life is a bit chaotic or unorganized – remind yourself that orderliness starts on the inside. Sometimes when we try to get organized, we focus on externals like tidying the house or buying a really good planner. These things are certainly important, and they can be steps in the right direction. But before you focus on organizing the things around you, bring your focus to your internal organization.

A quick Stoic exercise

Here’s an exercise you can do to start organizing yourself from the inside out.

• Sit down with a pen and paper and draw a line down the middle of your page, creating two equal-sized columns. In the column on the left, write down as many of your activities as you can remember from yesterday. Write down everything, from the time you got out of bed to the time you got back in it – even the mundane and boring activities!
• Beside each activity, in the column on the right, write down why you did it. Why did you go grab a cup of coffee when you got up? Why did you tackle a certain project first at work? If you don’t know why you did something, write that down too.
• Now look at your list of activities and motivations.
  - Draw a straight, solid line horizontally between each motivation-activity pair that work well together.
  - Draw a straight, solid line vertically between activities that follow logically from one to the next.
• How many solid lines do you have? Solid lines indicate organized motivations and actions. If your list is looking pretty solid, that’s a good sign you were acting in an orderly way rather than at random.
• For any areas without solid lines, think about how you can make changes in the future so that you are not acting at random. How will you make your actions align with your inner purpose? Order is not about rigidity but about aligning your actions with your higher calling. This will help you to effectively harness your energy and impulses to live a fulfilling life.

This is just a quick illustration of how you might start organizing yourself internally, beginning with your innermost values and motivations. As Marcus Aurelius reminds us (Meditations, 4.2): Never embark on an action at random, or otherwise than according to one of the principles that perfect the art of living.

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Brittany Polat, author of Tranquility Parenting: A Guide to Staying Calm, Mindful, and Engaged, holds a Ph.D. in applied linguistics but currently researches and writes about Stoic psychology and philosophy. Brittany's latest project is Living in Agreement, where she applies her lifelong interest in human nature to the discourse and practice of inner excellence.

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