Metacognition: My Bedroom

I tend to think of myself as a fairly organized person. My ways of keeping things in order may seem completely arbitrary to someone else who walks into my bedroom and sees papers, books, pens and pencils, and other random objects scattered on my desk and floor. If Aristotle were to walk into my room without prior knowledge of what he was going to see, he might think some sort of horrific natural disaster had terrorized my bedroom. But I happen to know where everything is in my bedroom. I might have a stack of old papers piled two feet high, but I will know that my math homework is the piece of crumpled notebook paper squished in the very middle of the pile, and I will be able to find it easily. But when my mother walks into my room, she simply sighs and tells me to clean it up because she can't stand to have an unorganized room in her house. So finally, I admitted to myself that it might do me some good to clean up a little bit. I spent the last hour filtering through all of the old papers that invaded my desk, putting all the stray pens and pencils into cups, and putting the abandoned books back on the shelves. Then, after I had finished cleaning, I literally took a step back and was able to see the carpet and an open desk for the first time in about four months. I was relieved.

Before I began the grueling task of ridding my room of all the unnecessary "garbage," for lack of a batter word, I felt like my room was just a place to pile all of the items I didn't need or was hesitant to throw away. If you had walked into my room an hour ago, this description would speak for itself. But as I began to slowly sort my way through the things I was going to keep, throw away, or put somewhere else in my house, I felt as if my mind was able to clear itself as well. If you have ever had a massive load of homework, or a large task you had to accomplish in a short amount of time, and you get some or most of that task done, you feel a huge weight come off your shoulders. That is exactly how my mind felt when I was done organizing my bedroom.

Now that my room has been cleared of its mountains of junk, I can walk on the carpeting without having to carefully place my footing so I don't step on a book or a pencil. I tried organizing my belongings in a way that I wasn't used to; actually putting things away and not just stuffing it in drawers or tossing it in the corner and forgetting about it. Not only did my room look cleaner and more in order, but my mind also felt a lot more organized. I don't spend ten minutes looking for my textbooks anymore because they are back in their rightful places on my bookshelf where I can grab them in ten seconds if I need them. I learned that although some methods of organization, like my old habits, might work for certain people, other ways of organizing, like the one I tried, work much better for others. I didn't know how simple it was to just throw some objects away and put other items where they belong. It made my mind open up and I felt so relieved to have a clean, organized space to live in. If only Aristotle could see me now.