Even though I tried to focus and to feel balanced and self-confident—I had practiced meditation for years—my life and work grew ever more stressful because I was usually running late. Rushing to the airport for business trips, I’d skid into the jetway, my heart pounding, just before the crew closed the door. Sometimes it was a high, sometimes I hated it.

Running late for meetings, forgetting something yet again, submitting invoices way past deadline, I was creating havoc around me. I valued integrity, but I often broke agreements because I double-booked myself. In addition, I had several years of unfiled taxes. I would lie there, sleepless, worrying about the size of the debt ($1,000? $50,000?), but I still couldn’t get my tax returns in the mail. And despite my M.B.A., I had no clue what I owed on my credit cards, because I couldn’t find the last set of bills (or any set of bills, for that matter).

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My personal space was also very messy. When I invited people over, I would swoop through my apartment and throw the clutter into a closet or stash extra belongings under the bed or in the tub, and hope that people didn’t peek behind the shower curtain. Things would stay in the closet, only to be buried by the next sweep through. I rarely hung up my clothes. My sink was piled with dirty dishes. I would often lose phone messages. I longed to live in a peaceful, beautiful space. I wanted a sanctuary, but I created chaos.

Embarrassing? Very. Could I tell anyone what my life was like? No. I wanted to change, but I got little help from the many books on organizing. To organized people, and in most of the organizing books, the obvious answer is: Pull yourself together, create a plan, and “just do it” or “do it now.” Put the keys in one place. File or throw out the mess on the desk and the clutter on the floor. Get rid of the excess stuff in the closets. Put everything in its place. Decide to be on time. That made sense to me, too, so I would try to “do it now.” I’d sort the papers on my desk, finally get the dishes done, and then frustratingly I’d be disorganized all over again. What was my problem? How could I fix it? I had accomplished a lot in life. How come I couldn’t master the ordinary tasks of every day?

What is challenging is that chronic disorganization—like a chronic weight problem—feels as if it has a life of its own. I truly wanted to be different; I wanted to live without chaos and lateness. I just couldn’t seem to do it. I would get completely fed up with the mess, the frenzy, and the panic. I would say, “Okay. This is it. This weekend I am throwing everything away. I’m clearing off the desk and the floor, hanging up all the clothes and doing all the dishes. I am creating some peace in this place. And, from now on, I’m arriving on time.”

But that declaration never worked. After many, many wasted weekends of failing to clean up and failing to have any fun or relaxation, I hired a professional organizer—I’ll call her Jane. We sat at my desk in my home office and after several painstaking hours, we had cleared it off. She even gave me a system to stay on top of things. I put everything in a logical place. What a relief! Success! I was organized!

Or was I? By the end of the next day, there was a fine spray of clutter on the desk. By the end of the week, the desk looked as if we hadn’t touched it. With dismay, I called Jane back. She arrived with a little scowl (such a mess? so soon?) and we cleared the desk again. After another week, not surprisingly, the mess was back once again. How did the desk and papers do that? I wondered. Where was the clutter coming from?

I was too mortified to call her back once again, and realized that I was on my own with a mountain of papers. These papers were not just on my desk, though—they littered my office floor, filled my closets, and spilled across the kitchen counters. I had a chaotic office, a disorganized kitchen, a messy car, an unlivable home. Since I had been meditating for a long time, I had developed a small capacity to observe myself with compassion. As I mulled over this discouraging situation, I came to a key realization: I (me?, not me!) was the one creating the mess.

I began to see that I created my own mess through the choices I made and my unconscious habits. Becoming aware of this was hard for me, but the more I looked, the more I could see that I was taking actions that led to chaos.

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