Why should things be organized?

Introduction
This post deals with the "why" question. Why is it good to organize things? Why would I benefit from having a structure in the way I think and how I do things?

First of all, and just to make things clear, everyone has some sort of organization system, even though it might not be very well structured. And by all means, not everyone needs a structured organizational system. What it all comes down to in the end is how complex your life is at the moment.

In the following parts I am going to go through how the brain stores, processes and reviews (works with the) information, with a slight focus on organizing things. Hopefully this will answer parts of the "why?" questions above.

The need for taking the step from merely doing things ad hoc to organizing things comes when your brain gets overly cluttered. Have you ever had that feeling that you should have done something, but simply could not remember it? Or felt that you just that moment got the greatest idea, but two hours later could not remember what it was? These two things are signs on why our brain is insufficient as a organization system. You simply have to much to handle at the same time to be able to remember everything. Another side effect from a lack of structure is stress and a feeling of not getting the grip of the bigger picture. This is the point when a documented personal management system will start to be beneficial.

The simplest kind of organization is when it is stored in your brain. It is a simple system for yourself since you have not necessarily put any conscious thought into it yet, and a technically more simple system because of its lack of capability in processing large amounts of complex information at the same time. This might not be true for some, the function of the brain is diverse and can differ a lot from person to person, but is true for a general case.

How the brain works
Our brain kind of works like this; It gathers information from our senses (got five of them, hope you remember which!? ;) ) and pushes some of this information to our short term memory. The information is then processed by our mind, and the things that we reflect upon (conscious or subconscious) have a chance on finding it's way to the long term memory. The long term memory, in turn, is some kind of constantly degrading memory bank where the information needs regular reflection to not be forgotten.

When you are working with information, the information is extracted from the long term memory (or directly from your senses) and put in the short term memory. The short term memory is roughly said to be able to hold 7 items (give or take a few) at the same time, but if more information is put into it some of the old is probably going to fall out. So, information is stored in the long term memory, but processed in the short term memory. Since we do all our thinking in the short term memory we have a limited number of things to think about at the same time without forgetting. If you are curious about the number 7, you can test for yourself how many things you can hold in your memory at the same time. This is done by for example trying to remember as many numbers as possible (without chunking them together). Have a friend say a combination of numbers, and a few seconds later you try to state them again. How many did you get?

I hope you start to see one purpose of organizing things now. Simply because our brain is not capable of processing that many things at the same time. Every new thought that enters your mind pushes another out where it came from, unless you have had time to anchor it in your long term memory. Another point of view actually on anchoring in the long term memory. I said before that the long term memory is degrading. But how do we maintain the information then? This comes from reviews, kind of like the "reflections" I mentioned in the last post about happiness. So by organizing things you actually aid this part also, since in a organized system you can review things easier, without having to first process the information in your short term memory (and by that maybe push the things you wanted to reflect upon out of the system).

Short review so far:
Everybody has a way of organizing things, even though it might not be thought upon that much. You can manage things by just storing them in your head or writing them down. Your brain is good and all, but when it gets to much to handle at the same time it will get confused and start forgetting things. By having things organized you aid your brain in processing information by not storing some of it in your short term memory, and you also aid your long term memory because reviewing things is easier (and will therefore happen more often) if you have things organized.

The reason for organizing stuff is then to get a load of your processing of memories. Focusing the work at one thing at a time without cluttering the short term memory with the bigger picture.
The bigger picture is stored in your system, and can be fallen back upon without having to actively think about it. Since the bigger picture is known without having to actively think about it you aid your long term memory in remembering things.

Organizing takes resources though, and only if the outcome from a clearer system outweighs the increase in resources spent to uphold the system should it be implemented. But generally speaking, it is very rare that a chaotic structure beats the organized one.

Conclusion:
We need to organize to aid our brain in working with information. It is a aid to help us remember things and by that simply work better. You might have a nice thought out way of organizing things inside your head, but this will only take you so far. Having the system inside your head will "take up space" in your short term memory when you want to process something. This leads to one less item to simultaneously think about when processing this something, and a higher risk of forgetting things and loosing the context (guess that sounded kind of dopey...).