What makes a neat freak

This way you don't have to spend hours going through your drawers and closet to find something. A clean room really does save a lot of time! Be happy with your work! Allow yourself to think you accomplished something Be creative!

Enjoy having not only more time, but also more space. The more often you clean out the junk in your house, the more room you will have in those soon-to-be empty drawers to put all those things of yours that you had to stuff in the back of your closet until you "cleaned-up. Seeing clutter thrown around on the floor and furniture can really take a toll on your attitude. Clutter around you creates more clutter in you.

Make it a game. If you try to motivate yourself by setting "records" for the least amount of time you can clean-up, it just might seem a lot less like actual work. Get advice from people you know who are neat freaks. Some might just say that's the way they are, but you might actually get some helpful tricks from the others! Just go ahead and ask. Always be ready for everything. Carry extra money with you. If you have a cell phone, always make sure that it's fully charged. You never know when you will be stuck in a situation where you are stuck on your own.

You will be very thankful that you brought your cell phone with you. A neat freak cannot be neat if they are unprepared!

Make a to-do lists. Make a to-do list for your day. Your daily or immediate list should never be more than 5 items long, or else you're taking on too much and setting yourself up for failure. Mark one or two of those items as things you absolutely must get done that day, and pursue those tasks relentlessly until you get them done. Make a to-do list for the week. Appropriate items here would be: Grocery shopping, fix air conditioner, etc.

Draw from this list to make your daily to-do list. A white board or board with erasable markers can help to remember all one has to do every day, or long term goals. Make a to-do list for the month. This list would have more general tasks like: Birthday gift to Jill, get car serviced, dentist appointment. Draw from this list to make your daily and weekly to-do list. Make a to-do list for your life. Drastic, yes, but why not use this time to rethink your life and where it's going?

Being a neat freak is all about priorities, and it never hurts to get your ducks in a row. Follow through. There's no point in making a to-do list if you don't discipline yourself to complete the tasks you've assigned yourself. There are many ways to stick to your to-do list. Stop procrastinating, remove or ignore distractions, and hop to it. Take a good look at things that slip to the bottom of your to-do lists. So is a neat freak born or made — and is it ever something to be worried about?

Neatness, when it extends into compulsion, becomes the better-known obsessive compulsive disorder , or OCD — a serious anxiety disorder in which compulsive behaviors, like washing hands, straightening pens, or counting buttons over and over, become crippling in their domination of everyday life.

A person with OCD — which, it seems, is produced by a combination of genetics and environmental factors — is controlled by their compulsions, and neatness isn't actually the point in the slightest. But the neat freaks we're talking about aren't at this point: they just really, really like things to be in order. We tend to look at neat freaks with awe and a little bit of confusion.

What's so terrible about a little bit of dust, and why does everything need to be immaculate all the time? The answer lies in psychological and genetic factors — and neatness may actually be more of a tyrant than it seems.

Let's take a look at six reasons why someone might be a neat freak. Psychology is keen to make a connection: neat freak is essentially the same thing as control freak , just with a very specific pattern of behavior attached. Now, a desire for control isn't an inherently bad thing. A study even says it's evolutionarily necessary for us to feel as if we control our environments — otherwise we're scared all the time, and too frightened to take necessary risks — and being clean and neat is an evolutionary benefit too , because it keeps us protected from diseases.

But neat freaks often take the desire to an extreme. OCD is pretty diverse in terms of its symptoms and everyone has symptoms that are a little different - their own personal spin. Steven J. Obsessions about neatness and cleanliness are experienced by only a fraction of OCD sufferers. As with all forms of OCD or any mental disorder, it has to impair social or occupational function or involve frequent excessive distress to be considered a diagnosable "disorder.

Charles H. Elliott, PhD, and Laura L. Smith, PhD psychology4people. People who are "neat freaks" generally aren't terribly worried about their so-called problem.

They are able to go about their lives without excessive distress. Not all people with OCD are overly concerned about cleanliness because obsessions and compulsions can involve a surprisingly wide array of issues. It is a common misconception that "neat freaks" or "clean freaks" have OCD, perhaps because cleanliness and ordering are common types of OCD. But there is a difference between being a "neat freak" or "clean freak" and having an actual diagnosis of OCD. Click on the arrows to change the translation direction.

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