Sometimes, even an organizer needs to tweak the way things get done.
Many people don’t realize I have a propensity for procrastination because I’m organized. I’m a great juggler, adept at prioritizing and meeting deadlines.
But. That doesn’t mean I enjoy scrambling around to ensure all the things that need doing actually get done. I know that with a little more proactive planning, I could eliminate the pressure that procrastinating creates.
I just re-watched a video by Robin Sharma, an internationally-known life and business coach titled “How I Beat Procrastination.” I was probably avoiding one thing or another when I clicked the link; the irony of not doing what I should’ve been doing in order to watch something on procrastination is not completely lost on me. I highly recommend checking out the entire video, but to summarize, his 5 tips for beating procrastination are:
Create a vision board / dream collage
Go on a 30-day procrastination diet
Exercise with a focus on a second-wind workout later in the day
Create a distraction-free environment (Mess Creates Stress!)
Release your self sabotage (self-limiting beliefs) and rewire your brain
For the 30-day procrastination diet, he suggests taking a calendar and on each day for a month, write one thing you’ve been resisting doing and then…doing it.
It’s time for me to re-commit to this, but I tweaked it a titch: rather than using a calendar and trying to figure out which thing to write on which day, I format mine as a list titled, “30 Things in 30 Days.” That way, I can do any one thing on any given day in any order I choose. The flexibility will work better for me.
Over the next few days I will compile my list, and my procrastination diet officially begins on September 1st. It will be a mixture of business and personal items I have been avoiding, ignoring, fearing, or pushing to the back burner for too long.
For my lists, I use the free computer program/app Wunderlist, which syncs with my Android phone. This allows me to review or update my list from either device. I like that it gives you a little check box to click on and, upon completion, draws a line through the item and moves it to the bottom of the page. It’s a psychological benefit to see the growing list of “done” things just as much as viewing the shortened list of to-do items.
At the end of the month, I’ll report on my progress. Anyone interested in joining me? You don’t have to share your list, but please share your intention to accomplish 30 things in 30 days with a comment! There’s strength in numbers…let’s do this thing.
Whether it’s a four-day pile of unopened mail or many years of paper piles, there comes a point when the idea of tackling it becomes daunting.
Maybe it’s just the spare closet filled with clothes you may or may not wear, or perhaps the entire guest bedroom is overflowing with clothes and you can’t muster the energy to separate what fits and is flattering from what’s outdated or no longer appropriate for your lifestyle.
Here’s the thing. The longer you wait for the “perfect” time or “enough” time to tackle the entire clutter project – whatever it may be – the longer it’s going to build and build and nothing will get done and trust me when I tell you: clutter has negative energy that can affect you mentally, emotionally, and physically. It can damage relationships, sometimes tearing families apart.
Fear not; I bring you tidings of great joy – well, maybe not of great joy, but of hope. No matter how big your clutter issue is, it’s not hopeless.
Ready? Stop looking at the big intimidating clutter picture and start breaking that clutter project down into manageable bits. Clutter’s ability to overwhelm you diminishes when you begin to chip away and see progress. Remember that fable about the tortoise and the hare? It’s true: Slow and steady can win the race.
Instead of thinking, “I need four hours to open and process my mail,” try this: “Each day I will open and process today’s mail PLUS ten pieces from that big ol’ pile.”
If there are paper piles everywhere, gather ‘em up. Fill a bin or two or ten. Start with broad categories: Shred/Recycle/Toss/File/Pay/To Do and dig in. Put on some music that will calm or energize you and focus for a set period of time. Make it a game: see how much you can accomplish in 15 minutes and try to break your record by doing a little more tomorrow. Instead of just watching your favorite TV show, use that as a timer and sort papers in the bin. TV AND progress – win-win!
Don’t focus on the roomful of clothing. How about getting up 15 minutes earlier each morning to try on three or four items in that room. Decide if it’s keep, sell, or donate and then move on with your day. Wash, rinse, repeat.
If it’s a hodgepodge of clutter, pick something and gather “like with like” – all wrapping paper, all books, all seasonal decor, all garbage – whatever it is, gather it up and attack the room one “thing” at a time. Where should all those books live? You can’t put something away if it doesn’t have a home…
Wait, that’s a blog post for another day. I’ll leave you with this “What About Bob” movie clip. I discuss this concept with clients all the time:
Baby steps. Go ahead, get started. And remember: It’s not hopeless.
Does the idea of changing all your online passwords overwhelm you? Take a deep breath and remember my mantra: Baby steps.
If you have dozens and dozens of online accounts for things like banking, investing, shopping, playing, music, watching movies, social media… set a goal: change five or ten a day, a week…whatever works for you, but change them.
If you’ve got a cheat sheet for keeping them all straight, you should “password protect” that document if it’s stored on your computer. Don’t display your passwords on sticky notes stuck to your computer monitor or in a folder labeled, “COMPUTER PASSWORDS,” which is the equivalent of a flashing neon sign directing someone to your list.
Here is a link to an article from CBS News written in December 2013, offering some tips on how to create secure passwords. One suggestion that appears in just about every article I’ve read says do NOT reuse the same password over and over again, especially for email, banking, and social media accounts.
Microsoft usedto offer a free site where you could test the strength of your password, but they charge for that service now. Kaspersky offers an educational option to test strength without typing in an actual password, just something that mimics the format you use.
The bottom line? The effort you put forth to protect yourself online will undoubtedly be time well spent.
People sometimes assume that as a professional organizer, every aspect of my existence must be, well, organized. A lot of it is, but life happens and things fall through the cracks, even for me.
Right before the holidays, hubby went to the cabinet that houses our photo albums – one album per year – and couldn’t find anything more recent than mid-2009. “That’s not possible!” is what I wanted to say, but the albums didn’t lie. I hadn’t printed any photos since June 2009; that’s…holy cow, four and a half years of photos that needed to be uploaded to the computer and organized into folders, then uploaded again to Shutterfly, the online photo storage and printing site I use.
Instead of letting the magnitude of the job overwhelm me, I tried to mentally break it down into manageable segments:
Part 1: upload everything from the camera and cell phone to the computer Part 2: sort the uploaded photos into half-year folders for easier handling and identification Part 3: upload the contents of those folders to Shutterfly Part 4: order a copy of each photo (minus the duds that got deleted, of course!)
Right after the holidays, I got started. In less than a week, spending an hour or so at a time, I completed all four parts.
When the order arrived from Shutterfly, there were more than 500 pictures in one very fat envelope. BUT! Thankfully, they were in chronological order so we simply had to slide them into a slot in the appropriate photo album. Hubby and I tackled that job together as we watched Discovery Channel’s mini series, “Klondike.” A glass of wine, a roaring fire, an interesting TV show and a partner to work with turned what initially felt like a monumental undertaking into a fun project.
I just put the finishing touches on the albums, labeling each by year with my label maker. And now, taking my own advice about developing new habits to maintain something that’s recently been organized, I hope to tend to this task twice a year moving forward.
Many of my clients have good intentions of creating the perfect family photo archive by scrapbooking, which adds a whole other dimension to things. However, very few seem to get beyond the point where they spend hundreds of dollars on the scrapbooking supplies. My advice? If there’s a backlog of photos looming in your life, cut yourself a break and just get them organized into albums or boxes with some sort of identifier – either the year, the event, the person or place – and move on. Someday, perhaps you’ll go back and create the scrapbook of your dreams; until then, you’ll at least be able to enjoy the photos and the memories they invoke.
I will spare you the humorous horror of my online search results for an image of “a pile of photos” to use with this blog post. In its misguided eagerness to please, google gave me “photos of piles” – and when I say “piles” – think in medical terms.
Here’s an idea: before you file something away, ask yourself, “Why am I filing this? Do I actually need to keep it for anything?” If the answer is no, work on breaking that habit. It’ll save you time, and it’ll save space in the file cabinet. One good example for many folks is utility bills. Everyone files them, but nobody knows why.
When I present an organizing seminar, I ask folks in the audience, “How many of you file your utility bills after you’ve paid them?” and invariably, hands shoot up all over the room. When I ask them, “Why?” I am routinely met with a roomful of shrugs and quizzical looks.
Sometimes we do things out of habit without re-examining the reason, and the reason for keeping certain papers in our file drawers may be overdue for review.
Perhaps you keep utility bills because you take a home office deduction on your income taxes. However, you can see an on-line history of utility bills paid, so again, why keep the monthly statements?
I stopped getting utility bills, bank and investment statements, and car loan statements in the mail and instead, receive them all online. I reconcile my accounts and pay my bills online, too, so there’s no need for me to print these statements.
If that’s too far out of your comfort zone, how about keeping one year’s worth and shredding with the start of a new year?
When your year-end investment account statement arrives, it has all the information for the year and you no longer need the monthly or quarterly statements, right?
Once you see the transactions on your bank statement, you can shred ATM slips and deposit receipts.
At the end of the year when you get your W-2, you can shred your paystubs.
We are inundated with an onslaught of papers on a daily basis. If we reduce the quantity of what we get and what we file by eliminating things we’re keeping out of habit rather than actual need, it’s another small step towards organizing and simplifying our daily lives.
