Create a compass, a list of what matters most to you. Use it as a guide for making decisions about the tasks you’ll do, how you’ll use your time and the things you’ll have in your home or office. Then, when you find yourself caught up in feelings of overwhelm or distracted by busyness, common states in our fast paced world, you can use that compass to ground yourself and quickly get back on track to getting more of what you REALLY want!

Have you noticed that errands accumulate? Why is that? I wonder if that happens because most of us know that running out to do one errand here and there is just not time effective. It really does make more sense to wait until we have several errands to do to justify taking time and spending gas to run errands.

How do you remember to do errands? My system is very rudimentary. I use items associated with the errand as visual reminders and put them in the front seat of my car (my office away from my home office). If I don’t have a reminder item, like a book or piece of paper, I write the errand on a sticky note and accumulate sticky notes on one piece of paper. That piece of paper goes to the front seat of my car. Whenever I get in the car I see the errand reminders that tell me what needs to be done. I’m all ready for when I’m gifted with a small chunk of time. I then check those reminders and do an errand or two. Not fancy, but it works for me!

It’s important to figure out your errand threshold–the number of errands that can accumulate without you feeling overwhelmed. When people feel overwhelmed they often avoid whatever is overwhelming them. Then you’re really in trouble! Why? Because accumulated errands have the same energy as clutter. And, clutter attracts more clutter! Each errand also consumes an attention unit in your brain. The errand may not even be important, but it still registers as something that needs to be done, thereby consuming some of your precious energy.

Got errand clutter? Schedule a clearing session and make yourself clear them out. You will find that you feel much lighter and brighter because you’ve both lightened your mental load and probably have also cleared some visual clutter. If you find yourself gifted with some unexpected free time, use it to clear some errands. It’s a sure fire way to lighten your load and gain more energy.

Last Sunday while I was doing my weekend writing and organizing so that I’d be ready for the challenges of this week, I was chomping at the bit to go pick up a piece of furniture for my dining room. Instead of heading out the door to get the marble topped dresser, I decided to use that task as a reward for finishing my writing and organizing. I chose to work first instead of doing what I really wanted to do. If I’d done the fun task first it would have been VERY difficult to come home and buckle down to work that required mental energy and focus.

Is there a difficult task that you’d really like to get done? Tax preparation, for example. Set a goal for what you’d like to get done. Then, find a reward that you can use as a motivator. The more difficult the task, the better the reward must be. Using a 15 minute walk around the block as the carrot on the stick to get you to attack the annoying and anxiety provoking task of tax preparation is not likely to motivate you to start the task much less complete it. What would motivate you? A night on the town with a loved one? Purchasing a new piece of software? You decide.

“I never spend time at home.” Those were the words of a woman who recently heard me speak about clearing clutter to get more of what you really want.

When I hear those words they usually mean one of two things:

1. Her house has some serious clutter challenges because she doesn’t have enough time at home to do what it takes to maintain a clutter-free home.

2. Her home is so uncomfortable because of clutter that she’d rather be anywhere else.

People who are never home often develop the dangerous habit of “drop and plop.” When they do get home they are usually so tired that they drop their mail, their bags, their clothes, etc., and plop on the sofa or into bed from exhaustion. Consequently, the all important habits of regularly putting things away, throwing things away, and cleaning up take a back seat to the more pressing need to get rest from the exhaustion of doing too much.

If you suffer from “drop and plop” or if you are over-committed to the point where you have no time or energy to make maintaining a clutter-free home a priority, evaluate your commitments and let go of at least one.

Think of it this way. You are making space for your needs and your well being. Your ability to help others will only increase and deepen when you first MAKE TIME to take care of yourself!

Commit yourself to the path of a clutter-free human “being” by ceasing to be a human “doing!”

Let go and GO HOME!

It is a good rule of thumb to immediately do tasks that take less than two minutes to do. It’s a way to clear “little task” clutter. I’m talking about making that quick phone call to the hotel where you left a personal item to ask them to mail it back to you. Or, taking items all the way up to the attic instead of letting things accumulate at the bottom of the stairs. Or, filling out a form that needs to be sent back to school with your child.

If it’s a good rule of thumb, why did the little pile of the last Christmas decorations sit on a table annoying me for a week before I finally pulled down the attic stairs and put them away? Hmmm. . . .

I think I procrastinate on tasks that I think will take more time than they actually do. In my head pulling down those stairs, climbing the stairs and putting those items away seemed like a lot to do. The whole task took less than a minute to complete when I finally made myself do it!

I also procrastinate when there’s something I need to do before I can actually complete the action. In the case of the Christmas decorations, I really needed to get a plastic bag to put them in so they won’t get covered with attic scum. Just having to do that one simple, easy step before I could complete the task kept me procrastinating. Amazing!

And, finally, I procrastinate about things where there is a possibility of discomfort. In this case, the attic is very cold right now. I don’t like to go into cold places. That was the icing on the procrastination cake for me.

Wow! There were quite a few barriers to me getting those decorations to the attic! Time, an extra task and discomfort barriers. It wasn’t just one thing.

The next time you find yourself procrastinating about doing something that really should not be a big deal, take a moment to see if you can identify the physical, perceptual, emotional or psychological barriers. The first barrier I addressed was to get the plastic bag. That was easy! Once I did that and everything was ready to go, it was much easier to deal with my thinking about how long it might take to do the task and my dread of the cold. Often if you can make yourself take the first step, just removing the first barrier will give you the momentum to finish the task.

What two minute task are you procrastinating about? What’s the first step you must take to get it done? Just do it! Clearing “little task” clutter will allow you to more clearly see what really matters and make better decisions in every area of your life!

Recycling Greeting Cards

I get such great ideas from people who hear me speak or read my news tips and blog! Terry Jones shared her method of recycling greeting cards with me. She gave me permission to pass it on to you.

“What I do now to recycle my greeting cards is save all of this year’s cards together and pull them out when writing next year’s Christmas cards to make sure I do not forget to touch base with someone who is probably going to send me a card again next year. After I have sent out this year’s cards, I take the old ones I received last year, cut off the fronts and use them as gift tags for my wrapped presents. It gets the paper clutter out of the house and allows me to enjoy several minutes of reflection, enjoying last year’s cards and the handwritten notes included in them.”

Terry D. Jones

In a recent news tip I wrote about what I do with photos I receive in Christmas cards. A dear friend and networking buddy, Carrie Emery, read my tip and sent me an email sharing what she does with those photos. She gave me permission to share that with you.

“Most of my friends got married and had children long before I did and they would send adorable pictures of their families. I started a photo album–very basic album with the sticky pages–and have added the pictures each year. Each family has their own page which grew into pages. Since it was such a basic notebook style album, I would just add a new page when one was filled up.”

“What I have now, many years later is a photo album that shows the children from birth to high school for some. It has turned into a treasure. I can open it up at Christmas, usually as the season is winding down, add a few photos and look back at how the children have grown over the years since each year is right there on their page(s). And, it is a small manageable task that I can do in just a few minutes while watching the news or while waiting on perma-hold on the phone.”
Carrie Emery
Mary Kay Cosmetics

Cross one regular obligation off your calendar. Yes, I’m serious! In the ten years I have been helping overwhelmed people get organized, it’s been very clear to me that the more you have going on in your life, the more difficult it is to get and stay organized.

Most women I work with have no clear picture of how heavy a load they are carrying. When we make a list of their obligations so they can see why they are feeling overwhelmed, they are amazed at what they see. Keeping themselves in the dark about their reality has kept them going and kept them feeling overwhelmed and on a path to exhaustion, burnout and health problems.

Make a list of your obligations. Rank them in order of importance. Then make arrangements to let go of the least important obligation. Do it as an expression of your commitment to lightening your load so you can get and stay organized, eliminate overwhelm and avoid the serious health problems that you will attract if you continue to live in a state of overwhelm.

How many times have you promised yourself that you were going to tackle an organizing project and you broke your promise? It’s easy to do because staring down an organizing project by yourself can be overwhelming, even terrifying.

Just this week when a client and I finished the unpleasant task of sorting and organizing her bathroom drawer, a task she’d procrastinated doing for a long time, we marveled that though the task at first seemed onerous, the process of working together and completing the job was actually fun. I popped out with, “Make it fun to get it done!”

Are you stuck, but want to move forward with an important task? Make it fun! Here are some ways to do that:

* Invite a kind, non-judgmental friend (preferably NOT a mother or spouse) to
help you. That way the task becomes a social event.
* Put on your favorite music, fix your favorite non-alcoholic drink, and light a
candle to create a pleasant mood.
* Promise yourself a special reward once the task is completed, like treating
yourself to lunch at a favorite restaurant, getting a massage or calling a friend.

Have fun and get the organizing done!

The weather the last few days has been really nasty! Some tropical storm just dumped a bunch of wind and rain on Virginia and assaulted us with high winds and gray skies. During that time I had such difficulty maintaining my usual optimistic attitude. My body seemed to scream, “Sleep!!!!”

About the same time I was gifted with two large blocks of time to get office work done. Great! The urge to sleep is not exactly compatible with being productive at difficult tasks like writing and communicating with speech prospects. What to do when you don’t want to do anything??!!

The first thing I did was acknowledge how I felt. Rather than deny it and try to push through the inertia (what I normally would do-totally disrespectful, by the way!), I first decided to do something that could help increase my energy. I got an ionic foot bath that drained all kinds of toxins out of my body. What an amazing and scary experience! The water was black! No wonder I had been feeling sluggish! I couldn’t blame the slime that came out of my body on the weather!

After the foot bath I ran many errands to clear the errand clutter that had accumulated in my brain, on my to-do list and in my car. I cleared my body and I cleared my errand to-do list. Boy, did I feel lighter!

Once I’d done all that clearing, I again had energy to tackle my more difficult action items, like writing a tips list to send to my coach. Yes! I did that and actually got my desk cleared and some substantial tasks done.

So, the next time you’re fighting with yourself to get things done, check in to see what you really need at that moment. Because of fatigue, the weather, or your mood, you may have to take a short detour to re-energize yourself. The trick is to get back on track once you’ve received the benefits of the detour. Remember, a detour is a temporary place whose purpose is to lead you back to the main road to your productivity and success.