Thursday Then and Now: One More Thing-itis, Part 2

Yesterday, I ended with a cliffhanger -- will she make it?

I did. Just barely. I finished my post with a minute to spare and was just finishing up posting it on social media when my alarm went off. I finished within a few seconds, turned off the alarm...

...and did just one more thing -- jotting these notes for today's post while my thoughts were fresh in my mind. My notes were a little sloppy and there were some typos, but this was one of those times where settling for imperfection was a good plan. As long as I could read it, that was all that mattered. Mistakes could be fixed later.

Overtime? 4 minutes. But, since I'd built in a cushion, having my alarm go off before I truly, finally needed to stop, I was not only on time for church, I was early.

In this process, I uncovered another underlying motivation for my one-more-thing-itis: do it before it slips my mind. And, the older I get, the more important this becomes.

A little more than two years ago, I wrote a 3 Keys Thursday post with specific strategies about taming my one-more-thing-itis habit. In that post, I touted deadlines, alarms (to reinforce the deadlines) and lists.

One of those strategies -- setting an alarm -- clearly came in very handy yesterday. Alarms give me an undeniable reminder of the time I'm supposed to stop. I have a slew of technology just waiting to assist with this -- an iPad, an iPhone, an Echo Dot -- and I can make the alarm as pleasant or annoying as I wish.  This, along with a running list so I don't forget where to pick up after I've left off, might be the trick to making progress.

While my strategies then continue to be my strategies now, I also need to think about the root of this habit. Yesterday, I considered the roles that optimism, denial and dread play. Writing that post caused me to pay closer attention to myself and the habit in question, and revealed that fear of forgetting is sometimes an underlying cause as well -- one that is perhaps a subset of the "dread" category. But, regardless of how I label it, can be addressed by my list strategy.

Strategies are the key to making progress. Strategic locations and strategic containers form the foundation of our style-based systems and they work because they address our underlying habits, whether drop and run, cram and jam or I need to see it. And, although time is a lot harder to corral than stuff is, applying the container concept of "room to grow" by building in a time cushion is perhaps another strategy that can save me from my one-more-thing-itis.

The bottom line is that now I still have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to time management, just as I did then. I've seen so much progress in myself (and my living and working spaces) since I started organizing by STYLE that I sometimes forget how long I've been at it. And, though time management is a natural extension of stuff management, organizing something intangible comes with challenges of its own. So maybe I just need to use my strategies, adjust where necessary and remember that what I regularly say about organizing also holds true for getting good at time management.

It's a process.

True Confessions Wednesday: One More Thing-itis

True Confession #18: I have one-more-thing-itis. For a long time, I made a resolution every January and on many Ash Wednesdays to be on time. There are a few things in life I am never late for (work, massage appointments) but, much of the time, I am running anywhere from two to ten minutes behind. The cause of this is clear and consistent.

I have one-more-thing-itis -- a terrible case of believing that I can do fit in just "one more thing." Whether it's one more task, one more sentence, or one more time hitting the snooze button, I prove myself wrong much of the time, discovering only when it's too late that I really did not have time for one more.

When I try to do this before leaving the house, I inevitably end up late to wherever I'm going. When I try to do this before I start dinner, we end up eating dinner later than planned. When I try to do this before winding down/going to bed, I end up not getting enough sleep.

In a way, it's a very optimistic outlook (I'm sure I can squeeze in one more thing!) and it can even seem efficient, as though I'm using my time wisely by filling all my nooks and crannies of time with items from my to-do list. But, in the end, I don't end up being very efficient at all. Instead, I end up hungry, sleepy and late and I often inconvenience others as well.

I've been aware of this problem for quite some time; I've even come up with ways to work on it. I'm improving but I still have a way to go.

I've begun to consider what might be at the root of this issue. Why do I always think I can fit in one more thing? Sometimes, as noted above, it's optimism. Other times, it's denial ("It really won't take me that long to get there") or dread ("I don't want to have this hanging over my head, so I want to finish it now"). In the end, it's a time management problem that creates a time management problem.

As with any habit, the desire to change has to precede the change itself. Most of the time, especially when the thing I'm going to is as interesting as (or even better than) the thing I'm coming from, that desire is there. It's in those other moments, the ones where I just hate to stop what I'm doing, that the habit digs its heels in, becoming entrenched.

As I type this now, I have one eye on the clock, knowing my alarm is going to go off in five minutes so I can get ready to go to church.

Will I stop?

Check out tomorrow's Thursday Then & Now to find out whether or not my alarm strategy worked and what other strategies I think I might need to put into place.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys to Putting Things Away

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

When I sat down to write this post, I took a quick look at last week's post, hoping I could provide an update that consisted of three neat checkmarks beside the three tasks I laid out a week ago.

No such luck.

While I can report progress on the counter in my office and celebrate the fact that my desk has been clear for almost a month (that could very well be a record), the counter in the office and the table in the dining room, while improved, still need work. And the clipping file?
Not yet.

When things start to pile up around my house, it's usually for one of two reasons; either I don't have time to keep up with the influx or the things that have made their way into my house haven't yet been assigned a home. This month, a bout with the flu has also contributed to piles forming and lingering.

The more I practice organizing by STYLE, though, the less I struggle with finding homes for my things that are worth keeping. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean my drop and run organizational style disappears, leaving clear space in its wake. Before I know it, the odds and ends I've dropped here and there (usually on the dining room table or the office counter) have created clutter that needs to be sorted and put away.

Over time, I've discovered three keys that work for me when it comes to finding a home for all the "somethings" that gather on flat surfaces. Best of all, these keys often work together, making the process even smoother.

• Put it where there's room. While that may sound obvious, cram and jam organizers need to be reminded of this. If it has to be folded more than once, smushed, crushed or otherwise mashed into submission to fit it into the container of choice, it's the wrong container. Not only will choosing another option save you from ruining an otherwise perfectly good item, it'll save you from endless sorting sessions as you attempt to get to the bottom of what feels like a bottomless container full of crammed and jammed, crushed and smushed, mashed-into-submission stuff. And, if it's hard to open and close an overstuffed drawer, it's much less likely we'll actually use it -- at least until we sort through it.

• Put it where you use it. Depending on the item and the space constraints in your home, this could mean in the same room where it's used, or in the drawer or cupboard closest to the exact spot where you'll use it. But, my I know I put it somewhere friends, it does not mean to drop it into any drawer that happens to have the right amount of space in it. That strategy may work in the moment, but it's guaranteed to lead to a frustrating search for the item you put in a "safe place" when you were in a hurry to clear off the counter. Plan now, save time later. 

Still not sure where it should go?

• Put it where there are other things like it. That way, even if you don't remember where you put it, you're likely to find it when you need it because it's in a logical place.

As I polish off my piles and put things where they belong, I find myself wondering if there are people who don't have piles in their homes....and then I remember my parents' house and my mom's favorite adage: "A place for everything and everything in its place."

Someday.

The E in STYLE: Easy Upkeep

Today's post is the last in a series on using the STYLE process to take your organizing to the next level. 

Easy upkeep. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But everything in the STYLE process leads us to exactly that. 

When we Start with Successes, we identify the systems, containers, locations, and approaches that match our styles. Instead of focusing on the problems, we focus on the things we're doing right.

When we Take Small Steps, we chip away at our organizational challenges, making progress via baby steps. 

When we commit to saying, Yes, it has a home! we find and create logical, consistent homes for our belongings.

When we work to Let it go, we consider the role downsizing plays in the overall process of organization, deciding on the best homes for things we no longer need. 

All this brings us to Easy Upkeep, the last piece of the STYLE process. This final step pulls together everything we’ve done so far — our successes, the small steps we have taken, our organizational plans, the containers we've chosen,  and the habits we've created. Easy Upkeep includes troubleshooting and refining, replicating things that work, tossing out things that don’t, and adjusting the things that sort of work until we settle into a system the works for us and our styles. 

Does that mean things will be perfect? I'm sorry to say it does not. As long as new things come into our homes and we live full, busy lives with our families, we're likely to need to keep adjusting what we're doing. But, once we've identified our styles and the tools that work with them, the upkeep becomes easy, at least most of the time.

3 Keys Thursday: 3 Organizational Problems in Search of a Solution

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you've heard me say of organizing that it's a process. I've come a long way, baby (to quote an old commercial) but that doesn't mean my home is perfectly organized.

When I look around, I see many solutions of which I am proud. The open-top files for my course materials (my husband hates them, but I love them -- and have many fewer papers lying around as a result). My mail counter, which was once so bad it daily threatened to morph into a paper avalanche (and sometimes made good on that threat) now clear (or at least close) most of the time. The desk in my home office, which boasts an actual work space for the first time in a very long time.

But, as I said, things aren't perfect around here. Here are three organizational problems at my house currently in search of a solution.

A drop spot for my school papers. Technically, I have several of these, but none of them quite fit my I need to see it personal style, so I remain in search of something better. Why do I want such a thing? So I don't forget to do things. Right now, I've gotten into the habit of dropping my daily work to-dos on my dining room table, a habit that says as much about the functionality of my drop spots as it does about my drop and run organizational style. If those spots were such a good fit, wouldn't I use them instead of my dining room table?

Or, maybe it's more a matter of establishing a new habit than actually creating a new drop spot. The good news there is that I can try out those existing spots while I'm in the process of trying to find something a little more perfect, and a lot less visually unappealing than my dining room table.

A clipping file. I'm one of those people who can't seem to read a magazine without tearing out an article to save, something that's been happening a lot more lately as I continue to chip away at my resolution to clear out accumulated stacks of reading material -- a task kicked off by the addition of new storage in my living room that was more living room-worthy. While some of the things I've unearthed can go straight to the recycle bin, the ones that earn a read often yield things I want to save. I could go old school and create categorized files but past experience has taught me that's a lot of work for articles that, very often, I never go back to. What I need is a self-emptying system of sorts. I'm considering employing a stack of file folders labeled by month and simply stashing whatever I find and want to save each month into that month's folder. It doesn't make as much sense from a retrieval perspective as sorting by topic does but, if I want to, I can always put little topic flags on the articles.

Why engage in a system that sounds kind of random? Because a year will pass between the time I need the folder the first time and the next time I need it, which means one of two things will happen to every article in the collection. I'll either pull them and put them to use, or I'll uncover them, unused, twelve months later at which point I can toss them all without a moment's guilt. If I didn't read them again in a year, I don't need to save them. It's the sort of deferred decision that makes professional organizers cringe but I like the fact that it allows me to contemplate the article's value for a little longer and it gives me a built-in expiration date.

And I have just the perfect bin for storing all those folders (of course).

kaz via Pixabay

The miscellany taking up residence on the counter in my office. Full disclosure. One reason my desk is clear is because some of the things that need to be sorted got moved to the counter so I could clean off the desk (literally). Then, I got the flu and never got back to the requisite sorting. I'm hoping it will be a somewhat easy task -- lots of miscellany to toss -- but the longer it takes me to get back to it, the more I fear the objects that lurk there, homeless, will claim the counter as their home indefinitely. The solution is simple -- start sorting. ASAP.

Unlike my I know I put it somewhere husband who opts for clear surfaces at any cost (including just stashing things wherever), I enjoy contemplating my organizational challenges and watching solutions emerge -- at least as long as things don't get too cluttered in the first place.

And, who knows? Maybe by next week at this time, I'll have cooked up a solution, or at least have dug out those month-by-month files to use for my clippings.

It's a process.

Way Back Wednesday: Let it Go!

Today's post is the fourth in a series on using the STYLE process to take your organizing 

to the next level. 

For many of us getting organized and getting rid of excess stuff go hand in hand. But if you've got an I love stuff personal style, that second part can be a little bit intimidating. So many things that seem insignificant to other people are wrapped in a cocoon of memories for I love stuff folks.

Even those of us who wouldn't put ourselves into the I love stuff category can become overwhelmed sorting through things and figuring out what to do with them. All of the things we've collected were, at some point, important to us, serving a useful purpose or imbued with some meaning. This, coupled with the fact that we might have scrimped and saved for (or spent months paying off) the items in question can lend an exaggerated value to our things, convincing us that our trash is someone else's treasure.

It usually isn't.

And therein lies the painful part. Sometimes, we simply have to put them out with the trash.

I must admit to cringing at this option, arguing that surely someone, somewhere can use this! Convinced of this fact, some of us spend hours pricing things and sitting out in the sun (we hope) at a yard sale, hoping to recoup some of our investment. I used to belong to this group, but after the money earned at the last very hot, very long yard sale I hosted disappeared in about a tenth of the time it took to earn it, I crossed this option off my list. 

If you, like me, long to reduce, declutter and recycle but don't want to go the yard sale route, you might benefit from setting some boundaries. First, corral three boxes and separate your disposables into categories: trash (if I'm brutally honest with myself, no one else will want this stuff), recycle and resell/donate.

Pixabay

At the end of the sorting session, take out the trash and recycling. Then, set a decision date for the resell/donate items, based on how long you think it will take to find a place that might be interested in them. Write that date on the box and on your calendar.

When you figure out where you're taking the things in that pile, write the drop-off date in your planner and put the items in the car. If the deadline comes and goes and the items are still in your car, they become trash.

Can you cut yourself some slack, donating the items a week after deadline? That's entirely up to you. But, if you're serious about letting things go, that means letting them go completely, not simply moving them from the basement to the mudroom to the car, where they take up an indefinite period of residence. (Not that I've ever done that).

Let it go! is probably the toughest part of the STYLE process but, without it, we quickly overrun our living space, making organizing far more complicated than it needs to be. Luckily, unless you're relocating, letting it go is not something that has to be done all at once; in fact, it's often most productive when done in stages.

Look around. What can you let go of?

Thursday Then & Now: When Things Don't Go According to Plan

I have been down with the flu since last weekend, so this post from 2015 about managing a day that doesn't go according to plan 

seemed worth a revisit. 

What I said then:

Yesterday was one of those days. I started with a list (part of which, quite honestly, carried over from the day before), and it seemed reasonable at the time. I'd added one item I was less-than-thrilled about (time wise) to my schedule, but that didn't seem to be too big a deal.

And then reality set in.

Fortunately, nothing awful happened, and in more than one case, I was right where I should have been exactly when I should have been there -- and in a totally unplanned fashion.

Unfortunately, yesterday's blog post was late, and by the time we sat down to dinner (after 7 pm), very little had been checked off my to-do list. I was quickly growing grouchy.

Throughout the day, I tried to remind myself:

• What matters most. Yes, not getting through my list was frustrating. But the things I was doing instead involved making inroads with people. Meeting with students. Swapping stories and strategies with another instructor. Spending unexpected time with my daughter. Any one of these things is a good thing, and together, they were a worthwhile way to spend my time.
• Worrying and stressing solves nothing. My main unplanned trip for the day involved going somewhere out of my usual realm of travel. My route-planning skills being what they are, I chose a route that was more circuitous than necessary, then white-knuckled it for most of the ride there. No matter how pale my knuckles got, it didn't get me there any faster, nor did it make the trip more pleasant.
• A sense of humor is both essential and priceless. We opted for a different route home (for obvious reasons) and just as I got in the lane to pull onto the main road, we heard about an accident -- you guessed it -- right where we were headed. All we could do, despite the unpredictable -- and sometimes unpleasant -- afternoon was laugh.

Note that I said that I tried to remind myself of these things. As the day wore on (and the hours to accomplish things grew shorter), I was reminded that knowing these things and using them to offset my frustration are two different things. Sometimes, just knowing them is enough.

Other times, you have to write a blog post.

qimono via Pixabay

What I say now:

Mama said there'd be days like this -- and there will. Days when the to-do list is too long and the flu shot gets pushed right off the list and then you end up with the flu (and kicking yourself because you knew better but didn't do better). Recognizing what matters most means understanding that we need to take care of ourselves because that is the best possible way to keep days like this at bay.

And forgiving ourselves when we know better but don't do better. 

Way Back Wednesday: Yes, it Has a Home

Today's post is the third in a series on using the STYLE process to take your organizing to the next level. 

By now you know that a positive outlook and confidence in your own abilities (Start with Successes) are necessary ingredients as you develop a plan based on your personal and organizational styles. And if you Take Small Steps, using simple strategies like Give it Five! and Don’t put it down, put it away! you'll see steady progress and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Which brings us to Y: Yes, it Has a Home.  

A home is, quite simply, where something “lives.” While containers are key to establishing homes for our stuff, they're only half the equation. In order to establish working organizational systems, we need to create logical homes for our things. A logical home is one that:

• is close to where the item is most often used;
• is the right size for the item;
• takes into account how often the item needs to be accessed.

Makes sense, right? But when we're overwhelmed or in a hurry, we often forget these guidelines. Instead, we put things wherever there's room, wherever we happen to be or just...wherever. 

Ready to break the "wherever" habit? Here are a few more ideas to get you started. 

• Store things that are used every day in places that are easy to access.
• Choose a storage solution (container and location) that makes it as easy to put things away as it is to put them down.
• Store things where you use them...or drop them...or naturally put them.
• Store similar items together, and consider storing complementary items (things that go together or are used together) near each other as well.

Finally, let your styles be your guide by choosing homes that work with your natural habits. Already have a go-to drop spot? Make it a permanent home for the items that live there.

Happy habit-making!