The Inevitability of Plan B

krzysztof-m via Pixabay

Every once in a while, something happens in my organizing life that keeps me humble. A few weeks ago, it was my out-of-sight, out-of-mind tote bag. 

Today, it was forgetting an appointment.

A while back, I wrote about how much I love my new planner, and what good habits I'm getting into. Using this planner is helping me to reduce my here a-note, there-a-note, everywhere-a little note habit. My mistake was thinking that I could eliminate those little notes and still leave my beautiful new planner at home where it would stay nice and new and not get all dinged up.

Today, I realized the foolishness of that plan.

I was on my way home after my last class, stopped at a red light, when I checked my phone and found an email from a student I'd made an appointment with.

"Are we still meeting today?"

Oops. 

Luckily, she was flexible. We changed the meeting to a Zoom meeting and everything was fine, aside from a little embarrassment on my part. 

I should know by now that when I get cocky, a rebalancing comeuppance is just around the corner. Though I've never claimed to be perfect (far from it), I have been known to think, "I've got this!' only to discover that one of my best-laid plans has a crack in it.

The solution here is simple: take the planner with me. Or, if I want to protect it from wear and tear (silly, but true), I need to take stock of my day before I leave the house (or, more likely, the night before) and make a note of any appointment outside my regular class schedule. 

That'll work.

Tomorrow, I'll execute Plan B. With the full knowledge that Plan C might be just around the corner.

OBS FAQs: Can I Really Take Small Steps?

On Sunday, I did something I try to avoid at all costs. Company was coming, and I had two piles left to go through, so I tossed them into a tote bag and put them out of sight. It's a bad idea for so many reasons. 

Or is it?

Admittedly, it's not the best strategy, but it's also not irredeemable, at least not if it's the first step in a succession of small steps, beginning with the first one.

Choose the tote bag well. I made sure to pick one not only big enough to house everything, but with pockets on the outside as well. That way, the lists and things to do on the top of the pile stayed visible.

Make sure out of sight doesn't mean out of mind. The first misstep most of us make is stashing the full  bag in the back of a closet or, worse yet, in the attic, the basement, garage or trunk of the car. On Sunday, I stashed mine in my bedroom. Company couldn't see it, but I can. Every day.

Make a plan. Mine was to take out one item each day and put it where it belongs. Ideally, I'd start with the things in the outside pockets -- the things that needed to be done, but that I'd been putting off doing.

Put the plan into action. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. The first thing to come out of the bag was my iPad because I wanted to use it. Those things in the outside pockets? Still there. (Still procrastinating). The second thing to come out was a handful of magazines, breaking my "just one thing" rule. When I didn't magically get them read and gone by the end of the day, I was tempted to ditch the plan.

Make a contingency plan. Just keep swimming. Or, in this case, emptying the bag slowly. More was clearly not better, so back to one thing it was.

Take it one small step at a time. Some days, I get busy or I forget about the bag and end the day with as many things in it as there were at the start of the day. Other days, I stick with the plan. But as long as I keep taking things out of it and putting them where they belong, I keep making progress. 

Set an end date. What if that bag is still there a month from now? Well, then, clearly I didn't desperately need anything in it and it might be time to toss it all, sight unseen. That's one choice. Sorting it all at once is another, as is taking one thing out of it more than once a day or moving it to a location where it's harder to ignore. The thing is, I'm in charge of the plan, and in charge of deciding how long is too long before the bag is emptied and removed.

Does this all sound silly and a little...desperate? Maybe. But, sometimes, we don't get the opportunity to dig into a pile of stuff all at once, and chipping away at it a little at a time is a far sight better than just letting it sit there, whether we're picking one thing out of a tote bag or picking something up off a pile every time we pass it. 

So, do I recommend this? It's certainly not my first choice but, if it means progress happens, I'm all in.

The plan, that is. Not the tote bag.

Then and Now: A Space that Makes You Smile

Usually, when I do a Throwback Thursday or Then & Now post, I replace the photos and/or graphics but the flower photo I chose for the bottom of this post when it originally ran in 2018 still makes me smile. If I'm lucky, it might even nudge me into action.

Then:

When you've lived in a house for practically a quarter of a century, things get tired. And, at my house, one of those things is me.

When we first bought the house, we excitedly poured ourselves into painting, updating, upgrading and all the things you have the energy to do when you're twenty-something (okay, thirty-something) and childless. Every summer, I'd take on a project, using the time between school years to take something in my house to the next level. By the time our daughter was born, we'd put our stamp on nearly every room in the house.

After our daughter was born, I had a little person to pour my energies into and just keeping the house in halfway decent shape was an accomplishment. Still, when she was little, I tackled house projects while she napped but, after a while, it became easy to coast, when it came to household projects.

Now, our empty nest looks a little bedraggled in places. I try to get excited to paint rooms and tear off wallpaper borders, but I'd rather write. Or sleep. Having become accustomed to looking past the little flaws (and the larger ones), I'm half afraid to look at this house from anything resembling an objective perspective because I'm afraid the to-do list would do me in. If it's an organizing project, I'm all in, but my enthusiasm for scraping, painting and big projects has waned.

From time to time, though, an organizing project meanders into decorating territory and I get that spark of enthusiasm home improvement projects used to give me. Last week, I ordered two bins from Target to house my daughter's paperwork for various things, which were reaching the point of needing file space of their own. As is the case so often in our little house, bringing in something new meant reconfiguring something old.

As is often not the case, however, this time I'd planned for it. Within half an hour, I'd brought order to the paperwork, relocated some items to the less-than-prime storage that was appropriate, yet overdue, tidied the space and made it look nicer.

For the rest of the night, every time I walked into the room, I smiled.

It took a few days, but it got me thinking. What if I set a really small goal -- one I could actually achieve with the time and energy I have available? I mean, isn't that how goal-setting is supposed to work?

majacvetojevic via Pixabay

So here it is: my small goal. Each week, I want to make one thing (or one space) in my house more beautiful. Organizing helps, but I want to move beyond just making it look good (putting everything away, for example) and add a little touch of beauty somewhere. It might align with an organizing project, it might mean looking at a space with fresh eyes and moving things around, or it might mean actually tearing off that tired old wallpaper border or repainting that window trim.

I'm sure it's the new bins speaking and my optimism will get squashed by real life some weeks (no sense in making the bathroom look pretty if there are no clean towels), but it's worth a shot. My house deserves it, and so do I.

After all, we've been together for a quarter of a century.

Now:

In the year and a half since my daughter graduated from college (and moved back home, due to a global pandemic), we've kicked off several home improvement projects. Most are functional (a new roof), small (a side table for the family room), or a combination of the two (new lighting in the family room). One, however is quite large (adding on a sunroom) and rather exciting, and its price tag has put a few other wish-list items on the back burner.

Seeing the house through my daughter's eyes adds things to the list, too, as does upgrading a childhood bedroom into a space more suited to a young adult. But the power of small touches still makes a big difference, something that the single flower in the small vase in the picture above reminds me. And, the thing about small touches is that they don't have to be expensive so that, no matter where we are in our home improvement journey, they can give us the maximum possible bang for our buck.

It's easy to walk through our homes without paying close attention to our surroundings. In fact, that capability can be a survival skill when it comes to ignoring clutter until we have time to tackle it. But one small beautiful thing can catch our eye and make us smile.

Definitely worth the effort.

Throwback Thursday: Imperfection Welcome

 

When it comes to organization, I'm a work-in-progress. I know what works for me, I know what to do and I know how to do it.

The trouble is, those things don't take me all the way to the finish line which means that even though I am organized, I don't always look organized. When time and energy cooperate, I generally come out on the winning end of the organization bargain, but often, they don't and I'm left with a gap between what I know and what I can accomplish. This annoys me, but even worse, it leaves me feeling vulnerable and somewhat lacking in the sense of humor department, especially when I get teased about my I need to see it piles.

At one time or another, I think that all of us feel like organization frauds. Whether it's our I need to see it or drop and run piles that give us away, or the I know I put it somewhere or cram and jam styles that leave us hoping guests won't look beyond our clear surfaces to see what's hiding behind door #1, we're always a little insecure about whether or not we're doing this organization thing right.

More often than not, we are, especially since "right" is defined by the user of the system. If we can find what we want when we want it, we're functionally organized, which is what matters most.

Still, there are those days when logic is insufficient to compensate for our organizational insecurities. Here are a few key pieces of advice for "one of those days."

Ditch perfection. No one is perfectly organized. Ask any Type A organizer to point to the flaws in her system, and she'll probably give you a list. Although a perfectly organized home and/or office is lovely, there's so much more to life than chasing organizational perfection. Know when to walk away from that need for perfection to read a book, take a nap or spend time with the people you love.

Start with successes. This first step in the STYLE process is meant to remind us of the things we're doing right. As an I need to see it/drop and run girl, I've learned what works for me but often, instead of seeing all the things I'm doing right, I focus on the piles of homeless items that seem to pop up relentlessly. If you must focus on what remains to be done (and, some days, we must), remember to counterbalance it with all you've learned and accomplished so far. Chances are, that will tip the scales in your favor (even if some organizing remains to be done).

Remember that it's a process. 

klimkin via Pixabay

Thanks to a steady flow of items into our homes, whether groceries possessions, or some combination of the two, organizing is one of those life tasks that is never finished. In some ways, this is a good thing. Putting strategies in place that keep things from crossing over to the organizational dark side helps to stem the tide and gives us practice building organizational skills that work for us so that, over time, we become more efficient.

Accepting that when it comes to organization, things will never be perfect or finished can encourage us to cut ourselves a little slack. Once we stop beating ourselves up, we can use that misplaced energy to put a few more things away or come up with a new strategy that makes life easier.

Or maybe even develop a sense of humor.