3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys to Organizing When You Don't Have Time to Organize

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

We all have them. Those weeks (or months...or longer) when it seems as though everything is piling up and nothing is getting done. I need to see it folks leave reminders everywhere, I love to be busy people have more list items than hours in a day and I love stuff people feel inundated by their treasures. Cram and jammers are overstuffing their spaces, drop and runners are leaving visual trails and I know I put it somewhere folks are "restoring order" in ways they'll regret when they go in search of the things they just couldn't stand to look at any longer.

Now what??

This is the time for taking small steps, mostly because we probably don't have the time to dig in and tackle everything at once.  Here are three ways that work for me.

• Pick up as you go. Every time I pass a pile, an item or a collection, I pick up one thing and put it where it belongs. I don't make as much headway as I'd like (or clear things as quickly), but I can still restore some clear space.
• Be strategic. If time is at a premium, I can't do everything, so I aim first for the places that matter most to me. Sometimes I start with the most visible spot -- the one people see first. Or, maybe I'll start with the one that's the least cluttered for the fastest payoff or the one that bugs me the most for the most rewarding payoff. Every improvement reminds me I can do this and nudges me to keep doing it.
• Finish what I start. This one is the hardest for me and it's a habit I am working to develop. As someone with a drop and run organizational style, I have a tendency to start a lot of things and then leave them out so I don' forget to finish them. Or, sometimes, I just run out of time, leaving the thing I started unfinished and visible. Forcing myself to finish one thing before I move on to the next doesn't reduce my clutter, but it keeps me from adding to it.

Busy times are frustrating -- sometimes even for those with an I love to be busy organizational style -- and it's easy to feel overwhelmed and disgusted with ourselves. But busyness is a part of life and if we have systems that work, they don't just disappear because we've been too busy or preoccupied to use them. Busy times lead us to appreciate our systems or, if they've become as overwhelmed as we feel, revamp them. Either way, we end up organized.

Eventually.