3 Keys Thursday: 3 Key (Quick) Organizing Baby Steps

Yesterday, I shared my struggling to juggle situation, alluding to the necessary adjustment of taking small steps by tackling my projects in stages.

But what if you lack the time and energy to do much of anything? Well, aside from (or in addition to) taking a nap (a strategy I've been employing almost daily since fall semester started), you can take really small steps and Give it 5! To do this, zoom in on one task, set a time for five minutes, and dig in. When the timer goes off, you're finished. 

Unless of course you happen to have five more minutes and the inclination to continue.

If you want to go smaller still, here are three things you can do in less than five minutes. They won't overhaul a problem area, but they'll make a dent (reactive) or prevent problem areas from forming (proactive).

• Put one thing where it belongs - Proactive: Put the thing you're holding in your hand away, not down or in a safe place. Reactive: Pick up something someone put where it doesn't belong and return it to its home.

• Sort one pile. Proactive: Keep a pile from forming in the first place by putting away those loose papers on your desk, shoes on the floor or clothes on the chair. Reactive: Pick a number and deal with that many objects, tossing the things you don't want to keep and putting away those you do.

• Deal with the mail. Proactive: Take an extra moment to pull out the junk mail and catalogs before you drop the mail on a counter or table. Save or toss the catalogs and toss the junk mail. Reactive: Same thing, after the fact. Pull anything that's not a keeper out of the mail pile so that when you have time to tackle the mail, all that remains is the items that are actionable.

With so much emphasis on staying healthy and keeping up with everything that needs to be done, I sometimes worry that I'm losing my social skills. In that vein, I'd like to add one more quick item that doesn't have anything to do with organization, but might just energize you: text or email a friend. This morning, walking to class, I turned on the dictation function on my phone and dictated a quick email to a friend I'd been meaning to contact for over a week. After a quick read-through to make sure autocorrect hadn't thrown in any curve balls, I hit send and went to class with a smile.

Sometimes, all we need is a little motivation.