Posted on March 25, 2014 by Tiffany Lynn Lepp
original imaged adapted for use under creative commons
Listening to my favourite tunes, I was happily trying on my clothes, seeing what still looked good and what would go to the thrift shop. I was on a roll organizing my bedroom closet when something broke my concentration.
There was a dirty glass on my nightstand.
It was glaring at me. I had to get it to the kitchen. I just need to get the dirty glass into the dishwasher and return to finish off my closet.
Turns out the dishwasher was full of CLEAN dishes and as I began to put the clean dishes away, I noticed a pile of mail on my kitchen table…several hours later I am on my way back to the closet when my husband walks through the door. Ready to take the dog for a walk?
Where did the day go?
- I had a half-organized closet and a half-full dishwasher
- I still had mail to open,
- I didn’t even think about dinner, and
- The dog was looking at me with puppy eyes…literally.
I had started multiple projects and didn’t FINISH a thing. I am annoyed and disappointed.ÂÂ
How did this happen?
I left the room. I abandoned my goal of cleaning my bedroom closet and wandered off into a number of other spaces, leaving half-finished jobs in my wake.
As a professional organizer and coach, my advice to you is: Don’t leave the room until it’s time to leave for good. Whatever area or project you are currently focused on organizing, and there is a good reason for locking yourself in.
For example,
When you are working in your home office and notice things that belong elsewhere, put those items next to the doorway. When you are DONE with work for the day, and ready to leave your office for good, pick up those things and put them away on your way out.
If you are cleaning your child’s bedroom and come across things that belong somewhere else, just put those things to the side. Once you FINISH cleaning the room, take them with you and put them away.
While organizing your kitchen, you find things that belong in multiple rooms of your home. Create piles for each room. When you are DONE organizing your kitchen, take one pile at a time to its appropriate room and put away.
In each example, the goal is to finish what you started in whatever space you are working in BEFORE you go wandering off to another space.
Tackle one room at a time
If you leave the space you are working on, chances are good you will get distracted. Distraction hurts your chances of finishing what you started, which leads to multiple unfinished projects looming.
Had I put the glass to the side and kept working I’d have an organized closet.
Give it a shot and let me know how it works out for you.
I finally did get through my closet… a week later though.
This is soooo true! When I have worked onsite with clients as a professional organizer I find clients try to do this a lot and that part of my job becomes keeping the client focused right where they are, and then ME being the one who moves items to the other room or makes the piles of things to go elsewhere so they don’t get distracted.
One other trick I use with myself when I’m at home is when I think of another “to do” item while I’m doing a different task is that I write it on my kitchen white board so I don’t forget and then go back to finishing whatever I was working on before.
This article seems to peer inside the life of distraction which used to manage my spaces. NO MORE!
Before coaching with Tiffany, I was overwhelmed with the idea of organizing. Each space in my home seemed like a monster looming over me, overpowering me and putting me off.
After one hour of coaching, I know how to approach a space with a sense direction (when I can see the finish line and have a plan and am prepared with the tools I need before the starting gun shoots) I am able to conduct the necessary steps to manage it with success. Thanks Tiffany for Taming my monsters.
Tracy,
You bring up a great suggestion – having a white board or notebook near us when we are working so that when something comes up for us we can write it down (get it out of our brains) and keep focused on the task at hand. Great! Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer, it was a pleasure to coach with you. I’m glad we were able to scare the “monsters†away!