The Friday News Minute!
A weekly gem of information you will be using on Monday!
Published by Andrew Sanderbeck
Managing Partner of The People~Connect Institute
www.peopleconnectinstitute.com
Success Begins when People~Connect!
This week in our Friday News Minute, we look at oversoming the obstacles to getting organized in an article by Maria Garcia. I found this as I was preparing a time management workshop for one of my clients. Enjoy!
4 Big Obstacles to Getting Organized
What is holding you back from getting organized? Here are 4 big obstacles, and what you can do to overcome them.
1. The ‘I’d Rather Do Something Else’ Mindset
Let’s face it. We’d all rather be doing something fun, right? If given a choice between organizing files and watching a favorite TV program, it’s pretty clear what most people would choose.
One way to overcome this obstacle is to schedule your organizing projects for first thing in the morning. Do your project for an hour or so, and be done with it. Once it’s out of the way, your day will be free to do things that you really enjoy.
Another way to combat this mind set, is to make something you love to do, dependent on the completion of your organizing project. For instance, don’t allow yourself to catch a tan in the backyard, until you’ve done the three loads of laundry you promised yourself you’d do today.
2. The ‘All or Nothing’ Philosophy
You may be reluctant to start an organizing project because you only like to start things that you know you can finish in one session. Waiting until you can do ‘the whole thing’ often ends up in nothing getting done.
It is better to start something and progress a little, then to not start something and to not progress at all. Very often organizing projects that don’t get started, get worse Over time.
If it’s really difficult for you to leave projects unfinished, your best bet is to give yourself ‘smaller’ projects that you can complete in less time.
For example, you may want to organize your desk, but you know it’s going to take you a few hours, and you can’t seem to find a few open hours in your schedule.
Organizing the entire desk might be too large of a goal. But, if you say to yourself that you’re going to clear off the papers from the top of the desk today, empty out the top drawer tomorrow, organize the supply drawer the next day, etc., now you’ve given yourself projects that can be started, and completed, within short spurts of time—-thus satisfying your ‘all or nothing’ tendency.
3. Broad Goals and Priorities
Just making the statement, ‘I have to get organized, ‘ is too broad. It often results in an overwhelmed, ‘I don’t know where to start’ feeling.
It’s important to define exactly what you want to organize. Rather than saying you want to get organized, make a list of the specific things you’d like to organize, such as your bedroom closet, or your filing cabinet at work, or your schedule.
Then, prioritize your list. The tasks closest to the top should be those that are currently causing you the most stress. Once you prioritize your list, choose one or two of those tasks to work on. You really have to focus in order to complete something. Once these few tasks are completed, you can then move on to the next few.
Once you choose your one or two tasks, break them down into smaller mini goals. If you’d like to organize your closet, you may break it• down into top shelf, middle shelf and lower shelf. Tackle tasks that can easily be completed, in small brackets of time.
4. A Sense of Attachment
Sometimes it’s really difficult to part with things because you may feel a sense of attachment. Perhaps you’re a very sentimental person. Every item you own reminds you of something else . . a family member who passed away, something an old friend gave you, a sweater from your mom, the first stuffed animal your significant other gave you, and so on.
Or, you may be a very thrifty person, and feel that you may be able to use something someday. Perhaps you’re saving it just in case it comes back in style, or if you decide to have another child, or if you decide to pick up that hobby again in the future.
Whatever the reason for your sense of attachment, having this attachment can often end up in piles upon piles of clutter.
If it begins to stress you out, it’s time to let go of some of your stuff. You don’t have to get rid of everything, of course. But it is important to determine what things are ‘truly’ important to you and what things are just taking up space.
Getting organized is about making decisions.
Choose a clutter spot to tackle. Pick up two items at a time. Try to pit one of those items in a KEEP pile, and the other in a DO NOT KEEP pile. Sometimes you’ll want to keep both, and sometimes you won’t want to keep either. But, try to keep this system going. Keep picking up two items at a time and making this decision until you’ve decluttered by a minimum of 50%. In other words, you should have the same amount of items in the KEEP pile, as you do in the DO NOT KEEP pile.
If you don’t like to toss, then give away or donate instead. Knowing that someone else is making good use out of something that was just catching dust in your home or office, may help to relieve some tension.
by Maria Gracia - Get Organized Now! http://www.getorganizednow.com
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