Good morning! I hope your day is starting off nicely.
Do you ever look around your workspace and think, “One of these days I need to straighten this up?” It’s hard, especially when you work at home. My office is in the basement, and nobody ever comes down there. Last time the tornado sirens went off, my wife got to the top of the basement stairs, took one look down, and said, “Oh well – I’ve had a good run.”
A co-worker last week complimented me during a video meeting about the condition of my basement. Don’t underestimate the time it took to get the camera aimed at such a perfect angle. The room is cluttered, my desk is a mess, and the new flooring I started 12 years ago still isn’t finished because there’s too much junk still piled on top of the old floor.
Clutter doesn’t begin to describe this mess. I have pay stubs from 15 years ago and bills from 1971. They’re not even my bills, because I was in 7th grade back then. I won’t throw them away because we’re supposed to shred these things. I can’t shred them because the shredder would incinerate. The rest of the mess I blame on my daughters. Every time kids move out, more and more stuff gets left behind. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I once read a book by Alan Lakein titled “How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.” In the book, he suggested several strategies for optimizing our time. One was to handle each piece of paper only once. Pay the bill, write the response, whatever. Then throw it away. Sorry, but that’s handling it twice. I saved time and money by throwing all my mail in the trash. Voila!
Yes, I know. That’s not the exact message the book was trying to convey. The point was to avoid procrastination and just get it done. If you have to eat a frog, eat the biggest one first and the rest won’t seem so bad.
I think, for many of us, these tasks languish on the “to-do” list because that frog is just too big. So, break it up. You can accomplish a lot in fifteen minutes. Do that for a week, and you may be surprised at the results.
Time is a precious commodity, and we all have a lot on our plate. But nothing gets done if we just sit there and stare at it. Do something. Anything. Big jobs become smaller when we break them into bite-sized pieces. And just like that bag of bite-sized snacks, it’ll be finished before you know it. That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!
© 2023 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved
Dave Glardon 