Thoughts on becoming organized

First off, sorry for the no post last week. I was sick the first half of the week and worked overtime the second half to make up the hours I had missed. All of that equaled a very tired and brain-dead Caitlyn, so no post. I’m trying to get ahead of the game so I can schedule posts in advance so that there will be something every week, but it’s still very much a work in progress.

Something that’s I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the importance of organization and planning. Every so often, I get this rush of frustration with my life and my lack of control over it and decide I’m going to change. I’m going to use a planner/calendar to keep track of my appointments and to do’s. I’m going to keep my apartment clean and follow a cleaning schedule. I’m going to be productive and write every day, and exercise, and so on and so on. Inevitably though, I always end up back in my old habits.

It makes me wonder why I do this. Intellectually, I know the importance of being organized and planning my life and time. I’ve even seen it work during the times I felt I was organized and on top of things. So why don’t I live my life this way? Here are some thoughts I had on why this is so.

 

1. The start up is really hard

 

When you feel like everything around you is out of control (even if it’s not) it’s not easy to know where to start. And even when you do decide where to start, you have to figure out a system that will work for you, start living that system, and keep it up. That’s not easy. And every time you slip back into your old ways, it’s often tempting to just throw up your hands and give up because it’s too hard.

 

2. Habits are hard to break

 

It doesn’t matter what it is. Maybe it’s a habit of spending too long online. Maybe it’s a habit of not doing the dishes. Maybe it’s a habit of thinking you can remember everything you have to do so you don’t have to write it down. Whatever the habit is, it’s an engrained response or way of thinking in your mind. A worn path, if you will. There are times when I get on my computer to write or do my finances or something non-internet related and I’ll discover myself automatically opening my web browser. For a time, that became a habit. If I was on my computer, I was on the internet. It’s not easy to create a new path and not keep going down the old one.

 

3. It’s hard to learn that change is a process and takes time

 

This is the one I struggle with the most, I think. I want to change, but I want it to happen NOW. I don’t want to go through the cycle of trying and failing before finally succeeding. I don’t want to wait the days, weeks, or even months that it will take to create these new habits and get my act together. I just want the magic pill that will fix everything.

All of these things make it really hard to get my act together. But they can be overcome. The thing is, there is no magic pill. There is only time, hard work, failure, picking myself up again, and moving forward again. It’s the only way there is to be able to create these habits of being organized and planning things instead of just flying by the seat of my pants all the time.  It can be done, and I can do it.

 

Change is a process. It takes time. It takes effort. But in the end, it’s worth it. So take that first step. I am.

The Power of 15 minutes

Several years ago, I went through a phase in my life where I was an organizing junkie. I read pretty much every book on organizing that my local library had, tried all sorts of programs, read articles, etc. I studied this a lot. While doing so, I found a book called Sink Reflections by Flylady. (If you want to know more, you can get to her website here.) While ultimately, I didn’t end up sticking with her program, there was one thing that I took away that I’ve been using since then, especially lately: it was the power of 15 minutes.

One of the basic tenets of the Flylady program is something she says over and over again: “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Basically, the idea is if you declutter and clean for 15 minutes at a time, it isn’t as overwhelming and you don’t get yourself into a mess trying to get organized that you can’t get back out of. You know, like when you were a kid and you decided you’re going to reorganize your bedroom, so you take everything out so you can decide where to put it, but you get sidetracked and by the end of the day your room looks worse than when you started.

This idea stuck with me. I used that idea at various points in my life, but recently, as you know, I’ve rediscovered my timer and have fallen in love with it. And I’m also a firm believer in the power of 15 minutes.

I’ll admit, making the switch from living at home to caring for an apartment hasn’t always been easy. It’s not easy to keep up with the cleaning when I come home from work tired. But setting the timer for 15 minutes and telling myself that when it goes off, I’m done cleaning has done wonders for me. I may be tired, but I get clean my kitchen for 15 minutes. And you know, that’s often all it takes. Sometimes it takes a couple of 15 minutes sets over a couple of days, and sometimes the timer goes off and by then I’m in the mood to clean, so I just keep going.

I’ve also had several projects that I’ve wanted to work on, like going through and cleaning out my iTunes and my reading list on Safari, or working on getting my scrapbooks together (right now I’m settling for “in page protectors where I can see what I have and then someday add more words and pictures and stuff”), or any number of other things. To look at them as a whole is overwhelming.  My playlist of “listen and decide if I want to keep” is 3 days worth of music. But I can work on it for 15 minutes. Sure, it’s doesn’t always seem like a lot gets done, but if I work on it for that 15 minutes every day, it’s gets done a lot sooner than me trying to find a huge chunk of time to work on it. I usually can’t find that huge chunk, but I can make 15 minutes happen.

As I’ve done this, I’ve been shocked at how much I truly can get done in 15 minutes and how much more overall I accomplish doing this. I think too, there’s the aspect of racing the clock that I enjoy and works well for me. I may not have taken much else away from Flylady, but I am a firm believer in the power of 15 minutes. You truly can do anything for 15 minutes, and you can accomplish more than you ever dreamed by doing it.