Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
When De-cluttered Isn’t Efficient
Sometimes people who know what I do for a living are surprised that my apartment isn’t sparer, but spare isn’t always efficient. In my twenties my apartment was very spare, no piece of paper was ever on a surface. As I’ve gotten older and my life has become busier it has become important to maximize my efficiency. Since I have been sitting on the couch nursing my babies for the past two months, I have set up my whole world by the couch, my phone, phone book, novel, burp cloth, pillows, water and snack; and every time I can finally get it together to take the babies out for a walk, I come home and my husband has put it all away!
Eventually I got him to understand that what would normally be outstanding behavior for a husband was a pain in the neck. I need my “breastfeeding station,” since I spend the bulk of every day there, and I don’t want to devote any of my limited time to re-creating it, I wanted it to stay put. Likewise my desk may not look like a photo-shoot for Martha Stewart, it is set up to make me efficient, which goes hand in hand with being organized.
Getting Stuff Done
It seems to me that the trick to accomplishing anything while breastfeeding two babies (okay- maybe you are sensing a theme here… but this is where I’m at!) is the ability is to prioritize and set realistic goals. I think the same thing is applicable whether you are trying to accomplish something in a busy office or a busy home. I have found that if I have one “big project” for the day, and a number of little tasks, I can accomplish them as long as I keep them in mind (it helps to write them down). I use a yellow pad and write the days of the week with a “big project” for each day on the left hand side and an ongoing list of “small tasks” down the right hand side.
It is important to break any large task into small pieces: for example, I wanted to iron three skirts. Anything that takes a half an hour is out of the question in my life right now, hungry babies are kind of like the telephone in an office, constantly demanding your attention. So, I set up the ironing board at around nine am and managed to iron three skirts by five pm. It was helpful to have the visual reminder of the ironing board there, bringing me back to my project.
People often talk about multi-tasking, but what truly efficient people do is juggle multiple tasks and manage to complete them all. This is why my yellow pad comes in handy, it helps remind me of what I hope to accomplish in a day. Just as I put the ironing board out early, I might put out on my coffee table the tools for other projects that I hope to accomplish in that day, stationary for thank you notes or my phone-book for making calls. While having multiple projects going at once may fly in the face of your mother’s conventional wisdom (i.e.: put one thing back before you begin another) if you are bouncing between tasks, then it may not be the most efficient way to go. However, this is where being realistic is important, you certainly don’t want to pull out the tools for projects you are never going to get to. It is very satisfying to put the tools away as you accomplish each task. For those of you who might be wondering how this can translate to paperwork on a desk, consider that you might pull out several files at once, or have several programs open on your computer at one time. This is why some of you like to use colored file folders for “hot” projects, the color can both help you to locate the file on a busy desk, and also draw your attention back to it if you’ve gotten sidetracked by a phone call or email.
I like to think of my “big project” as the centerpiece of the day and the “little tasks” as the trimming. As long as I get the big task done, it doesn’t really matter what order I do the little tasks in, as long as I keep whittling away at that list.