Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
One Page at a Time
There’s just two weeks until my baby, Organized Enough: the anti-perfectionist’s guide to getting—and staying—organized, is launched into the world.
People have been so enthusiastic and supportive. And quite a few people have asked me how I found the time to write a book.
You never find time. Time is like gold; people don’t just leave it lying around unattended. You don’t make time, either. Time is finite: You can’t spin it out of straw. What you really do is block out time, which just happens to be one of the seven habits I talk about in my book.
So, first I blocked out time. Of course, you can’t write a book in a few hours. And a big project (Now I’m going to write a book!) can be completely overwhelming and paralyzing. The key is to break it into manageable chunks—an hour here, 45 minutes there—and commit to it. Just like the gym, or a doctor’s appointment, put the time in your calendar. Say to yourself, “Let me see if I can write five pages of Chapter 9 in this hour.”
Someone once said, “You can have it all, just not at the same time.” It’s the same with getting stuff done: “You can do it all, just not all at once.”