Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
One Box at a Time
Overwhelmed. It is a word I hear frequently from my clients. Overwhelmed by stuff, by having too much to do, by having high expectations of themselves. Life can be just plain overwhelming.
Overwhelmed is exactly what I was feeling last Monday, when I moved for the first time in sixteen years (1997!). Now, we had three kids, two bunk-beds and oh, so many Legos. It was an overwhelming move. I tried to be organized; I had my lists, my clipboard, my envelope for receipts, my cash stash. Yet when the movers left us in our new apartment at 8 p.m., we were surrounded by teetering piles of boxes in every room. So much so that we could barely walk through our new space. I had to admit that I was overwhelmed.
Four days later, I am happy to report that we are down to four boxes and wall art. So, how did the Perfect Daughter conquer that feeling of being overwhelmed? Well, first I cried. But then I took action.
Here’s the truth: moving will get anybody flummoxed, even the Perfect Daughter who has been hired countless times to assist in the change of household. There is a lot to do on every front but there is only one way to do it, and that is simply to get to it.
My strategy for unpacking is absolutely priority driven: Kids’ beds first, followed by enough of the kitchen to get breakfast made the next morning. Keep a table clear (eating, homework, etc.,). Bookshelves, a guilty pleasure, would wait until Saturday. Pictures can wait. You see, at heart, I am a woman of action. I do what needs to be done and then I get to what I would like to do. The best way to conquer feeling overwhelmed is to just plunge in and starting doing what needs doing.
Last Monday night, as I stood among the boxes, (to note: In Manhattan, when you move, you have to put away at least twenty boxes just to get room to walk around) what needed to be done was to unpack boxes, any boxes. So I just stood in the kitchen and opened the box in front of me. With each box that I sliced open, unpacked and then flattened, the overwhelmed feeling dissipated. My fears (it won’t all fit!) evaporated. (Of course it fit — I measured five times before we put down a dime) and I started to see the good: a dishwasher! Two bathrooms. A hallway.
There are parameters of course: You don’t want to just higgledy-piggledy jump into a project and run amok. Wherever you jump in, make sure you finish that part. It is tempting sometimes to do the easy half, say get the W-2s together but fail to tally taxi receipts, or swap summer skirts for winter skirts but then stop when faced with some fifty-odd winter sweaters. Doing what is right in front of you (my boxes) is great, but make sure that it is focused, concentrated action. You are not unpacking part of the box and shuttling it to the side because it demands choices. Do one box at a time, one room at a time, one pile at a time. Any move, or any project, can be broken down into chunks of action. And it is always easier to focus on a chunk than on the whole.
Sometimes I think my clients want me to give them a magic bullet for an overwhelming task, but the most surefire remedy I know is to roll up your sleeves and dig in.