How to Find Your Desk Again (or Spare Bed, or Table…)

Do you feel like you’ll never get caught up with all the minutiae of life?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got piles of stuff to deal with lying around and weighing on your mind. Possibly to the point where you feel so stuck you can’t move ahead.

And it’s probably not even the truly important stuff—just the basic “to do’s” that happen over and over. Bills to pay, errands to run, magazines and journals to read, receipts to sort, laundry to do, papers to file, etc., etc., etc.

When all of these recurring tasks keep accumulating, how can you ever become current with them, let alone get to the things that you really care about?

You can. But first, you need to revise your definition of “caught up.”

Believe me, I know how tough this is. I’m still partly in denial about the fact that life’s inbox will never be empty. It’s no fun feeling like you’re in perpetual catch-up mode, and the fantasy of being on top of everything…someday…is SO attractive.

But our lives are much too complex for that these days.

There’s no way we can ever accomplish EVERYTHING we want (or think we should), so we need to be selective. That’s a meaty topic in itself, but first we need to feel in control of our current situation. And so…

Today’ I’ll offer one practical, hands-on way to deal with the backlog of stuff that’s holding you back.

Here’s how.

First, choose a physical space to start clearing. Start with one room at the very most, or make it even smaller—such as your desktop or a single file drawer—so that when you get it cleared you’ll have a feeling of accomplishment and spaciousness.

Pick an area that will make a difference in the way you feel. Would it be nice to eat at your dining room table again? Or find things in the hall closet? OK, start there.

Second, if you don’t already have one, find some kind of calendar and planning system that you will actually use, at least for now. Keep it simple—maybe a spiral notebook for making lists, some sticky flags to mark off sections in it, and an inexpensive calendar to jot things in. Think basic and functional while you figure out what system works best for you.

Next, grab a few empty boxes and start going through the physical space you’ve chosen. Remove any “to do” items and sort them into three and only three groups—Urgent, Non-Urgent, and Fuhgettabouddit.

In my experience, the Fuhgettabouddit pile is the toughest one. It’s where you need to be honest and ask yourself the question, “What’s the worst that can happen if I never do this?” If the answer is something you can live with, the corresponding piece of paper or other object goes into the Fuhgettabouddit box. And then you know where to dump it.

The urgent stuff goes in another box and will remain somewhere easily accessible for now. The non-urgent material goes into the other box(es) and can be moved to a temporary holding location.

The main thing is to get your to-do piles contained and out of the way. You’ll be surprised how much better this makes you feel, even though you haven’t actually done anything about what’s in the boxes yet.

Now comes the interesting part that’ll make you go, “Huh?”

Don’t worry about the stuff in the boxes.

That’s right. You’re starting today with a clean slate.

The Fuhgettabouddit box has been dumped. The non-urgent material is waiting in the wings. The only thing you should do is quickly go through the “urgent” box for anything that needs to be taken care of by a certain date, then schedule it in your calendar.

Leave the things themselves (bills, blank birthday cards, coupons, presentation handouts, or whatever) in the box for now.

Because now there’s only one place they can be. That alone can remove enormous amounts of stress.

Every evening take a quick peek at the next day on your calendar to check what you’ll need to have with you physically, then find it in the “urgent” box and place it where you won’t forget it in the morning.

So now you don’t even have to worry about the urgent stuff falling through the cracks.

Now, make it a habitual part of your daily or weekly routine (you can schedule this in your calendar as well) to gradually dig through the “non-urgent” box or boxes. This can be as simple as ten minutes twice a week, or five minutes a day. Nothing there is pressing, so it doesn’t matter if you go slowly, as long as you gradually work through the box(es). Just make the time period you block out extremely achievable and non-intimidating so you’ll really do this.

You now have a plan for dealing with your backlog and can start fresh.

The final step is to design a VSS (Very Simple System) to manage the stuff that moves through the area you’ve just cleared.

In other words, you’re starting from scratch—from a place of spaciousness and clarity. Without all the stuff that’s been cluttering up the space and keeping you stuck.

Again, begin simply. If you’ve just excavated your desk, for instance, you might create a new home for any bills that need to be paid—under a paperweight, in a tiny vertical sorter, in one of those giant paperclip standup thingies.

Or you might set up an “in” tray for magazines and other papers you want to read—and resolve not to let the stack grow higher than the top of the tray. If it does, make it a point to deal with enough of the things in it (read, file, or toss) to whittle the stack back down to size.

And that’s it, at least for starters. Just change one or two small things at a time, and wait until you get in the habit of using your new VSS before tackling another physical area and setting up more of them.

Baby steps. Just remember—baby steps.

Let me know how it goes.

Tagged as: overwhelm, stuff, systems