Written any good books lately? Smashwords.com

Excerpt for The Kaizen Plan for Decluttering Your To-Do List: Take Control of Your Day 10 Minutes at a Time by Lynn Johnston, available in its entirety at Smashwords

The Kaizen Plan for Decluttering Your To-Do List:

Take Control of Your Day 10 Minutes at a Time

by Lynn Johnston

Published by Open Clearing Press at Smashwords

Discover other titles by Lynn Johnston at Smashwords.com:

The Kaizen Plan for Decluttering Your Computer (free)

The Kaizen Plan for Healthy Eating

The Kaizen Plan for Organized Authors

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Introduction

Does Getting Organized Have to Be Complicated?

How Do You Prioritize—By Quantity or Quality?

The Magic Question That Keeps You Moving Forward

Saved by the Timer

Kaizen in Action—The Power of 10 Minutes

About the Author

Available Now

Coming Soon

Introduction

This book consists of a series of blog posts about time management that originally appeared on my blog, www.smallstepstobigchange.com. I hope they help you get your to-do list organized so you can be more productive!

Does Getting Organized Have to Be Complicated?

For many years, during the pre-smart-phone era, I tried to use a Day Planner. I loved the idea of a little binder to keep all my important information in one place. I bought dozens of different types of pre-printed pages, and for a few years, I even made custom templates in Word that I could trip and hole punch and add to my planner. I was convinced that if I could just had the right combination of forms, somehow my entire life would fall into place. I’d finally be organized.

The only problem was, the important information never made it into my planner. The important information got scribbled on post-its and envelopes and little bits of paper. I would stick those bits of paper into the binder, promising myself that I would transcribe them neatly onto the appropriate pages later. Of course, I never did, and half the time when I unzipped my planner, something would fall out. But I persisted, believing that the problem was me — I wasn’t using the planner correctly.

It’s true that I wasn’t using the planner correctly, but that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that I was trying to solve my disorganization by adding more tasks to my list — this nifty “solution” made my life more complicated. Half the blank forms in my binder weren’t relevant to anything I was doing, and the other half forced me to record things in formats that didn’t really work for me. And of course, there was always something I needed to remember that didn’t fit on any of the forms.

When I think about how much time I spent maintaining my planner, rewriting information on the appropriate form, redesigning my customized pages to make them perfect, and shuffling through little pieces of paper that got stuck between the pages…what a waste.

My system now is so much simpler. When I make an appointment, I send myself a text message with the date, time, and location. Later, when I’m home, I add it to my gmail calendar and specify that I want gmail to send me an email reminder the day before. When I get the gmail reminder, I note the appointment information on tomorrow’s to do list.

That’s it.

My to do list is pretty simple too. It’s a form in Microsoft Word that I can print out daily, with checkboxes for each of the habits that I’m working on, a two column table for Meaningful and Maintenance work, and a blank section for appointments and anything else. If you want to see what it looks like, here’s a PDF: Lynn’s Daily Sheet.

And for keeping track of the rest—plans for home and garden projects, research notes or brainstorming for a story, shopping lists, birthday present ideas—I use a one-subject three-hole-punched spiral notebook. I start a new page whenever I’m changing topics, and at the end of the month, I can rip all those pages out either stick them in the appropriate binder or folder, or throw them away if they’re outdated. Notes on the seeds just planted in the garden? Garden folder. Notes on Japanese demons? Samurai story folder. Time to go grocery shopping? I tear out the list I’ve been adding to all week as we run out of things and stick it in my purse.

I’m not perfect, and neither is my organization system. But it captures 99% of the information I need to keep track of, and it’s simple enough that I actually use it.

Sometimes simplest is best.

Are there any tasks in your life that could be simplified? Managing papers? Laundry? Cooking? Keeping track of your schedule?

Look at the process you use for doing these things and ask yourself:

Is this as simple as it could be?

Am I adding any unnecessary steps?

Am I doing things somebody else’s way, even if it doesn’t fit my needs?

Is the way my working area is set up forcing me to do things the hard way?

How Do You Prioritize–By Quantity or Quality?

This week I came across a quote by renowned productivity expert David Allen: “Maximum productivity is making something happen with as little effort as possible.”

This was a surprise to me. I was under the impression that maximum productivity is cramming as many things as possible onto my to-do list and then rushing around like a maniac trying to get them all done.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. But this quote made me realize something important: I define “productivity” in terms of the number of things I’ve done. I’m measuring my daily performance by the number of tasks accomplished.

But isn’t that a good thing, you might ask? Isn’t that the goal, to get more things done?

Yes and no. My quantity-oriented mindset does keep me focused on accomplishing things, so that I can keep crossing things off of my list. But it also introduces a subtle bias regarding how I prioritize tasks.

For example, I can dust the livingroom, start a load of laundry, water the garden, and unload the dishwasher in an hour. Or I can write ~750 words on my novel-in-progress. Should I start my work day by crossing off one difficult but meaningful task, or four easy but non-meaningful tasks?

Given that willpower is a limited resource that’s depleted as the day goes on, it’s logical to tackle the hard-but-meaningful task while my energy is up.

But it’s so tempting to do the easy maintenance tasks and get that little burst of happiness that comes from feeling like I accomplished something. This is the kind of thinking that leads to me having a busy day but realizing at bedtime that I didn’t accomplish anything meaningful. Prioritizing by quantity only brings me satisfaction in the short-term. When I’m on my death bed, I won’t look at the number of times I dusted the living room and say, “I’m so glad I spent so much of my life battling coffee table dust.” Sure, dusting has to get done, but it doesn’t get me any closer to my goals. It’s Maintenance Work: work that I have to do to maintain my life.

Prioritizing by quality, on the other hand, helps me focus on the long-term projects. The ones that give meaning and purpose and joy to my life. The ones that, if I do them, I’ll have something to show for it. Writing a novel. Starting a business. Learning a language. Volunteering for a cause. Preparing for a career change. Meaningful work.

Sure, a certain amount of maintenance has to get done, and those mundane tasks do support my ability to do the things that give my life meaning. In order to be truly productive, I’ve got to balance the Meaningful Work with the Maintenance Work.

Split your task list into two columns — Maintenance Work and Meaningful Work — and write each task in the appropriate column. How can you make sure that each day you cross off at least one item in the Meaningful Work column?

The Magic Question That Keeps You Moving Forward

You started cleaning out the garage last month, but quit halfway through, promising yourself you’d do it tomorrow–and tomorrow never came.

Or maybe you’re stalled on a novel–you wrote the opening in a flurry of inspiration, but when you hit the second act, you stopped finding time to work on it.

When a project is in the procrastination stage, how do you jump-start it?

By asking the Magic Question: “What’s the next step?”

Often the reason we don’t move forward is that we don’t see the next step clearly enough. Next steps usually fall into one of the following categories:

- A decision

- An action

- Research

- Asking for help

- Re-evaluating the plan

A decision. Did you stop cleaning the garage because you weren’t sure whether to sell your old record collection or pass it on to your Aunt Myrna, who only listens to music on vinyl? Did you stop writing because you weren’t sure if it would be better for your heroine to investigate the noises in the basement herself or call for reinforcements?

It’s possible that you really needed to take some time to make the decision before you continued, and if you genuinely feel that’s the case, that’s okay. But if you’re tired of being stuck, maybe it’s time to take a look at why you’re stuck on that particular decision.

You might start by asking yourself: “What are the consequences of making the wrong decision here?”

You could start with a list of pros and cons for each side of the decision; sometimes that’s enough to break through the paralysis. But every decision has consequences, both physical and emotional, and often the emotional consequences are the things that hang us up.

When it comes to your record collection, maybe you’re reluctant to weigh the money you’d get for selling it against the pleasure of gifting it to Aunt Myrna–it feels like you’re being too mercenary. Do you really want Myrna to have the records but feel like you’d be a fool not to try to sell them? Is a friend or a family member likely to guilt trip you for the decision you’d prefer to make?

Try making a list of the consequences for each option, both good and bad. Which set of consequences are you most comfortable living with? Are you hesitating because you think someone else is going to disagree with your decision and you’re trying to avoid that conflict? Is making the wrong decision going to cost you time and money or require extra work down the road?

When it comes to the stalled story, it could be fear of failure or genuine uncertainty about how you’d like the story to shape up that’s holding you back. So it might help to make a list of consequences for you if you write the next scene and then decide to change it later.

But it could also be that you haven’t considered the story consequences for the heroine: how does the heroine’s world change if she goes down into that basement? How will it impact her ability to achieve her long-term goals if she runs for help when she hears the knocking under her feet? Considering the story consequences of her decision forces you to think about it from your heroine’s point-of-view rather than your own.

And if you’re still not sure, try writing the scene both ways. Which one is better? (Sure it’s extra work, but a couple extra hours of writing that get you going again is better than another month of being stuck, isn’t it?)

If you really can’t make the decision yet, ask yourself if there’s some way you can move forward without making it. Could you temporarily move the record collection into the attic or a closet so that you can clean out the rest of the garage?

Could you start brainstorming dialogue or descriptions for later scenes while you give yourself some time to work out what your heroine should do next? Or work on another story?

An action. Maybe the next thing you need to do is inconvenient, or just plain unpleasant. You know that you’re going to get dusty and sweaty moving those boxes around, and you just don’t feel like getting gross right now. It’s possible that you may have to do some prepwork to make the job tolerable–buy one of those dust masks and some work gloves at the hardware store, or a dolly that will make moving them easier on your back.

Maybe there’s a way you could make the job more pleasant: listening to good music or an audiobook while you work, calling a friend and chatting, making a thermos of iced tea to sip when you feel too hot and dusty.

You might also want to spend a minute thinking about the benefits of taking the next step. Yes, you’ll get a little dirty moving those boxes, but how great will it be to have a clutter-free garage? How happy will Aunt Myrna be when you give the records to her? What will you do with the money you make from selling the records?

How cool will this story be when it’s done? What fun scene will you get to write once you’ve gotten your heroine safely into and out of that darned basement? Remembering why you’re doing the job can make it easier to overcome your resistance to this particular part of it.

You may just have to bribe yourself to get through the next step. You could plan the box-moving for Saturday morning and schedule a movie date with a friend that afternoon. Or maybe the way you clean up after tackling those boxes is to take a decadent bubble bath.

Research. If you’re racking your brains and still can’t figure out what to do next, maybe you’re missing some information. Stop asking, “Left or right?” and start asking yourself, “What else do I need to know to move forward?”

Would an hour of searching on eBay make it clearer whether or not any of your albums are worth anything? Is there a website online that lists going prices for old records? Would it be worth taking the records down to the shop and asking what they’d give you for them? Would a phone call to Aunt Myrna to see if she’s even interested in the records you’ve got be in order?

Do you not know what your heroine would do next because you haven’t take the time to flesh out the details of her environment and figure out what resources she’s got at hand? Is it possible that you need to do a little digging into her psyche to know which decision she’d make? Do you need to look back at your early brainstorming notes to clarify your vision of the story, or read up on what basements in Victorian houses were like before you can send the heroine down there?

Asking for Help. Maybe the boxes of records are so heavy you know you’ll hurt your back if you try to move them without help, or you won’t know whether it’s worth trying to sell them until your nephew, the vinyl fanatic, has looked through them and told you what’s valuable and what’s not. Maybe the store where you’re thinking of selling the records will only look at them by appointment, and their appointment slots fall at the same time as the kids’ soccer practice; you’d have to get someone else to take the records in for you, or set up a carpool with another soccer mom.

Maybe you’re genuinely stuck on this story, and what you need is to talk through your dilemma with one of your critique partners. Sometimes we get so stuck in our own heads that we can’t get enough distance from the story to see the path forward.

If you know what you need to do but can’t do it by yourself, your next step is to call or email the person you need help from, and set a date to do it. If the person is reluctant or unable to help, ask yourself if there might be another person you could ask or another resource you could rely on instead.

Re-evaluating the Plan. It’s possible that you’re stuck because you took a wrong turn a while back, and you’re trying to stick to a flawed plan.

Maybe you told yourself sternly that you’d sell or give away everything stored in the garage, but what you really want to do is buy a turntable and listen to those records again.

Maybe you’re trying to force your heroine into a paranormal romance because it’s a more popular genre, when deep in your heart you want to write a horror story.

Don’t throw good time (and money) after the bad! If you realize that you’ve made a decision in the past that you no longer agree with, toss the old plan and make a new one. You’re wiser now than you were before, and your needs and priorities may have shifted. Sure, the old plan looked good when you came up with it, but today you know better.

What are you stuck on right now?

What’s the next step you need to take to get moving again?

Saved by the Timer

Over the last eight weeks, I’ve focused on making small changes to increase my physical vitality. Now that I’m experiencing a significant increase in my energy levels and overall well-being, I’m ready to make some changes that will help me put that extra energy to good use. This week, my small step will relate to time management: working in timed intervals.

Many productivity experts recommend setting a timer for 10-30 minutes, and spending that timed interval concentrating on one task only. But why are they so fixated on their kitchen timers?

Setting a timer:

Makes the task concrete, with a definite ending. When the timer goes off, you’re free to stop working on whatever task you set for yourself. Knowing that a boring or unpleasant task will be over quickly makes it easier to do. Or as the Fly Lady says, “You can do anything for 15 minutes.”

Forces you to focus. If you know you only have 15 minutes to mop the kitchen, you’re more likely to jump in and do it. Stopping to sort through papers on the counter or check email means that you won’t be finished with the mopping when the timer goes off.

Helps reduce feelings of overwhelm. Feeling overwhelmed is the result of thinking about everything you have to do all at once, in an all-or-nothing mindset (i.e. “Either I do everything on my list, or I am a failure”). If the next 15 minutes are going to be devoted to sorting and filing papers on your desk, there’s no need for you to pay attention to the clock or think about all other things on your to do list. You can focus on sorting those papers, trusting that the timer will let you know when to stop and that your to do list will remind you of what’s next.

Gives you a sense of achievement. You’re turning the chore into a game, and if you finish the chore by the time the timer beeps, it feels like you’ve won–with all the positive biochemical and psychological benefits that winning generates. And you can give yourself as many wins as you schedule intervals.

Allows you to break up work with small rewards. A 5 minute email break. A video on youtube. A chapter in that novel you’re reading. A cup of tea. (Just make sure that your rewards are also timed, so your day doesn’t get sidetracked.)

Reduces perfectionism. If you only have 15 minutes to make your bedroom look better, you’re more likely to focus on the important things first.

Gets you started when you’ve been procrastinating. Decluttering the coffee table might make the livingroom look so much better it motivates you to set the timer for another 15 minutes and dust.

Helps you sidestep Parkinson’s Law, which states that any task will fill the amount of time you allot for it’s completion. Saying “I’ll clean off my desk today” makes it more likely that you’ll spend the whole day doing it.

Of course, it’s important that you give yourself a reasonable time period for the task. That means breaking big tasks down into small steps that can be done in a short period of time. Setting the timer for three hours and giving yourself the goal of “cleaning your apartment” can be demotivating — but setting it for 15 minutes and giving yourself the goal of clearing off the kitchen table can be energizing.

This doesn’t mean that your entire day should be crammed full of 15-minute tasks, though. In their book, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz point to the ultradian rhythm, a 90-120 minute cycle that our bodies naturally fall into — research shows that you tend to be alert for 90-120 minutes, at which point your body begins to crave rest. (You may need to experiment to determine where in this spectrum your body falls.)

Loehr and Schwartz report that when their clients begin taking rest breaks of 5-15 minutes for every 90-120 minutes worked, their energy levels increased by as much as 30%. Rest breaks were customized for the client, and included activities like getting up to get a glass of water, stretching, a brief walk, meditation, and spending a few minutes listening to favorite music. They recommend that if your work is physical, your break be something mental (like meditation or closing your eyes and listening to music) and if your work is mental, your break be something physical (anything that involves getting up and moving).

Putting Loehr and Schwartz’s experience together with the concept of timed intervals for tasks gives us a framework for time management: grouping multiple small tasks, performed in timed intervals, and taking a short break after each group of tasks is completed. 120 minutes = eight 15-minute intervals. That means every two hours, you could take as many as eight small steps towards your goals. And the rest breaks in between mean that you’ll have more energy at the end of the day, because you gave yourself a chance to rest briefly during the low energy portion of your body’s ultradian cycle.

How long should your intervals be? That depends on the task, on your capacity to focus, and on what you’re doing. I’m finding that when it comes to chores, the shortest interval possible is best, because the less time I expect housework to take, the easier it is to convince myself to get started. For mental work, though, like writing, I work well in 30-45 minute bursts before I start to get antsy and distracted. If you find yourself setting the timer and not being able to finish before it goes off, your intervals are too short or your tasks are too large. Adjust your to do list accordingly, so that you give yourself a string of wins — the sound of the timer going off should trigger a sense of satisfaction, not frustration.

Romance author Susan Meier has a wonderful free workshop on her blog about how to use 10 minute intervals to improve your productivity and increase your motivation: http://susanmeierworkshops.blogspot.com/2010/10/10-minute-solution.html. If you’re at all interested in using the timer method to improve your productivity, I highly recommend that you check out her short, easy to follow lessons.

And if you’re looking for a detailed program to help you get your house into shape, the Fly Lady website allows you to access her plan and sign up for daily email reminders that will help you stick to her plan: http://www.flylady.net

Take a few moments to think about your usual routine — are there any tasks that seem to take longer than they need to? Any chores that would be made more pleasant if you turned them into a game? Any abandoned projects that you could pick up again by working on them 15 minutes at a time?

Also, what’s your usual work rhythm? Do you naturally tend to take breaks throughout the day, or do you tend to push yourself non-stop until you just can’t focus any more?

Kaizen in Action—The Power of 10 Minutes

You’ve been hearing me sing the praises of the kaizen approach, but so far it’s just been words. This week, I’d like to show you kaizen in action. Remember the picture of my super-messy dresser that I posted last week?

Well, I started on Tuesday and spent 10 minutes a day decluttering it. During the first 10 minutes, I:

- Gathered up all the receipts and filed them in my receipt file

- Threw all the expired coupons and miscellaneous bits of paper from my purse in the trash

- Hung the flashlight on the knob of the front door, so that whenever I go outside at night, I can grab it in a second

- Put the spiral notebooks on my desk, and added “inbox” to next week’s shopping list

Here’s what the dresser looked like after only 10 minutes of effort:

Better, right?

I did another 10 minutes on Wednesday, where I:

- Stored all the miscellaneous feng shui supplies (red tassels, crystals) in my craft supply box

- Filed a couple more receipts that were hiding under the feng shui supplies

- Put one bottle of hand sanitizer back in my purse, and stored the other four in the bathroom for future use

- Put the fold-up hair brush in my purse

- Put my comb in the same box where my hairbrush resides

- Moved the plant spritzer to the living room, where there are actually plants to spritz

- Put the baking soda under the bathroom sink

After my second day of 10 minutes’ effort, the dresser looked like this:

There wasn’t much left for me to do on Thursday:

- Dust off feng shui frog statue and put it in office

- Put toiletries in small sorter

- Dust jewelry boxes and dresser top

- Find jar to store lung exerciser in (to keep dust off it)

And here’s how it looks now:

Less than 30 minutes, spread out over 3 days–that’s all it took to make my dresser neat again.

I want to point out a couple of things that I didn’t do while I was cleaning off my dresser:

I didn’t do anything except focus on the dresser during my 10 minutes of cleaning each day.

When I didn’t have something I needed for organizing–like an inbox for my desk or a box to store my lung exerciser in–I didn’t let myself get stuck. I improvised a temporary solution and made a note on next week’s shopping list to buy those items.

On the one hand, I feel kind of dumb that I’ve been living with the mess on my dresser for months, when I could have cleaned it up with so little effort. But on the other hand, I’m also feeling energized. What looked like a huge pile of junk was easily dealt with when I broke it up into small steps.

Now I’m looking around my house at other piles of clutter and wondering, “If I spend 10 minutes putting things away every day next week, how many of these piles could I get rid of?”

If I spent 10 minutes putting things away every day for the next month, would there be any clutter left in my house?

Okay, there probably would, but it’d still be less than I have right now.

I hope that seeing the process in action has inspired you to clean off your own dresser, or nightstand, or coffee table. It doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you start!

Is there an area in your home that’s been messy for a while? How nice would that area look if you spent 10 minutes on it each day this week?