The Two Things You Need to Make Progress
Spoiler: The Two things are A Structure and A Starting Point
For the past eight years, I’ve listened to a decluttering expert. I usually listen to her when I’m doing laundry or cleaning around the house. Her name is Dana K. White, and she runs her platform “A Slob Comes Clean.”
She’s been helpful, because she’s given me two things for my house – and we can apply these two things you need as you begin your goal:
1. A Structure to return to (when all of a sudden I look up and things become a mess again.)
And
2. A Starting point.
These are the two things that I return to when I just don’t know what to do.
For our purposes, the structure you can use every time is the CAPER acronym. Keep it close, think through it, and use it to get back to when you just don’t know what to do and feel like you’re spinning with no direction.
The Starting point for decluttering is always the same place – my front door area. It always gets ‘recluttered’ and I have to start there because it’s the most visible place. Sometimes I resist starting there because it feels like it’s a never-ending battle. But when the visible place is organized and decluttered, peace descends on each of us in my house.
The equivalent to decluttering the front door area are those little things that pop up and you think “UGH! I just need to get that done!” Often we push the thought away and keep going on whatever else we’d rather do. The starting point is often those things that you need to do, but are stand-alone items.
You want to knock out the smallest heaviest thing. What do I mean by that? Tasks that are discouraging you, but don’t require the most time.
Some examples might be:
A 5 or 10 minute email to someone you really don’t want to write.
Finishing up the last part of a project that you just haven’t brought to completion.
Paying the last bit of that one credit card off, but you don’t want to dip into your perceived savings.
Small, but weighty. Get those things off your list.
In our application of the starting point, look for things that are not projects. (A project is anything that takes more than 15 minutes, and usually has multiple steps.)
Sometimes when we start again at the place we started at before (your budget, emails, steps, tasks) it can feel as though it’s never going to get better. But the amazing thing is - if you return to the same place each time, you’ll get faster and faster at that thing. And then momentum REALLY starts to build!
And once you get some momentum going, that’s when those bigger projects don’t look as daunting. But even when we’re tackling bigger projects, it’s still best to break them down into smaller, ‘bite-sized’ pieces and take care of them in the same way.
Still need a little help, or feel overwhelmed? Send me a message. I’m happy to hear from you!
