My friend has to work into the night on Friday and then is planning to go for a dawn bike ride and martial arts class right after on Saturday morning. This seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
But I do the same thing. I taught last night, got stuck in an unexpected traffic jam at 11 p.m. and then got up at 6:30 a.m. to make an early meeting. Something had to give, and I left a sinkful of dishes so that I could show up on time. When I got home, tired and hungry, there were the dishes, not magically washed by my house elf, but sitting in the sink waiting for me, more disgusting with caked on goo than when I left in the morning. Surprise!
Photo by Scott Umstattd
It happens to all of us. When we get stressed out and feel like we have too many things going on, we let something go. It might be the dishes. It might be our email. It might be putting away the laundry or the non-perishable groceries. It might be dealing with the mail.
Whatever it is, if you have a few days of stress in a row, things start piling up. Sometimes we have to decide if we’re going to deal with the mail, laundry or dishes, or do the really high priority thing that has a looming deadline or get out the house to a really important meeting.
Pretty soon, even if things calm down, it feels overwhelming to tackle whatever pile grew up around our stress this time. Now instead of 15 minutes to do the breakfast dishes, we’re looking at an hour to clean up the wreck in the kitchen. But what’s the choice? Miss the deadline or the meeting?
If this sounds like your life on a regular basis, what can be done to keep from falling into this rut?
- Keep breathing. Stress can be its own energy suck. The more stressed we feel, the less we’re going to be able to get done. It causes confusion in our brains and we end up doing things more than once because we’ve forgotten a crucial step or ingredient. When you remember to breathe deeply, the extra oxygen keeps you focused and productive.
- Schedule clean-up time. If you know your pattern is to let things go and a stress period is looming, set aside some time after the deadline to clean up and block it in your calendar as an appointment. The clean up might still be daunting, but at least you know it’s going to happen.
- Stop feeling guilty. This happens to everyone. There is only so much time in a day. As long as you’re planning for it, you are in control of it. Accept that this is the way you work and forgive yourself.
Photo by Catt Liu
- Take a bite. You may not be able to get all the dishes or laundry done when you’ve got more pressing things, but you might be able to do one thing. Wash one dish. Or two. Throw in a load of laundry and set an alarm to remind you to throw it in the dryer later in the day. Throw out a piece of junk mail. Just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. You can do the same thing for the clean up if it feels too overwhelming. Don’t plan to spend two hours cleaning up. Schedule four 30-minute blocks to get your house or office back to normal.
- Give yourself more time up front. Some people procrastinate and do things at the last minute. (No! Say it isn’t so!) If you know this is your pattern, set yourself a fake earlier deadline so that you aren’t scrambling at the end and leaving other things undone. But don’t keep going past the fake deadline. Procrastination is the tool of the perfectionist to keep from making things perfect. Decide that good enough is good enough.
- Re-evaluate. Next time you find yourself in the stressed out, deadline scrambling, not keeping up with things boat, analyze what happened. Can you do one thing differently next time? Write it down or set a reminder so that you actually remember that new behavior the next time.
- Utilize the Magic 15. Take 15 minutes at the end of every day and put stuff away, do dishes, do laundry even if you feel exhausted and overwhelmed. Or get up 15 minutes earlier. You are only losing 15 minutes of sleep, and your 15-minute investment of time will help prevent the overwhelming clean up at the other end.
Photo by Jim Digritz
If you find yourself in a cluttering and re-cluttering behavior pattern over and over again, you may just be trying to do too much. It’s okay to say no to some things so that you can have sanity in your world.
Look, Listen, Do, Organize! 