Getting Things Done

It has only been in the last year that I actually picked up and read David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. As I’ve mentioned before, my father was an avid follower of Franklin Covey – this is what I learned about how to structure time and productivity. I’ve also seen how often Franklin Covey does not work for people – clients with binders never opened and frustration. This is just another reason there is such a plethora of systems for people – one way doesn’t work for everyone. David Allen doesn’t care what tools you use, he outlines his way of organizing your time and productivity.

A major component of David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach is the idea that if something will take you less than 2 minutes to accomplish – you do it now. If it will take you longer than 2 minutes, you then evaluate where it needs to go: into a specific day/time in your calendar or into your organization system to do later (or to delegate it). If you can successfully apply this, you cannot procrastinate those fast tasks and will in fact getting things done. Also intrinsic to this system is the need to review your system at regular intervals from the daily to the Weekly Review.

There are 5 stages to mastering work-flow: collect, process, organize, review, and do. One of the steps people gloss over is often the collecting – it can be hard to really collect all of your tasks, emptying your mind of everything and getting it down on paper (or electronically). Our brains can only hold a certain amount of information at a given time – we need to have it collected somewhere concrete. Processing is about deciding on the next action item, which I wrote about in “Decide on the Next Action.” Organize for him is where you add the action to your calendar or appropriate list. Review is critical to any time management system; you need to stay aware of what is on the horizon. Finally, do is for deciding on what you will tackle next.

One of the most intriguing aspects of what David Allen talks about is his “4 Criteria for Choosing Actions in the Moment.” Many systems focus first and foremost on the priority of the task, not with Getting Things Done. This applies only to those tasks that aren’t important enough to be in your calendar already. His criteria are:

Context
Time available
Energy available
Priority

Context is an easy initial criterion since if the task requires a computer, but you are not near one, you cannot do it. Time and energy available are self-explanatory, and do need to be evaluated before deciding on a task. No matter how high the priority might be to work on ‘x’, if you do not have the time or energy, it’s better to wait until the initial 3 criteria are in place. I think choosing your next action based on following these criteria could ease the stress I see people putting on themselves – the rational for why they need to wait.

Most productivity systems promote the importance of thinking beyond the immediate – Stephen Covey wants you to create a mission statement for your life; David Allen is no different, he talks about the six levels for reviewing: the runway or your current actions to 50,000+ feet or life. David Allen clearly outlines what the six levels are and I find this more accessible than a mission statement. Too often this is an area we neglect in our planning, yet is a worthwhile task in order to keep us in line with where we want to be.

Although this book was a bit dry, I appreciated many of his ideas. It has flexibility built into it, with the idea that you don’t put things into your calendar that aren’t time sensitive. I’ve been know to be one of those people who will put things into the calendar with the best of intentions and then to avoid it. I’ve learned how important it is to keep the calendar a sacred space and now have another way to approach the other tasks – to consider the 4 criteria.

The key to any system you use to manage your time and productivity is to make time for reviewing. It’s likely most of us fall off our systems from time to time – I know I do – but we need to be able to get back on the system. David Allen lays out the steps to hopping back onto it and makes it easier to do so.

Negativity – Nip it in the Bud Now

A few weeks ago, I found myself leaving some client’s homes feeling very frustrated. I realize most of you don’t know me, yet this is not typical. To make matters even more interesting, it wasn’t about the clients. No, really it wasn’t. It was actually about the family members I had been interacting with for a couple of moments here or there. Part of me wanted to absolutely scream at them! Sometimes wishing I could shake them – jostle some compassion into them.

It also had me wanting to grab and squeeze my clients, hoping I could through osmosis make them not believe the negativity. I know how challenging it can be to contradict the negativity of others. Especially when they come from someone you love. My frustration was coming from seeing the insensitivity to my client. How pointless to comment on how “easy” or “simple” this should be – at least according to them, and not considering the client’s struggles or even that they’ve asked for help. That’s why I am there after all (and hearing the comments).

Many people have different ways of approaching the same thing – while the end goal is relatively the same. Often the struggles of getting to that place can be overwhelming. Every person I work with has beautiful strengths, as well as the requisite challenges (this is called being human) and follows his or her own process. They work at different speeds and make progress in different ways.

Can you allow this for yourself? Can you have the strength to be whom you are and where you are at without negativity filling you?

The family members aren’t always the ones being critical. Often it is the client themselves, beating themselves up. Labeling themselves as this or that; at least this I can try to address directly. Negativity rarely serves any of us well. How often does it help you tackle that project? Or think outside the box to come up with a different solution to this struggle?

I truly wish that organizing could be easier – and easy for everyone. Just imagine the way our quality of life would improve! Also, frustration does often seem to come from love and the feeling of helplessness – the inability to help make a difference. In the meantime, stop the negativity – whether from yourself or from listening to it from others. There’s no easy answer to this, yet beginning to be aware of it and contradicting it. Discover your strengths and remind yourself of these.

Planner Pad Organizers

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Planner Pad organizer

Pros:

money back guarantee (6 month)
nice layout – monthly & weekly
good division of schedule & to-do lists
focuses on a “funnel down” prioritizing

Cons:

size constraints
spiral or binder in middle of weekly view; can get in way of writing things

Review:

When I was in high school, my father insisted I start using the Franklin Covey organizers. I continued to use these organizers through college and for many years after. It wasn’t until my shoulder and back started giving me troubles that I began to reconsider what I wanted to use – I always carried a purse big enough to hold the classic size organizer. Although this was the breaking point for me, I was struggling with the system – it was no longer as helpful.

From other professional organizers, I heard about Planner Pads and was definitely intrigued with their layout. I even set up a spreadsheet that replicated their design; I was still too frugal to order one. This turned out to be a good decision since I won a Planner Pad in a contest – and have had the chance to actively use the executive spiral organizer. This organizer has a monthly view as well as a weekly view. I’ve come to value the weekly view – it provides a great way to review your week and track your tasks and appointments.

funnel planning for the week with the Planner Pad

Planner Pad funnel planning

One of the things I like about this particular organizer is the layout – the top section, spanning the two pages of the weekly view – is for you to list your categories of projects or type of activities. For me these were things like: Business-usual, Business-client, Business-other, Household, Volunteering, Personal. I could then identify my priorities and tasks according to these categories – not worrying about putting them into specific days. One of the strengths of this area is the limited amount of space – the thing I see most often, even with myself, is thinking and trying to do more than what is realistic – so this helps to control that inclination. 🙂

Top section of the weekly view of the Planner Pad

The second section, below the first section, has the days of the week for your daily to-dos. This is where you can put in the tasks you absolutely must do on specific days. I also would record what I did from the above section on the corresponding day. I appreciate the openness since I sometimes feel limited by trying to decide when I will do certain things. It’s also easy to see how I am coming with my tasks as the week progresses.

Middle section of daily to-dos of the Planner Pad

The final section is for your appointments – with the executive size, showing time from 7 until 9 with lines for the hour. Ideally, you want to use this area for the time specific appointments – whether meeting with someone or time chunks for dealing with tasks.

Bottom section of scheduling for the Planner Pad

Along the right side is a column they’ve divided for “Notes/Calls” and “Expenses” as well as 3 small month views for the prior, current, and future month. There are also pages in the front and back of the organizer for some of the more typical things you’d like to have with you – address book, future year planning, notes, and goals/projects/calendar. The pages throughout the planner have a dotted line along the upper page corners, which I would cut off to help me get the pages I needed more easily.

If I were to purchase one at this point, I would lean towards the smaller, personal size. I do have concerns that it would be too small to be as useful. I also would prefer the spiral, as the binder lends itself to the temptation for overfilling. It then can become heavy and cumbersome. The spiral occasionally makes writing in things near it more challenging – not enough that I would not use it.

Although my primary calendar is electronic, I find it useful to have a physical list of my current activities, even including calendar events. An organizer is meant for planning – this is extremely challenging to do with a digital device. I haven’t yet decided whether I want to carry around a paper organizer, although I’m seriously considering it. Next month, I will be reviewing another planner system.Continue reading→

Decide on the Next Action

I’ve mentioned before that I can be a procrastinator, haven’t I? Now, I’ll admit that I have piles of books that need to be dropped off. We’ve had various ideas about what we want to do with them. Yet the piles continue. Then I got fed up and decided to take one box each week to Half Price Books – at least with most of them. One day I headed to the pile, ready to grab a box and go. Only they’re not all in boxes, a bag was the easiest to reach, and the bag disintegrated in my hand. Guess what, none of those books made it to the car, nor did I go to Half Price Books.

Often when we’re stymied by our stuff, we’re undecided about what we need to do with it. Sometimes when we procrastinate, we’re reluctant to tackle this or that item. These things require us to make a decision. Too often we aren’t even aware of what decision we need to make.

Decisions, decisions. Life is filled with them. Too often, we’re racing through life just trying to get everything done and not stopping to think about how and where we are spending our time and energy. Some piles of books on the three-season porch were frequently the least of my worries. You’ve probably heard the saying “When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” (by William James)

Most of the time we need to consider what the next step we need to take is, specifically. It’s great that you can identify the things you want to do. You want to clear out the basement, or spend more time with loved ones. Sometimes we are talking about a “project,” whether we realize it or not. A project is typically any task that takes multiple action steps to complete.

Regardless of what you need to do – ask yourself “What is the next action for this item?” If you can do this, you will have clarity about your to do list. It also amazingly can motivate you to start tackling items you might have been procrastinating.

In fact, an extreme statement (especially from me) – never make a to do list that includes anything except those specific and concrete next action items. If you don’t write out to do lists – when you’re deciding what you’re going to do next, figure out the action.

If you can consistently take a moment, yes that’s all it takes – just a moment, to ask yourself what the next action is for each task you have, you can reduce the amount of time you spend on tasks and work through your tasks.

Unfortunately, the piles of books are still there. When I decided to deal with the piles of books, my next action was to take one box in. Lately when I look at my to do list, I see ‘take a box to Half Price Books,’ I avoid it. In my current situation, the piles of books moved from an action to a project, since I need to box up the books that I want to take in before I can take them in. I also cannot tackle my to do item immediately – the books aren’t ready to take anywhere. I can see how I’m procrastinating it since it’s more than this easy step. Now the to-do list is modified, my next action item is to box up the books.

What will your next action be?

Book Review: Buried in Treasures

There are 3 names that come up again and again when it comes to the topic of hoarding – from their independent work to their collaborative work: psychologists David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost, and Gail Steketee. All three wrote, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding and although it was not the first book I read on the topic, it was the book I was always intending on reading – it’s “that big” a book on the topic. I read it more than a year ago now, and happily made notes (and have the book to refer to) for both this review and how it can apply to those I work with.

First, let me share that I was almost shocked when I found a copy of the book – it was quite a bit smaller than I’d imagined, coming in under 200 pages long. It’s also very much a workbook of sorts for people wanting to tackle their struggles. Similar to many books on organizing and hoarding, it tries to make it clear that unless you are ready to make changes, they will be hard to come by. It is discouraging to hear that the success of “recovery” is minimal; that it takes continued efforts and mindfulness.

This is the case though for all of us – and applies to any changes we want to make. As they say in the book, “People start to work on their hoarding problem when the reasons for change outweigh the reasons for not changing, and not a minute sooner.” Now if you take out the word hoarding, it applies to changes in general. Changes are difficult to make, whatever they are, and we need to be ready and truly motivated.

They spend some time talking about reinforcement, positive and negative, and how these are critical to self-control and exert powerful influences over our actions.

“We all tend to be motivated most strongly by immediate rather than delayed consequences. This is a big part of the problem: instead of being able to step back and appreciate the long-term consequences of our actions, we become slaves to the here and now. …long-term consequences, unpleasant as they may be, simply are not very powerful motivators compared to the immediate…” Buried in Treasures

I see this in myself sometimes, and this does seem to be universal – we struggle with what impact our decisions will make down the road. Or even struggle to make decisions in general, though not making a decision is ultimately still making a decision.

I’ve talked before about how I dislike the term “hoarding” and I will even talk to clients about how I myself have some “hoarding” tendencies. On some level, we all do. I do have close to 2,500 books. My husband teases me sometimes about the number of containers I have. I can resonate with the desire of collecting. The authors were sharing a story and although the level of my stuff does not compare, it hit home for me: “…defining himself not by what he did, but rather by what he had and what he hoped to do. … Now ask yourself: is the amount I have proportional to the amount I do?” I, like some many others, have big dreams – many ideas and hopes – and collecting items for that one possible day translates too often into having excess clutter. Now, I evaluate whether the things are relevant for me currently or are more for a dream. I can always find those again if it becomes more than a dream.

The authors spend time talking about some of the common struggles people face – the idea of “how did this happen to me?” There are many tips and techniques they share. Two of them stood for me. One is the idea of the OHIO principle, which I talked about in a previous post – where you move pieces along in your system and aren’t worrying about loose ends because it’s been “handled.” The other was “elaborative processing” where people have “the tendency to think of more and more uses for an object.” I played with this for myself, how creative could I get – and at what point do I not care anymore what it’s potential is.

In closing, another quote – a goal we all share, to find balance in our lives:

“…for most of us, successfully navigating life means striking the right balance between that feels good and what is good. … There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer; it depends on the person and situation. But living a balanced and successful life does involve, at least some of the time, inhibiting things that are immediately reinforcing and instead choosing things that will pay off in the long run. Another way of saying this is that we run into trouble when we become too dependent on immediate rewards, and lose focus on long-term goals.”

Review: Organizing from the Inside Out

At this year’s NAPO conference, Julie Morgenstern gave one of the keynote presentations and after that, she signed her books. I didn’t bring the one book I owned for her to sign – Organizing from the Inside Out. Although it’s been a number of years since I’ve read this book cover to cover, I do periodically reread sections. I also liked this enough to borrow Organizing from the Inside Out for Teenagers from the library and then to buy a couple of books at NAPO (which I then got signed!). I look forward to making time to read those down the road.

One of the things that I appreciate about both books I’ve read by Julie Morgenstern is that she insists you find your way to the organizing answers. If you’ve read her book, you’ll have seen many similar posts from me. I also use a quote from her in almost every presentation I give since it resonated deeply for me:

Being organized has less to do with the way an environment looks than how effectively it functions. If a person can find what he or she needs when she or she needs it, feels unencumbered in achieving his or her goals, and is happy in his or her space, then that person is well organized. ‘Organizing is the process by which we create environments that enable us to live, work, and relax exactly as we want to. When we are organized, our homes, offices, and schedules reflect and encourage who we are, what we want, and where we are going.’ — Organizing from the Inside Out, first chapter

This is a critical piece to me when I talk with people – that what is important is their definition of being organized.

In Organizing from the Inside Out, she spends the first 2 (out of 4) talking about general principles: “Laying the Foundation” and “Secrets of a Professional Organizer.” Part 3 is the main chunk of the book and spends time talking about specific rooms and items (i.e. purses, suitcases, filing cabinet, memorabilia). She wraps the book up with “Time and Technology” briefly, and has a whole book Time Management from the Inside Out (one I did buy and will read!). She also provides several appendices with further resources.

As an organizer, I appreciate that she spends some time addressing the possible things that are getting in the way for people struggling with organization. She also spends time talking about the steps that people often want to skip when embarking on getting organized. She breaks the process down so that it’s easy to understand and follow.

I’ve mentioned before I’m not a big fan of acronyms, I find them hard to remember and largely unhelpful, and she does use one as a basis for getting organized. It’s SPACE: sort, purge, assign a home, containerize, and equalize. Essentially I can appreciate this steps, especially the need to do them in order after you’ve completed analyzing the situation, strategized, and then moving into the attack mode (where SPACE comes in). She offers time estimates for the rooms and items, as many people struggle with figuring out how long things will likely take them.

If only organizing books could solve everyone’s clutter problems! We all know they don’t, sometimes it takes someone else coming in and helping. Fresh eyes, fresh perspective, someone to ask those questions and wait for an answer – these things we cannot always do for ourselves. I love how she encourages you to think outside the box and find the inner style that will make organizing work for you. I also know that for just me, that this is often extremely challenging to actually accomplish – and my organizing struggles are minor compared to some people. Some of her ideas seem great as ideas, but I sometimes question the practicality of them.

There is a plethora of organizing books available, and I would recommend this one. Some of my clients have more than a shelf full of books on how to get organized – and although I’ve not ready most of them (gasp!); this would be one to keep (and yes, I’d encourage you to recycle most of the others). It has the essentials on getting and staying organized, if you can follow her steps. This is probably why there are so many books out there, maybe another speaks to you and your style.

The Cost of an Item

Something weird has been happening to me – and it’s reached a new height. I don’t want more stuff. Now, some of you might be rolling your eyes at me – yet until just recently I always wanted some book or CD (usually several of each) at any given moment. Media is where I tend to collect, despite some women collecting shoes, purses, or jewelry – I’ve had a hard time resisting another book or three. 🙂

I mentioned a while back my husband inspiring me to consider purging most of my cassette tapes, which then led to my examining my movie collection. Meanwhile, he and I are currently going through our CD collection. There’s a local place that is frequently a temptation for me – Half Price Books – where they specialize in media: books, music, and movies, oh my! I enter the store sporadically, sometimes because I just don’t want to be tempted and sometimes because I’ve been disappointed at not finding something to bring home.

Movies have been one of the media I’ve collected – not that my collection ever approached the number of CD’s, let alone books that I have; yet I had over 300 movies at one point. I still peruse the movies they have – especially the clearance area of the movies – since they’re all between $1-3. This is how I achieved the original number of movies – used and sometimes clearance.

Yet now when I look through those movies, I pull something interesting off the shelf and look at it – the idea of paying $2.00 for those, it isn’t worth it. This is truly a little mind-boggling for me. Really. And I can’t say it’s about saving that two dollars plus tax.

What it does seem to be about for me is the greater cost:

the cost of space in my home
the cost of my time if I was to watch it (except I wouldn’t watch it much)
the cost of spending money for something that I won’t truly appreciate
the cost, potentially/probably, of feeling bad at owning it when I next purge (and never having appreciated it)

There are other factors to consider as well:

how much of what you have are you currently appreciating? (I still have over 100 movies and watch maybe 10% of those. Now the movie needs to be pretty special to come home.)
do you have the time or even the inclination to appreciate this new item? (Most movies that come home with me, I usually don’t manage to watch for more than 6 months!)
if you avoided spending on this and that over time, is there something else you’d deeply appreciate? (I’ve been drawn to experiences lately, so I’m inclined to avoid spending on “minor” items and feel good about going for a horseback ride.)

There’s also a joy in buying only what you need or are going to appreciate. I was touched to arrive at a client’s and she looked at me and said, “It’s amazing how light and free I feel not buying just stuff and in turn also getting exactly what I need.”

My reasons for not spending $2.00 on a movie aren’t going to match yours. On any item. Yet, is there a way for you to consider the value for yourself of what you buy? With any purchase, the cost is more than financial. I know this isn’t something I thought much about until recently. I was focused almost exclusively on just the financial part – hence why a $2.00 movie with a great actor or a good plot would usually come home with me. 😉

I continue to find this perspective to be unnerving – it’s still relatively new for me. Yet, it’s also tremendously freeing. I wish I could share the internal space I’m in with everyone, just so they could know what it feels like. I encourage you to examine the temptations, the random “unnecessary” items that come into your home, and see if you can find those other “costs” as they apply for you.

Cocoon Grid-It

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

An example of a Cocoon Grid-It

Pros:

versatile
various sizes (and colors) depending on need/want
durable
secure, the items really do stay in place
fabulous for traveling

Cons:

might not be the best for frequently used items
sometimes specific Grid-Its are limited in longer elastic straps
wish they had a tiny size for those small purse items!

Review:

In my newsletter almost a month ago, I shared a video from the winner of the 2011 NAPO conference for Best Technology Product – Cocoon Grid-It. This was definitely a hit with all the organizers at the conference – and long before the last day, the Grid-It’s they were handing out were all gone! I was fortunate enough to pick one up and after my husband got a look at it, we bought more. Need I say more?

Yes, I do. My first thought while I was at conference was that this is one of the few “male” styled tools for organizing. There’s the simply functional, the closet and shelving systems, but many smaller tools and supplies for staying organized are often pink or floral or otherwise quite feminine – these are almost more masculine. They do make a pink Grid-It in a number of the sizes, but otherwise the color options are black, gray, royal blue, or racing red. Unless you get one of their bags, since those come with their own Grid-It with some different accent colors.

As I was first looking at them, I didn’t notice, the elastic bands are sewn in throughout the grid. This means that it controls how much it will move and will hold items in place more securely. Yet this isn’t obvious and the design is well done, it’s a fascinating crisscross of various sized elastic strips. These elastic strips are wide, also useful for holding the items in place.

The smallest Grid-It offered is 7.67 x 4.5 x 0.375 while they’ve finally added the Grid-It wraps which can hold a computer in a pocket and has a neoprene wrap that keeps the device in the pocket and protects the items in the grid while it’s being moved around. Although the computer size is interesting, I find the iPad and e-reader size wraps to be the most intriguing. It could be a self-contained unit that is a grab and go; with everything you need right there.

I don’t know about you, but when I travel, I have so many cords that sometimes I stick them into a baggie or even, gasp, put them loose in one of the suitcases. I have now traveled with my cords and other items all neatly contained in my Grid-It. All the cords were neatly together and easy to access once we’d arrived.

My Grid-It for traveling

As I was playing with the ones I now have, I was considering what to put into it. Although there were tons of things that would fit, I didn’t want to use it for the frequently used items. My sunglasses live in a case, which sits well in my purse and is easy to access while I’m driving. Adding that to the Grid-It would just have made it more complicated to access. As with all organizing tools, sometimes it will work well and other times, it might not be for you. For me, I would love a tiny one, maybe 3 x 3 (or maybe even 4 x 4), for things like just the lip balm, nail file, pill case, etc. that would fit into a small pocket in my purse (I am not a fan of the little bags for that).

I have one set up for working – you’ve probably seen it if I’ve come over – it has a notepad, some pens and a pencil, a nifty measuring tape, and a stack of my business cards. The Grid-It is sturdy enough that I can write on my notepad on the Grid-It. The back of this one has a zipper pocket, which easily holds standard papers folded in half. They also say the back of many of their Grid-It’s can be used as a mouse pad.

My Grid-It for working with clients

Overall, this is a great product, which can fill many different needs. As long as you consider your needs and decide this can meet them. (I think this way about all organizing tools!). It’s wonderful to see an organizing product that can fulfill so many potential needs. I also saw as I was getting the links for this post that if you buy a Grid-It this month (July), they will donate part of their proceeds to The Wounded Warrior Project in honor of our veterans – of which I do work with a couple of. 🙂

As usual, this is written as unbiased as possible, without compensation, and simply because I’ve now used it.

Guidelines for a Happy Home

Have you seen the “rules” of a happy household – where it starts with “If you take it out, put it away”? Many of them are useful rules for limiting the degree of chaos, while others are to make Mom happy! If we could all put things back where they belong when we’re done with them, we’d have greater organization. Sometimes this is easier said than done.

Mom’s 10 Commandments For A Happy Household

1. If you take it out, put it away.
2. If you eat on it, wash it.
3. If you turn it on, turn it off.
4. If you mess it up, clean it up.
5. If you drop it, pick it up.
6. If it rings, answer it.
7. If it barks, walk it.
8. If you open it, close it.
9. If I cook it, eat it.
10. If I say do it, don’t ask why.

I know from my own behavior that there are times when I’ve taken something out, and after I’ve finished using it, I think to myself – “I’m going to use this again tomorrow…” Then, there are times that I say to myself – “I’ll put it away later…” To some extent, I think this applies to all of us – even the most organized – we don’t always put things away right after we’re finished using it. Nor do I think we have to.

What we do need to work on is getting it put away regularly and before too much time has passed. If I toss my tissues toward the wastebasket, when I walk by it, I then bend down, quickly pick them up, and put them in the trash. If I make a pile for another room, when I next get up and move around, I grab the pile and move it into the right room.

I’ve talked about this before in “Getting Things to Their Home,” and focused on finding ways to “Make It Fun.” There are other ways to work on these applicable rules for organization – use a timer. You might be rolling your eyes at me – here she goes again with that timer. Yet seriously, if you have a stack of CD’s that haven’t been put away, time yourself on putting them away – or time yourself with whatever it is that isn’t getting put away.

Another way to approach working on putting things back where they belong is to set the timer for a set amount of time and work on it until the timer buzzes. Use the timer to help you – whether to time yourself or you designate a specific amount of time with it.

It is easy to say to yourself, “I’ll just do it later” and that “later” doesn’t arrive (or it arrives in a week or a month). If you make it part of your routine, just those few seconds of picking up the trash that missed the trashcan or whatever it might be – your home can be that much more presentable and more importantly, pleasing to you. There’s not many of us who don’t automatically close the drawers and cabinets in our kitchens – and might even dismiss that as easy – yet it’s the same idea – “If you open it, close it.”

Putting something away after we’ve taken it out can be just as easy, we just need to work on making it as automatic as closing the drawers after we’ve gotten something out of it. The timer can help with the idea that it’s more time consuming than we realize. In working to keep things organized:

If you take it out, put it away.
If you eat on it, wash it. (I don’t do this each time, but I do it regularly!)
If you turn it on, turn it off.
If you mess it up, clean it up.
If you drop it, pick it up.
If you open it, close it.

None of these things would take us that much time – test it out and use your timer to find out for yourself.

Styles of Procrastination

Do you procrastinate? I think everyone does. Period – everyone, at least to some degree or another. The question really comes down to whether your procrastination is interfering with your life – and the degree will vary between people. Some people are guilt-ridden with “minor” procrastination and others can procrastinate with much more tolerance. Some of us want to minimize the procrastination behaviors while others are managing as it is.

My mom would tell you that I’m a chronic procrastinator. I’m notoriously bad about sending letters and packages in a timely way. I certainly see that there are areas where I do procrastinate and in general, I’m fascinated with procrastination. This is one of the reasons I picked up and read It’s About Time!: The Six Styles of Procrastination and How to Overcome Them Dr. Linda Sapadin with Jack Maguire.

As it says in the title, she breaks chronic, pervasive, and deeply-rooted procrastination into 6 styles: perfectionist, dreamer, worrier, defier, crisis-maker, and the overdoer. She provides a quiz so you can figure out which type or types are your personal style. The quiz focuses on the 6 types with 10 questions where you answer the questions with 1 of 3 possible choices: frequently, sometimes, and rarely or never. There’s an easy formula for calculating your scores and where you get a score of 10 or more, this makes that type of procrastination a major style for you. When your score in a type is 9 or less, this is a minor style for you.

Each type then gets a chapter with examples of people who’ve struggled with this type of procrastination and why. She spends most of the chapter addressing 3 areas that will make a difference in changing this type of procrastination: changing how you think, changing how you speak, and changing how you act. For the changing how you think, she has a visualization for each of the 6 types.

I took the quiz, twice, actually! I took it as I started the book, and scored 10 or above in 4 of the 6 procrastination styles. Later I was talking to various people about how I had read this book and how I scored high in several areas (a case when scoring high is not such a good thing!). I decided to retake the quiz, mostly just out of curiosity. That time my highest score was a 6 in one type. My conclusion is that the test is not statistically valid, since I could get wildly different scores and is a reflection of my own state of mind. (For those of you who don’t know me, you might not realize that I have a self-critical nature. ☺) It’s completely plausible to me that I would get different results, and the truth is that my procrastination probably also ties in with my state of mind in the moment.

I appreciate that she focuses on the idea of helping the reader to find ways that work for them – she’s not implying that there’s a “right” way to be, so she’s “inviting you to change from your personal path of avoidance – the BUT path—to your personal path of resolution—the AND path.” The number of case studies, examples of others who’ve struggled is varied and was easy for me to relate to the styles. People’s behaviors vary greatly within each of the types of procrastination.

The visualizations for each type of procrastination are interesting, and create some major repetition since the directions are included in each chapter. I’ve never been one for visualizations, so this did not speak to me much. I could see how the visualizations could be helpful for people though.

From what I can tell, from looking within myself, to working with various people, to friends and family – procrastination is a highly complex behavior. As a whole, breaking procrastination into 6 styles seems too limiting. There are too many other possible issues involved with why we procrastinate. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting look at procrastination as it relates to our personality.